[ SECRET POST #5469 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5469 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 40 secrets from Secret Submission Post #783.
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.

Comments

Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[meadowphoenix]

What adaptations do you love?

Which do you think are bad adaptations?

What retcons made a work better?

Which retcons detracted from the work?

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[meadowphoenix]

Adaptation Love: it's rare for me to not love an Austen adaptation. I kinda like the Legally Blonde musical.

Adaptation Dislike: The Shining by Kubrick (honestly by anyone, but Kubrick's is a good movie. Just a questionable adaptation in every respect).

Great retcons: Bucky being the brainwashed Winter Solider instead of a dead sidekick in the comics. The Fast&Furious series in general not gaf about continuity.

Bad retcons: Palpatine, and I don't think I need to say more. Everything in Love Never Dies, obv.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[kaijinscendre]

I hate Kubrick's because the dad doesn't go crazy. Nicholson just acts crazy from the beginning. There is no decline into madness.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

Man, as a huge Phantom of the Opera fan, both in general and of the ALW musical, who loathes LND... I think Rise of Skywalker sucked more.

I'm only a casual Star Wars fan and I'm glad I didn't see the last sequel film, especially in a theater. I would've disturbed everyone with my wheezing hyena laugh at "Somehow, Palpatine returned." Also I would've hated the rest of the movie.

LND makes no sense, everyone but the kid and the character who gets shot and dies is an asshole to make the plot work, and whatever character development took place in the original musical goes poof so everyone can be idiots, assholes, or both.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[kaijinscendre]

The World War Z adaptation was THE WORST! Just the worst.

Best adaptation is Interview With The Vampire. I hated the book but love the movie.

Not sure about retcons. I have been drinking and can't think of any. :(

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[meadowphoenix]

Interview is such a good adaptation, I agree.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[nanslice]

UGH the World War Z movie was SUCH a disappointment! It had literally nothing to do with the book at all! And like, sure, okay, it was a fine enough action movie (I guess?) but wow, they clearly just wanted to use the name and nothing else. :\

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

Still love the 1994 adaptation (the one with Winona Ryder) of Little Women the best. It's not super accurate to the book (which I also love) but I always feel like it nailed the vibe/feeling/heart of the story.

I didn't like the newer adaptation very much. It just didn't feel as... full of heart somehow? IDEK. I don't have a specific reason for not liking it.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[meadowphoenix]

I think the intention of the new movie, feels very different than the old one. The new one feels like it's making a point, the 1994 one was a family slice of life.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

I'm still stuck on the 1936 version. None of the others hold a candle.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

Wrong place, but I'll play.

Patrick Stewart/Hugh Jackman X-men movies are top tier. They take a lot of liberties, particularly with Wolverine, but they capture the spirit of the characters while doing so.

Worst adaptation, the Tim Burton version of Planet of the Apes. It was... not great at all.

Good Retcon: Darth Vader turning out to be Luke's dad. That was a retcon, and Lucas knows it. It was a retcon that enhanced the character interactions, and only needed a little bit of massaging to fit.

Bad Retcon: Everything about DC's Nu52 revamp. It was just a bubbling cauldron of awfulness.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[greghousesgf]

The only thing I liked about the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes was the monkey special effects looked good.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[meadowphoenix]

yeah all the familial retcons in OG Stars Wars really enhance the story I agree.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[greghousesgf]

I like every version of the Addams family I've seen except Hanna Barbara's, but I don't expect anything good out of HB. I loved the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes. I liked the Peter Jackson King Kong and the women Ghostbusters better than the original versions. I went to two movies yesterday that I wound up liking better than the originals, West Side Story and Nightmare Alley.
almost every book I loved as kid got turned into a movie I didn't like as much or out and out hated. I've never seen any movie or TV version of Alice in Wonderland that did justice to the books.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[meadowphoenix]

Does your like include the 2019 and 2021 movies? If so, you're one of the first people I've heard say they liked them. Would you say the humor in them is more comic, either tv series, or 1990s movies?

