| 1 | ->"''The bible was written by Bruce and Reed Shelly. Reading it, you could tell that they were still struggling to get a handle on the show. I mean, the core problem was obvious: There are no real characters or stories in a Nintendo game, so how do you turn one into a TV series?''" |
| 2 | -->-- '''Perry Martin''' on the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' adaptation ''Series/TheSuperMarioBrosSuperShow'' |
| 3 | |
| 4 | Some popular works never get adaptations, or if they do they have [[SavedFromDevelopmentHell long]] and [[TroubledProduction difficult]] production processes. It's not for lack of trying, however. Some works are just ''hard'' to adapt into certain mediums. |
| 5 | |
| 6 | One common reason for this is an AudienceAlienatingPremise. What might be popular for one medium is not for another. For example, {{xenofiction}}al literature works are rarely ever adapted. Most are too dark for kids' shows or films, but [[MatureAnimalStory most older audiences]] aren't interested in serious works about talking animals or non-humanoid anthropomorphic aliens. This often coincides with differing writing and content standards between mediums and even if attempted will often rely on HumanFocusedAdaptation. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | StoryBranching is another common headache, particularly the form found in {{Visual Novel}}s (which can already have [[{{Doorstopper}} vast amounts of text]] to work with). A single VN can feature not only multiple long, mutually exclusive storylines, but also cross-continuity {{Chekhovs Gun}}s (i.e. a detail is explained but not relevant in the first route, then relevant but not explained in the second). Most adaptations either [[CuttingOffTheBranches pick one route and stick with it]], or [[MergingTheBranches invent a composite storyline with elements of all of them]]. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | The ability for novels to expand on environments, explain motivations and personality traits within the text makes it near impossible to replicate in a film format without tripling down on the exposition and [[ThatMakesMeFeelAngry explaining their emotions]] in a hamfisted manner. A reader can also experience a book at their own pace both in segments they read at a time and being able to easily double back on passages they might have overlooked, while a three-hour movie can continue on even if you leave the room. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Films are rooted in visuals, dialogue and music to different degrees, all edited together in a cohesive whole. Kinetic action sequences timed to the soundtrack creates a fundamentally different appeal, as well as enormous spectacle filled with naturalistic details. See also StarringSpecialEffects. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | This can lead to NoAdaptationsAllowed if a work is deemed too difficult to work with. This is also a major reason adaptations fall into DevelopmentHell, and frequently undergo noticeable AdaptationDecay once they're SavedFromDevelopmentHell. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | VideoGameMoviesSuck is a subtrope, given the incompatibilities between video games and film: either the former a) [[ExcusePlot doesn't have enough plot]] to fill in the run time of a feature-length film without significant [[AdaptationExpansion expansion]], b) has [[{{Doorstopper}} too much plot]] for one without significant [[CompressedAdaptation compression]] or c) is too strongly tied with the interactive nature of the medium in order to translate well into a passive format. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | ---- |
| 19 | !!Examples subpages (by original medium): |
| 20 | [[index]] |
| 21 | * HardToAdaptWork/ComicBooks |
| 22 | * HardToAdaptWork/{{Literature}} |
| 23 | [[/index]] |
| 24 | |
| 25 | !!Other examples: |
| 26 | |
| 27 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 28 | |
| 29 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 30 | * ''Manga/{{Akira}}'' may be a successful manga adapted into an even more successful anime film, but efforts to create a live-action film [[DevelopmentHell have frequently stalled out]], despite efforts from directors such as Creator/JordanPeele and Creator/TaikaWaititi. Most have pointed out that intricately detailed set pieces such as [[TheTokyoFireball the destruction of Tokyo]] and [[BodyHorror Tetsuo's mutation]] are much easier to accomplish via animation (and even then the anime film cost so much to make that it risked tanking Japan's entire animation industry), and that its dark plot involving drug abuse, gang violence, and [[BewareTheSuperman tyranny via superpowers]] does not have broad audience appeal. Not helping matters is the predominantly Japanese cast, raising concerns about the MinorityShowGhetto. Despite these factors, other {{Capepunk}} films inspired by ''AKIRA'' have seen success, and ''Film/{{Chronicle}}'' can be argued to be a SpiritualSuccessor. |
| 31 | * Projects with character designs by Creator/YoshitakaAmano tend to struggle with adaptation to animation, due to his designs being [[DesignStudentsOrgasm wispy, wavery watercolor paintings crowded with detail]], depicting [[OnlySixFaces very similar-looking characters]] in [[CostumePorn very complicated and ornate outfits]]--all things that do not translate well to animation. This means that Amano projects tend to need either the high budget and short runtime of an OVA or film (''Anime/AngelsEgg'', which still ends up looking very strange in motion) or a significant redesign to the point of looking little like his original work (''Literature/TheHeroicLegendOfArslan'', where the TV anime is based on the second manga adaptation by Creator/HiromuArakawa). This is even somewhat evident with his ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' work, where the protagonists of the first six games [[ArtworkAndGameGraphicsSegregation barely resemble their Amano-made character designs]] (though the monsters, being static sprites, were much easier to manage). |
| 32 | * ''Franchise/AttackOnTitan'' has seen great success in anime and video game adaptations. However, bringing the Titans to live action has proven to be difficult. The story is long and takes its time building the world and lore of that ultimately drive the OntologicalMystery of the series. Almost every character has lengthy backstories that often tie into other characters which helps explain their motivations and goals. Finally, the titular Titans are massive [[Main/HumanoidAbomination humanoid abominations]] that leave lots of destruction in their wake. Fights against them involve lots of swinging with the omni-directional mobility gear like ''Spider-Man'' or Titan vs. Titan battles akin to Main/{{Kaiju}} works. To bring the Titans convincingly to live action would need an equally titanic budget. All of these issues have led to the series having a hard time coming to a live action medium: |
| 33 | ** [[Film/AttackOnTitan2015 The two live action films from 2015]] suffered from a case of CompressedAdaptation. They tried to fit the first 25 episodes of the anime into two movies, leading to many important characters and plot points being AdaptedOut. The characters that ''did'' appear were radically different from their anime versions to the point where they might as well have been new characters. The movies also did NOT have the budget to make the Titans look imposing, leading to lots of SpecialEffectsFailure and {{Narm}}. The only other crack at a live action version of ''Attack on Titans'' has been from Warner Bros, whose adaptation has been stuck in DevelopmentHell. |
| 34 | ** The stage musical went through a TroubledProduction in an attempt to bring the swinging action to the stage. The death defying acrobatics used by the omni-directional movement gear is easy enough to convey in print or animation; doing it in a theatre setting is much easier said than done. It would require lots of safety harnesses and wires (and all the financial and logistical issues that come with it) to do safely, as well as athletic actors to perform the stunts. During testing for the original musical, acrobat Kazutaka Yoshino suffered an injury during rehearsals and ultimately died from his injuries, putting production on the musical on hold. That said, a musical for ''Attack on Titan'' did get off the ground in 2023, to favorable results. |
| 35 | * ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' falls victim to this thanks to two major factors: |
| 36 | ** The manga is a [[LongRunner very long]] series that gets much of its atmosphere from a combination of [[DecompressedComic decompressed storytelling]] and highly-detailed art. It's hard to [[CompressedAdaptation cut out content]] because it has a lot of sensitive topics and BrokenBird characters, which [[AdaptationExplanationExtrication without the original context]] risk becoming [[TooBleakStoppedCaring pointlessly dark and nonsensical]]. Most adaptations tend to follow the Golden Age arc, since it's a FlashBack that's largely self-contained. |
| 37 | ** The [[Anime/Berserk1997 90s anime]] and ''[[Anime/BerserkTheGoldenAgeArc Golden Age]]'' film trilogy, despite being extremely violent (particularly the latter), still censor a lot of the more explicit [[{{Gorn}} violence]], sex, and rape scenes, either toning them down or omitting them outright to make the series suitable for broadcast. A completely faithful adaptation of ''Berserk'' would likely demand an NC-17 rating (The third film in the ''Golden Age'' trilogy, where the Eclipse goes down and the ugliest stuff in the Golden Age Arc happens, even has an unrated version shown during midnight screenings). The manga itself ran on a seinen magazine, which gave it fewer restrictions for its content and subject matter. It's worth noting that the series has many scenes that, even by manga standards, are outright explicitly sexual, with incredibly detailed onscreen penetration and all sorts of sexual deviancy. |
| 38 | ** Another reason may be the series artwork, which is famed for its extreme level of detail that would be difficult to fully translate into an animated medium. The closest comparison would be to an artist like Creator/GustaveDore. |
| 39 | * ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' is one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed animes of all time, but when it was adapted into a [[Series/CowboyBebop2021 live-action TV series]] the critical response was far from ideal and resulted in the series being cancelled after just one season with accusations of this being understandably made. One of the primary reasons the anime is hard to adapt is because its fluid animation and stylistic character designs (especially Spike, Faye and Ed) are extremely hard to translate into live action without coming off as awkward or outright cringeworthy. Another problem is that the ''Cowboy Bebop'' anime itself homages films like ''Film/BladeRunner'' and ''Film/PulpFiction'', making especially hard for the TV show to capture its style when it's already effectively borrowing from other TheFutureIsNoir works in its own unique way. Along with this, is that the 1998 anime often had a subdued and brooding tone and was deliberately [[{{Minimalism}} vague and minimalistic]] about things such as Spike's past. The TV show however has hour long episodes and thus is obligated to have a lot AdaptationalExpansion, leading to questionable changes to characters like Julia and Vicious and the tone being made to be more humorous than the original anime, which results in a messier experience overall. Fair to note, that the anime isn't just difficult to adapt into live action, there is also a lesser-known manga adaptation of the series that isn't highly regarded either, despite it being much more accurate than the Netflix show. |
