->''"Not everything in a book will work in a movie... I think it's the director's duty to keep what he can use and throw out or change the rest."''
-->-- '''RogerEbert''', ''Questions for the Movie Answer Man''

Sometimes when you're doing a version of a story, the writers are smart enough to know that for whatever reason -- budget, censors, pacing issues, et cetera -- there are things that just aren't going to make it through. So they make the best of a bad situation and explore other aspects of the story. Hopefully, this will put a new and interesting spin on the series. If not, you'll just get AdaptationDecay.

Time is often a factor in this. When you're adapting a 600-page book (or, for that matter, a [[Comicbook/{{Batman}} seventy-year old]] [[Comicbook/{{Superman}} comic series]]) into a [[TheFilmOfTheBook two-hour movie]], something's gotta go.

FanDumb tends to be [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks rabid]] about this kind of change, although the rise of [=DVDs=] and bonus production commentary often include rationalization (or guilt-passing) at this sort of thing.

Various signs of this include:
* CompositeCharacter: Combining character roles (and subsequently enlarging the role of one character) to make a simpler narrative to follow.
* {{Woolseyism}}: Dramatically altering key points but holding to the spirit of the original.
* CueCullen actor: Choosing an actor who may not immediately embody a character in the minds of the fans but who proves to have a brilliant performance in mind.

Contrast with AdaptationDistillation: in a distillation, a complex story is simplified, without much substantive change. In a Pragmatic Adaptation, the story is changed with the shift in medium.
----
!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* The anime of ''{{Death Note}}'' has a bit of this. There are several things left out. However, while nothing too important to the story is omitted, several bits of information that would help explain things a bit better are in the manga. This causes a problem in that the manga is left feeling wordy and droning, while the anime feels abridged in which the characters pull information from nowhere. For example, when Near detects that Mikami is X-Kira, the manga lays out his entire thought process. The anime makes it seem like he just had a lucky guess.
** Some fans of DeathNote are already complaining about changes being made to the last names of the characters in the American upcoming movie. This Troper wants to know exactly how they can avoid this without either a) setting the film in Japan and having it in subtitles, in which case how is it different from the Japanese film?; b) setting the film in Japan and having everyone speak in English, which is ridiculous; c) setting the film in America as intended but straining SuspensionOfDisbelief when you wonder why all the main characters "happen" to be Japanese immigrants. With these options in mind, you can't *not* change the names to standard English ones!
*** There are an absurdly high number of movies that have the [[TranslationConvention actors and actresses speaking English when in-universe they are actually speaking a foreign language.]]
* The anime of ''{{Berserk}}'' certainly toned down much of the series's violence, but is perhaps more well known for emphasizing themes of friendship and ambition -- and [[DownerEnding not in an optimistic way]] -- more than the manga did. This was a compromise with ''Berserk'' 's long supernatural plotline; most of the series is actually a flashback. The changes are usually accepted by fans, seeing as creator Kentarō Miura [[WordOfGod gave his approval]].
* Zoisite of the ''SailorMoon'' anime is a fairly standard [[FlamboyantGay foppish, gay shoujo villain]]. When he was inevitably [[ShesAManInJapan adapted into a woman in the North American dub]], his character became quirky, flamboyant, and actually ''more'' interesting.
** By the same token, Haruka and Michiru's lesbian relationship is glossed over from many dubs, such as the North American dub which changed them to cousins. Amusingly, the dub seemed primarily concerned with modifying only the most blatant comments; the two are still unusually affectionate, if not [[UnfortunateImplications outright unplatonic]].
* In the live-action series ''PrettyGuardianSailorMoon'', numerous alterations to the setting were made to make the show a little more plausible. The talking cats are replaced with talking stuffed toys, a {{toyetic}} decision to rationalize carrying a stuff animal is more likely than an actual cat; the Sailor Senshi themselves look like normal Japanese girls when they're not transformed; and many settings and accessories that were typical of an early 90s teenager are updated to what a modern teenager would be associated with. The plot also dealt more strongly and harshly with the implications of their past lives. Not that it didn't indulge in some of the campy stuff...
