PS: spoiler warning for Thee Body Problem, so just skip that paragraph.
However, I think that deviating from the source, or adding stuff, etc, wouldn’t be so destructive, if the writing was actually good.
Three Body Problem adapted by D&D, still felt a bit meh, because they made a bunch of changes that were just terrible writing. They didn’t understand the source material, so they made the VR stuff alien tech. They made the stars blink, not the cosmic background radiation. The dimension folding fuck up leading to a giant eye over… Earth?.. Why did they think that made any sense? It happened on Trisolaris, and it was such a goosebump inducing thing… Did D&D just think it might look cool, and… Since you cannot easily show it without showing the aliens… They kinda went “let’s just do it on earth”, even though it made no fucking sense whatsoever, because, they wouldn’t have any reason to play a fucking prank on earth. Shits and giggles weren’t their thing… Gah.
The Witcher suffered because the writing was actually quite bad at times.
Game of Thrones… I mean… I don’t know why Dumb and Dumber get their hands on any work whatsoever. They have shown they know nothing of the world and systems they write for, nor characters or development. It’s just embarrassing.
Halo, I haven’t watched. And Fallout, I just know that Nolan and Joy are absolutely amazing writers. The only concern I had was to what extent people like Tod could fuck things up.
I think what I’m trying to add is that: Good writers can tell very engaging adaptations within the existing constraints of lore, world and rules, but it doesn’t need to be existing canon. You can always tell new stories, as long as it sticks to the established rules and world building people expect. Bad writers fail at that, and often need to add contemporary trends where it doesn’t belong. The fundamental issue might just be a skill issue.
Good writing is hard. It requires a lot of effort. You need to be congruent with the world and rules you’ve built so far. Not everyone will notice everything that deviates. Noticing bad writing is catching a lie given the presented imagined premise. Some suspension of belief is of course necessary, or risk being an annoying pedant. But, don’t pretend someone is a level headed strategist, who then sends half their army out of a defensive fortification… to fight an enemy who is known to make dead soldiers fight for them. So which is it, do the people in charge know what castles are for, or did they suddenly become dumb as bread to suit some contrived narrative, or perhaps lack thereof?.. Gah…
J. J. Abrams didn’t deviate all that much from lore. But my God what a grade A moron he is when it comes to plots points. Thousands of extremely talented master craftsmen, all coming together to tell a story… that only works if you don’t think about it at all. And you might wonder which franchise in particular I’m referring to, as both apply.
The Expanse TV adaptation is a master class in doing everything right. TV is a different medium, and you cannot tell the story in the same exact way. But the changes they did, still told the same story, and most changes just suited visual medium better. They even had to off a character because of real life reasons, which was a little bit abrupt, but even so, they managed to adapt to that just fine.
Wheel of Time… weird additions and focus on romantic relationships that detracted from the magnitude and seriousness of the story itself. Maybe I was just a bit too young when I read the books, but I certainly didn’t remember it like that, and it made the characters feel weird, and… immature. Also, somewhat intellectually insulting. Personal sacrifice, and love (? I’m looking for a better word…) for someone, doesn’t require romantic interest.
I’m rambling.
TL;DR: Good writing good. Bad writing bad. Bad writing != not 100% aligned with source material. Contemporary tropes for no good reason = bad writing. JJ, please stick to directing. D&D… Maybe take up painting? Pretty please?
I stopped watching three body problem after the “universe blinking” nonsense. Watch the chinese version – mich more faithful (except the cultural revolution and anything bad about china)
I was to about to say the same in less eloquent way. It is worth noting though that The Expanse had both writers of the books heavily involved in the adaptation. You could also see that they drew from Game of Thrones did things, especially with consolidating characters.
I also wouldn’t be so fast to judge some series that are far from being over like Rings of Power and Wheel of Time. First one is meh but not offensive. WoT needed heavy cuts to the story because of how long it is but it’s still very watchable.
Ah, I loved Wheel of Time. I’m making an effort to forget about it so I’m suddenly surprised by season 3 being done. The deviations from the books didn’t ruin it for me, like it seems it did for many. I just found it unnecessary, and mentioned it more as an example of bad writing, and did not mean to imply that all of it was bad. Far from it. Great actors all around, and amazing visual direction, oh, and costume designers! The forsaken, especially Ishamael… the clothing. It’s so good, I want to figure out who worked in it. And I don’t even care much about that stuff either, usually. They did so many things, absolutely brilliantly. Ending of S1 was very anticlimactic, so I get why that that in particular put people off.