| 40 | * ''Franchise/DragonBall'' has long since proved that it can be adapted effectively into animation, both 2D and 3D, being one of the most universally popular animes of all time. When it comes to a LiveActionAdaptation, however, it's [[Film/DragonBallFightForVictorySonGoku proved]] [[Film/DragonBallTheMagicBegins three]] [[Film/DragonBallEvolution times]] to be phenomenally difficult, if not ''nigh impossible'' to adapt into live-action without serious SpecialEffectsFailure or, in the case of ''Dragon Ball Evolution'', ending up as InNameOnly to the source material. The main difficulties is that the world of ''Dragon Ball'' is a '''massive''' [[AnachronismStew anachronism packed]] FantasyKitchenSink with a futuristic setting, dinosaurs, talking animal characters, robots, aliens, and multiple superpowered-martial artist characters who can fly around destroying mountains and planets, shoot beams from their hands, and also travel to other worlds up to and including ''the afterlife''. To remotely do the series justice in live action, the budget would have to be around the level of the ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'' or ''Film/{{Avatar}}'' with fight choreography on the level of ''Film/IpMan'' and most {{Wuxia}} films, but few film companies are willing to go that length. Whilst there's been no attempts to adapt the series of late, films like ''Film/TheMatrixRevolutions'' and ''Film/ManOfSteel'' do pay homage to ''Dragon Ball'' with their high-flying fight scenes and ''Film/ShangChiAndTheLegendOfTheTenRings'' can be seen as a SpiritualAdaptation to the point of a direct ShoutOut. |
| 41 | ** Another issue, which goes for most [[ShonenDemographic Shōnen]] live action adaptations, is that ''Dragon Ball'' is known and loved for its SugarWiki/AwesomeArt especially when it comes to its characters and fight scenes. Translating it into a medium like live action is very difficult, even when it's as faithful as possible. For example ''[=JoJo's=] Bizarre Adventure Diamond Is Unbreakable Chapter I'', ''Film/FullmetalAlchemist2017'' and ''[[Film/{{Bleach}} Bleach (2018)]]'' all got drummings for struggling to capture the look and feel of their source materials and ended up visually closer to just {{cosplay}}. |
| 42 | * Though ''Manga/GetterRobo'' saw many a successful adaptation to TV, film, and OVA, it stands out in the realm of ''toys'' for being almost impossible to work with--ironically for the series that essentially created the CombiningMecha concept, which went on to be defined by MerchandiseDriven works using it to make toys. This is because the mech's core concept requires three components that can take on four modes each (jet, upper third of a robot, middle third, and lower third), and just about every iteration of the Getter Robo design cheats the transformation heavily, fluidly morphing into a design that simply doesn't fit in the small jets that usually make up its components. The vast majority of toys from the series abandon transformation completely, and the ones that don't and manage to be even remotely accurate tend to cost hundreds of dollars. |
| 43 | * ''Manga/GoodnightPunpun'', despite its great acclaim, is acknowledged by fans and critics alike to be a very difficult or impossible work to adapt for a number of reasons. The most immediately apparent is the title character and his family: they are all portrayed as child-like drawings of birds, even while the rest of the cast are drawn in a more standard seinen anime style. This directly contrasts with the tone and pacing of the story, which is a slow, depressing ComingOfAge story that verges on ProtagonistJourneyToVillain. |
| 44 | * Efforts to adapt ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' into a LiveActionAdaptation have been met with DevelopmentHell. Much like ''Dragon Ball'' or ''Evangelion'', the series is extremely expansive and full of incredible spectacle regarding its beautiful mechs making it immensely hard to do justice in live action without a massive budget and creative scope. However, after the success of ''Film/PacificRim'' "this can't be adapted" attitude towards the ''Gundam'' series has soften among fans and relatively more optimism towards announcements that Creator/LegendaryPictures and Creator/{{Netflix}} would take a stab at adapting the series. |
| 45 | * The works of Creator/JunjiIto heavily rely on [[PageTurnSurprise the nature of print media]] to build suspense leading to {{Jump Scare}}s and intricately detailed artwork depicting BodyHorror, both of which are difficult to translate to the screen without resulting in {{Narm}}, SpecialEffectFailure, and NightmareRetardant. While Ito's works have seen multiple live-action and anime adaptations, only the 2023 ''Manga/{{Uzumaki}}'' anime series is remotely viewed with high regard by Ito fans, and even that anime required a sizably large budget and painstaking attention to detail towards the manga in order to successfully pull off the effort at properly adapting its source material. |
| 46 | * ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'': It took the better part of 30 years for the manga to get a reasonably faithful anime adaptation for many reasons. Creator/HirohikoAraki's character designs are incredibly busy and go through a lot of ArtEvolution, the fights and powers are hard to work with if you don't have the aid of constant narration, and the most iconic part of the franchise that introduces the signature Stand system, ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Stardust Crusaders]]'', is the ''[[SequelDisplacement third]]'' arc and serves mainly to tie up the plot of the first two (which deal with a completely different power system that becomes irrelevant from that point on). This even translates to trying to get it a Western release, as Araki's great love of MusicalThemeNaming turns the series into a trademark minefield. The 90s OVA had to cut and change a lot of things to make it work, and the David Productions anime simply shrugged and embraced the operatic unreal stylism of the source material, going so far as to even create an animated equivalent to Araki's [[InconsistentColoring refusal to stick to a color scheme]]. |
| 47 | ** A specific part that is hard to produce an anime for is ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureSteelBallRun.'' The story revolves around an American cross-country horse race, and horses are ''notoriously'' difficult to animate in 2D. Even David Productions admitted that they would rather wait for technology to advance to help with 2D horse animation, as they don't want to rely on CGI to animate the horses. |
| 48 | * The original ''Manga/{{Kinnikuman}}'' anime never saw the light of day in America because distributors would have the difficult, if not impossible, job of translating/censoring the show so that it's suitable for their audience given the sheer amount of violence (and to a lesser extent, its ToiletHumor), the main protagonist being a drunken pervert and there being a ''heroic'' Nazi character with a lot of screentime. While toys and a video game based on the series did make it over stateside, it was renamed ''M.U.S.C.L.E'' and the aforementioned Nazi character was removed. Also worth noting is how the original cartoon did air in France, where censorship laws are less rigid than in the US... and was quickly banned. |
| 49 | * ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' is a manga that ran for nine years and famously went through a slow GenreShift over its life, transforming from a fanservice-filled slice of life comedy into a still admittedly fanservice-filled action fantasy tale. Thus, the vast majority of adaptations focus only on the earlier chapters, ignoring (or never reaching) the later parts of the story when it becomes more of a fantasy epic, though one OVA did simply start 100 chapters in and cover some of those later chapters. That the manga ended very abruptly due to [[TorchTheFranchiseAndRun rights disputes]] doesn't make it any easier, either. |
| 50 | * ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' was once considered for a LiveActionAdaptation by Creator/ADVFilms and Creator/{{WETA}} only to end up in DevelopmentHell. While ''Evangelion'' is rather popular in its native Japan and has a cult following in the US, its unique identity wouldn't be a sell for the general masses. A visually faithful adaptation would be ludicrously expensive for capturing the action and spectacle of the series, yet the series's graphic violence, sexual imagery (most of which involves characters who are minors InUniverse), angsty human drama, and surreal plotline would alienate mainstream audiences that would be necessary for justifying the enormous budget. Despite multiple attempts, the project was abandoned. |
| 51 | * ''Franchise/OnePiece'' is a manga known for many things, all of which are difficult to adapt into a live-action medium: its inherently outlandish and unrealistic character designs and locations; the surreal supernatural abilities, including the main character's RubberMan abilities; its careful balance between comedic slapstick humor and serious and [[{{Tearjerker}} tearjerking]] drama; its [[{{Foreshadowing}} keen attention]] [[TheProducerThinksOfEverything to detail]], with even minor characters and ideas from early in the story coming back in full force many chapters later; and finally [[LongRunners its sheer length]], as both the manga and anime have over ''1000'' chapters/episodes (and counting) of material to adapt. The series also saw difficulty gaining a large audience in North America; while the manga is the best selling comic book of all time, especially in Japan, the manga and its anime adaptation enjoyed a smaller audience, which is commonly blamed on its [[{{Macekre}} poor English dub]] by Creator/FourKidsEntertainment[[note]]which left a shadow that even the better received subsequent English dub by Creator/{{Funimation}} has struggled to dispel[[/note]] and its more cartoony art style compared to other anime like ''Franchise/DragonBall'' and ''Franchise/{{Naruto}}''. ''One Piece'' only saw live-action plays before Netflix took up the task of creating a [[Series/OnePiece2023 live-action adaptation]], with the task of making the franchise more appealing to western audiences. To avoid the pitfalls of this trope that have plagued other live-action adaptations from Netflix like ''Series/CowboyBebop2021'' and ''Film/DeathNote2017'', the series creator Creator/EiichiroOda made it his business to get personally involved in the production, taking regular breaks away from producing the manga to [[CreatorChosenCasting choose the cast himself]] and ensure that the changes made by the creative team met his expectations, something he noted proved frustrating and difficult. The series began production in 2017 [[ExtremelyLengthyCreation and released its first season in 2023]], having some of the highest budgets-per-episode for a Netflix adaptation, but despite all odds, ''Series/OnePiece2023'' was met with a surprisingly warm critical and audience reception, who praise it for keeping the heart and spirit of the story while making meaningful and non-obtrusive changes. |
