r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Chill0000 • Aug 21 '26

Hated Tropes [HATED] Adaptations done intentionally without help from the source

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Halo TV show: Before the show came out, the writers were praising their decision to not look to the games for inspiration when making the show

God Of War TV show: Chris Judge, the actor of Kratos in the games from 2018-Now, spoke up about his dislike on the show not hiring anyone who worked on any of the previous games. One of the original creators of Kratos also spoke up about them not having faith in the adaptation.

Supergirl 2026 film: the director for the film not only said he decided to not read Woman Of Tomorrow, the comic the film is adapting, because he wanted to do his own thing, he also didn’t look at comic art for inspiration to design Lobo and instead used an AI image generator to design Lobo’s look for the film

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1.2k

u/SpiritedSyllabub6822 Aug 21 '26

The Witcher series.

Heard a lot of negative things from the adaptation.

935

u/Griffemon Aug 21 '26

The weirdest thing about this is that Henry Cavill who plays the main character Geralt in this is a huge nerd and so was was basically the only person on set trying to play it faithfully to the games/books

98

u/giggity2099 Aug 21 '26

The show’s jaskier/dandelion is one my favourite characters in the series, too.

However, the rest…

20

u/KitchenFullOfCake Aug 21 '26

Perfect casting on that one, didn't fuck up the characterization too much either. Maybe could have been more into himself.

Although why they decided to keep the Polish name rather than the translated the English speaking audience knew from the books and games, I do not know. But that wasn't particularly egregious.

Probably the only character who didn't completely implode into a caricature by the second season.

1

u/Appropriate_Put178 Aug 21 '26

OkAdaptation of names in Sapkowski's work into English have inconsistent quality. Dandelion sounds like a dandy name, but Jaskier is literally "buttercup".

Szarlej from the Hussite Trilogy (Sapkowski's own preferred work) was Anglicised into Sharley, which sounds like a town near Newcastle. Samson Miodek (honey-eater) is translated as that, Samson Honey, or Samson Honeypot, even differing between books by the same publisher.

Reinmar of Bielawa, aka Reynevan, gets off easy, just like Geralt.

2

u/_inbetwixt_ Aug 21 '26

Completely unrelated, but the actor's band is also amazing

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u/Chill0000 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

I thought I remember he mentioned that he was mad they wanted to play the death of a character as a joke instead of treating it with respect

132

u/New_Cockroach_505 Aug 21 '26

Literally never happened. There was a cute line that Geralt called Roach the best roach he ever had (his horse name that he reuses for all his horses) and he suggested a different line and they liked it and used it.

103

u/FrigidMcThunderballs Aug 21 '26

Yeah this show unfortunately has a lot of made up behind the scenes stories, due to the actual true production problems and creative friction between Henry and the showrunners, people were primed to believe any ol' nonsense youtubers made up about it.

Funny enough I saw people try just copy/pasting some of those stories to Henry's upcoming Warhammer project with amazon, which was weird.

3

u/stinkingyeti Aug 22 '26

Huge chunks of the internet recycle stories without any sort of verification, it definitely seems to be a bit worse lately with regards to movies and tv shows and behind the scenes stuff though.

4

u/Windyandbreezy Aug 21 '26

Well the one story that tells me that Henry was in the right is from Beau Demayo. When he left, he protested against the writers not wanting to do source material and mocked the materials even. He currently works on x men 97 which has so far been pretty good and faithful to the original 90s series.

10

u/ArttyG12 Aug 21 '26

The source being the guy who got fired from X-Men because of all the harassment and shittery leaves, well, some doubt about it's accuracy.

6

u/beary_neutral Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

Beau Demayo was responsible for writing the most hated episode of Season 2. And lied about the reason he was fired from X-Men '97 (he sexually harassed young staffers). So maybe don't trust his word.

Lol some DeMayo apologist is mad at me.

1

u/Fexxvi Aug 21 '26

Roach.

158

u/One-Two-Gobbledeedoo Aug 21 '26

Imagine getting excited getting to play the main character of a beloved franchise, then get your hopes dashed when the showrunners admit they haven't even played the games.

They say they read the books, but if that's the case then they have the reading comprehension of a goldfish.