I havent watched Rings of Power. Maybe I should, based on what you’re saying.
I didn’t understand what you meant by drawing on GoT for consolidating characters. Apologies.
PS: In case I gave the impression of being a miserable piece:
I loved S1 of the Witcher, and largely enjoyed S2 and even S3, though that took concerted effort.
3BP was fine, and entertaining enough. It has the potential to be great, but not with the lack of… insight from D&D.
The Expance is one of the best sci-fi series made, and anyone remotely interested should see it, and also keep watching even if the first season isn’t entirely convincing. OK to call it quits if S2 isn’t.
GoT went down hill already from S5. The torture porn thing was just… unnecessary and… two dimensional evil that requires a telling lack of imagination.
Arcane is a masterclass in… pretty much everything. Especially character development, and as a counterpoint to the above: nuanced “evil”.
The Gentlemen TV series by G. Ritchie is a fun time, and imo underrated.
Hm. He did have a part in it, but I don’t know how much. I haven’t seen it. I suppose I was too bombastic, and should correct it to “everything JJ has written, that I’ve seen, has been vapid shit”.
Last time I ranted about JJ, someone mentioned that he had made Person of Interest. So, I watched all of it. It was largely pretty good, except for the very weird filler episodes every season, that very much worked against the overarching plot. In any case, turned out that Jonathan Nolan wrote it, who is pretty good at that stuff. JJ is a decent director, so I don’t mind that part.
I guess it’s entirely possible that there’s just an epidemic of bad writing.
When there’s an existing beloved IP, it already had good writing. Being faithful to that = good writing. Not YOUR writing, but good writing.
It’s theoretically possible to deviate from that existing good IP and still have good writing…it’s just not very likely. Don’t bet on it. Stick to the existing good writing.
It also annoys me that the explanation for how common bad writing is, is that it still makes a lot of money. JJ can jump on to any beloved franchise, shit on every established rule and character, make the dumbest imaginable plot points that serve no other purpose than to move you from one visually pleasing trailer snippet location to the next… and people will go see it, and it’ll make a pile of money. So, why should they care?
Everyone sees it the first time, but they tarnish the brand. Game of Thrones is the obvious example, but look at Star Wars. No one is clamoring to see the next Star Wars movie. If your outlook is the next 3 years, sure, bad writing will have a good opening day, but only because you’re leeching off the corpse of the previous good releases. If your outlook is to preserve the brand, it’s a terminal viewpoint.
You can take bad writing and even if it bombs in America, you can throw it at China and they’ll eat it up because they don’t know any better. But once a brand is dead, it’s dead. China is not coming up with new plot lines. Hollywood and streaming studios are strip-mining the IP of the past because there’s an industrywide lack of writing talent, for reasons that I’m too far removed to understand.
Luckily, we’re still spoiled for choice. Or, I feel like I am. There are more quality TV shows and movies, than I have time to watch these days.
I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Chinese media industry. They have made some amazing films. Infernal Affairs, comes to mind. But, I’m the wrong person to come up with examples. I’m sure there are plenty.
Other than that, I agree with you. It’s the enshitification equivalent in Hollywood. It’s just a bit less engulfing, since good movies and shows can still be made, in spite of some of the watered down drivel and ruined franchises for short term profit margins.
JJ Abrams shits on every established rule and character?
It’s more the opposite. He gets to the core of what a franchise is. It’s just that the hardcore fanbase builds up these things in their minds to be something they really aren’t.
Star Trek was always at it’s strongest as a TV series. The best the movies could ever do was take a page from Star Wars and be fun action adventure movies. Star Trek II was about a villain with a super-weapon seeking revenge. First Contact was basically Aliens. Star Trek IV was more of a parody of Star Trek than anything else.
But from the success of Star Trek IV, the exec became willing to put money into a new Star Trek show, and so we got TNG which was better than any of the movies. Similarly the success of JJ Abrams Star Trek meant new Trek shows are being made. Sure the shows are suffering from prequelitis. but new Trek shows are being made and if Star Trek Legacy gets made we might actually have a good Star Trek show on TV again, which is where Trek is at it’s strongest.