| 52 | * ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' rather unsurprisingly has proved to be a challenge to be adapted into live action, as seen by both ''Series/PrettyGuardianSailorMoon'' and ''Theatre/SeraMyu''. While both adaptations are quite enjoyable in their own ways with plenty of NarmCharm, the effort to try replicate the iconic [[TransformationSequence transformation sequences]] and general beautiful art and animation of the manga and anime, particularly in ''Pretty Guardian'''s case is [[SpecialEffectsFailure arduous]]. There’s just no getting around the fact the Sailor Senshi and the rest of the characters were designed to be as stylised as possible in both appearance and actions and attempting to bring them to life with only a modest budget, even when written by the original mangaka Takeuchi, is a recipe for trouble. Even more minor things like the billowing of the Senshi’s hair and skirts, which can be effortlessly done in animation is lost in live action thanks to wardrobe and effects constraints. |
| 53 | * Creator/KiyohikoAzuma stated that ''Manga/{{Yotsuba}}'' is in permanent NoAdaptationsAllowed status because, despite its SliceOfLife nature and relatively simple premise, the series' distinctive pacing and comedic style are [[DecompressedComic only able to work in the format of a comic]], to the point where attempting to adapt the series into an anime or live-action series would result in a poorly-done CompressedAdaptation. |
| 54 | [[/folder]] |
| 55 | |
| 56 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 57 | * In one of their ''Sketchbooks'', Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman mentioned that ''ComicStrip/{{Zits}}'' is not meant to be animated due to much of the strips' humor relying on surreal paneling, oddly shaped speech bubbles, and other static visual gags that would be incredibly hard to translate in an animated medium. |
| 58 | [[/folder]] |
| 59 | |
| 60 | [[folder:Film]] |
| 61 | * ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' could be considered the cinematic equivalent of ''Literature/{{Ulysses}}'', in terms of works that would be impossible to make a good adaptation of, primarily owing to its challenging plot and heavy use of surreal imagery. The movie was already hard enough to adapt beyond the screen; a TieInNovel would expand the story unnecessarily. |
| 62 | * ''Film/{{Adaptation}}'', as mentioned in the Literature subpage, is ostensibly based on a non-fiction book ''The Orchid Thief'' by Susan Orlean. Creator/CharlieKaufman looked to turn the book into a movie screenplay, but it is a book about flowers where nothing really happens. So he turned his own struggles [[SelfAdaptation to adapt the book INTO the movie]], focusing more on the existential crisis he now faces as he desperately wants to avoid throwing in needless drugs, sex, and violence [[LowestCommonDenominator to spice it up into a generic Hollywood movie]]. The movie still ends up going down that path, but far from any traditional story structure. The amusing part is by having Charlie obsess over all the details of ''The Orchid Thief'' the audience will still leave knowing the broad story and thematic points from the book, making it [[TakeAThirdOption an oddly successful adaptation in the process]]. |
| 63 | * There’s a general observation of this regarding the ''Film/DisneyLiveActionRemakes'' and their original classic films they’re adapting. The ''Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon'' by nature was built from its inception to achieve what live action film couldn’t, with very [[TheTwelvePrinciplesOfAnimation deliberate and important choices]] when it came to animation cels and how the characters look and move. All of which is difficult, if not outright impossible to replicate in a live action adaptation, despite 3D animation improving all the time (e.g ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing2019'' can make the characters look photo realistic to their RealLife animals, even though the intention of the [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 1994 film]] was to give a stylised and human-like appearances to the animal cast) . Even classic live action Disney films like ''Film/MaryPoppins'' and ''Film/BedknobsAndBroomSticks'' understood the limitations of what could be done in live action and used 2D animation for some of the more fantastical set pieces. Another problem is the animated films are so beloved often precisely because they’re simplistic in nature, while the remakes especially ones like ''Film/Cinderella2015'', ''Film/BeautyAndTheBeast2017'' or ''Film/TheLittleMermaid2023'' feel obligated to expand upon or address plot points from the originals and often just raise more questions in the process. |
| 64 | [[/folder]] |
| 65 | |
| 66 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 67 | * ''Series/PoliceCameraAction'', due to being an EdutainmentShow / GearheadShow has proven to be harder to adapt to another medium (aside from an obscure 1996 book with photo-stills) due to being a RealLife documentary, although [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames a video game based on it would be a difficult exercise, and costly]]. Outside of [[{{Parody}} parodies]], there's been no real adaptations since. |
| 68 | * ''Catch Phrase'' had a BoardGame adaptation in TheNineties, but it's proved difficult to adapt except for as a smartphone game, where [[JustifiedTrope it makes sense]]. |
| 69 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': While the series has seen a number of mostly well-regarded adaptations in other mediums, two of them are considered far trickier: |
| 70 | ** Many fans regard the show as next-to-impossible to adapt into a movie. Much of this stems from the 1963-1989 series' nature as a serialized show, already featuring drawn-out plots that match or even surpass the length of most feature films, making the idea of a movie redundant. Additionally, the series' dense lore and tangled continuity would make it difficult to make a movie that appeals to neophytes, as so much stuff would need to be introduced at once. Only three ''Doctor Who'' movies were ever made -- the [[Film/DrWhoAndTheDaleks first]] [[Film/DaleksInvasionEarth2150AD two]] were adaptations of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS1E2TheDaleks already-aired]] [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E2TheDalekInvasionOfEarth serials]] set in an independent continuity, while the [[Recap/DoctorWhoTVMTheTVMovie third]] was poorly-received by fans thanks to [[UncertainAudience being indecisive]] about whether it wanted to appeal [[OldGuardVersusNewBlood to longtime fans or newcomers]]. |
| 71 | ** The other medium ''Doctor Who'' has a strong amount of difficulty fitting into is video games. While the series' "fighting monsters through time and space" premise would theoretically make for a good game, it's set back by the fact that the Doctor is not a conventional action hero, preferring to confront enemies with guile more often than not, with the Doctor's companions typically acting as TheWatson to them. It's also the result of bad timing, as the genre of video games that would suit the show, AdventureGames, were most popular in the 1990s when the television series was cancelled and by the time of the revival, AdventureGames were out of fashion. Consequently, while multiple attempts have been made to create viable ''Doctor Who'' video games, only a few of them were particularly well regarded. |
| 72 | * ''Franchise/SuperSentai'': |
| 73 | ** ''Series/SamuraiSentaiShinkenger'' is considered one of the best seasons and a GatewaySeries for new fans, but it is also one of the hardest to translate into other languages due to its heavy rooting in uniquely Japanese cultural themes (PillarsOfMoralCharacter, familial honor over profession, etc.). Because it was the first Sentai series {{Creator/Toei|Company}} worked on after its western adaptation, ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' was seemingly canceled, it's believed that they made a series strictly for themselves as they no longer had to worry about an international audience and how they'd deal with [[CultureClash the inevitable cultural clash]], and it's why it didn't even receive a Korean dub. However, ''Power Rangers'' was UnCancelled and the series was adapted into ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai'', which was seen as rather lackluster, in large part due to mostly being an untouched retread that repeated several plot elements and character beats [[ValuesDissonance but lacking the cultural assumptions motivating them, confusing western audiences]]. |
| 74 | ** ''Series/KaizokuSentaiGokaiger'' is the 35th Anniversary series in which the rangers transform into past rangers, which naturally makes it really hard to make a good ''Power Rangers'' adaptation out of it: the StockFootage has 15 other ''Sentai'' shows which weren't adapted at all and it would be hard (and expensive) to change the footage into only the series which were adapted. ''[[Series/PowerRangersMegaforce Power Rangers Super Megaforce]]'' responded to this by... just using the unadapted Sentai teams, and lazily [[HandWave handwaving]] it as them being teams "never seen on Earth before." |
| 75 | ** Prior to the announcement of ''Series/PowerRangersCosmicFury,'' producer Simon Bennett stated this was why the source series, ''Series/UchuuSentaiKyuranger'', would not be given an adaptation. The show features a full team of ''twelve'' Rangers, which is a logistical nightmare in terms of giving them all proper character development over a single season. ''Cosmic Fury'' took a third option with the show adapting the ''Kyuranger'' mecha footage and having the team from ''Series/PowerRangersDinoFury'' in new suits. |
| 76 | [[/folder]] |
| 77 | |
| 78 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 79 | * Music/{{Genesis|Band}}' 1974 RockOpera ''Music/TheLambLiesDownOnBroadway'' is generally considered to be the musical equivalent of ''Literature/{{Ulysses}}'' in terms of works that would be impossible to make a good adaptation of, primarily owing to its MindScrew plot and heavy use of surreal imagery. The album was already hard enough to adapt on stage; the associated tour required a bevy of extraordinarily elaborate effects, and at no point was all of it ever able to work as intended. Since then, ''nobody'' has attempted to adapt ''The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'' into any medium, to say nothing of the performance stage. |
| 80 | * Music/DavidBowie: |
| 81 | ** ''Music/DiamondDogs'' from 1974 was never the easiest to translate to another medium thanks to its lack of an actual plot-- it was written as a CaptainErsatz version of ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' after Bowie failed to secure the rights to make a musical adaptation of the book, but the album foregoes any semblance of a story in favor of simply exploring a general set of themes; it has less of a plot than ''[[Music/TheRiseAndFallOfZiggyStardustAndTheSpidersFromMars Ziggy Stardust]]''! The one time Bowie did try to bring ''Diamond Dogs'' to another medium was on the stage during the album's associated tour; like ''The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'', it was marred by constant technical issues, and Bowie eventually dropped the whole shtick altogether during the second leg of the tour in favor of a far more minimalist, {{soul}}-inspired setup. |
| 82 | ** ''[[Music/{{Outside}} 1. Outside]]'' from 1995 never received the film adaptation that was suggested for it at one point, being perhaps more directly comparable to ''Ulysses'' in that it features a heavily non-linear plot and frequent use of internal monologues (most of which are the songs on the album itself). |
