Adaptations: Knowing What to Change

 

Adaptations

Knowing What to Change

When it comes to adaptations, it can be hard to get the balance right between them being loyal to the source and entertaining in their own right. You take out too much and you risk alienating the fans that made it so successful and ultimately worth adapting in the first place.

But you keep in too much and if you're making a film, it could end up being overly long and dragging because of it, which is the last thing you want from any kind of entertainment. It's a very tricky balancing act and though some definitely pull it off, others don't.

There are some cases where the people making it choose to make changes to the source material and though some changes actually make it better, others just don't make any sense. One such example is Starfire (Anna Diop) in DC's Titans, who was radically changed from who she is in the comics.

There, she's bubbly, angry, passionate, in love and incredibly wide eyed about a world that's very new to her. In Titans, though she starts off confused about who she really is, she's definitely not wide eyed and for most of the show, we don't see her in the usual stunning purple suit we're used to, or any memorable variation of it.

Aside from that, we rarely see her use any of her alien powers and instead of using make up or prosthetics to make her more closely resemble the orange hue of her comic counterpart, she and the rest of the Tamaraneans are black. This just doesn't make sense to me and really short changes the audience by failing to give them more otherworldly aliens that really stand out from everyday humans and have a distinctive look in their own right.

Instead, they just didn't try. Even if it's because of time or budgetary constraints, it's still better to really put the effort into giving the audience something truly memorable, for all the right reasons. A similar thing happened with Domino (Zasie Beetz) in Deadpool 2, who was black, with one white patch around an eye, instead of having the distinctive chalk white skin of her comic counterpart, with one black patch around an eye.

While I understand why she doesn't look like this, I still think it robbed the audience of a more visually arresting design. There are cases, though, where changing the race of a character didn't really change much of the look or spirit of the character, as with B.D. Wong as Professor Hugo Strange in Gotham, who still resembled the sinister mad scientist of the comics, in both personality and design.

Then in Doctor Strange, changing both the race and gender of the sorcerer's mentor, the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), just didn't make sense and, with the right mix of performance, writing and directing, just wasn't necessary. Despite all of my complaints, there are some changes which have enhanced the films in question, like giving Dr. Otto Octavius a wife (Donna Murphy) in Spider-Man 2, while others are decidedly mixed, like making Adrian Toomes the father of Peter's crush, Liz Allan (Laura Harrier) in Spider-Man: Homecoming.

While giving Otto a wife added a greater tragedy to his story, making Toomes a father was arguably unnecessary. He was already a sympathetic character, in that he was trying to provide not only for himself, but for a crew that no longer had any work to bring money in, so he probably didn't need to be Liz's father as well.

The changes to Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) in Spider-Man 3 are also decidedly mixed. While making him a father to a sick daughter added a sympathetic layer, making him Uncle Ben's unintentional killer was unnecessary and not only made a simple thief into an unintentional killer, but muddies the waters as to whether Peter should feel any responsibility for his Uncle's death. That should never be the case, as his guilt over his inaction is the whole reason he became the hero we know. Without it, who knows what he would have been. 

Ultimately, when it comes to any adaptation, one of the most important things to remember is knowing what to change and if you should change anything at all. Sometimes the old adage really does fit: if it ain't broke, don't fix it; or, when it comes to adaptations, if it ain't broke, don't change it.