[HATED] Adaptations done intentionally without help from the source

[u/Chill0000]

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

[u/Tylendal]

This isn't always a bad thing. Howl's Moving Castle was an excellent movie in its own right, but it basically abandoned the entire story of the book, and shoved most of the characters through the "Just a friendly guy" filter, with Calcifer, the Scarecrow, and the Witch getting it worst of all. (The castle itself, too, I guess. Becoming some sort of emoting, weird, mongrel walker thing, instead of, y'know... a castle (that moves).)

[u/Altoid_Addict → u/Tylendal]

The other day, someone said that the book is Sophie's version of events, and the movie is Howl's.

[u/PilotMoonDog → u/Tylendal]

That said. The director, Hayao Miyazaki, brought a print of the film to the UK in 2004 so Diana Wynne Jones could see it in a private viewing as she was very ill at the time (she died in 2011). He is, apparently, notorious for not liking to travel outside of Japan.

Apparently she liked it well enough.

[u/Kaiser_18 → u/Tylendal]

The caveat here is that audiences are willing to accept changes as long as they elevate the source material. Yeah you will piss of the fans of the original source but good art speaks for itself and will find a new audience, Starship Troopers being a good example. Most examples on this thread though are just objectively bad to mediocre media, so changes are injustifiable as they are grabbing a good story and making it worse for no reason other than hubris.

[u/Status-Secret-4292 → u/Kaiser_18]

I think that and, both the Starship Troopers books and Howls weren't widely known and extremely loved by a fan base already and the adaptation actually made the source material more famous.

If your source material is already well known and very loved for exactly what it is... don't change it, or at least very much

[u/ULTIMATETHEUNKNOWN → u/Tylendal]

The anime movie is peak

[u/wutImiss → u/ULTIMATETHEUNKNOWN]

Rewatched it this year at IMAX, even better than I remembered! 👍

[u/Lonely_Nebula_9438 → u/Tylendal]

Fame of a work is definitely a big part. I think it’s fair to say that not many people know much about the book, and I’m sure some people were quite aggrieved by changes. But I can’t get mad at changes in a work if I don’t even know the original exists. 

[u/Exotic-Reindeer1994 → u/Tylendal]

The How to Train Your Dragon films are only barely similar to the books, but the movies are so damn good and one of my favorite trilogies.

[u/Fun_Arm5126 → u/Tylendal]

It's my favorite movie of all time. It did not abandon the "entire" story, it adapted elements and went its own way. lol ok maybe they did abandon the entire thing but still, it is Hayao Miyazaki and if there is anyone who should be trusted to take artistic liberties like that, it's him.

[u/JohnWarrenDailey → u/Tylendal]

To be fair, the book was unbelievably hard to follow.