| 83 | * It took 10 years after Music/FrankZappa's death for ''Music/ThingFish'' to see its long-promised stage production. The plot is so convoluted and directionless that it's hard to make any sense of it, even as the triple-album + libretto it was originally released as, to the point where its stage adaptation in 2003 had to take a number of liberties to ensure that it could even be made at all. At least ''Music/UncleMeat'' was meant to be the ''soundtrack'' of a never-released film than a conveyance of the story itself, and ''Music/JoesGarage'' intentionally derailed itself for the sake of humor-- ''Thing Fish'', meanwhile, '''is''' the story through and through, and attempts to play itself as straight as possible. |
| 84 | * ''Theatre/TheNutcracker'' has proven to be a challenge to adapt beyond the ballet stage. Since the show has its conflict reserved for the first half and is mostly a showcase of music and dancing, nobody seems sure of how to add a plot to a story that is so...plotless. Though Hollywood has certainly tried, no major film adaptation seems to have captured the spirit of the ballet too well. |
| 85 | * This is likely why the planned HBO TV adaptation of Music/NineInchNails' 2007 ConceptAlbum ''Music/YearZero'' died in DevelopmentHell after Trent Reznor failed to find the right writer to execute his ideas. The album's story is basically a ScrapbookStory assembled from a series of now-defunct websites, emails, phone numbers, and even a live event (the [[LaResistance Open Source Resistance]] meeting with the NIN performance cut off by the police raid). Details archived on nin.wiki include a [[https://www.nin.wiki/Year_Zero_Timeline timeline]] of a 15-year chain of events that was becoming increasingly more reliant on alternate history until 2022 eventually came and went. The titular "Year Zero" is only six weeks long, has [[FourLinesAllWaiting a lot going on around the same time]], is largely reliant on internet usage, and is only resolved by sending information back in time that made the audience in 2007 prevent the BadFuture from happening [[SelfDefeatingProphecy simply by receiving the information]]. This works for an AlternateRealityGame like the one that promoted the album, but is harder to translate into a medium where more conventional storytelling is expected. |
| 86 | * Despite its popularity, Music/{{Vocaloid}} has never received a true anime adaptation based on its characters[[note]]Certain songs have received anime adaptations, such as ''Anime/BlackRockShooter'' and ''Anime/MekakucityActors'' (based off of "Music/KagerouProject") and Vocaloids (particularly Hatsune Miku) have made cameo appearances in a ton of anime, but a full fledged anime based on the Virtual Singers themselves has yet to be produced[[/note]], with fans chalking it up to them being "unadaptable". Basically, the intention of Vocaloid is that the virtual singers are {{blank slate}}s, with no distinctive personalities and traits. While this approach works well in the sense that they can be used for anything, ironically, this makes it difficult to translate them into an anime, as doing so will mean having to craft "official" personalities for them from scratch, which would taint and hurt their status as interpretive characters, which is a big part of what made them appealing to fans and content creators in the first place. |
| 87 | * Music/{{Eminem}}'s Slim Shady mythology has had multiple attempts to adapt it, including an AnimatedShockComedy that he played episodes of before his tour dates in 2001, but all have either fallen through or faced severely negative critical response. Part of this is because most of the songs featuring Shady are just stream-of-consciousness punchlines about him doing ChaoticStupid things, making the character useless for coherent storytelling, especially without the humour of Eminem's {{Inherently Funny Word}}s, [[LeastRhymableWord bizarre rhymes]] and [[ARareSentence unexpected turns of phrase]]. The other part of it is that the content of Eminem's lyrics is too disgusting to tolerate in non-audio formats. When Interscope wanted to make an Eminem movie in the early 2000s, Eminem's initial plan was to make a BloodyHilarious, controversy-baiting shock comedy, but Eminem's label saw the movie as [[AudienceAlienatingPremise unwatchable grossout]], and instead had Eminem take an AutobiographicalRole in a serious, gritty drama movie. (And even there, the eventual ''Film/EightMile'' had its shock comedy content excised from the original script, in which Eminem's character was shown to go into an AnimatedShockComedy IndulgentFantasySegue when he wrote his rhymes.) |
| 88 | [[/folder]] |
| 89 | |
| 90 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 91 | * ''Film/{{Battleship}}'' was based on [[TabletopGame/{{Battleship}} a board game]] with no plot beyond just two players trying to locate and sink each other's ships, which sounded like an absurd idea to most people. Creator/{{Universal}} and Creator/{{Hasbro}} tried to spice it up by adding some sci-fi elements to the story, but that only made it look like every other blockbuster movie at the time. Ultimately, it ended up flopping ([[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff in the U.S., at least]]), and [[StillbornFranchise any plans for a sequel were sunk]]. |
| 92 | * The reason so many of the earliest attempts at adapting ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' to film proved failures in some way or other can be attributed to the difficulty of adapting the game into such a medium. This is because DND is a social game, meaning you have the meta aspect of playing the game, and the story aspect of what the dice are being rolled for. Although the meta aspect is generally more important due to being the reason events can happen, it also is just rolling dice and people playing a character, which isn't going to seem appealing to a casual movie goer. Due to that, films often focus on the fantasy side of DND as a name and at most just reference things from the game, but because DND is still a social game about dice and playing with people, the loss of the meta aspect makes it a generic fantasy movie, which tends to cause people to not want to see the films. As a result, almost every DND movie released exclusively focused on the fantasy side of DND, and ended up failing due to coming across as generic fantasy movies that seem to think just the name DND is enough to get people to watch. [[Film/DungeonsAndDragonsHonorAmongThieves It would ultimately take until 2023]] for one to come out that gained a very positive reception, and it only did so by incorporating gameplay mechanics into the setting and narrative, making it as close to adapting the meta aspect as possible while avoiding the whole game aspect. |
| 93 | [[/folder]] |
| 94 | |
| 95 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 96 | * ''Theatre/{{Cats}}'' is a play based on [[Literature/OldPossumsBookOfPracticalCats a book of poems]]. Virtually every song is a poem set to music. There's no dialogue in the play, with the story being told through song. The loose, vague story and characterization makes it hard to adapt into other mediums, and even then one of the many criticisms was that the play's structure and thin plot is something one can only accept on the stage. The very specific, campy costumes of the visuals are also difficult to translate to anything but theater, as the main characters are cats that frequently spring into complicated dance numbers but make a few cat-like mannerisms on the side. It ultimately drew on the energy of a live performance with enormous sets, fanciful costumes and boisterous music, which would require an adaptation to match that step for step (an animated film produced by Steven Spielberg was once in the planning stages). Despite its popularity it took until [[Film/{{Cats}} 2019 to get a film adaptation]], which attempted to translate as this as actors [[SerkisFolk rendered with CGI to look like cats]] and [[ChromaKey Green Screen Sets]], and it did ''not'' go over well with audiences. |
| 97 | * ''Theatre/AChorusLine'' is a musical about the lives of Broadway chorus dancers, combining elaborate choreography with musical soliloquys from each of the dancers. As the show is heavily based around Broadway culture and purposefully lacks a main character, the 1985 film adaptation did not do well with critics or audiences. The appeal of seeing all the dancers come together on stage is lost on film, and rather than focus on its EnsembleCast, the film makes Cassie the main character, even recontextualizing "[[ElevenOClockNumber What I Did For Love]]" as her BreakUpSong to Zach as opposed to the cast singing about their love for their craft. Note that a huge theme of the original story is that every character in the ensemble is important in their own way, but the choice to prioritize Cassie's story to give the film a more traditional narrative undermines this. |
| 98 | * Creator/CirqueDuSoleil has successfully recorded many of its shows (which usually feature {{Excuse Plot}}s at best) for the TV/video market, but attempts to adapt them -- or at least their acts -- into narrative media have by and large failed. The [=IMAX=] Platform/ThreeDMovie ShortFilm ''Journey of Man'' worked due to its deliberately episodic "stages of life" plot, brief length, and the shows being excerpted having similar aesthetics to each other. By comparison, the dramatic film built around ''Theatre/{{Alegria}}'' was too dark for children and too odd for adults, the VarietyShow / ThematicSeries hybrid ''Solstrom'' came off as a hard-to-market QuirkyWork for non-fans and a butchering of the original shows for fans, and ''Film/CirqueDuSoleilWorldsAway'''s loose stringing of vignettes lifted directly from actual Las Vegas shows upon an original [[TheEveryman Everywoman's]] quest resulted in an aimless story and odd tonal shifts due to the shows' clashing visual and aural aesthetics. |
| 99 | * A major criticism people had with the [[Film/DearEvanHansen film adaptation]] of ''Theatre/DearEvanHansen'' was that, similar to ''Cats'', the original stage show was too inherently theatrical to transition to a cinematic setting. On Broadway, the show is executed with a MinimalistCast and little in the way of an actual set, instead utilizing dynamic lighting that dominates the stage, matches the music, and showcases Evan's inner feelings and increasing instability. This was completely lost in the transition to film, making the finished movie look a lot less lively and more mundane. Several of the musical's more dreamlike elements were also dropped in this transfer, including the majority of Connor's role, which significantly damaged the audience's understanding of and sympathy for Evan. Multiple plot-relevant songs were also cut, likely to prevent the movie's runtime from being too lengthy; however, the absence of "Good for You" made it feel like Evan never really got any kind of comeuppance in the end, to say nothing of how the other cut songs severely limited the side characters' development. And, finally, the main plot of the musical is something of an AudienceAlienatingPremise when taken at face value, and removing it from the spectacle and theatricality of Broadway forced the viewers to confront it more directly, which made Evan very unlikable for some. |