I appreciate that Speilberg correct the song order, lol, but I like the OG Jet dancing to much to completely prefer his.

I really don't think Alice is adaptable. The purpose of the books is a type of aimless cleverness that is really fun in books but hard to make coherent in visual mediums.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[philstar22]

Favorites:

Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia (both adaptions), Legend of the Seeker (better than the books by miles), MCU (most of it), Dune the new movie and both the Dune and Children of Dune miniseries, Little Women (the recent one and the 90s one), Muppet Christmas Carol, Much Ado About Nothing,

Least favorite:

Wizard of Oz, The Hobbit, Wrinkle in Time (both adaptions), The Giver, Scarlet Letter, The Shining, and Mortal Engines

Retcons that made a work better:
Luke and Leia being siblings was not the original plan. But it was a great choice. Making Vader Luke (and Leia)'s ather was also a great decision, though I'm not sure if that was a retcon or not.

The retconning most of the Buffy movie other than the few bits Whedon liked was a good decision and allowed Buffy the tv show to be the amazing show it was.

Turning the Klingons into allies in TNG and creating a fascinating warrior culture for them was an awesome decision. Changing their look for TMP was also a good decision.

Bringing in a new sister after Piper's actress left was a great decision and allowed the show to continue. And frankly I liked Paige better than Piper.

Retcons that distracted:

Not fan of the recent change to who the Doctor is. But it hasn't ruined the show for me, I just ignore it.

Bringing back Palpatine retroactively lessened the importance and impact of Vader/Anakin killing him in ROTJ and was not a good choice.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

Zack Snyder's DC superhero films. All of them without any redeeming features. None of them capture the spirit of the characters in the slightest. This is what happens when you let Ayn Rand fanboys make movies.

Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers was a great adaptation. It brought the things the author had put in the book, but had glossed over, right to the forefront. Verhoeven shone the spotlight on the uncomfortable implications and inherent absurdities that Heinlein had wanted to ignore.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

A while back Korea did an adaptation of The Three Musketeers, fused into a Joseon-era court drama.

Oh my god it was amazing. Because the plot was all topsy-turvy and they'd melded or split a couple of characters and scrambled things... but whoever wrote that script also had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the original story so you kept stumbling into grace notes and continuity nods in-between the bizarrity of not!Duke-of-Buckingham spending three episodes locked inside not!Athos's library. And, they'd landed the big character notes: not!Athos was Very Sad and a bit self-destructive, not!d'Artagnan was an annoying but kinda useful prick, not!Aramis was churchy and pretty, not!Milady had a tragic backstory but was also v. evil...

All quite mad, but very fun.

*

I think it was the year before last, but the BBC did a miniseries of Les Miserables that I thought was done very well. Lovely production values and they had a lot of sympathy and compassion for the characters. They pretty much played the story straight, and I liked how they did it.

*

And I will die on this hill, but I think the Cowboy Bebop live action's retooling of Julia and Vicious made for stronger storytelling. Julia changing from a lost, doomed angel to 'nightclub singer turned mob wife trying to survive' and Vicious's well, viciousness and unreliable nature being played straight - *why* people distrusted him - instead of 'cool grimdark edgelord', all mixed in with the pressure cooker environment of the Syndicates, made for a good B-plot and worked with the noir feel of the original story. And they were, with Spike, hella complicated, which is as it should be.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

Pick any popular shoujo manga from 20 or more years ago, and I'll probably say the anime adaptation was better. Sailor Moon is the absolute best example. It added filler, but it was mostly fun filler, it gave the senshi fuller personalities, and gave the villains clearer motives and more satisfying conclusions. The manga had more interesting concepts for some things (Chibi Chibi in the final arc for one) than the direction the anime took them, but the manga didn't execute those concepts well, so I even prefer the anime's changes for those.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

What adaptations do you love?
The Princess Bride - awesome book and awesome movie

Which do you think are bad adaptations?
The Avengers (1998) - based on the British spy series, but, like, everything about it was wrong
Batman and Robin - too many villains, tonally uneven, way too much going on (visually and aurally), it ended up not feeling much like Batman at all

What retcons made a work better?
Pretending Halloween 3-6 didn't exist in Halloween: H20
Deepening the relationship between Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter in Hannibal

Which retcons detracted from the work?
Hicks and Newt dying at the beginning of Alien 3
Literally every plot point relating to the previous movies in Jaws 4: The Revenge

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

Jurassic Park is my favorite adaptation. I like the book, but the movie is way better.