** It was also more faithful to the manga. Oh [[FanNickname Shitennou]], I'm looking at you...
*** Of course, the Shitennou WERE pretty {{Flanderized}} here (Jadeite's loyal to Queen Beryl to the point of being in love with her, Nephrite's so impulsive and angry that it makes him a ButtMonkey, Zoisite's more feminine than ever before, and Kunzite's colder and more powerful) but seeing as each trait {{Flanderized}} was pretty much the full extent of their original manga personalities, this isn't really that big a deal.
* The first game in the GalaxyAngelGameVerse was delayed enough that TheAnimeOfTheGame would have to be aired at least a year beforehand. Rather than risk AdaptationDecay with the little information they had, the writers turned ''GalaxyAngel'' into a GagSeries that ''parodied'' Adaptation Decay, using even less source material than they had and stepping up CharacterExaggeration to outrageous limits. It worked. ''GalaxyAngelRune'', on the other hand...
* The ''SuzumiyaHaruhi'' LightNovels' narration are one of the things that people like most about them. UnreliableNarrator Kyon tells us the story in a unique way, but adding the visual media to it destroys this naturally, since you aren't ''told'' what happens anymore. And still, the anime is a very good adaption, maintaining the sarcastic style of Kyon as narrator and/or commentor, despite having a visual medium, even maintaining the occasional narration/speaking ambiguity with strategic camera angles. In fact, some things are downright ''better'' suited for, or improved in the anime, such as the episodes "The Day Of Sagittarius", "The Adventures Of Mikuru Asahina" and "Live Alive".
** Especially Live Alive, where we get [[CrowningMusicOfAwesome God Knows]].
** A good example is how Kyon does not have quotation marks when he talks, so it is ambiguous if he's talking or narrating. You can assume he is narrating for the most part, but sometimes character will ''reply'' to his supposed narration, much to the surprise of the reader. The anime actually manages to ''keep'' this by changing the camera perspective away from Kyon's mouth, so you don't actually see if he is narrating or talking.
*''{{FLCL}}'': The manga adaptation isn't so much a retelling of the story in the anime as it is taking the same premise and characters and telling a completely different story.
* The first ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'' Anime was put into production when only a few chapters of the manga had been released, and the writers had to not only come up with a conclusion based on [[FullmetalAlchemist the existing material]], but make a story that would span about 50 episodes. So, in addition to [[AdaptationExpansion expanding]] on certain scenes from the manga, most of the characters were given wildly different characterizations, and the entire plot was changed. (The original mangaka even encouraged them to do this.) In addition, the tone became much less [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism optimistic]], and the focus became much more about themes like sacrifice and the value of life. The result was an anime that is widely praised by critics, but is [[AdaptationDecay very different from its source]]. Whether or not it's as good as (or better than) the manga is subject to [[BrokenBase much debate]].
** Of course, it must be noted that the mangaka of FMA asked the anime production to be different to the manga, along with approving of them. Try telling the [[{{TheyChangedItNowItSucks}} manga fanbase]] that...
** They also added in characterization earlier in the anime for characters who became important in the manga later... in the manga, [[spoiler: Hughes' death]] didn't feel like a big deal, but when it happened in the anime I was in tears. Also of note, the anime team worked extensively with the mangaka on the ending—what tone should it have, what feeling should the audience leave with—she didn't write any of it, but she had a lot of input.
* ''ExcelSaga'' in manga form is still ongoing and actually has become a lot more serious. The anime on the [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs other hand...]]
** The Mexican dub also toned down Excel's [[GenkiGirl genkiness]] a little bit, because in the Japanese original she screams so much, that American dubber JessicaCalvello ended up ''destroying'' her vocal cords.
* ''{{Persona}} -Trinity Soul-'' supposedly takes place in the same universe as ''Persona 3''. (At least, the presence of Akihiko implies that much.) However, the rules for Persona summoning are drastically changed for pragmatic reasons. In the games, a Persona has to be repeatedly summoned for every skill you use. This works wonderfully for a turned based game, but it would lack the same effect in an animated series. So in Trinity Soul, the "rules" for Personae were changed so that the battles would look more visually engaging. YourMilageMayVary of course, but the reasoning still exists.