| 100 | * While most of ''Theatre/LittleShopOfHorrors'' wasn't difficult to adapt for the [[Film/LittleShopOfHorrors 1986 film adaptation]], the ending proved to be a case of this. Originally, the film was supposed to retain the stage musical's ending where [[spoiler:Audrey and Seymour are killed and Audrey II begins its spectacular conquest of Earth to the tune of the song "Don't Feed the Plants".]] However, the DownerEnding proved to be a disaster with test audiences and the creators were forced to create a FocusGroupEnding [[spoiler:where Audrey and Seymour live and Audrey II is defeated.]] Director Creator/FrankOz later realized that the differences between theatre and film were the reason why the original ending was received so poorly. |
| 101 | -->'''Oz:''' In a stage play, you kill the leads and they come out for a bow. In a movie, they don't come out for a bow, they're dead, as opposed to the theater audience where they knew the two people who played [[spoiler:Audrey and Seymour]] were still alive. |
| 102 | [[/folder]] |
| 103 | |
| 104 | [[folder:Toys]] |
| 105 | * The idea of a ''Franchise/{{Barbie}}'' live-action film was touted around since The80s, and went through a ton of writer, director, cast and studio changes, mainly due to the factors of ''Barbie'' being synonymous with the GirlShowGhetto, the overall idealistic and bright tone of the franchise risking SweetnessAversion, the toyline generally not having much of a plot or lore behind it, and most prior storylines such as the ''WesternAnimation/{{Barbie}}'' animated movies and ''WebAnimation/BarbieVlog'' revolving around either straightforward FairyTale adaptations [[RecycledWithAGimmick just with Barbie]], simplistic original fantasy stories that just happened to star Barbie, or a SliceOfLife with trivially low stakes. It was ultimately the association of Creator/GretaGerwig, Creator/NoahBaumbach, Creator/MargotRobbie, Creator/RyanGosling and Creator/WarnerBros that cracked the code and produced a financial and critical success out of the toy line in [[Film/Barbie2023 2023]]. |
| 106 | * In the early 2000s, Franchise/{{LEGO}} has turned down adaptation proposals of their popular ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}'' line because every pitch [[HumanFocusedAdaptation tried to add humans]], and the company was adamant that the series took place in an alien, human-free universe. Other factors hindering adaptations were LEGO's strict anti-violence policies and the franchise's reliance on lengthy story arcs and interconnected mysteries being built up and slowly unveiled across years. Creator/MiramaxFilms and Creative Capers and later Creator/{{Universal}} and Tinseltown Toons managed to secure DirectToVideo film deals by allowing LEGO to keep some control over the stories. But even so, all of the films suffered heavily from [[ContinuityLockout constantly referencing things new viewers wouldn't know]], [[FightSceneFailure neutering violent scenes]], arbitrarily changing character personalities, [[CompressedAdaptation compressing the plots to heck]], and [[FollowTheLeader aping popular movies of the time]] -- the third movie mirroring the plot of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' reportedly made one of the LEGO writers mad. And to make up for the "no humans" rule, many characters were [[ShowAccuracyToyAccuracy given odd redesigns]] to make them more expressive, which divided the fans greatly. |
| 107 | [[/folder]] |
| 108 | |
| 109 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 110 | * Part of the problem with adapting the ''VideoGame/{{BioShock}}'' games is that they very deliberately take great advantage of being {{Immersive Sim}}s and [[StoryBreadcrumbs tell large amounts of their greater story through audio logs, diary entries, and visual setpieces and interactable objects]]. As such, ''Literature/BioShockRapture'' attempts to tell a linear narrative chronicling Rapture's fall which at times feels more like worldbuilding and FlavorText than a story on its own, and since it obviously can't have Jack as the POV character the "protagonist" of the book is Bill [=McDonagh=], whose entire story is told through three audio logs and some environmental storytelling in-game, leading to quite a bit of AdaptationExpansion. |
| 111 | * ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' is an RPG series that was popular enough for a film adaptation in 2001, but the problems are that each game is completely unconnected to the previous one; taking place in a different universe with different lore, only sharing some similarities that depend on the games. While some of the games could make for a miniseries, and [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII the seventh]] and [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII eighth]] might not be too effects heavy given their futuristic worlds and mostly human casts, the problem lies in which one to adapt first - since several of the initial games were released in the west under differently numbered titles (the fourth was released as ''Final Fantasy II'' for example). And since each game has a significant fan base, in choosing to adapt one, it would likely alienate a group of fans sad that their favourite wasn't adapted first. The [[Anime/FinalFantasyTheSpiritsWithin actual film adaptation]] ended up as a standalone story that just alienated most of the franchise's fans, especially since it was set on Earth AfterTheEnd rather than an original world like the games were. Even attempts at film sequels or spin-offs to existing games, such as ''Anime/FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren'', were poorly received for being unable to translate to a different medium. |
| 112 | ** One of the reasons why it’s so hard to translate into film also lie in the structure of how most ''Final Fantasy'' plots are told. While it’s pretty easy to adapt a few memorable story moments from the games as seen by the ''Anime/LastOrderFinalFantasyVII'' OVA, it’s a much taller order to try and weave the series’ conventions into an hour and 40 minutes without disastrous pacing. The fact is most FF games are densely plotted, with the length and size of the games allowing for an equal amount of exciting action and compelling character drama, ''Advent Children'' and to a greater extent ''Anime/KingsglaiveFinalFantasyXV '' however tried to cram as much character drama into the runtime and try and make up for it with massive action spectacle in their climaxes. |
| 113 | * There’s been difficulty with adaptations of the StylishAction games ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' and ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'', ''Anime/DevilMayCryTheAnimatedSeries'' and ''Anime/BayonettaBloodyFate''. Despite having genuinely great animation, neither were as highly acclaimed as the games they were adapted from. The number one issue is that the protagonists Dante and Bayonetta are meant to be effortlessly cool, with the difficult HackAndSlash gameplay actively making the player strive to be as awesome as the characters are in cutscenes and in-story. When the gameplay is taken out of the picture, it’s quite hard for Dante and Bayonetta to not come off as just boring [[InvincibleHero Invincible Heroes]] a lot of the time. ''Devil May Cry: The Animated Series'' also took a more downbeat and SliceOfLife tone, with the crazy all-out action that the games were known for being limited likely for budgetary reasons, something that disappointed a portion of fans. Since then, ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017'' producer Adi Shankar announced in 2022 that they will be making a Netflix animated adaptation of ''Devil May Cry'' and promised that it would be faithful as possible. |
| 114 | * There's been a ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' film in DevelopmentHell since 2003, and even Creator/JohnWoo was set to direct at one point before it got canned. The problem, as explained by film producer Brad Foxhoven, is that Samus isn't particularly complex as heroines go and is largely [[HeroicMime a voiceless avatar for the player]] to boot, and so the discussion with Nintendo to expound upon her character led the company getting cold feet about the project. Even when Nintendo themselves decided to have Samus talk and give her a personality in ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'', it got derided by fans for being too stereotypically girly and damsel-y, and contrasting badly with other versions of her character (which were closer to [[Franchise/{{Halo}} Master Chief]] or [[Franchise/{{Doom}} the Doom Slayer]]). Along with Samus's character, the games are generally meant to be isolationist, with Samus being alone without other humans to talk to, which is a tough sell to general audiences (despite films like ''Film/{{Gravity}}'' doing well). Even when the producers are on board with going in that direction, such as Jordon Voght Roberts, who envisioned the film like ''Film/Drive2011'', Nintendo is still hesitant about it. This was also seen when Adi Shankar, the Netflix ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017'' producer, pitched a ''Metroid'' series; it got turned down by the series' co-creator Yoshiro Sakamoto, who still feels the cutscenes of ''Metroid Other M'' are worthy of the movie label. Despite this, the Metroid manga adaptations are pretty well received by fans, and even one of the authors, Idzuki Kouji, encouraged a film to be made. |
| 115 | * One of the staff writers on ''Series/TheSuperMarioBrosSuperShow'' [[https://vantagepointinterviews.com/2018/09/11/do-the-mario-perry-martin-on-scripting-the-cartoon-adaptations-of-the-super-mario-bros/ explained]] that the show's production team found it hard to derive material from the [[ExcusePlot shallow plots and thin characters]] of [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros the games]] (which was especially the case in 1989, when the series' presence in the United States amounted to just the [[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1 first]] [[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2 two]] home console games and the freshly-released ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand'', which wasn't even out yet during the cartoon's production; ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' wouldn't be out in the States for another year), which is why most of the episodes are structured around stock movie and historical parodies. Indeed, Creator/{{Nintendo}} of America themselves had cold feet about the idea of adapting the games into an animated series. Mario in general has proven to be tricky to adapt as seen by the live action ''Film/SuperMarioBros1993'' film which understandably made Nintendo wary of letting Hollywood adapt their games for decades until ''Film/PokemonDetectivePikachu''. ''WesternAnimation/TheSuperMarioBrosMovie'' by Creator/{{Illumination}}, however, was created with direct assistance from Nintendo themselves, and is firmly set in the visual style of the games while also at this point having considerably more lore and existing info on the characters and setting to work with, and obviously more faithful and successful for it. |
