For a while, I’ve been bothered by the idea of adaptation. Not in the sense that I hate adaptations, but in the sense that I’m never sure what the rights of an adapter are in regards to the work being adapted. Should they stick as close to the source material as possible or can they change as much as they want, essentially giving the adapter license to do as he pleases? The more I thought about it, the more torn I became.

I should start by pointing out that adaptations are everywhere, and I don’t just mean of books into movies. Nowadays, adaptation goes in almost any way you can think of. Books are adapted into movies (and vice versa), movies are adapted into musicals (and vice versa), novels are adapted into comics (and vice versa), and on occasion, comics are even adapted into broadway musicals. We even saw this year how classical music is adapted to dance in ways the original composer had no intention of.

I think the first thing that must be done is to separate adaptations into two distinct types: 1) Character Adaptations and 2) Story Adaptations. A character adaptation would be a story based on a set character or group of character though the story is new (ex: The Muppets, the Sherlock Holmes films, most superhero movies, etc.), and a story adaptation would be a new way of presenting a pre-existing story in a new medium (ex: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo film, Legally Blonde: the Musical, etc.) Each has it’s own perspective that has to be addressed to answer my question.

When it comes to a character adaptation, an adapter has a lot of freedom, but at the same time is very limited. The point of the story is the characters and presenting them in a fresh way. That could mean taking characters who already existed in that medium and telling your own story through them, or it could mean taking an established character from a series which existed in a different medium and reshaping him for your new medium. Either way, what is tantamount is being true to the characters. In a sense, these stories are alot like fan fiction. Your plot can be great and your art can be fantastic, but if you’re not letting the characters be themselves, you have nothing. For example, when it came to the new Muppet movie, Frank Oz, one of the original muppeteers, said he wouldn’t take part in the film because he felt they were not being true to the characters. On the other hand, Christopher Nolans Batman movies have been praised by comic fans and movie fans alike. Not because he is telling the definitive Batman story, but because he is telling an excellent, unique Batman story, while staying true to the character and his origins.The story can be an excellent one, but it must be done within the confines of the already existing characters, which can prove to be a challenge.

The other type of adaptation is where it really gets tricky. When it comes to a story adaptation, there are so many things to consider. Theoretically you should be giving over the same story in a different medium, but it’s not that simple. Different mediums have different strengths and if you ignore that, you come up with a bad adaptation. I once read a novel version of a series of comic books that spent so much time describing what was happening that it was very hard to stay focused. In a comic, you don’t have that problem because it is all visual. When it comes to movies and musicals, there are also time constraints to consider, which would never be an issue in a book. You end up cutting things, and by default, things that are left in must change. If they don’t, the movie/musical won’t make sense. In the movie adaptation of Watchmen, they left a lot of the stuff as it was in the comic while cutting parts out that the movie made no sense to people who didn’t read the comic. This makes it incredibly tough to keep to the original story, and even necessitates changes.

But what my question really addresses are those adaptations which try and give their unique spin on the story, or interpret the story in some way. For example, the movie version of V for Vendetta changes the story to be less about fascism and more about big government. It is a subtle, yet important change, which made the story more poignant and enjoyable. Similarly, I noticed that in Don Giovani, the scene before the curtain was different in our video than it was when we saw it. In the video, Don Ottavio seemingly chickens out when it comes to shooting Don Giovani and instead stands there frozen in panic, letting Don Giovani walk all over him. In the Met’s version, however, Don Ottavio doesn’t shoot because Don Giovanni takes Donna Anna hostage. It is a small change which has no impact on the plot, but a major impact on the characterization of Don Ottavio. While it seems that the opera has interpretation of the libretto as a needed tradition, other mediums are not so lucky. In the case of V for Vendetta, the movie became a smash hit and was critically praised. Despite this, Alan Moore, the creator of V for Vendetta, has come out against the movie saying it ruined his story, and has refused to see any subsequent adaptations of his work. It seems that while changes like these may work, they can never make everyone happy.

In this day and age, we are living in the times of the adaptation and discussions like these come up all of the time between fans of the originals (you’ve almost undoubtedly experienced this whenever a new Harry Potter movie comes out.) Personally, I take it on a case by case basis. I’m not strongly against innovation and interpretation in my adaptations, as long as it is done well and respects the source material.