Adaptations

Recently my TV viewing has been dominated by so-called ‘genre’ shows. Game of Thrones, Arrow, The Walking Dead, among others.

One thing about these and many other programmes, and films, is that they are not entirely original pieces of work. Arrow is based on DC comic Green Arrow, Game of Thrones on George RR Martin’s best-selling ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ series of fantasy novels.  The Walking Dead is based on the series of graphic novels of the same name.

Being as they are though, based upon existing works, they exist in pre-conceived worlds, with carefully created characters, and deviation from these tenets is usually ill-advised.  In Game of Thrones for example, the main characters, the main events, are set in stone, and only those on the periphery can be altered, and only slightly.  Martin has created an entire world, and any adaptation for the screen has to be faithful to this. The main bones of the original work must be adhered to, and the fact that the original work in this instance is unrelentingly good is in its favour.

Arrow, on the other hand is based upon one of the DC universe’s less popular characters. Green Arrow began life as a Robin Hood type figure dispensing his own version of justice in Star City.  He went through several changes, from Bruce Wayne-esque billionaire playboy to, after losing his fortune, a champion for the poor and disadvantaged. He was even killed off at one point! The character made a comeback a few years later, but with the original comics still largely unknown, the writers and producers of this adaptation, find themselves with a great deal of relative freedom to ‘tweak’ certain things.

The Walking Dead, meanwhile is burdened with the fact that the original material, like Martin’s ‘Song of Ice and Fire‘, is immensely popular, and its fans incredibly loyal. Any change made for the television show is immediately jumped on and dissected.  The show has, in terms of general story, direction, and tone, stuck largely to the template set out in the graphic novels.

There are, therefore, two groups of people who watch these shows; those who are familiar with the source material, and those who are not. There are benefits to being in either camp. Dramatic moments on screen are often such, simply because we don’t know what is coming. If, like me, you have read all of ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ (at least all GRRM has written to date, but that’s for another day!) then very little in Game of Thrones is going to come as much of a surprise. However, knowing the original material sometimes allows for a deeper understanding of what is happening on screen, knowing a little more about a character, a little more about what made him the man he is, or why he does the things he does, can often enhance a viewing experience.

Its a double edged sword and I believe there is room for both ideals, a re-telling of the same stories we have read before, and a new fresh perspective on tired old characters. In most things, if the stories or the characters were not interesting first time round, there would be no call to re-visit them, in any form.