JJ Abrams made the two best Star Wars movies outside of the OT. Of course the bar is pretty low with Star Wars movies, but still he did better than anyone else in making new Star Wars movies, better than even George Lucas at making new Star Wars. And the ST had interesting things to say about our relationship to the past. But to people that don’t really like what Star Wars really is and want it to be something else got really angry about that. And people that have a warped view of the past hate it, but they hate anything new.
First of all, I agree with everything you said.
However, I think that deviating from the source, or adding stuff, etc, wouldn’t be so destructive, if the writing was actually good.
Three Body Problem adapted by D&D, still felt a bit meh, because they made a bunch of changes that were just terrible writing. They didn’t understand the source material, so they made the VR stuff alien tech. They made the stars blink, not the cosmic background radiation. The dimension folding fuck up leading to a giant eye over… Earth?.. Why did they think that made any sense? It happened on Trisolaris, and it was such a goosebump inducing thing… Did D&D just think it might look cool, and… Since you cannot easily show it without showing the aliens… They kinda went “let’s just do it on earth”, even though it made no fucking sense whatsoever, because, they wouldn’t have any reason to play a fucking prank on earth. Shits and giggles weren’t their thing… Gah.
The Witcher suffered because the writing was actually quite bad at times.
Game of Thrones… I mean… I don’t know why Dumb and Dumber get their hands on any work whatsoever. They have shown they know nothing of the world and systems they write for, nor characters or development. It’s just embarrassing.
Halo, I haven’t watched. And Fallout, I just know that Nolan and Joy are absolutely amazing writers. The only concern I had was to what extent people like Tod could fuck things up.
I think what I’m trying to add is that: Good writers can tell very engaging adaptations within the existing constraints of lore, world and rules, but it doesn’t need to be existing canon. You can always tell new stories, as long as it sticks to the established rules and world building people expect. Bad writers fail at that, and often need to add contemporary trends where it doesn’t belong. The fundamental issue might just be a skill issue.
Good writing is hard. It requires a lot of effort. You need to be congruent with the world and rules you’ve built so far. Not everyone will notice everything that deviates. Noticing bad writing is catching a lie given the presented imagined premise. Some suspension of belief is of course necessary, or risk being an annoying pedant. But, don’t pretend someone is a level headed strategist, who then sends half their army out of a defensive fortification… to fight an enemy who is known to make dead soldiers fight for them. So which is it, do the people in charge know what castles are for, or did they suddenly become dumb as bread to suit some contrived narrative, or perhaps lack thereof?.. Gah…
J. J. Abrams didn’t deviate all that much from lore. But my God what a grade A moron he is when it comes to plots points. Thousands of extremely talented master craftsmen, all coming together to tell a story… that only works if you don’t think about it at all. And you might wonder which franchise in particular I’m referring to, as both apply.
The Expanse TV adaptation is a master class in doing everything right. TV is a different medium, and you cannot tell the story in the same exact way. But the changes they did, still told the same story, and most changes just suited visual medium better. They even had to off a character because of real life reasons, which was a little bit abrupt, but even so, they managed to adapt to that just fine.
Wheel of Time… weird additions and focus on romantic relationships that detracted from the magnitude and seriousness of the story itself. Maybe I was just a bit too young when I read the books, but I certainly didn’t remember it like that, and it made the characters feel weird, and… immature. Also, somewhat intellectually insulting. Personal sacrifice, and love (? I’m looking for a better word…) for someone, doesn’t require romantic interest.
I’m rambling.
TL;DR: Good writing good. Bad writing bad. Bad writing != not 100% aligned with source material. Contemporary tropes for no good reason = bad writing. JJ, please stick to directing. D&D… Maybe take up painting? Pretty please?
I stopped watching three body problem after the “universe blinking” nonsense. Watch the chinese version – mich more faithful (except the cultural revolution and anything bad about china)
I was to about to say the same in less eloquent way. It is worth noting though that The Expanse had both writers of the books heavily involved in the adaptation. You could also see that they drew from Game of Thrones did things, especially with consolidating characters.
I also wouldn’t be so fast to judge some series that are far from being over like Rings of Power and Wheel of Time. First one is meh but not offensive. WoT needed heavy cuts to the story because of how long it is but it’s still very watchable.
