fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3428 ]

[ SECRET POST #3428 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3428 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #490.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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How would it go? What would it look like? What would you change for the screen, what would you leave out, what would you NOT leave out, what kind of casting, costuming, sets, etc would you do? What kinds of narrative devices would you employ (narrations, montages, anything like that)?

If the book has already been adapted, how would your dream adaptation differ from the existing adaptations?

I would KILL to have a really cleverly, faithfully, thoughtfully adapted movie (or probably mini series?) of The Book Thief. I used to kill time in my most boring class first year of undergrad just "designing" that, lol.

I also just finished All the Light We Cannot See and can see that being really movingly executed.

My fiancé and I also have our dream version of the MCU, but I think most people who watch the movies have a dream version of the MCU, lol

It would be World War Z on HBO. Produced, directed, and designed by all the people who did Band of Brothers.

It would consist of an unseen narrator interviewing a person (or two) each episode and flashbacking into their stories.

If they did the Silmarillion, I'd have them do it as an HBO/Starz TV show. It would have lush sets and costumes. I would cast mostly unknowns. For narrative, I might start somewhere in the middle of the story rather than start off with the Valar creating the world. I'd treat it a little like AHS where each season (or possibly 2 seasons) would follow a different storyline. So, you'd do a season to tell Luthien/Beren and a season for Gondolin, etc. And, since this would be my dream realized and therefore TPTB would be guaranteed not to fuck it up, I'd expand what was there (so we'd meet people like Gil-galad's mom and other unnamed women and there would be interpersonal plots to get to know the characters a bit more).

I like this but I seeeeeriously doubt you'd need a season for each storyline. Maybe a 3-4 episode arc at most. WITH LOTS OF FLASHBACKS for the background explanations of the Valar and the origins of the various branches of elves, etc.

Well, since it's my dream-adaptation, the extended seasons would allow for more exploration (because in my dream adaptation, they wouldn't fuck it up by adding stupid stuff). For instance, if you were to do Luthien and Beren, you'd spend an episode or two going from Beren with the Outlaws to meeting Luthien. You'd spend an episode with Luthien in Doriath where she's hiding Beren and Daeron is suspicious, ending with Beren being given his quest. You'd spend an episode with Beren and Finrod in Nagrothond where you'd meet Orodreth, Celegorm, Curufin, Celebrimbor and look at the politics of Nagrothond (setting up stuff for a future season with Turin). You'd spend 2-3 episodes to get you to the point of Luthien and Beren ride off to confront Morgoth. You'd have an episode of confronting him to where Beren dies. An episode to resurrect Beren, and maybe an episode to tie things up. You can add some filler episodes as needed. I was thinking a 10-13 episode long season.

I just really want to see more of the story and the world. If you're doing TV, you can hang around places for longer and take a look at some of the minor characters, which is what I'd like to see.

Yes! I love this.

I actually kinda wish the US or UK could do an animated version justice - a non-anime Studio Ghibli sort of thing. Because the Silmarillion has so many little whimsical things that I would love to see that would be hard to pull off in live action...like, I just want one of your typical 10-second location-setting scenes of the moon rising over the forest in the evening...and instead of just being the moon like in RL it's Tilion sitting there holding up his flower and sighing as Arien disappears below the horizon. Little touches like that.

SA
For redoing adaptations that have already been done, I'd redo LOTR by toning taking out the Gimli comic relief, recasting Elrond and redoing the Arwen subplot, and letting Denethor and Theoden be their cool selves. Also, take out the thing they did to Faramir. I'd change the look so Rohan wasn't so volcanic looking. I'd also take out the Army of the Dead saving Gondor and just let it be an epic fight between armies like in the book. And, it it's really my dream adaptation, then the Scouring of the Shire would be put back in.

