Adaptations Don't Need to be Overly Faithful, They Just Need to be Good | The Backdrop

Fallout is a great example of a video game adaptation. it doesn't try to adapt anything directly; instead it uses the setting and iconography to tell its own story. I found it respectful to the source material without being enslaved to accuracy for its own sake.

Im tired of adaptations where if they didn't use names of characters. You wouldn't know it was adapting anything. Starship troopers for example. I love the movie and the book. But if you read the book then watched the movie without the title you wouldn't even know they were related

Great video, Darren. I like the hopeful, optimistic outlook of adaptations living next to each other. I also liked the Peewee's Big Adventure cameo!

I remembered seeing the original Paul WS Anderson Resident Evil movie in 2002, and talking to a friend about it afterwards. They actually asked if it was faithful to the games and I felt so weirded out by the question. I love Resident Evil, but it is dumb as a bag of rocks. Albert Wesker is absurd. The protagonists are 50% dumb jocks, 40% women in questionable attire and 10% Ethan. It is a franchise that runs entirely on vibes, not logic or narrative cohesion, and the idea of getting bent out of shape over a Ressie film’s faithfulness to said narrative seems absurd. Just for the gag, I hope the new film has a post credits scene of Wesker in a Starbucks, not saying anything, just drinking his coffee and scrolling on his phone for five minutes.

Something I really love about Japanese Light Novels is that often they're the author's second draft, with the Web Novel version being their first. This means that the author knows exactly the path the story is going to take (rather than just having their own outline) and even has fan feedback about which parts worked and which didn't. This means the final version they create is far more polished and allows for better character growth and development

Agree wholeheartedly about art growing as it's shared. I love Mass Effect, it means a lot to me...but I have no-one IRL who even knows what it is. If the adaptation goes well, hopefully that will change. If not, well, I still have the games. It's a weird one though as a lot of adaptations get push-back for going against or abusing canon, but Mass Effect has never really set canon for most of its major events (including the ultimate ending). There will still be stupid anger, but it might feel a little different.

I can't speak for everyone, and as an anime fan I too see the obvious rage bait all the time, but I do feel like Darron is mixing up "Faithfulness" with "Respect" when it comes to adaptations. Me personally, an adaptation is best when it is respectful of what came before, not if it's a faithful recreation. But there's then problem. Movies like the upcoming Resident Evil are the outliers in this regard, as the majority of adaptations ARE just quick cash grabs that have openly stated their contempt for the original work.

The studies that say anger travels faster than joy online must not have included cute cat videos. They are certainly outliers in that statistical analysis.

Agreed I prefer the movie version of Stardust

I immediately thought of the Resident Evil fan base before I even saw the thumbnail

Definitely can appreciate the same story in different mediums. I watched the Harry Potter films before I read the books. I can enjoy both presentations for different reasons.