Okay, well all film adaptations take on the homage moniker in some way or another, because a straight adaptation of a book usually makes a film almost incoherent (See: SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS or THE CIDER HOUSE RULES) due to the narrative nature of those mediums. So through additions, changes, character switches, and scene modifications is a film adapted from book source material. The level at which this takes place is largely a result of the source material itself (how filmable is this?), and the writer's and Director (and to a smaller extent the producers) input. A good example of this would be I, ROBOT, which as a book is a bunch of VERY loosely interconnected stories about the 3 laws of robotics. Most of the main points of the tale were put in there by Alex Proyas and Co. But imagining that its the same experience as the book is a bit more than offside thinking. This is not an inherently BAD thing (I'm not sure why a lot of people are so set on believing that it is...the books are still on your shelf, and you still can read them anytime), and in the fact of my example film I quite enjoy I,ROBOT (probably Proyas most accomplished film), but I'm quite happy to distance it from the book it is based upon.
Having read THE HOBBIT twice rather recently I noted many sections where Tolkien allows the readers mind to make the jumps (something the films fill in with new "versions"). The escape from the goblins cave, the barrels out of the Elven kingdom...these are handled with one or two sentences in the book. Tolkien didn't really write action scenes as we know them today. He sufficed it with the equivalent of "Bilbo used the wine delivery system to allow everyone to escape in barrels through a waterfall." Put yourself in the screenwriters shoes here. How do you translate this to the big screen (keeping in mind that probably more than 50% of your audience aren't going to be Tolkien purists who care about the specifics)? Do you just show them escaping quickly over a minute or two? Or do you take the chance to entertain your audience by having the escape become a bit of an action sequence? I'll wager that most Hollywood screenwriters would take the opportunity to make the action sequence. The same is true of the Goblin cave escape, it happens rather abruptly in the book (as do most of the events actually, Tolkien was FAR less verbose in TH than he was in LOTR or THE SILMARILLION) and adding a sequence to it will entertain the core audience (the core audience being the average movie goer, not the Tolkien fans), regardless of the fact that you and I know it's been tacked on. THE HOBBIT is a fast book, and when you break down all the various bits that occur in it, you'd be surprised how much would be laid out on screen. A one film HOBBIT would have been both impossible, and would have to skip along at way too fast a pace to be taken in. You can't have Gandalf just disappear randomly in a movie like he does in the book frequently. So, you add the appendices about where he went, and all the others scenes this will entail.
Actually, Jackson and his wife DID want to make THE HOBBIT from the beginning (they had been wanting to make it since 1995) the problems with him making it arose from a lawsuit between him and New Line cinema about residuals and such things from LOTR trilogy), and New Line eventually lost and had to pay Jackson. The relationship was still sore though, so Jackson only came on as a producer for it initially, and then director again only after Del Toro left the project. It's also well know that Jackson, Boyens and Walsh had ALWAYS been writing the script since the project began, so any argument that the story wasn't going to come out as it has...is incorrect. Jackson never had his hands OUT of the HOBBIT films....it's just that him directing it was in question due to legal battles. Had Del Toro directed the film, it still would have been PJ & Co.s script.
And I think my main point is Film is Film. Books are Books. And the difference between film and book will always be there, the gyre will either be wide or narrow, but it will always be there. Adaptation is never easy, and film requires things that books don't. One of those things is entertaining the masses over the devout. Ask anyone who saw MAN OF STEEL who is a Silver Comics Superman purist...they have all roundly disavowed that film due to Superman's killing of Zod...meanwhile the rest of the audience not only had no problem with it, but found it made perfect sense. Anyone who says that FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, for example, is an easily adaptable book to film as it stands is kidding themselves. The majority of events in that book consist of walking and singing. I love that book, but I'd have been annoyed had it been straightly adapted as we'd have been in for much Hobbit-walking and discussion of Elevensies. But the deal is that the main points, and even some subtle ones are there for the having. Does it matter that FOTR is WAY more action heavy than the books ever were...when a Tolkien purist is also given the scene where Legolas slyly lets known that Galadriel giving Gimli three hairs from her head means the absolute WORLD to anyone who has read THE SILMARILLION and knows of Feanor. I think PJ gets a raw deal, when he really does in fact want to give the purists their moments.
I know that Dobby gives the Gillyweed to Harry in THE GOBLET OF FIRE, not Neville. I know that the shrieking shack scene in PRISONER OF AZKABAN is much longer, more emotional and gut-punchy in the books, and I know that PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF is a film version of the book in basically only character names and plot ideas....but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the film versions for what they are.
And should it? Should I be really mad about an adaptation being an homage that bears only some, or in some cases LITTLE resemblance to the book? Where does that get me? I'd be one of a group of people righteously shouting about the travesty of the film version. Which still got made. Still made scads of money. And still entertains a lot of people. EDIT: You are well entitled to dislike these films and to criticize them, I'm not attempting to take that feeling away from you...I'm only continuing to discuss for the sake of discussion. If it comes across in any other way, I apologize.
I should point out that I used to get upset at adaptations being stretched from what they were as well. It wasn't until my wife pointed out that she was able to enjoy a film based on a book for what it was (because she doesn't really read) that I had a chance to see the other side of it.
AS a Tolkien fan more of what I like is a great thing (I was never upset that it was going to be 3 films), and if I sit through some long action sequences made to please the masses as a result, so be it. No issues here.
This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 30 July 2014 - 01:45 PM
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QuickTidal, on 29 July 2014 - 10:54 AM, said:
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