My dream-Hobbit wouldn't have Tauriel or Azog or any of that unnecessary additions that didn't do anything. I would not have "hot" dwarves. Kili would be blond; Bifur could speak; Nori would not be a thief, etc. I'd also not give any of them any lines. Fili, Balin, and Thorin would be the only dwarf characters with character arcs, and all other lines would go to Dori and/or Gloin. I wouldn't mind a cameo with Legolas (who would be a light-hearted elf like in the book) and we'd get to see more of Mirkwood and Thranduil's realm. Thranduil would get to have moments to show why Bilbo chose to die with him (if it came to that). We'd also get to meet Beorn's people. Bard would be a guard (but I'm happy to keep his kids; I liked them). He would be the warmonger and he'd have a nice plot dealing with the Master (who would be a shrewd, intelligent, charismatic character - NO ALFRID!).

I would also make the final battle interesting. I'd have actual army tactics (not endless one-on-one fighting) and I'd show elves, dwarves, and humans fighting together. If Bard's a guard, then his people would be armed and able to fight. He wouldn't take his children to Dale. I'd also make Dol Guldur interesting. Galadriel would have a sword (Elrond can do all the healing) and she most certainly would not be prone on the ground. She also wouldn't do that wraith thing. Celeborn and Cirdan would also be present. Dol Guldur would look like a corrupted elven settlement rather than an unimpressive castle. The goblin would've been cool-looking and menacing, and his tunnels would've felt claustrophobic and nightmarish, and the sequence would've been more horror than action. Bolg could still be hunting the dwarves and Thorin could be responsible for killing Azog, but I'd introduce Dain in a flashback about the Battle of Azanulbizar.

I'd also take out the whole dwarf-chase at the end of DoS, and I'd have Smaug attack them from outside the mountain like in the book, since I think that would be plenty scary. I'd take out the thing where they used Bain as a bow. I'd also take out the trolls and wereworms, and add way more wargs. I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of.

DA

You know what I would have liked in the Hobbit? I agreed that there being barely any female characters was a disappointment and Galadriel wasn't enough to make up for it, but instead of Tauriel being a boring cliche female love interest character, make the ACTUAL Captain of the Guard -- the one who gets shitfaced drunk and passes out -- female and have her and another female elf be like, Thranduil's scouts ahead to see what the dwarves are up to, and let them just be the characters who drop in on and comment on everything like Legolas and Gimli did in the books (and NEVER STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW MUCH THEY WANT A DRINK RIGHT ABOUT NOW BC ELVES ARE RIDICULOUS FUNNY PPL), and also serve as the recognizable-named-characters to put an audience-face on the elf-soldiers of the elf-army at the end.

Re: If you could create your dream movie/tv adaptation of a book/book series...

(Anonymous) - 2016-05-24 00:20 (UTC) - Expand

I want late 1930s Superman!

Should be whimsical and lighthearted mostly, with pathos mostly coming from Clark being kind of naive at first about how simple being a superhero is and realizing that there's a lot of distressing things involved only gradually and later on.

No WWII stuff.

Art Deco Metropolis.

Ridiculously tenacious investigative reporter Lois Lane in insane bustling 1930s newspaper environment.

Merciless technological industrialist Lex Luthor who has a lot of cartoonishly-evil-supervillain-ness in a lot of ways except for his personality/motivations.

Slightly steampunk-y villain technology, the sort of stuff pulp scifi writers in the 1930s came up with when they were depicting "TEH FUTURE."

Lots of fun stuff regarding superpowers and trying to keep said superpowers hidden.

Instead of Supes pretending to be a meek loser Clark Kent, Clark Kent is naturally kind of mild and awkward, and so his Superman persona is a lot of play-acting that he slowly gets better at.

I absolutely love this, this would be the ideal Superman adaptation

A Redwall story, either animated in the style of Paperman or by Cartoon Saloon.

BUT I would not adapt the first book. I'd adapt Mossflower.

*I know it's a cartoon by Nirvana but A) It's kind of ugly and B) They never did Mossflower.

Oh man, a well-done animated Redwall would be so, so fun.

