Book-to-screen adaptations

my personal take on what works and what doesn't

One of the oldest surviving films, A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès, is inspired by two Jules Verne books From the Earth to the Moon and Around the Moon. It’s amazing to see how much the cinematic industry has evolved and continues to do so allowing for more written material originally bound as a book to be more accurately adapted for the screen.

However, there is always the hit-and-miss phenomenon that can happen when a book/book series is picked up for being adapted either as a movie or a TV show.

Generally, in my opinion, what works in an adaptation is for the main and secondary characters, major plot points and pivotal scenes, and, of course, the time period of the books to be respected and properly featured. It is virtually impossible to create a page-by-page exact adaptation considering there are instances when narrative elements cannot be accurately translated on the screen. The trick for producing a good adaptation is creating a balance between scenes copy-pasted from the books and alterations that enhance the viewers’ experience without deviating (too much) from the source material.

Since I’m a heavy consumer of book-to-screen adaptations, I’ve made up my mind to give my two cents on some adaptations from the last quarter of a decade I consider successful and which have turned out to be lacking and disappointing.

Movies

The first ever movie I watched that is adapted from a book is The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The entire movie trilogy, actually. By 12 years old, I was able to recite dialogues, spew movie lore, list the names of most actors and stunt-doubles… I was in a LoTR bubble. At 13-14 years old I borrowed the trilogy (books) from my school library and devoured them. Naturally, my mind was extremely movie-focused, so I was awfully peeved to see how different the books are from the movies.

A decade later, I strongly believe The Lord of the Rings movies are the best pieces of work from the fantasy genre out there. As different as they are, both LoTR mediums hold their ground 20+ years later. Peter Jackson (director) took a slow-paced, description-filled book trilogy, enhanced the action scenes, and kept the bonds between the characters. The LoTR adaptation is the perfect example of respecting the source material and building upon it to create something wonderful loved by generations.

Then there are The Hobbit movies. The drawn-out trilogy that should’ve been just one movie and it would’ve sufficed. Yes, the movies in themselves are nice, but as adaptations of one book, nope, no thank you. Did I watch them in IMAX when they premiered? Yes. Did I enjoy them a lot? Also yes. Did I think them good book-to-screen adaptations? Not at all.

Although nowadays the topic is controversial¹, I cannot talk about book-to-screen adaptations without mentioning Harry Potter. I saw the movies before reading the books and I was never a die-hard fan of either. I did read the books three times, trying to find the spark that caused so many children to love it, I just couldn’t. As for the movies, I did like them a lot, saw them a ridiculous amount of times in a very short time. There are a lot of inconsistencies from books to movies, but the movies turned out good. Is it a really faithful adaptation of the books? No, and yet the series is one of the best in movie series in existence and the much of the credit goes to the unmatched cast.

Thinking of childhood favourites, the last in this category for me is the Chronicles of Narnia movie series. I saw the first two movies on TV and had the then-privilege to watch the third and last one at the cinema. The movies are so visually-mesmerizing and the characters were so well-developed and fun to follow along. I completely ignored the existence of the books until I hit 20 years old or so. When I got the complete set of the Narnia books, I was baffled to see how different the movies are from the source material. This movie series is a good example of a poor book-to-screen adaptation in terms of content, but it is a beautiful movie series that shaped young viewers.

The next very good movie series that comes to mind is The Hunger Games. The books are spectacular. The narrative, characters, stakes and world, as well as the message of the series came together and formed one of the most eye-opening and heart-wrenching pieces of media. Are The Hunger Games movies perfectly loyal to the books? No. But everything that had be to shown, said and done was done. Catching Fire, in particular, is held in great esteem by lots of viewers.

In the category of failed book-to-screen adaptations there’s the Percy Jackson and the Olympians movies. Fortunately, only two. The deviations from the original material were so many to the point where the movies feel like an alternate universe of the books. Sure, the movies, especially the first one, are entertaining if you suspend all belief and go with the flow. Still, I signed up for a faithful adaptation. Maybe the new Disney+ TV series will have more luck with this. Rick Riordan, the author of Percy Jackson, is actively involved in the making of the series. I did notice some deviations are also being done from the books, but the official explanation is that it’s a different medium (the screen), so certain things need to change in order to make the story visually possible. I have my doubts about that, but I’ll continue watching to see how the second season will fare.