** Some of the other changes to the series probably fall more under the AdaptationDecay side of things (statements that are contradictory to the games, such as that adults can't have Personas).
* ''Many'',''many'' things were shortened, or taken out, of the ''HigurashiNoNakuKoroNi'' anime. The manga mostly subverts this,by leaving in most of the details, just shortened since most arcs are two volumes long.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* Most comic book inspired movies are like this, though many fans can't get past TheyChangedItNowItSucks (or whatever it is). Examples:
** [[Film/{{Batman}} The Batman movies]], mainly the 1989 movie (to some ''Batman Returns'') and ''[[DarkKnightTrilogy Batman Begins]]'' and its sequel, ''The Dark Knight'', are generally well received despite making up various plot points (that, in the case of Batman 1989, eventually became {{Fanon}}). [[AdaptationDecay The others]], [[SoBadItsHorrible not]] [[BatmanAndRobin so much]].
** The ''Film/{{Spider-Man}}'' movies, ''Spider-Man 2'' in particular being praised. Not so much ''Spider-Man 3''.
*** One item that certainly caused controversy at first was the change from ILoveNuclearPower to GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke in regards to Spider-Man's SuperHeroOrigin. But the point of doing so was that it was slightly easier to HandWave a scientifically altered spider than a random million-to-one chance of an irradiated spider.
*** Fans also initially balked at Peter having organic webshooters in the movie. The comic book's artificial one's were dropped because the movie didn't have time to believably show Peter inventing them. The comic book version has followed suit (though the artificial ones are still a part of his past.)
*** Writer PeterDavid sometimes likes to remind fans that he first came up with the idea of organic web shooters in Marvel's ''[[{{Comicbook/SpiderMan}} Spider-Man 2099]]'' series.
** The ''[[Film/XMen X-Men]]'' movies, which focus on the human-mutant conflict, greatly simplify the Marvel universe, cutting out the magic powers, scheming alien empires, and the like, and taking place in a continuity separate from the other Marvel films. Several characters who aren't mutants are made into mutants for simplicity's sake, the Phoenix Force is [[spoiler: a destructive aspect of Jean Grey's personality which was [[MindRape psychically repressed]] by Prof. Xavier]], and almost none of the characters are referred to by their "superhero" names except in passing. The films are generally praised for being [[AdaptationDistillation great interpretations]], especially the second movie. The ''third'' movie and ''[[Film/{{Wolverine}} X-Men Origins: Wolverine]]''... well, YourMileageMayVary.
** The ''IronMan'' [[Film/IronMan movie]] was very well received, likely due to almost entirely to being directly produced by {{Marvel}} Studios and Robert Downey Jr.'s brilliant performance. One key change was Obadiah Stane being an old friend of Tony and his father to heighten the sense of villainy and betrayal.
** Say what you will about the ''FantasticFour'' [[Film/FantasticFour movies]], but at least they had a legitimate reason for Johnny and Sue to go out to space.
** The ''{{Watchmen}}'' [[Film/{{Watchmen}} film]] has ''numerous'' changes to the source material, most of them extrapolated from the comic. However, two significant changes ([[spoiler: Dan Dreiberg seeing Rorschach's death and subsequently beating up Ozymandias, and changing some of the dialogue for the ending]]) was most likely done to prevent the audience leaving with a complete and horrible DownerEnding.
*** [[spoiler: YourMileageMayVary. The fascist psycho got killed, the good guy ended up with the lady and the world was saved. Doesn't sound downer to me.]]
**** [[spoiler: So you have absolutely no problem with the leftist emotionless bastard who deliberately gives people cancer as part of a plan to murder ''millions'' of innocent people as long as the "fascist psycho" dies and two characters get married? Oh, I forgot. Veidt is a touchy-feely kinda guy. It's okay that he committed mass murder to prevent . . . a mass murder because he "feels'" every death.]]
*** As for the climax, they decided upon [[spoiler: a device that emulated Dr. Manhattan's energy signature, allowing the world to scapegoat ''him'', rather than the alien squid]]. People are undecided as to which works better ''overall,'' but it's definitely the best they could have done with that ending in film.
