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As to the Adaptation, am I the only one...


tolthar

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The only problem I have with it is that it's set in Medievil England and not Westeros in my eyes.

To me George's books seem set in Medieval England and Medieval North Africa and Medieval Italy.... with Dragons , the Wall( even tho that's based on Hadrian's Wall) and some goofy stuff about magic and Mordor like dark forces.

Tho kind of lite on thee heavy fantasy stuff.

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Watch Dune, both the movie and the TV series.

Watch Watchmen

These are terrible adaptations.

Well Lynch's DUNE is not too bad, it could have been worse, Ridley Scott got fired from doing the film because of the god awful screenplay he turned in (amazing for Hollywood!).

The TV series for DUNE was a total Cluck a Duck disaster.

John Huston was a genius at adaptation, The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , ... The Man Who Would Be King ... so it can be done.

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There are times when I've been worried, but I think they've struck a great balance between running with things that work on screen and sticking true to the books. The plot is there, most of the important characters are there, and true to the books, but they've elaborated on things that were only small in the books, and created some things specially for the show, but none of it has deviated too much from the essence of GRRM's work.


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Imagine if they had spent any of that kind of effort of developing what was happening beyond the wall, instead of inconsequential character development on a minor character. It added nothing of value.

Why are you so certain Pod is a minor character? How can we be sure?

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Because I read the books.



Sure, he may have a bigger role in the future, but given that GRRM did not give him magical uber lothario powers I feel justified in questioning that the Show's depiction had any relevancy. I am certain that wherever his story goes, he is still of less important than the events at the Wall - specifically Jon's character development and the depiction of the Wildlings while he was with them.


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It's funny reading people talk like experts about things they completely don't understand. Do any of you know anything about television production other than what you've read in Entertainment Weekly or seen in a behind-the-scenes fluff piece? Have any of you ever tried to adapt a piece of work from one medium into a completely different one? Do you know anything about screenwriting, or construction of character arcs for episodic television? My guess is no.



Also it's mind boggling to me that no one seems to realize that we are watching a pair of fans' interpretation of the series they have enjoyed, and of COURSE the things these two people find important or how they view a character will not always jive with how you do.



Just look at how fractured these forums are with people arguing over who Dany, Catelyn, Stannis really are, or arguing over which scenes are pointless and are absolutely essential, because all these people have different interpretations of the same text. But no, David Benioff and Dan Weiss MUST agree with YOUR view of A Song of Ice and Fire, because if they don't then they just don't understand the whole thing.



Ugh. Game of Thrones is remarkable, not only as an achievement in its own right, but also as an adaptation. I've NEVER seen an adaptation as faithful as this show is. Everyone splitting hairs over ultimately minor changes must never have seen any of the Stephen King adaptations or watch the COMPLETELY different Walking Dead (which is lead by the creator and writer of the comic book, no less).


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It's funny reading people talk like experts about things they completely don't understand. Do any of you know anything about television production other than what you've read in Entertainment Weekly or seen in a behind-the-scenes fluff piece? Have any of you ever tried to adapt a piece of work from one medium into a completely different one? Do you know anything about screenwriting, or construction of character arcs for episodic television? My guess is no.

Awww, did we hit a nerve somewhere?

I apologise on behalf of everyone here who is obviously so ignorant and unworthy to discuss anything negative about an adaptation, or anything we aren't experts in really. I guess we can't say food doesn't taste nice, because we aren't all chefs. Please, step off your high horse and have a civil discussion with the rest of us.

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Every adaptation is going to take its liberties with the story it is telling. Characters are going to be left out, scenes are going to be added/cut, characters looks will be different, etc. But, in my opinion, as long as the major plot points are told and the series is well written and has good acting, I could really care less what they do. The majority of added scenes and changed storylines have been good tv, some of them have even been more interesting than the book (Arya being Tywins cup bearer was more interesting than her time with Roose).

What you can always expect though is avid book readers to nitpick every single thing in an adaptation because it is not how they pictured it when they read it. Guess what, this is David and Dans adaptation of the books, which they love. So they have to take their opinions of characters and events and make interesting TV out of it. They have to take an incredibly complex story with hundreds upon thousands of characters and families with loads of history and make that simple enough for the average tv viewer to understand while also being mind fucked by an incredible story.