These are instances where the movies were good even if the source material was not used as a perfect stencil. What makes these so good are the efforts put in by the production teams, screenwriters and actors to bring to the screen an as faithful as possible story with the necessary changes for engaging screen viewership. There’s a certain respect that the people behind these movies (and I’m sure other good adaptations that I cannot think of at the moment) held for the original material. And another reason why some of these are so good is due to authors being kept in the loop and their input being taken into account.

TV shows

As for TV shows, we all know the huge hit Game of Thrones was - until it wasn’t anymore. Personally, I started fearing the direction the show took the moment Caitlyn Stark’s resurrection plot and hence involvement was cut from the series. GoT ended up being a visually stunning TV series with a cast that did their best to work with the material they were given, but the storytelling and last few seasons went so far off the rails loyal viewers and book fans were put off. I cannot ever re-watch GoT knowing the way it (ridiculously) ends. There’s the problem that the book series is not finished and that the last couple of seasons were rushed. Maybe I would’ve bought that ending had the story been told for a longer time and the development (or regression) of characters prolonged to make their decisions understandable and not feel like they were blurted out without thought.

What prompted this post is Outlander, actually. For me, it is the best adaptation I’ve ever seen, although the novels suffer from the GoT as-of-yet-unfinished syndrome. Still, with 6 and a half-books adapted, 7 seasons (Part 2 premiering on November 22nd), it works. Even considering the alterations that had to be done in order to make the lengthy series manageable to shoot and direct, this TV show is the perfect example of a good adaptation. Dialogue from the books has been kept, as have been main, secondary and most pivotal characters and plot points. One of the changes the producers of the Outlander TV adaptation did was to attribute several key moments to already-existing characters rather than going the book way and adding new characters. I consider this to have worked out because Diana Gabaldon (author) has several instances when she wrote an episodic character as a plot device for triggering a certain path. In producing a TV show, it’s not easy to add and remove characters as it is in a novel, therefore I believe the method of reassigning certain roles to existing characters worked out seamlessly.

Years ago, I fell into the trap that was the TV show The 100. Unbeknownst to me, there was a novel trilogy on which the series is based. I think I had watched one season before diving into the novels. The 100 is one of those adaptations where the differences book-TV are so big that they are two separate things. The TV show is an alternate universe to the books, if you will. The ecranisation is a great sci-fi dystopian one, the books are weak themselves, but interesting. I think this is an instance where the adapted-for-the-screen material is much better than the original material.

Upcoming adaptations

→ Wuthering Heights - the controversy for the upcoming movie considering the casting... White Heathcliff is a big no-no and I will not even watch it. I’ll just read the reviews.

→ The Count of Monte Cristo (2024) - excited to finally watch it. Seems to be coming to my country’s cinemas in December and that should give me enough time to read the novel beforehand. From the reviews I’ve read, it’s a faithful adaptation and I’m curious to see how it goes.

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To sum up

What works: when the core of the source material is kept and the adjustments are practical, but they do not alter the sense of faithfulness to the original

What doesn’t work: changing fundamental plot lines, character traits, even places to the point where the books have been left far back in the dust

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Other

There are several other book-to-screen adaptations that I did consider, but ultimately decided not to tackle in depth:

Pride and Prejudice (1995/2005) - good/very good

The Book Thief - very good.

Eragon - disaster

The Witcher - takes more after the video games

All the Light We Cannot See - acceptable

One of Us is Lying - began promising, became AU

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder - liked the book series, liked the TV show, but the differences were too big to consider it a good adaptation.

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1. I do not in any shape or form agree with JK Rowling’s views and beliefs. That person has lost all respect I ever had for her the moment she started spewing transphobic bullshit.