How Purist are you?

[Rocketboy1313]

"American Gods" is my favorite book and I have read both the original and the expanded version and if asked to describe Easter I would not have used "fat". I don't think of fat as a character trait analogous to race or orientation.

[LittleRaven]

It's been quite a few years since I read that book, but I seem to recall her saying something about how she left New Orleans after she got so fat that her thighs rubbed together when she walked. I might be wrong...it's been a long time, but I also remember her being described as very well rounded and voluptuous. Which would make sense, since she started life as an ancient fertility goddess, and plump was considered super sexy back in those days.

So I understand why FN might chaff at the change, especially if this is a pet peeve of his. But like I said...I'm the anti-purist, and while Kristin doesn't fit the physical description given in the book, she portrays the character magnificently, and that's what really matters.

[Darth Wedgius]

I can be annoyed by a divergence from the source material, but it has to be a fairly big one. The Ancient One is a white woman instead of an Asian man? Meh. Johnny Storm is Black? Yawn. Arwen gets the actions that some other minor character had? Whatever. Tom Bombadil is missing? Fine. I think those last two changes definitely made for better movies. The Lord of the Rings didn't have Arwen, Warrior Princess (I'm exaggerating), but it didn't have her as a pacifist or in any way incompetent, either. There was nothing in the movies' characterization of her that directly opposed her character from the books.

Peter Jackson's Faramir bothered me, because the character was introduced 180 degrees off, to the extent of saying in earnest what the book gave him to say ironically. It didn't ruin the movie for me, but it irked. Jackson said it was needed to make the movie better, and if I were Jackson maybe I would have done the same thing, but I would have held my nose while doing it.

If the ever adapt the Simarillion, I would probably only watch it if the movie had little resemblance to the book. I don't not like the book, but, if made into a movie, I'd rather have Feanor call down an airstrike on Morgoth before riding off in Optimus Prime before I'd watch a direct translation.

[cilantro]

Watching pt1 of the Going Postal video and got this idea for an interesting discussion; when judging an adaption, how much of a purist are you? Are you a stickler for word-for-word adaptions or do you prefer broad strokes?



For myself, I'd say I have purist leanings, but nowhere near the extent of only word-for-word being good enough. For me it's less a case of being in favour of no changes and more a case of being against inexplicable or pointless changes. I think that when changing mediums it's unavoidable that changes will have to be made, but that doesn't mean it's okay to make changes willy-nilly.

For example, Peter Jackson's adaption of The Hobbit runs the gamut from good changes to down-right stupid ones. On the good end is the part where the Trolls capture Thorin's Company; in the book each dwarf is captured one by one whereas the film has them charge in enmass and get captured as a group. This is a good change as while having them captured onebyone works on the page, it doesn't on screen and the change makes things flow better (plus it makes the Dwarves look less stupid). A tolerable change (although not particularly necessary) is the inclusion of an Orc antagonist while an unnecessary/inexplicable change is making it Azog (who in book canon was dead at the time) instead of choosing his son Bolg (presumably Azog was chosen because it gave him a revenge motive to explain his antagonising Thorin, but Bolg would also have that motive considering Thorin slew his father, plus it'd give the Orcs more dimension by showing that they're not pure evil). And on the down right stupid end of the scale is Radagast's bunny sled.

I guess it depends on a lot of factors. First, would it still be possible to do a word-for-word adaptation today? Like legacy characters, how much of their originals can be translated into a modern audience, etc.... Like Iron Man. In the 1960s he was captured by the Vet Cong (actually the main capture was called, "Wong-Chu") and was a famous weapon seller. In the MCU he was abducted in Afghanistan and was also a famous weapon seller; this to me is just updating the story. THey still kept the basic main elements to the character and also to the original story but updated it for our times.

Then you have characters on AoS that, in my opinion, totally go off into the deep end of the pool. They had Hellfire and made him into an Inhuman. Slingshot/Yo-Yo was also made into an Inhuman and also from Bogata (while in the comics she inherited her powers from her father because he was tested on. And she was Puerto Rician). They also had Robbie Reyes and this is, to me, is one of the biggest changes they did to a comic book character. They gave him the Spirit of Vengence and made him into an actual Ghost Rider- while also making him a hothead who dropped out of high school. In the comics, Robbie is an 18-year-old honor roll student whose soul gets bonded to the soul of his dead (and very evil) Uncle Eli. He has some interactions with Johnny Blaze and was made into an honorary Ghost Rider but he never had the Spirit of Vengence.

Again, I guess it depends on a lot of factors. Some changes I can understand while others I would hate. I guess as long as it doesn't changed 90% of the original characters/concepts and/or they have a really good reason to change things around, then I would be fine with it.

[Mercury01]

Arwen gets the actions that some other minor character had? Whatever. Tom Bombadil is missing? Fine. I think those last two changes definitely made for better movies. The Lord of the Rings didn't have Arwen, Warrior Princess (I'm exaggerating), but it didn't have her as a pacifist or in any way incompetent, either. There was nothing in the movies' characterization of her that directly opposed her character from the books.

Honestly, I feel they didn't do enough with her. I remember reading that the original plan in Two Towers was to have Arwen show up with a battalion of elf archers instead of Haldir (which didn't make any sense, considering we met Haldir in Lothlorien, not Rivendell). After I got to thinking, I realized that would have made more narrative sense, given how the story was already modified.

Consider:
- Arwen would have witnessed firsthand Aragorn's leadership capabilities in the battle (and diegetically speaking, would have been a conceit to the tale of Beren and Luthien)
- She takes this information to her father after the battle and convinces him to reforge the sword of Elendil.
- She delivers Anduril to Aragorn at the Rohirrim camp and he runs off to the Paths of the Dead, promising to meet her again or something.

However it is resolved, this would at least make her an active participant in the story, and less of the tragic Pre-Raphaelite heroine that we saw on screen.