Ah, I loved Wheel of Time. I’m making an effort to forget about it so I’m suddenly surprised by season 3 being done. The deviations from the books didn’t ruin it for me, like it seems it did for many. I just found it unnecessary, and mentioned it more as an example of bad writing, and did not mean to imply that all of it was bad. Far from it. Great actors all around, and amazing visual direction, oh, and costume designers! The forsaken, especially Ishamael… the clothing. It’s so good, I want to figure out who worked in it. And I don’t even care much about that stuff either, usually. They did so many things, absolutely brilliantly. Ending of S1 was very anticlimactic, so I get why that that in particular put people off.
I havent watched Rings of Power. Maybe I should, based on what you’re saying.
I didn’t understand what you meant by drawing on GoT for consolidating characters. Apologies.
PS: In case I gave the impression of being a miserable piece:
Idk who wrote Fringe, but JJ was involved and that show was great
Hm. He did have a part in it, but I don’t know how much. I haven’t seen it. I suppose I was too bombastic, and should correct it to “everything JJ has written, that I’ve seen, has been vapid shit”.
Last time I ranted about JJ, someone mentioned that he had made Person of Interest. So, I watched all of it. It was largely pretty good, except for the very weird filler episodes every season, that very much worked against the overarching plot. In any case, turned out that Jonathan Nolan wrote it, who is pretty good at that stuff. JJ is a decent director, so I don’t mind that part.
I guess it’s entirely possible that there’s just an epidemic of bad writing.
When there’s an existing beloved IP, it already had good writing. Being faithful to that = good writing. Not YOUR writing, but good writing.
It’s theoretically possible to deviate from that existing good IP and still have good writing…it’s just not very likely. Don’t bet on it. Stick to the existing good writing.
I think you’re right.
It also annoys me that the explanation for how common bad writing is, is that it still makes a lot of money. JJ can jump on to any beloved franchise,
shit on every established rule and character, make the dumbest imaginable plot points that serve no other purpose than to move you from one visually pleasing trailer snippet location to the next… and people will go see it, and it’ll make a pile of money. So, why should they care?Everyone sees it the first time, but they tarnish the brand. Game of Thrones is the obvious example, but look at Star Wars. No one is clamoring to see the next Star Wars movie. If your outlook is the next 3 years, sure, bad writing will have a good opening day, but only because you’re leeching off the corpse of the previous good releases. If your outlook is to preserve the brand, it’s a terminal viewpoint.
You can take bad writing and even if it bombs in America, you can throw it at China and they’ll eat it up because they don’t know any better. But once a brand is dead, it’s dead. China is not coming up with new plot lines. Hollywood and streaming studios are strip-mining the IP of the past because there’s an industrywide lack of writing talent, for reasons that I’m too far removed to understand.
Luckily, we’re still spoiled for choice. Or, I feel like I am. There are more quality TV shows and movies, than I have time to watch these days.
I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Chinese media industry. They have made some amazing films. Infernal Affairs, comes to mind. But, I’m the wrong person to come up with examples. I’m sure there are plenty.
Other than that, I agree with you. It’s the enshitification equivalent in Hollywood. It’s just a bit less engulfing, since good movies and shows can still be made, in spite of some of the watered down drivel and ruined franchises for short term profit margins.
JJ Abrams shits on every established rule and character?
It’s more the opposite. He gets to the core of what a franchise is. It’s just that the hardcore fanbase builds up these things in their minds to be something they really aren’t.
Star Trek was always at it’s strongest as a TV series. The best the movies could ever do was take a page from Star Wars and be fun action adventure movies. Star Trek II was about a villain with a super-weapon seeking revenge. First Contact was basically Aliens. Star Trek IV was more of a parody of Star Trek than anything else.
But from the success of Star Trek IV, the exec became willing to put money into a new Star Trek show, and so we got TNG which was better than any of the movies. Similarly the success of JJ Abrams Star Trek meant new Trek shows are being made. Sure the shows are suffering from prequelitis. but new Trek shows are being made and if Star Trek Legacy gets made we might actually have a good Star Trek show on TV again, which is where Trek is at it’s strongest.
JJ Abrams made the two best Star Wars movies outside of the OT. Of course the bar is pretty low with Star Wars movies, but still he did better than anyone else in making new Star Wars movies, better than even George Lucas at making new Star Wars. And the ST had interesting things to say about our relationship to the past. But to people that don’t really like what Star Wars really is and want it to be something else got really angry about that. And people that have a warped view of the past hate it, but they hate anything new.