The Jekyll and Hyde musical is great. I don't usually like when adaptations add love interests, but this case was worth it for the awesome songs.

I don't watch movie adaptations of my favorite comic books. I just don't think it's the right format because the best stories work because of the build-up and movies just don't have the time to properly develop them.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

Love the film adaptations of Stardust, The Princess Bride, and Stage Beauty. Dunno if Shrek and the first sequel count since there was almost no story to begin with, but they're awesome movies.

Hated the 2004 Phantom of the Opera film. A big chunk of why was the inability of 2 of the 3 leads to sing well enough for their parts, (Raoul, the only character of the trio who's not, in universe, meant to be a preternaturally gifted singer, was the only one whose actor could sing and not sound like crap/need tons of post processing) but there were other reasons.

Making those same leads way younger while still keeping the original age gap meant that instead of someone 40-60 taking advantage of the naivety of a sheltered 20 something, it was a late 20something taking advantage of an 8 year old and basically grooming her until she was 16 and he was in his mid-30s.

Not that the original and ALW musical Phantoms weren't creeps, but having Christine show up at the Opera while still prepubescent takes it to a whole other level.

And since he spent his adolescence in a cage and grew to adulthood in a basement, he loses the history where his life as a traveling showman and magician gave him something in common with Christine's childhood singing with her father at fairs, and develops his skills at magic and music and illusion and architecture and murder that explain how he could pretend to be a ghost and end up building parts of the Opera he "haunts."

Christine goes from a slightly unnerving and intense and traumatized young woman to an intensely fucked up teenager. And even her relationship with Raoul looks a little skeevy since Patrick Wilson and Emmy Rossum aren't close enough in age to be believable childhood friends.

Also, on a more petty and less wtf no" level, setting the film in the one year and period when there were no operas being performed because Paris was under siege and people were starving and eating rats annoyed me, especially as there was no particular reason to pick the date unless they were setting it in the opera house that burned down in 1873. If they'd set it in 1872-3, the opera could've burned down as the result of the crashing chandelier. But no one who isn't an overinvested fan or maybe a French or European history student would care.

From an aesthetic standpoint, not setting it at the actual still standing opera house with the reservoir in the basement kind of pissed me off just because I'd love to see the ALW musical set there. And I wasn't a big fan of the film costumes; except for the first mock opera they seemed really bland compared to the stage costumes. But these are nitpicks compared to the age thing and the voice thing.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

The second Fruits Basket anime is undeniably more faithful to the original. And I hate it. It keeps all the moody introspection that should have been edited out of the manga in the first place and moves at a snail pace. (Though it does look pretty.)

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

Haven't read the original novel but loved the Battle Royale film... and absolutely hated the manga adaption. Holy shit, the second half of the comic is bottled suffering as far as narrative pacing goes.

Re: Inspired by #4 and ensuing wank:

[(Anonymous)]

love: ready player one is a better movie than it is a book because the references can just exist on screen without the text saying "NOTICE THIS"

bad: the last few harry potters weren't as good as people think, largely because the first films were feeding back into the books by then

detracted: (doing this first for a reason) s6 of buffy where marti retconned magic from a metaphor for love into a metaphor for crack; the timeless children (always felt like the work of a prat who was more interested in leaving His Mark on canon forever than, you know, writing a good story)

better: the first episode of s7 of buffy where whedon immediately declared "magic addiction" to be a stupid idea