Why, I ask you, is it so necessary for TV and movie makers to make radical changes to the plots and characters of so many books they transform to their own medium?
I have two recent examples to illustrate this: The Vampire Diaries and FlashForward. I'll cover FlashForward first, because I've finished the book and am all caught up with the series.
The only similarities between FlashForward, the book by Robert J. Sawyer, and FlashForward the television series, are the facts that they both revolve around the aftermath of a global blackout (physical unconsciousness, not an electrical blackout) caused by some kind of physics experiment, and they both share several main characters -- in name, at least, if not in the role they play in the story. Also in both, the experiment is amplified by an outside force, though this force is different between the book and the show.
And that's it. The plots differ wildly. The characters, of necessity, do also. In the book the main characters are the physicists who conducted the experiment, and the plot follows their investigation into what went so crazy and caused the blackout. In the TV show, the main characters are FBI agents trying to find out who caused the blackout and whether it will happen again. There are so many critical differences between the plots that it's not even worth going into.
So now to The Vampire Diaries. Admittedly, I just started reading this, but already some key elements are wildly different. First thing I noted was the rather unsettling realization that the physical appearance of Elena Gilbert, the female protagonist, is wildly different from book to TV show. In the book, she's a stunningly beautiful and popular blonde with eyes the colour of lapis lazuli. In the TV show, she's pretty, but not remarkably so, she's a brunette, and while she has a close circle of friends, she's not universally popular. Normally a character's appearance change wouldn't trouble me...it's not usually that important to the plot. But the writer mentions the blonde/blue-eyed thing several times in just the first few chapters, and I sense it may be significant...the character Stefan wears a lapis ring, for instance. The other, even bigger difference between the book and TV show is the very significant fact that the brother vampires are five hundred years old in the book, rather than the hundred and fifty some-odd that they are in the show. In the book, they lived during the Renaissance. In the TV show, they lived around the time of the civil war or so. That would have a major impact on the scope of the story.
So, back to my question: why do the TV and movie people make these vast changes to an author's work? Is it vanity? Do they like the main premise of a story, but want to put their own twist on it so it will belong to them? Is it technical? Maybe it's much more difficult to film certain things, so the plot changes to accommodate physical and budgetary restrictions. Is it cultural? In FlashForward the book, the main action takes place almost entirely in Europe. North American television viewers wouldn't like that (or, at least, that's what most North American television producers think). I suppose it could be any one of these, or a combination, or some other reason I haven't thought of.
Whatever the reason, I find it rather annoying and disturbing. I think of the writers who spent so much energy and devotion in the writing of their books. It must be marvelously exciting and rewarding to have someone offer you a bunch of money to turn your story into a television show or a movie or a stage play. But then to see whoever bought the rights to your story trashing it by throwing away almost every significant detail and replacing them with what I call Hollywood Pap...that must be heartbreaking!
I follow Robert J. Sawyer on Twitter. Now and then he comments on FlashForward the TV show, and he seems pleased and excited about the whole thing. I don't think I've ever seen him say anything negative about the plot changes and having his book basically hijacked and replaced by a silly Hollywood templated cutout that almost completely disregards the original storyline. I may just bring this blog post to his attention to see if he might have some comments about that...though I have no illusions that he'll express unhappiness about it, even if that's what he feels. He's a professional, after all. It's just business.
Right?
2 comments:
Thought I should add that I don't dislike the FlashForward TV show at all. Not crazy about their choice of Joseph Fiennes to play Benford, but I LOVE the Janis character...she so saucy!
Also wanted to add TrueBlood to the list. Again, LOVE the show, but baffled about why they'd make certain decisions...like the whole Marianne plotline. That was just...weird.
Sawyer's been involved in the development of the series from the beginning and has written one of the episodes. I'm sure if you poke around on his site (especially his blog), you'll find him discussing the question of why the series differs from the book.
If nothing else, an open-ended series is going to have a different narrative arc than a novel that would, in TV terms, run its course in three or four episodes.
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