Gods and Losers
Jun. 10th, 2010 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tartysuzI forgot to tell you about my Tarticles this week!
People seem to be getting over the idea that the source material for adaptations is always better. If this is a fact (and goes beyond an impression I've formed from anecdotal evidence), then it seems that 40 years of media studies has finally filtered through to the general public, and/or that people's experience of stories in different platforms (comic-movie-animation-video game or whatever order) has changed people's attitude toward the presentation and reading of narratives. In that spirit, I found that changes to the Vertigo Comics series The Losers made the story different in very interesting ways:
Adapting the Losers:
http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=1725
In Supernatural Talk, we took on SPN 5.19: Hammer of the Gods. The show was really ambitious with this, and left us with a lot of questions.
Supernatural Talk 5.19: Hammer of the Gods:
http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=1727
People seem to be getting over the idea that the source material for adaptations is always better. If this is a fact (and goes beyond an impression I've formed from anecdotal evidence), then it seems that 40 years of media studies has finally filtered through to the general public, and/or that people's experience of stories in different platforms (comic-movie-animation-video game or whatever order) has changed people's attitude toward the presentation and reading of narratives. In that spirit, I found that changes to the Vertigo Comics series The Losers made the story different in very interesting ways:
Adapting the Losers:
http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=1725
In Supernatural Talk, we took on SPN 5.19: Hammer of the Gods. The show was really ambitious with this, and left us with a lot of questions.
Supernatural Talk 5.19: Hammer of the Gods:
http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=1727
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-11 12:41 am (UTC)(To be fair, there have been other films from Hollywood that covered ground not unlike the more recent comics incarnation of the Losers.)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-11 01:25 am (UTC)What's SOP?
no subject
Date: 2010-06-11 01:40 am (UTC)SOP = Standard Operating Procedure.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-11 01:52 am (UTC)Plus, the comic was inspired by movies, most notably Three Kings, so this is more about how these stories get told and what kind of content results from whatever productorial decisions are made for whatever reason.
The concept of Hollywood SOP is in some ways useful, but in other ways used to pre-judge adaptations. Obviously, Hollywood is a business, so it does things in certain ways.
Not to put words in your mouth, but it seems that asking whether the movie was a result of "just" Hollywood SOP relies on a notion that Hollywood can never do justice to source material. However, that is a fairly categorial statement and doesn't take into account that different media have different metaphorical vocabulary and grammar, so the resulting expressions aren't going to be exactly the same. The most obvious example is the task of squeezing many hours worth of reading into a two-hour frame. It's just not going to be the same experience, and some of the compression may result in a different spin on the main story.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-11 02:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-11 02:35 am (UTC)But you should read the article. I don't think we've clarified the "ominous" issue.