Like I said, they have hit every major plot point thus far and the major plot points are what kept us reading, not the minor stuff leading up to them.

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^ Yeah, cause fuck proper character development, right? Stannis and Catelyn have been possibly the most screwed over characters so far in the show, with Stannis being turned almost into a villain in season 3, and Cat being simplified into a concerned mother who is as important as a background prop. It's fine to get the main events done properly, which the show has mainly done acceptably, but when the characterisation of important characters isn't being done right at all (look at Tyrion in the show...) then their adaptation isn't as good as it could be.

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Awww, did we hit a nerve somewhere?

I apologise on behalf of everyone here who is obviously so ignorant and unworthy to discuss anything negative about an adaptation, or anything we aren't experts in really. I guess we can't say food doesn't taste nice, because we aren't all chefs. Please, step off your high horse and have a civil discussion with the rest of us.

I think it's more of an issue with some avid book readers being so incredibly nitpicky about how a story is adapted to screen that it is super annoying for everyone else who enjoys the series. For example, the way the Thenns are being portrayed now is a hot button issue. Are the Thenns really that important to the ASOIAF main storyline? No. Do we really have a wealth of information about them from the books? Not really. But because the show runners decided to make them Cannibals it's like the sky is falling and we get a 9 page post about it on here. Does it really matter that the Thenns are portrayed differently in the book? Is it really going to impact Jon's story at all? No, so who cares?

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^ I agree I couldn't care less about the Thenns, since they are very minor in the big picture, and Jon needs foes that are actually intimidating, so I'm fine with that change. It was a cool scene as well, so that's okay. I'm talking more about how a lot of the characterisation of characters has been screwed over badly, not so much about stuff like the Thenns, which yeah, people are overreacting a bit.

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^ Yeah, cause fuck proper character development, right? Stannis and Catelyn have been possibly the most screwed over characters so far in the show, with Stannis being turned almost into a villain in season 3, and Cat being simplified into a concerned mother who is as important as a background prop. It's fine to get the main events done properly, which the show has mainly done acceptably, but when the characterisation of important characters isn't being done right at all (look at Tyrion in the show...) then their adaptation isn't as good as it could be.

Once again, it is David and Dans adaptation and the way characters are portrayed is how they have pictured those characters. If you listen to interviews with them about Stannis, they genuinely think Stannis is a bad guy and not a good king for Westeros, so that opinion is going to come off in how they portray him. How they portrayed Cat is how they viewed Cat.

There are people on these forums who love Cersei and defend her every action, I'm guessing they would portray her in a different light than I would as someone who thinks she's an insane bitch.

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^ It's true that everyone will have a different view on a character, but when show runners actively let it influence how that character is portrayed and shown to everyone, just to suit their personal tastes, then I can very well understand how people can get upset. They should try to be as objective and unbiased as they can, so as to let the show watchers make up their own mind.

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It's funny reading people talk like experts about things they completely don't understand. Do any of you know anything about television production other than what you've read in Entertainment Weekly or seen in a behind-the-scenes fluff piece? Have any of you ever tried to adapt a piece of work from one medium into a completely different one? Do you know anything about screenwriting, or construction of character arcs for episodic television? My guess is no.

I do! I'm just an intern at this point, but I did major in film and television production. And obviously...this means absolutely NOTHING because all those years at college, all the script adaptations and film projects mean jackshit when you get into the real business. My opinion really isn't more or less valuable than anyone else's. But that's another topic

I've read (somewhere, now I don't remember) that there are four main types of changes that ocurr from one medium to another:

1) Changes because of production reality: Shit happens, life ain't perfect. Call it a tight filming schedule, insufficient budget, poor planning, logistics failure, problems with the actors/directors/producers/screenwriters, terrible weather on location, impromptu guild strike, etc.