57

u/Xaira89 Aug 21 '26

A big problem with how they adapted it (especially the first season) is that they cut REALLY IMPORTANT CONTEXT from the short stories in favor of adding more visual flare. Which works, in some instances, but leaves the actual stories feeling disjointed if the viewer is paying attention. I understand needing to edit for runtime, but the writers really needed to learn to prioritize the actual story itself over dragging out cool moments.

29

u/Base_Six Aug 21 '26

Honestly, I kind of loved that about the first season. It was a bunch of little stories lacking connecting bits and major context, but the whole span of what was happening came out of all of those little bits as the season went on. I love having an episode that's mostly Geralt fighting some cool monster without all the exposition that makes sense with the exposition that shows up two episodes later.

Then they dumbed it down and stopped doing all of that and I stopped watching.

15

u/Thelostsoulinkorea Aug 21 '26

I felt the same. The first was the best because of the short monster hunting stories.

10

u/Several-Minute6846 Aug 21 '26

That’s essentially the first 2 Witcher books and they’re awesome. Sapowski crammed his short stories together.

2

u/Thelostsoulinkorea Aug 21 '26

I read some of the books. Enjoyed the first two, the third was meh and the fourth I couldn’t finish.

3

u/DaVirus Aug 21 '26

Agree. The first season is the best one because of that. The only thing I didn't like was the messy timeline. It could be way easier to follow if it was actually chronological.

2

u/Solrokr Aug 21 '26

That’s how the first book was written. They didn’t synthesize it well and it became disorienting for a lot of folks though.

1

u/No_Region_4719 Aug 21 '26

Yeah season 1 was fine. It was never really supposed to be a particularly interconnected story or have a through line. The first couple of books are basically a collection of separate tales that read like myths or folklore stories of a mythical hero. It's not until the later books that you actually get a consistent storyline.

2

u/HalfEatenSnickers Aug 21 '26

Exactly how the project hail mary movie felt to me tbh

6

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

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1

u/HalfEatenSnickers Aug 21 '26

Well his name is rocky

And I agree - just they prioritized things that didnt exist for rushing the plot

Like a weird pseudo romance with strat, the tv room thing

Loke some things I get, making mary smarter, less of the stumbling around with amenisa etc.

But the whole process of how he not only makes taeamoeba but finds out it escaped, twice, and is on rockys ship was very rushed and made legit 0 sense in the movie - was very much a poof now its done

3

u/SatanV3 Aug 21 '26

I’ve never read the book and the movie made complete sense to me? Like yea they skipped over some of the science stuff, but I can infer he figured it out off screen / without showing. It all still made sense

1

u/spidd124 Aug 21 '26

The whole Law of Surprise, Duny, Princess Pavetta/Cirilla and Geralt stuff made absolutely no sense to me when I watched it. Because okay Geralt doesnt age, dont have an issue with that, but there was no indication that it all separate time periods. And was an anthology story.

When I listened to the audio books everything made sense, All of the seemingly disjointed "issues" explained themselves. 5.

1

u/iamdispleased Aug 22 '26

Oh i wonder if that's why I never clicked with it! I haven't read the books or played the games, I plan to play w3 at some point, and I was excited to get an intro through the show. But I was just a little confused the whole time and dropped it by early season 2

-33

u/chenbuxie Aug 21 '26

In their defense, the books are incoherent trash and the only reason anyone even cares about this story is because the folks at CD Projekt were able to polish that turd. Without the games, nobody cares about the books.

12

u/_glizzy_gobbler Aug 21 '26

Heh. Polish.

148

u/MaryotiaPryderi Aug 21 '26

He at least learned his lesson and made sure that he was the major decision maker for the 40k series, thus not to be beholden to the hubris of failed theater kids

68

u/Worldly-Pay7342 Aug 21 '26

I'm sorry Cavill is in a 40k series? Also, there's a 40k series? Where? I want to see Cavill in Space Marine armor damn it!

98

u/TheRealtcSpears Aug 21 '26

It's still way early in the works.

But yeah he's a huge fucking 40k nerd, and has said he will not relinquish creative control.