| 116 | * A ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' film has long been in DevelopmentHell, with the most recent announcement from Shigeru Miyamoto stating that a [[https://www.nintendo.co.jp/corporate/release/en/2023/231108.html live-action film is in the works by Sony]]. Prior to this, there were pitches for two animated films (one by ''Imagi Animation Studios'' who did ''WesternAnimation/{{TMNT}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/AstroBoy'') as well as a live action Netflix series, all of which were rejected by Creator/{{Nintendo}}. In fairness to Nintendo, while a ''Zelda'' film with the scope and quality of something like ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' or a Creator/StudioGhibli film would doubtless be great, the fact that Link is usually a [[HeroicMime voiceless avatar for the player]] in the games presents a serious problem with characterization as he isn’t usually meant to a deep character with complex emotions, which results in the seeming necessity to give him a deeper personality in adaptations to make him easier to sell to the type of audiences who'd generally watch a cartoon or film. Unfortunately, much like with Samus, giving Link a personality that would be easily accepted by those familiar with the games has proven difficult. The [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfZelda 80s cartoon]] managed to give him a solid personality, and it usually [[AdaptationalJerkass wasn’t a very nice]] [[WellExcuseMePrincess personality]]; something fans either found irking or hilarious and was a big departure from the games regardless (though it should be noted that this came out before future games personified Link the way we know). That being said, the ''Zelda'' manga adaptations have given Link a compelling personality and character drama and managed to be fairly well received, and it's also worth noting that ''Film/Legend1985'' is more or less a ''The Legend of Zelda'' movie (a forest boy saves a princess from evil incarnate with the help of a fairy) in spirit and actually helped influenced the Nintendo games themselves. And with these factors in mind, plus the aforementioned upcoming LiveActionAdaptation, hope could yet remain for a proper film or cartoon adaptation of ''Zelda'' at some point in the future. |
| 117 | %% * ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' only had the [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog1 first]] [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2 two]] games representing the brand in the States when the ''WesternAnimation/AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog'' and ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'' debuted, with Sonic, Tails, and Dr. Robotnik being the only recurring game characters. Also not helping is that the localization process excised what story info the [[http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_the_Hedgehog_(16-bit)/Manuals Japanese manuals]] originally had. [[Film/SonicTheHedgehog2020 The 2020 movie]] showed very little of Sonic's homeworld and opted for a HumanFocusedAdaptation starring Sonic escaping to Earth (which is where he lives in the games anyway), to favorable results. |
| 118 | * The ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'' series generally consists of [=RPG=]s that can easily take 100 hours to complete, so parts of the story will inevitably have to get cut for a 26 episode anime with an OVA or two (''Anime/Persona4TheAnimation'', ''Anime/Persona5TheAnimation'') or a film tetralogy (''Anime/Persona3TheMovie''). Unfortunately, this can be a risky proposition considering that in the ''Persona'' series, small details and seemingly innocuous scenes can become very important to the plot. The ''VideoGame/Persona5'' anime adaptation stands out; not only is the game the longest of the three, but the dungeons are more elaborate and have more story scenes, and the non-party Confidants are more relevant to the plot, meaning that more is lost as a result of cutting down in those areas. |
| 119 | * The commercial failure of both ''Film/{{Doom}}'' and ''Film/DoomAnnihilation'' show that the ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' franchise as whole is a case of this. In principle a brutal and stoic protagonist in armour tearing through hordes of enemies shouldn’t be so hard to get right (especially given works like ''Film/TheRaid'', ''Series/TheMandalorian'' or ''Film/JohnWick'') but neither adaptation has managed to recreate the tone or story of the games. The main appeal of ''Doom'' is the RuleOfCool PowerFantasy as the player is supposed to embody the Doom Marine, who’s only purpose or joy in life is decimating TheLegionsOfHell. Later games like ''VideoGame/DOOM2016'' understand this with the characterisation of Doomslayer purposely being kept at a bare minimum to the extent of an InUniverse apathy for non-demon slaying matters. For the films however such a character is a very hard sell to audiences, leading to obligatory tortured angst as seen in the 2005 film with Doomguy-expy Reaper, which conflicts the point of the character from the games. ''Doom Annihilation'' can't resist giving its protagonist Joan some depth and drama either, which only furthers distances the film from the games beyond her wielding the {{BFG}}. |
| 120 | ** Another difficulty is the filmmakers fully committing to the {{Hell}} setting and iconography of the ''Doom'' games, being not only costly to film but a sure-fire way to trigger Christian groups. The 2005 film does a lot of DoingInTheWizard and making all demons infected humans rather the denizens of the inferno, which renders the plot closer to Creator/PaulWSAnderson's ''Film/ResidentEvil2002'' more than anything to do with ''Doom''. ''Doom Annihilation'', to its credit, does use Hell and demons, albeit in a more sanitised fashion compared to the games. |
| 121 | * It took the film adaptation of ''VideoGame/{{Uncharted}}'' a decade to get off the ground because the games’ stories are already structured like films and use film-like cinematography, meaning adapting them would just be condensing the story to a movie’s run time. At one point, Creator/SethRogen and Evan Goldberg were approached for the screenplay, but they passed. According to Rogen, no matter what they attempted with the material, it just felt like they were continuously ripping off ''Franchise/IndianaJones'' due to the nature of the game. The series' creators at Creator/NaughtyDog believed this so much that they refused to help their parent company Creator/{{Sony}} on the project until they gave up on a making straight-up adaptation of the series. In 2018, Sony decided to not adapt one of the games and go the {{Prequel}} route, with Naughty Dog's blessing, resulting in ''Film/Uncharted2022''. While that movie was a financial success, it received mixed reception with fans who criticized the film for [[AdaptationalPersonalityChange radically changing the personalities of Nathan and Sully]] while critics dismissed it as an ''Indiana Jones'' knock-off. |
| 122 | * There's been two [[Film/StreetFighter cinematic live-action]] [[Film/StreetFighterTheLegendOfChunLi attempts]] at ''Franchise/StreetFighter'' and in contrast to ''Film/MortalKombatTheMovie'', neither were particularly accurate to/as liked as the games (though most people will agree Creator/RaulJulia's HamAndCheese as M. Bison alone makes the 1994 movie worth watching). The main trouble is that the story of the games doesn't usually lend itself to a traditional movie structure, being a global TournamentArc with a metric butt ton of characters, and narrowing that down to just beating Bison and Shadaloo as the films do leaves a good many fan favourite fighters by the way-side. Also the cast of the games are iconic and beloved for their anime-inspired designs and flashy fighting moves, which if not given proper justice or commitment to on screen can be [[SpecialEffectsFailure disastrous]], as ''The Legend of Chun-Li'' shows extensively. Another issue is that Ryu, the actual protagonist of the games, doesn't tend to have much in-story stakes besides being a wandering fighter whose sole motivation is fighting stronger opponents and improving his own martial arts talents, as opposed to beating the BigBad Bison to avenge a loved one or an ally. Which may be why the films swap him out as TheHero for Guile and Chun-Li respectively (though it might just be a case of MightyWhitey in the former). Not to say it's been impossible to have a more accurate live-action adaptation, ''WebVideo/StreetFighterAssassinsFist'' is very faithful to the games and well-reviewed despite its lower budget struggling with the ki effects and Akuma's design. ''Series/CobraKai'' is also considered a SpiritualAdaptation of ''Street Fighter'' by some fans. |
| 123 | * ''Franchise/{{Tekken}}'', for very similar reasons to ''Street Fighter'', proved to be quite a mess when [[Film/Tekken2010 adapted into live-action]], as it's mainly about a fighting tournament with numerous characters. In fact, one of the main reasons why the games are so liked in the first place is because there's many characters each with their own unique backstory, distinct personality and character arc. Not to mention that it's the kind of fighting game series where a bear and dinosaur with boxing gloves can be part of the roster. But trying to make such a story work in an hour and 27 minutes, unsurprisingly has been a fiasco. The 2010 live-action film similar to ''The Legend of Chun-Li'' tries to take a grounded DarkerAndEdgier tone, which jars greatly with the tone of the games and turns the story into more of a generic gritty martial arts film. The animated adaptations have been better received, especially the more recent ''Anime/TekkenBloodline'' series which got appreciation for giving genuine depth to characters such as Jin. Though like the previous anime adaptations, the de-emphasizing of particular fighters in favour of solely focusing on the Mishima plotline was bemoaned, given the serial-based narrative could allowed enough room for it. |
| 124 | * Much like the aforementioned ''Street Fighter'' and ''Tekken'', ''Franchise/TheKingOfFighters'' also struggled with [[Film/TheKingOfFighters2010 its own movie adaptation]], for most of the same reasons: the large cast and team-based structure of the original games necessitating {{Cast Herd}}s of at least three characters, most with iconic, yet also stylized designs and powersets that don't translate well to live-action means that attempting to shrink it down to a more manageable number and change the designs and powersets to be more realistic would irk long-time fans. Another problem is the fact that the backstory of the games focuses heavily on both supernatural and scientific elements that require multiple games just for one specific saga, and that the film's attempt to streamline the Rugal/Orochi Saga (which took four installments to complete, making it the longest StoryArc in the franchise's history) with its limited runtime and budget overall made it feel like yet another run-of-the-mill martial arts film. That, coupled with [[RaceLift several other]] [[AdaptationalJobChange differences]] that alienated diehard fans and confused general audiences, led to the film sinking in obscurity. |
| 125 | * Cracks at a movie adaptation of ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' have languished in DevelopmentHell since the game's release in 1998. While the game and series have some hallmarks that could translate into a film -- memorable characters, big set pieces, giant nuke-carrying mechs -- they are also ''densely'' plotted and outright ''strange'', especially in their rogues gallery, making it a tough climb for anyone who could condense a weird, complex twelve-hour trip into a coherent two hours. |