2) Changes because of different interpretations: What you said, Khal Porno. You're absolutely right, adaptation really is, almost by definition, an interpretation. Why? Because a literary text is not something static you can just copy. It's a dynamic thing that comes alive in different ways for different people, and those different visions all come together to create the final product. Take Sam Raimi's Spiderman trilogy. That's his take on Peter Parker, not mine and maybe not yours. But since he's the guy adapting the thing, his vision's the one we get to see. Unfair? Arguably, but he's the one in charge.

3) Changes because of (deliberate) interpretations: This could seem a bit confusing, but according to many critics, interpretations are not optional or voluntary. We don't really choose how we interpret something, we just see it from our own perspective and personal biases. However, there are changes that happen deliberately, with the screenwriter or director not only fully aware of the change he or she is making, but also there's a reason to it. Maybe something from the source material bugged me, maybe I'm trying to eliminate controversial undertones, maybe I think I can make something work better than it does on the source material, maybe I'm trying to change something to appeal to an specific demographic, maybe I want to say something personal using the story, maybe I just don't like something, etc. Obviously, examples of this are infinite, but maybe Stanley Kubrik's adaptions of The Shining, Space Odissey, A Clockwork Orange, etc, show how Kubrik tweaked and molded the original material to fit in tons of references, symbolisms, and themes that he wanted to explore.

4) Plain mistakes: Even if a script goes through dozens of rewritings, corrections and supervisions, people ain't perfect. Someone thought a character's eyes were green instead of blue, for example. One recent case of this was (reportedly) in 12 Years a Slave, when a female slave asks the lead character to kill her to end her suffering. Apparently in the original memoir it's in fact the slave owner's wife who asks this out of jealousy. Apparently the thing in the book was phrased in such a way that invites confusion.

I would add another type of change or maybe a sub-type: when an interpretation is clearly and objectivelly wrong. Before you scream bloody murder, I must add that although we all have our own interpretations of literary texts and they're certainly valid, they must have at least have to be somehow supported by the text. That's why I don't think, for example, that Joffrey is a lovely angel out of heaven, because the text clearly don't support that. The reason why I call this a sub-type is because this can often be the result of lack of attention or interest, which results in a somewhat unsupported interpretation. One memorable example of this: Dumbledore running towards Harry like a bat from hell bellowing "DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIRE??" and then shaking the shit out of the poor kid.

But here's the catch: what if this change was intentional? What if Mike Newell really thought Dumbledore acting like the troll from the first book would bring something good to the scene? What if, for some bizarre reason, Newell saw Dumbledore reacting like this when (and if) he read that part of the book? Is it still fair game, if he's the director with the vision, even if most people agree that Dumbledore ain't like that?

So all this to say that this topic is a frustrating clusterfuck and people in the damn industry still don't agree on it and they get into constant arguments over it (yeah, this is not something we only do in discussion boards).

My personal stand on adaptation in general? My one rule is "If it ain't broke don't fix it, unless I have a good reason to do it", which, yeah, is frustratingly vague and not confrontational. But what you gonna do, everything's subjective.

I think the show is a good adamptation, not brilliant, not bad, good. My main gripe would be that Martin's forte is dialogue and I wish D&D would take advantage of it more, since the dialogue in the books is very, very tv/script-friendly. That's all. But I do think (and here's speculation) that the show could surpass the books in terms of editing, tightening some loose ends in Feast and Dance.

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^ It's true that everyone will have a different view on a character, but when show runners actively let it influence how that character is portrayed and shown to everyone, just to suit their personal tastes, then I can very well understand how people can get upset. They should try to be as objective and unbiased as they can, so as to let the show watchers make up their own mind.

I agree with you, but I'm willing to bet if you asked David and Dan they would say they feel like they have done that or at least have tried to do that based on their interpretation of a character. Keep in mind this as well, they also then hand the character off to the actor portraying that character and that actor can interpret and portray a character completely different too and once you get shooting, you are on a limited schedule where you can't go back and recast someone way late in the game.

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Awww, did we hit a nerve somewhere?

I apologise on behalf of everyone here who is obviously so ignorant and unworthy to discuss anything negative about an adaptation, or anything we aren't experts in really. I guess we can't say food doesn't taste nice, because we aren't all chefs. Please, step off your high horse and have a civil discussion with the rest of us.