43

u/No_Prize9794 Aug 21 '26

He got the raw deal on Superman and Geralt, he decided that he’s not getting another raw deal with another franchise he likes for the 3rd time

28

u/Begone-My-Thong Aug 21 '26

Fucking Chad move

4

u/Oozysq25reddit Aug 21 '26

Plus hes British already hed fit right in

3

u/BordercontrolVulpix Aug 21 '26

He's one of the BOYZ

3

u/theother-g Aug 21 '26

DAT UMIE KRUMPED DETHPOOL INTO ANOTHER UNIVERSE, 'E IS BLESSED BY GORKNMORK

2

u/GIGLI_WASNT_THAT_BAD Aug 21 '26

It’s been way early in the works for like 3 years. 😂

1

u/karlfranz205 Aug 21 '26

That gives an idea of how long organizing this shit takes. Usually we only know of a show way later in the production pipeline.

Here we went from Henry Cavill launching the idea, to like 1.5 years of negotiating between Amazon and GW. It's what, a couple of months they announced who they chose as showrunner?

5

u/FlutterKree Aug 21 '26

I want to see Cavill in Space Marine armor damn it!

More likely a Commissar outfit.

2

u/AydonusG Aug 21 '26

Cavill was the spearhead for the show to exist, and a few weeks back he mentioned Blur doing Deathmarch as Secret Level S2, Mike Flanagan writing Cavill's show, and Charlie Chaplin's production company producing it. (Untitled Artists)

2

u/loscapos5 Aug 21 '26

There are a few, like that one about the blood angels, Kill Lupercal or Hammer & Bolter.

There is also that Secret level episode about Titus from SpaceMarine, made by the guy who made Astartes.

But related to Cavill, nothing yet. He and Games Workshop made a deal with Amazon to deliver a 40k series under their control, to avoid another Rings of Power/The Witcher situation, but they are all moving in secrecy

4

u/[deleted] Aug 21 '26

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3

u/CantCatchMeSpez Aug 21 '26

You can do it justice with live action CGI. You'd just need the budget of a mainline Marvel movie, which they will definitely not have.

3

u/FlutterKree Aug 21 '26

You'd just need the budget of a mainline Marvel movie, which they will definitely not have.

It's being backed by Amazon money.

Which means it could go either way in terms of how good it is. Amazon has Rings of Power. But they also have Fallout.

3

u/RIPTechnoblade321 Aug 21 '26

I'm sorry, the WHAT

2

u/mihael_ellinsworth Aug 21 '26

Iirc, Cavill would not deviate from the source so much that Amazon had to convince Games Workshop to create new lore.

1

u/duocsong Aug 21 '26

Any development from that front?

6

u/FrucklesWithKnuckles Aug 21 '26

Still in the works, but it’s very much still real just very hush hush

We’re also getting a full Deathwatch series from Blur.

2

u/Phoenix-Risen1998 Aug 21 '26

Ooh Blur.

Still wished they continued working on Halo.

1

u/AydonusG Aug 21 '26

Written by Mike Flanagan and produced by Untitled Artists (Charlie Chaplins production company of all things)

1

u/Safe_Manner_1879 Aug 21 '26

and now he is refused to consult, and have no control if we shall believe the rumors.

1

u/Throwawayrip1123 Aug 21 '26

I wanna know which ark they're doing, how they're doing spacr marines and how the cgi budget is looking. This needs a fuckton of cgi budget

9

u/Abacus118 Aug 21 '26

There's no 'games/books'.

The games are not faithful to the books.

4

u/ArgusTheCat Aug 21 '26

The really amusing thing about this to me is that the author of the books thinks the games are a bad adaptation and don't count as "real" Witcher games. So the idea of trying to steer a show to adapt the canon of both is just kind of funny. I don't mean that in a sarcastic way either, I genuinely think that's a cool thing to do! But it does also make me laugh.

5

u/RecordingSilly6118 Aug 21 '26

He never even read the books. He kept changing the lines to grunting to sound more like the games, which are not like the books.

0

u/amazing_asstronaut Aug 21 '26

Cavill Geralt was by far the best thing about the show. The other characters didn't really feel right tbh. They weren't terrible but just things didn't look right in general.

0

u/ConsistentGuest7532 Aug 21 '26

If he had been a producer of the show, I bet it would have helped. I wish he’d had more sway.

-1

u/Valuable_Victory_271 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

Henry Cavill was the biggest waste of potential in Hollywood not because he is untalented but because his writers (in the shows and movies he was in) were shit

Not sure why this is getting downvoted. Zac Snyders Superman was more like DBZ and season 2 of the witcher is when quality went down and he left after that. Argyle was okay but he wasnt in it that much