| 126 | * When the ''Series/Halo2022'' TV series got middling reviews, accusations of this were made. Much like ''Doom'', ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' doesn’t have an audience-friendly protagonist with Master Chief being TheFaceless and having minimal characterisation. The official web series ''Film/Halo4ForwardUntoDawn'' got around this by framing Chief from other characters’ POV. In contrast, the Paramount series unpacked Chief’s character by giving him standard angst and drama, turning Chief into more of a ActionGenreHeroGuy. While this personality change, plus multiple scenes showing him without his helmet, were intended to make Chief be more accessible, both of these elements were instead heavily criticized for undermining the mystique of the character that made him so appealing in the first place. Not helping matters were unfavorable comparisons to the acclaimed ''Series/TheMandalorian'', which proved ''you could'' effectively have a faceless armoured warrior hero in a serialized show. The Paramount series also makes many other crucial changes like [[HumanFocusedAdaptation focusing mostly on human politics]] instead of the [[StarfishAliens Covenant]] to save on [=VFX=] budget, which only confused newcomers and alienated fans, the latter of whom were the biggest audience for the show. |
| 127 | * While most games-to-movies were critically thrashed for being shallow ExcusePlot excursions, the adaptations of ''Film/SilentHill'' and ''[[Film/AssassinsCreed2016 Assassin's Creed]]'' were ill-received for having ''too much'' plotting. Because of the dense lore of both franchises, their respective movies were criticized for being overly long and plodding, with too much info-dumping and exposition trying to pass as plot and character, and overwhelmed most who were not familiar with their existing canon (the former confused even them by making numerous crucial changes to the plot that rendered a lot of the events and symbolism taken from the games nonsensical). |
| 128 | ** In ''Silent Hill'''s case it's especially hard to get right, since the games, like the best J-Horror are about sublety, nuance and {{Minimalism}}, something that is alienating to most mainstream horror fans and consequently why the films feel to need to use standard horror movie conventions that fly in the face of the orignal games' intentions (e.g Pyramid Head being a Jason-like menace to everyone rather than a personal demon to one character). Another example of this is switching Harry from the first game [[GenderLift into a woman]], simply becuase a man running around looking for their child and getting scared is too "feminine" of a role, according to the director. |
| 129 | * Despite talks of a ''Franchise/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' film adaptation having occurred for many years since the game was first released, it ultimately took until 2023 for such an adaptation to finally get out of stasis. Scott Cawthon posted on Reddit in the interim revealing that a key reason behind the long wait was because many scripts for the movie were scrapped and rewritten. Most of the scrapped scripts were scrapped either because they were [=FNAF=] InNameOnly, had serious ContinuityLockout, or were not tonally appropriate for a [=FNAF=] adaptation. [=FNAF=]'s story is a lore-dense JigsawPuzzlePlot in AnachronicOrder, which also happens to be filled with MindScrew, SurrealHorror, and BlackComedy, likely playing a part. As a result, ''Film/WillysWonderland'' was the [[SpiritualAdaptation closest thing]] to an [=FNAF=] movie that people would ever get for a while. Ultimately, [[Film/FiveNightsAtFreddys2023 a direct film adaptation of the first game]] was finally released in 2023; and while fans largely liked the film for the faithfully recreated animatronics and the high degree of respect for the lore and fandom, critics largely were unimpressed due to the conspicuously low number of the iconic jump scares commonly associated with the games and the [[HumanFocusedAdaptation overly high focus on Mike Schmidtt and the other human characters]] instead of the iconic animatronics. |
| 130 | * ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' has gotten AdaptationOverdosed, but unfortunately only a handful of works (such as the comics, manga, CG films, books and a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcDjo_uKeF4&ab_channel=ResidenceofEvil commercial]]) are actually accurate to the games, while everything else like the [[LiveActionAdaptation live action adaptations]] take a [[InNameOnly notoriously loose approach]] to the games’ canon. The first hurdle producers reach is that RE’s story, much like ''VideoGame/MetalGear'', is quite impenetrable with a plot somewhere between ''Series/TheXFiles'' and ''Franchise/GIJoe'' and thus creators find it much easier to just take elements from the games (like the zombies, monsters and the Umbrella corporation) and make a new story with a CanonForeigner hero, as was the case with the Creator/PaulWSAnderson ''Film/ResidentEvilFilmSeries'' and ''Series/ResidentEvil2022''. If characters from the game do show up, they’re DemotedToExtra, unrecognisable, or killed off as characters in horror media generally aren’t expected to live long. ''Film/ResidentEvilWelcomeToRaccoonCity'' does at least attempt to adapt the games, but like the ''Silent Hill'' films make crucial changes to the characters and the story. In particular, it mashes the plots of the first and second games together, which are better suited as separate, since it cuts into the pacing and leaves multiple characters without room to grow. Tragically, the father of zombies Creator/GeorgeARomero pitched a movie script for '' [=RE1=]'' that was fairly faithful (besides Chris not being a S.T.A.R.S member and Barry being black) but it got rejected by Creator/{{Capcom}}. |
| 131 | ** One of the biggest issues with adapting the games is the scale of the ZombieApocalypse. In the games thanks to the heroes and the government, outbreaks never actually escalate beyond a city or country and after a while zombies themselves get shifted out for other exotic bio-horrors. ''Film/ResidentEvilFilmSeries'' and ''Series/ResidentEvil2022'', however, simply can't resist using the popular and standard AfterTheEnd zombie setting that most audiences are used to -- which, while serving the threat well, ultimately makes the efforts of the protagonists for nought, the exact opposite of what occurs in the games. Zombies themselves are also so popular that the live action adaptations only make half-hearted attempts to include other monsters from games. |
| 132 | ** Another big issue with adapting ''RE'' is getting the tone right, as most of the games go for a {{Camp}} B-Movie tone mixed with actual scary SurvivalHorror elements (like ''Film/EvilDead2)'', and finding that balance is very difficult, with a lot of adaptations just back sliding into action. Also, the idea of actually following narrative themes and tone of the games when came to video game adaptations were often scoffed at, prior to works like ''WesternAnimation/Castlevania2017'' and ''Series/TheLastOfUs2023''. |
| 133 | * Various attempts to adapt the ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' series to either film or TV have wound up in DevelopmentHell, likely due to the games being told from a first-person perspective with a nameless, faceless protagonist and a focus on exploration and puzzles rather than action and violence. |
| 134 | * A ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'' movie has bounced in and out of DevelopmentHell for years due to the fact that, well, it's a simple shape-stacking puzzle game with exactly zero narrative potential. Larry Kasenoff, the producer of ''Film/MortalKombatTheMovie'' and the director/producer of the infamous ''WesternAnimation/FoodFight'', had the rights for a while and expressed a plan for an "epic science fiction trilogy" based on the game... however the hell that would work. Eventually, the rights were picked up by Creator/AppleTVPlus, who decided that rather than directly adapting the game, [[Film/Tetris2023 their movie]] would instead be about the very odd and interesting real life story behind the development of the game. |
| 135 | * ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'' has been in talks for a film adaptation from as early as 2009, but has been stranded in DevelopmentHell with shifting writers and directors for over a decade. The most obvious appeal of ''Shadow of the Colossus'' for a movie adaptation is its highly cinematic battles against various colossal monsters amidst [[SceneryPorn beautiful landscapes]], but the obvious ''caveats'' are that the actual plot of the game is [[{{Minimalism}} supremely minimal]] and deliberately vague on details, with a thematic emphasis on the nature of [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality player-centric morality]] and the slow realization that [[YouBastard you, the player, are creating a tragedy by slaying the Colossi]], something that would be tricky to convert into a typical Hollywood film structure while remaining faithful to minimalist spirit of the game. A leaked draft of the screenplay (written by Justin Marks, whose sole prior film credit was ''Film/StreetFighterTheLegendOfChunLi'') attempted to rectify this by [[AdaptationExpansion giving much vaster attention on the backgrounds and motivations of its characters]] and [[CompressedAdaptation deemphasizing the Colossi battles]] (from sixteen to eight, and three of them are taken out in a single montage), but this was widely criticized as being an InNameOnly butchering of the game, setting up a bad precedent for the direction the movie could very well end up taking. |
| 136 | * Despite a devoted fanbase, resonant themes, and the potential for gorgeous visuals, a faithful adaptation of ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' to a non-interactive medium would be exceedingly difficult. The story is intimately tied to video game mechanics as SaveScumming is a recognized in-universe phenomenon. The StoryBranching also poses a problem since an adaptation would necessarily excise important material included in the branches that aren't adapted. Most pointedly though, much of the emotional torque of the original game relies on the PlayerPunch to end all player punches, which would be difficult to pull off in a non-interactive medium where the audience is not responsible for the actions of the characters: [[spoiler: the entire game is a Deconstruction of the SociopathicHero tendencies of many [[RolePlayingGame Role-Playing Games]], a genre in which executing enemies in combat is expected and unremarkable, while in [[StealthPun another medium]] it would be harder for the audience to sympathize with Frisk slaughtering RandomEncounters, if the creators wanted to adapt the Genocide Route]]. |
| 137 | * This trope is the reason why all attempts to make a ''VideoGame/CrazyTaxi'' movie never got off the ground. While there are characters, there's basically nothing in terms of plot besides "drive around like a maniac, gain as much cash as possible, and listen to punk music." This works for an arcade game, where the appeal comes from the thrilling gameplay and getting a high score. It's a textbook case of NoPlotNoProblem Trying to make a narrative out of a game like ''Crazy Taxi'' is the equivalent of drawing blood from a stone. Even one of the stated reasons why the project got canceled was an "absence of plot elements." |