** It has been announced that the upcoming ''{{Thor}}'' film will not use the pseudo-Elizabethan English that the character has historically been known for in the comics. This is almost certainly an example of this, but fan outrage has already begun, despite the fact that the comics themselves have already dropped this highly campy element.
*** Since Thor is supposed to be a ''Norse'' god from a ''much, much'' older culture, the Elizabethan English was never appropriate in the first place.
* ''Adaptation'' is this trope on {{MetaFiction}}al [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs steroids]]. In essence, faced with the task of adapting the un-adaptable Susan Orlean novel ''The Orchid Thief'', a nonfiction book which is essentially simply about flowers, screenwriter Charlie Kauffman [[MindScrew instead wrote a script about himself trying to adapt ''The Orchid Thief'', and ending up writing a script about himself trying to adapt the book instead]]. The film features Orlean as a major character, but largely discards the content of the novel. Most viewers seem to think this was a great improvement over the original.
** Pragmatic, or simply hallucigenic...given that [[spoiler: the entire final third of the movie is the punchline to a joke made in the first fifteen minutes.]]
* ''AmericanPsycho'' by necessity had to be streamlined, as most of the excruciatingly detailed murders in the book would not have a hope in hell of being let through by the MPAA (for those who have read the book: the use of the rat in particular).
* The well-known 1980 film, ''The Elephant Man'', while generally held very highly as a good movie, has little to do with the events in the title character's life. However it has earned good standing with most Joseph Merrick aficionados.
* ''{{The Lord of the Rings}}'' movies were an excellent example of this, and indeed makes up a majority of the [[DVDCommentary Director's commentary]].
** At the start of the movie, several years of time in which Frodo has the Ring in the Shire are left out.
** Arwen has a much more active role in the first movie than in the book. This caused some controversy but generally works well.
** One of the most reviled changes in the movie, alterations of Faramir's actions and motivations in ''The Two Towers'', are a result of this. The Shelob scene that provided the cliffhanger in the book doesn't chronologically take place until the battle of Minas Tirith, so something else had to form the climax of the second movie for Frodo and Sam. Further, it was noted that ''every other character'' in the films had what might be generally called an "adverse reaction" to being in the presence of the Ring, and for Faramir to say, "All right, off you go" without a second glance felt off to Jackson and company.
*** Understandably so; even fans of Tolkien, when pushed, have to admit that the original Faramir was basically a GaryStu self-insert. (A less-egregious one than usual, given that he doesn't do much heroic saving of the day, but still undeniably a GaryStu.)
**** An AuthorAvatar ''doesn't'' have to be a GaryStu. Faramir isn't a plot-hogging, character-swooning, god among men like true examples of the trope are. The scene also helped show that Boromir and Faramir were ''not'' NotSoDifferent.
** Just about all adaptations of ''The Lord of the Rings'' omit Tom Bombadil; most people see this as a painless way to save screentime, not to mention that his scenes were much more suited for the books than for movies.
** The Scouring of the Shire was entirely cut out, both because it would have added another hour to the films, but also because it would have ruined the pacing of the end sequence; ring gone, BigBad gone, now let's get to the Where Are They Now-- for twenty minutes in slow motion.
** In a subversion, much of Tolkien's "poetry" actually did remain in the films, though it was often adapted to the point where, instead of being an annoying distraction as in the prose work, songs blend so seamlessly that some viewers think all or most of the songs were excised for the film. For example:
*** "The Road Goes Ever On" is sung by both Bilbo and Gandalf
*** The song Pippin sings to Denethor is adapted from Bilbo's "Walking Song"
*** The first drinking song sung by Merry and Pippin is adapted from one of Tolkien's poems.
*** "All That is Gold Does Not Glitter" is recited by Arwen about Aragorn
*** Not to mention the iterations of "One ring to rule them all", etc. in the Black speech and in English.
** Some of Jackson's additions are rather bizarre, though. He spends time bringing Elves to Helmes Deep as reinforcements, then has them all die in the first part of the battle so that they have no actual impact. The new stuff with Faramir makes sense, but adds at least a half hour to the film when he had to cut original content for time. The theatrical release doesn't even finish off the Uruks, leaving the viewer wondering why they don't just regroup and attack again. Actually, I guess that's the point of the extended cuts, to include as much cut content as possible without worrying about time restraints.
