Book to screen adaptations aren’t anything new. From the early days of silent films, directors were looking for strong stories that had already proved their worth with the public. However, they have become increasingly big business over the last couple of decades with Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and other huge franchises taking on lives of their own beyond the page. I used to be incredibly cynical of book to TV/film transfers when I was younger: I would sit there pointing out every little detail that was different. Nowadays, I have a little more appreciation for the work and decisions that must go into transplanting a story and characters from one medium to another.
I’ve been watching the BBC/HBO adaptation of His Dark Materials recently. It’s a good case in point. A lot has been changed: elements from the second book have been woven into the first, scenes have been added and others taken out. However, as a creative writer I now have a greater appreciation as to why. Some of the changes are to give it a more modern, relevant and unsettling aesthetic. Some additions and omissions have been made to speed up or simplify the narrative so that it flows better. Others are to communicate information that happened off screen or that was told to a reader where it can’t be told to a viewer. You don’t always want a character launching into a wordy explanation of how things in the world work. Overall, though a few of the changes are disappointing, I can move past them and enjoy the TV series for its own sake.
I think the crucial thing here is respect for the source material. An adaptation should never let the dictates of TV or film compromise or warp the spirit of the original. I think, overall, that more recent adaptations are starting to get the hang of this. For instance, Good Omens was so respectful of its source material that it left large passages of the book’s original text in the show (critics and fans will probably disagree about whether that was justified or not). It also added significantly to the ending to make it more cinematic, something that I would have detested in my book purist days but actually really enjoyed.
I think it boils down to the fact that I am now prepared to accept significant change in an adaptation if it’s done for good reason and in a sympathetic way. A little like a lover of old buildings probably wouldn’t object to someone putting some necessary modern fixtures into one if it were done with care. I still very much object to the stripping out or changing of detail or plot for no discernible reason (the substitution of perfectly good dialogue from the Harry Potter books for inferior dialogue in the films springs to mind). However, I am less ready to discount an adaptation just because things are different now. A TV show or film isn’t a book: it has to do different things in different ways. However, I think it can do them in a way that stays true to (or at least is respectful of) the story it’s attempting to dramatize. Providing it manages that (or at the very least makes an effort to do it), then I’m ready to embrace it as an enjoyable work of art in its own right.