| 138 | * When ''Anime/BlazBlueAlterMemory'' released to a middling reception, this was one of the complaints leveled at it. The ''Franchise/BlazBlue'' series just has too much going on, being a massive FantasyKitchenSink with a large cast of characters that have stories that tie in to each other and the lore of the series. The plot is also [[KudzuPlot extremely dense,]] with elements of a GroundhogDayLoop, TimeyWimeyBall, ''and'' JigsawPuzzlePlot. It's a lot to get through, but the games are able to take their time by giving each character their own story path to explain what's going on. ''Alter Memory'' tried to compress [[VideoGame/BlazBlueCalamityTrigger the first title]] and [[VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift the second title]] into a 12 episode anime, and it far from enough to get the story across. It's telling that most other adaptions (such as the manga or drama [=CDs=]) of ''[=BlazBlue=]'' didn't bother for a straight retelling of the story from the games, instead focusing on other characters or parts of the story that the games didn't cover. |
| 139 | [[/folder]] |
| 140 | |
| 141 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 142 | * On top of struggling with the usual hurdles of adapting the Visual Novel medium, ''VisualNovel/DiesIrae'' has a few more factors further complicating things. In addition to the routes needing to be read in a specific order due to the EternalRecurrence plot going on, it has the added hurdle of the novels [[DoorStopper sheer length]] which means it would require a lot of episodes to cover everything. Even ''Fate'' barely scraped by with its 24 episodes for just one of its routes which of course means that the ''Dies Irae'' anime's episode count of 17 was far from enough.\ |
| 143 | But further making things more difficult is that, due to the power scale of the verse, it uses a lot of fairly flowery language to describe abstract concepts and ideas that would be extremely difficult to portray on screen in contrast to the written format. Add in all of the both internal monologues and philosophical musings by the characters that is essential to understanding them and their motivations on top of all this and it is no surprise that any attempt at an adaptation will be fighting an uphill battle. |
| 144 | * ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', while one of the more successful [=VN=]s in terms of adaptations, has a number of elements that are very hard to preserve in other media. Most of these relate to it not only having multiple [[{{Doorstopper}} very long]] routes (each one is about ⅔ the length of ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''), but requiring them to be played through in [[TheThreeFacesOfAdam a specific order]]. |
| 145 | ** The first route, ''Fate'', takes the time to put all its cards on the table for the player's sake, and demonstrates how the central conflict is intended to play out. This makes it pretty straightforward to adapt since all the exposition is already there-- in fact the first anime adaption came just two years after release, with the only major deviation being the removal of the porn scenes. That said, it is also generally considered the blandest of the three routes, because it explores Shirou's character the least and more or less goes how you'd expect it to go[[note]]While the story does have some dramatic twists, all the important ones are so thoroughly in ItWasHisSled territory that even [[VideoGame/FateGrandOrder later entries in the same franchise]] poke fun at the idea that anyone would be shocked by them[[/note]], which is likely why it tends to fare poorly in adaptations after that initial one. Even that first adaptation [[PragmaticAdaptation threw in scenes or references from the other two routes]] in order to better pace the run-time and give characters OutOfFocus in ''Fate'' more character. |
| 146 | ** The second route, ''Unlimited Blade Works'', has a clear point of divergence that allows the story to focus on certain characters and events that were glossed over or even KilledOffscreen the first time around, but this point is ''before'' more of the exposition happens. [[PlayerCharacter Shirou]] actually complains several times that he has to play catch-up with all the [[TechnoBabble magi-babble]] Tohsaka spits out, but the game knows the player's already familiar with these concepts. This all makes UBW very difficult to adapt to another medium without destroying the pacing with tons of additional exposition, and even the best-regarded attempts are admitted to have some ContinuityLockout. Furthermore, the ''UBW'' route is the most fight heavy, as it focuses on the Servants duking it out more than the others, so it relies on a lot of exposition and detailed breakdowns of the characters abilities, which doesn't flow well outside the confines of a visual novel. |
| 147 | ** The third and final route, ''Heaven's Feel'', was long considered completely un-adaptable. Put simply, the plot is driven by an InUniverse case of OffTheRails and without understanding how things are supposed to go (which is completely skipped, as the player's been shown twice by now), it's next to impossible to see where things go wrong, let alone understand the characters' reactions. Additionally, a third subset of characters are focused on, and take full advantage of two whole routes worth of {{Foreshadowing}}; without it, most of their development teeters back and forth between DiabolusExMachina and AssPull. Finally, the route includes two [[MultipleEndings alternate endings]] ([[ProtagonistJourneyToVillain "Mind of Steel"]] and [[DyingMomentOfAwesome "Sparks Liner High"]]) which are among the most popular scenes in the [=VN=], but impossible to work into the main story. |
| 148 | ** In all routes, Shirou is a FirstPersonSmartass with [[EmptyShell severe psychological issues]] which leave him unable to laugh or smile, and [[ChronicHeroSyndrome compel him to help others]] even when he knows they're just using him; at the same time, he knows he's strange and tries hard to [[ObfuscatingStupidity conceal it from others]]. Whenever the player is given a choice on how Shirou should act, usually picking the more reasonable options will result in him [[TheManyDeathsOfYou dying in bizarre and horrific ways]], with [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption the option that sounds crazy being the only way to progress]]. The story actually encourages you collect as many of these bad endings as possible before moving on to the correct answer, and they often provide {{Foreshadowing}} for later plot developments. None of this is easy to work into the adaptations (which are linear and usually don't include any of Shirou's [[DeadpanSnarker snarky]] narration), resulting in Shirou coming across as far more of TheFool than his [=VN=] counterpart. |
| 149 | * While the anime adaptations of ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' were fairly successful and led to a full-blown CashCowFranchise, the same can not be said for that of its successor, ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry''. The story is massive, features dozens of characters, and heavy post-modernism elements. The anime suffered from being a CompressedAdaptation, with key scenes either being heavily abridged or omitted entirely. This led to the mystery being unsolvable due to important clues not appearing. For comparison, the manga had over 40 volumes while the stage-play has stuck to adapting one episode per 3-hour show. |
| 150 | * While ''VideoGame/EternalFighterZero'''s other source visual novels, ''VisualNovel/{{Air}}'', ''VisualNovel/{{Kanon}}'', and ''VisualNovel/OneKagayakuKisetsuE'' all have anime adaptations, ''MOON'' never got one, and ''One'' only has a couple of [[OriginalVideoAnimation OVAs]] with enough episodes to be counted on one hand. The anime of ''One'' doesn't bother explaining the story or characters to those who haven't played the visual novel, cuts out all iconic scenes of all character routes, and has even less action and tangible conflict than ''Air'' and ''Kanon''. Meanwhile, ''MOON'' has a plot of a HGame and is so dark, disgusting, and graphic that no studio will ever risk making an anime adaptation without [[{{Bowdlerise}} cutting out much of the content]] and therefore making the story incomprehensible. |
| 151 | [[/folder]] |
| 152 | |
| 153 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 154 | * Creator/AndrewHussie has said that ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' was meant to be the sort of story that could only be told on the internet, as it makes extensive use of InfiniteCanvas and multimedia. When asked by a fan how he would hypothetically adapt ''Homestuck'' as a film, Hussie answered that he would throw the plot away entirely, and just write something set in the same universe and that conveyed the same themes as the comic. |
| 155 | [[/folder]] |
| 156 | |
| 157 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 158 | * The [[Film/AeonFlux live-action adaptation]] of ''WesternAnimation/AeonFlux'' is very unpopular with fans of the original cartoon, but the entire format of the show makes it hard to see what the filmmakers really could have done with it. The show has very little plot, not a lot of characterization, and lends itself rather poorly to a feature-length format. That's not to say there was nothing the filmmakers could have done better, but there was a good reason this time due to the continued low quality of live-action adaptations. |
| 159 | * ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' has had two {{Live Action Adaptation}}s, the 2010 film ''Film/TheLastAirbender'' and the 2024 series ''Series/AvatarTheLastAirbender''. While the series was [[ImprovedSecondAttempt slightly better received]] both struggled with the show's concept as the animation was so detailed in the fantasy WorldBuilding that a [[ToughActToFollow live action work had a lot to live up to]]. The focus on both very young characters played by young actors meant the [[DullSurprise performance quality was all over the place]] and the SupernaturalMartialArts had to resort to CoconutSuperpowers to fill in the gaps, with moments of SpecialEffectFailure in the attempt. The animated show also just had more time to flesh out different aspects of the setting, requiring a lot of CompressedAdaptation to make it fit in a different format. |
| 160 | * While it is very possible to build video games around most of the cast from ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'', the same cannot be said for [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Discord]], whose incredibly godlike powers of ShapeShifting and [[RealityWarper reality warping]] that go far beyond the power of most of the other powerful magic users in the setting make him very difficult to feature in a video game. On the one hand, featuring him in a video game as a player character or antagonist would require somehow managing to make the game challenging, yet still winnable, despite his blatant StoryBreakerPower; yet [[AdaptationalWimp lowering his power level]] or [[BroughtDownToNormal even taking his powers away]] (the latter of which has actually happened in the show more than once) to create a manageable challenge defeats the whole purpose of involving TheOmnipotent on either side. Case in point: In ''VideoGame/MegaPony'', all he does as the FinalBoss is pilot a Wily Machine and throw shot-deflecting fireballs. |
| 161 | * An episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' has an InUniverse case of this, in a flashback plot where Homer and Marge are crew members on a film Krusty the Clown is directing based on his favorite sci-fi novel ''The Sands of Space''[[note]](a thinly veiled reference to ''Literature/{{Dune}}'', with a few aspects from ''Film/{{Zardoz}}'' and ''Film/{{Krull}}'')[[/note]] which was stated to be impossible to adapt, with Krusty intent to make it as accurate to the book as possible. |
| 162 | [[/folder]] |
| 163 |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Main / HardToAdaptWork
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