*The ''HarryPotter'' films have some instances of this, depending on the movie and on the director.
** Despite ''{{Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix}}'' being the longest book of the series adapted into the ''shortest'' movie so far, the choices of what and how to cut and add has made it possibly the best film in the series. On the one hand, everything related to the Quidditch B-plot was cut, but partially cutting it instead would have no doubt made things choppy and awkward. A nice touch was also significantly emphasizing Harry's NotSoDifferent fears -- which in the book take the form of fears of being possessed -- and cutting back on the {{Wangst}}.
*** Says you in this troper's opinion the 5th film was one of the worst Harry Potter films yet.
*** One could say that cutting the {{Wangst}} removes the book's emotional strength because a pivotal moment of the fifth book is [[spoiler:when Harry lashes out at Dumbledore, which shows how the relationship between the two is somewhat strained]], a plot point built upon in the sixth and seventh books.
*** You also have to consider that leaving out the [[YourMileageMayVary so-called "wangst"]] leaves Harry a rather flat character.
*** In a minor (for the moment) aversion, they wanted to cut out house-elf Kreacher of ''Order of the Phoenix'' -- JKR herself stepped in and told them to leave him in. It wouldn't have hurt [=OotP=] at all, but would've left giant holes in subsequent films (particularly for ''The Deathly Hallows'').
** A good example from ''[[HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire Goblet of Fire]]'' was how they cut down the book's XanatosRoulette. The plan revolved around chance encounters, backstories, and things we don't know about until the book basically pauses for 100 pages to explain it. Voldemort himself, in the graveyard scene with Harry, spends quite a few pages detailing much of his plan (though even then, there are depths yet to be revealed until we get to Dumbledore and Barty Jr). The movie omitted almost all of that: [[spoiler:the explanation of how Barty escaped Azkaban is ignored, nothing is stated about how Barty assumed the form of Moody, nor the status of Voldemort before Wormtail found him]]. This leaves a few things unexplained, but considering the sheer mass of plot they had to work with, they did a pretty good job.
*** On the other hand, they left in most of the World Cup sequence but cut the actual match, and had the first task for whatever reason ''lengthened'' (and the dragon badly injured or killed), and parts of the Rita Skeeter subplot but cut the resolution to it - so they're not exactly 100% on that movie. Luckily they improved for ''Phoenix''.
*** They also spent an inordinate amount of time upon things which were subplots in the overall progression of the book. The Yule Ball and its lead-up comprised about half a chapter but took up nearly 25 minutes of the 2 hour film, while the lead-up to the second task and the task itself took about 3 chapters, and was condensed to about 5 minutes in the film. I would hardly call that a useful or pragmatic use of time. The worst offender was the resurrection of Voldemort and the encounter in the graveyard, which was given very little time despite it being ''the climax of the novel''.
** In ''{{Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince}}'', they figured out how to work around the non-visual aspect of everyone reading and talking about the attacks by the Death Eaters: they scrapped all the scenes with people reading about loved ones being attacked and/or killed, and created one with Harry being attacked at the Weasleys. It also gave Ginny Weasley a lot more CharacterDevelopment and made her seem like less of a LastMinuteHookup for Harry.
*** The filmmakers also [[spoiler: destroy the Burrow in this scene, which would seem to indicate that there won't be a wedding scene in ''Deathly Hallows.'']]