Nyuck nyuck!!

I've been going round and round in circles with people for a year and a half listening to people complain about how David and Dan are "butchers" and listening to people whine endlessly about "character assassination" and "whitewashing" and how David and Dan "don't understand" A Song of Ice and Fire, because they refuse to acknowledge that different people have different interpretations, and they don't have any clue how the adaptation process works, or screenwriting and television production or character arcs for episodic television, so they throw out ridiculous assertions of how things "should have" been done or cast aspersions onto David and Dan's intentions and competency.

It's gotten quite tiresome and I have no patience for it anymore, so I'm going to call it out. I would love to have actual debates over these things, but instead of people saying "I didn't agree with that" or "I would have done this differently" or "that's not my cup of tea," "I didn't like this," and at least acknowledging the skill and craft that's gone into the show, people are always saying "this sucks," "D&D are butchers who don't know what they're doing," "this is ruined," etc. and the assumption that their opinions are the undisputed correct ones.

^ Yeah, cause fuck proper character development, right? Stannis and Catelyn have been possibly the most screwed over characters so far in the show, with Stannis being turned almost into a villain in season 3, and Cat being simplified into a concerned mother who is as important as a background prop. It's fine to get the main events done properly, which the show has mainly done acceptably, but when the characterisation of important characters isn't being done right at all (look at Tyrion in the show...) then their adaptation isn't as good as it could be.

Ha, this is exactly what I'm talking about. I love Tyrion on the show. I think that he is mostly the same character as he is in the books, with a few differences allowing for the needs of the show as well as the actor playing him (the audio commentaries by David & Dan and George R.R. Martin for season three talk about how they tailored Tyrion slightly for how Peter Dinklage plays him). I read the same book you did. I guess I'm just wrong, huh?

^ It's true that everyone will have a different view on a character, but when show runners actively let it influence how that character is portrayed and shown to everyone, just to suit their personal tastes, then I can very well understand how people can get upset. They should try to be as objective and unbiased as they can, so as to let the show watchers make up their own mind.

Or they could make the show the way they want to make it, and let the READERS of the books (of which the show has created many, more so than there ever were before) discover how Tyrion is portrayed according to George R.R. Martin's vision.

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Nyuck nyuck!!Ha, this is exactly what I'm talking about. I love Tyrion on the show. I think that he is mostly the same character as he is in the books, with a few differences allowing for the needs of the show as well as the actor playing him (the audio commentaries by David & Dan and George R.R. Martin for season three talk about how they tailored Tyrion slightly for how Peter Dinklage plays him). I read the same book you did. I guess I'm just wrong, huh?

Lolwut. There is no logical way to say that the Tyrion of the books and the Tyrion of the show are "mostly the same." I don't know how long it's been since you've read the books, but there are many differences in behavior and personality. At the point we're up to on the show, in the books Tyrion has: broken a man's fingers out of spite, slapped Shae for making him feel petty, threatened to whip, beat and rape Tommen, made Sansa strip naked, groped her and almost forced himself on her, and had a man murdered and made into soup. None of these things have even remotely happened in the show, and it wasn't because it wasn't feasible or possible to put on screen. Of course it was. The show creators just didn't want to show Tyrion in a negative light at all, since they love him too much to admit or show any faults or morally dubious activity. Tell me one negative thing he's done in the show that can be seen as selfish or mean. I can't remember any. Even when he was "made" to marry Sansa, they made him out to be the victim, instead of the poor 14 year old girl that was to be his wife, against her will. This is not a "slight tailoring," this is a whitewashing, in every way.

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Watch Dune, both the movie and the TV series.

Watch Watchmen

These are terrible adaptations.

Game of Thrones is actually a pretty great and incredibly accurate depiction of the books.

The only problem I have with it is that it's set in Medievil England and not Westeros in my eyes.

while i agree it's a bad movie. Wasn't watchmen a super faithful adaption?

Edit- I love both show and book tyrion, but they aren't the same. Book Tyrion did some dubious stuff at this point, while the show has made him mostly a pretty good dude. Maybe after he kills Shae and Tywin he will go down the same dark path is on now.

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