Harry Potter limited TV series? Like, played out in real time as the actors age, with maybe 4 or 5 episodes per season, in which the plot of Sorcerer's Stone is the MAIN storyline of season 1, but there's some other stuff in there too -- flashbacks to what happened in the first war against Voldemort and things like that (so that we have neither the "???? wtf just happened????" of the movies, nor the exposition-dumps of the books), and worldbuilding for the wizarding world and setup of concepts and characters that will be important later on. And etc with each subsequent season.

I have absolutely no idea how it would be adapted, but I would love a Broadway musical version of Ellen Forney's 'Marbles.'

*grabbyhands*

I say this every time a subject like this comes up, but: a prestige-y adaptation of the Dalemark Quartet by Diana Wynne Jones. I would love it if it could follow the books, with season 1 being Cart and Cwidder and season 2 being Drowned Ammet. But! rather than having a whole third season on Spellcoats, find some way to drop that in throughout the first two seasons. Like, just these seemingly out-of-context flashes to the past that slowly start to make sense over time. There's so much set up in that book that could be a bore when translated to TV, and it would also hint at how the mythology (and time travel!) would work into things in the last book. And it would make for cooler reveals for when Duck and Tanaqui show up in Book 4.

I want an adaptation of DWJ's Deep Secret.

Re: If you could create your dream movie/tv adaptation of a book/book series...

(Anonymous) - 2016-05-24 01:31 (UTC) - Expand

Re: If you could create your dream movie/tv adaptation of a book/book series...

diet_poison - 2016-05-24 01:55 (UTC) - Expand

I waffle a little on whether I'd rather have an animated or live action adaptation of WoT, but I end up coming down on the side of live action, it'd just have to be REALLY well done. I'd mostly be nervous about how they'd do channeling sfx. But also, you know, everything else. I'd want it to be realistic, including tough when necessary, but I really wouldn't want them to up the gore in scenes where it's not necessary. The book wasn't written to be a shock factor series like WoT. There's no explicit sex either so none of that. Please not HBO. (Definitely would need to be TV though, not a movie.) Goes without saying it'd have to be cast, paces, scripted etc. really well.

If done well I think it could be amazing.

I just finished reading Gone Girl and watched the movie again afterward, and now I think it probably should have been a miniseries, if it had to be adapted at all. It's so heavy on character study, inner-life kind of stuff that a movie just doesn't have the space to get it all across. It's a nutty story either way, but it makes a lot more sense in book form, especially the ending. Rosamund Pike was great, though. I pictured her a lot while reading it. Affleck, not so much. lol

A miniseries would be a great look into the characters and their motivations. I didn't quite get the ending since I never read the book, but my sister has, and she explained it to me. And I do agree that the ending makes a lot more sense in the book than in the movie.

Total re-do of the Percy Jackson series. I personally think the PJ series would be easy to adapt into films. I'd stay a lot closer to the books series than the films ever did. That's it, really. I'm not asking for a completely word for word and scene for scene faithful adaptation, but you know, the world Rick Riordan built based on Greek mythology and updating it was really cool and creative. The two films "adaptations" were so insulting as a fan.

TV miniseries of The Goblin Emperor. I have no idea how you'd work in a lot of the world-building infodump stuff without just having someone talking at the camera, but I still want to dream.

Good Omens with either Paul Bettany or Carey Elwes as Aziraphale and either early noughties Johnny Depp or Jude Law as Crowley.

I'd just love to see a faithful adaptation to the book, with no attempt to make it more contemporary or change it in any way. That book means a lot to me, it captures the country that I grew up in and that doesn't exist anymore. I'd love to see it fully fleshed out on the screen.

TV series of the Vesik novels. Definitely have to have a dignified, darker-skinned, older black woman for Zola because she MUST have dark skin. I mean, she's implied to be a 200-ish-year-old former slave from before the fucking Civil War and frankly I want her as authentic as possible when it comes to skin tone. I love that badass old mentor of Damien too much to let her get a bad adaptation if ever.

Also the actor who plays Damien should definitely narrate with his usual snark.

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