****Probably not, seeing as how Charlie and Bill don't appear to exist in the movie continuity.
* ''JamesBond'':
** ''{{Goldfinger}}'' is a case where the filmmakers top Ian Fleming himself with a better story than the original book. For instance, they condensed an extended golf game scene to just the critical point where Bond thwarts Goldfinger's cheating. Furthermore, the film changes the book's ridiculous plot to physically steal the gold of Fort Knox (which the movie Bond points out is impossible) which includes poisoning the soldiers through the water system before they can react to such a slow method and using a nuclear bomb to open a door with everyone suicidally close. The movie changes the scheme into a genuinely ingenious plan to have the poison as a gas sprayed from a quick aerial pass over the fort and then Goldfinger's troops raid the fort just long enough to use a high power laser to open the vault building's door to place a nuclear bomb in the main vault. Then the villains get away for the bomb to detonate and whatever gold survives the blast would be radioactive, and thus worthless, for decades while Auric Goldfinger's own gold's value jumps at least tenfold.
*** In a bit of FridgeBrilliance, anyone who scoffs at this new plan working should remember that the Fort personnel were warned about it by Bond and they played along to make it seem to work so they could ambush the invaders.
*** The part about the gold becoming radioactive is stupid, as it would be '''vaporized'''.
**** That would still push the value of his gold up, if the rest was gone.
**** The made a point of mentioning that it was a "dirty bomb" meaning it was designed to release radiation using conventional explosives. However, the plot fails to take into account the likelihood of the plot simply being covered up by the U.S. government. Had it been successful and made public, the resulting economic collapse and skyrocketing inflation would have pretty much negated the gains in the value of Goldfinger's gold because everything would end up costing 10 times more, as well.
* ''CasinoRoyale'' (the straight adaptation starring Daniel Craig, not the David Niven sendup from [[TheSixties the 1960s]]) featured one in the change of the card game from baccarat to poker. While admittedly playing into the fact that Texas Hold 'Em is wildly popular these days, it also allowed a level of psychological warfare between Le Chiffre and Bond during the game that isn't possible in baccarat, and allows the audience to understand what's going on without an explanation (as more people are familiar with poker than baccarat).
* The ''BattleRoyale'' movie is generally considered as good as or better a work than the novel it's based on, by removing most of the more ludicrous political justifications for why a school class would have to fight each other on a deserted island, giving the BigBad a more sympathetic relationship to the class, and generally attempting to focus on fewer characters. The Manga on the other hand is condensed RuleOfCool, to the point where it almost parodies itself.
** On the other hand, they also cut out the backstories and development for several characters, glazed over their deaths, and completely changed some of the characters. No longer is Kiriyama a classmate without emotions [[StopHavingFunGuys who chooses to play to win]] -- he's just some random guy who volunteered for fun. Same with Kawada; no longer a classmate, but a stranger who got pulled back in. YourMileageMayVary.
* Most of the ''{{Transformers}}'' cartoons have HammerSpace to explain the Transformers gaining or losing mass between forms. For [[TransformersFilmSeries the 2007 movie]], director MichaelBay insisted upon avoiding this, which lead to changes such as Optimus Prime being a Peterbilt rather than a more standard tractor-trailer, which would have given him a much smaller robot form, as well as not using the magically-appearing/disappearing trailer (which has also been picked up in ''TransformersAnimated''). Whether you consider this PragmaticAdaptation or [[TheyChangeditNowItSucks outright heresy]] varies from person to person.
** The comet protoforms were created for the first movie partially to work on a FridgeLogic they had with the Transformer spaceships, which is why would robots who can transform into vehicles need a spaceship? The comet protoforms keep the action focused on Earth and not turning the story into ''StarWars.'' In the ExpandedUniverse and ''Revenge Of The Fallen'' they've introduced the Transformer spaceships but continue to downplay their role to focus on the planet-bound story.
** Of course then there is the nature of having humans playing a major role in the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons ''because'' this is a LiveActionAdaptation.
* James Ellroy's books are good examples since the outrageous number of subplots and characters make them pretty much unfilmable (Ellroy has admitted that he does it ''on purpose'').
** The scenarists who made ''LAConfidential'' into a movie were aware of the difficulty, and ended up cutting part of the plot while keeping the complexity of the story, focusing the movie on the evolutions of the three main characters and reorganising scenes from the book (with the climax of the movie being the first scene in the book), making the movie almost a CrowningMomentOfAwesome in itself.
** The scenarist who worked on the adaptation of ''The Black Dahlia'', however, tried to keep every single detail of the book in. [[AdaptationDecay It didn't work that well]].
*The novel of ''Hard Core Logo'' took a "scrapbook" approach (telling the story through character monologues and documents such as journal entries and phone messages) that would have been difficult to convert to film. The movie is a Mockumentary with an UnreliableNarrator. The movie script also added lots of HoYay and substituted a [[spoiler:main character's suicide]] for the rather anticlimactic ending of the book, creating a more emotionally compelling work.
* A particularly good MadeForTVMovie adaptation of ''[[GulliversTravels Gulliver's Travels]]'' does this a ''lot.'' One excellent example is how they handled the {{Aesop}} that people covet immortality without seriously considering just what that might really entail. In the book, this is conveyed through the plight of the Struldbrugs, who have eternal life without eternal youth becoming decrepit and senile for eternity -- and this along with the usual immortal problem of losing everything they knew, and social penalties designed to keep the country from collapsing under the weight of supporting them, or their abusing their immortality in an attempt to gain disproportionate power; however, this is conveyed in a monologue that doesn't translate well to television, so they dropped it and substituted a new scene with the same moral.
* The stage musical version of ''{{Little Shop of Horrors}}'' (itself a [[AdaptationDistillation distilled adaptation]] of an overlong RogerCorman comedy horror) finished with a rave-up ending. The action breaks off when Seymour Krelborn confronts Audrey II, the GreekChorus announces that this scene is being repeated in places up and down the country, and the cast file on and perform the final number -- "Don't Feed the Plants!". The writers knew that this wouldn't work in a feature film, even if it was a musical, and so ditched it and wrote a new final number, "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" against which the final confrontation could play out to its conclusion.
** At first, the writers wrote an even more extravagant ending, also set to "Don't Feed the Plants!" that was already filmed and ready to go. The film's current ending is a result of test audiences rejecting an ending in which [[spoiler: the main character and his innocent girlfriend get eaten alive by Audrey II.]]
* [[TheBourneSeries The Bourne movies]] revitalized the spy thriller genre, making it popular and profitable again, even displacing the books to most. However, it outright discarded significant portions of plot from all three books (especially the last two) - most would argue that this was a straight-up improvement, though.
* In original ''InTheHeatOfTheNight'' novel, Virgil Tibbs is a quiet, deferential African American detective who never seems to lose his temper or ever seem annoyed working in a deep south town even as the racial slurs are thrown at him. For the film version, director Norman Jewison realized that this would never fly in the late 1960s, nor would the star, SidneyPoitier, would want to play this kind of character yet again. So, the film was rewritten with Tibbs being someone who does not hesitate to assert his status to bigoted neanderthals with a hearty "TheyCallMeMisterTibbs!" or instantly striking back at a bigot slapping him, a bold action for an African American hero to do on film at that time.
* The film adaptation of ''ThePrestige'' directed by Christopher Nolan has very little in common with its source material, the lesser known novel by Christopher Priest. The changes are so many, it would be pointless to list them all here, changing everything from the plot to characterization, going so far as to actually leave out ''the main characters'' from the book. Without detracting from the original work, all the changes make for a film far better than your usual adaptation, and despite the wild differences it's obvious the Nolan brothers love the novel and prioritized respecting its spirit and originality instead of the superficial details.
** After the premiere, [[WordOfGod Priest himself]] said that the film was better than anything he'd written.
* The film version of ''TheMask'' differs significantly from the original comic book version in that where the former takes a mostly clean-cut, slapstick approach, the latter is much more violent and dark overall.
* In ''About A Boy'', the ending of the book is centered around Curt Cobain's (the character Elle's favorite musician, and the guilty pleasure of Will) suicide. In the movie, Will's guilty pleasure is changed to hip-hop music, as the novel was written in the early 90s and the movie made nearly a decade later. The end of the movie also focuses on a talent show instead, completely different than the novel version- yet it still plays out rather well.
* There's quite a difference between ''FieldOfDreams'' and the book it's based on, ''Shoeless Joe''. For instance, the movie omits lengthy subplots about Ray's twin brother Richard and an elderly ex-Chicago Cub named Eddie Scissons; and the movie uses fictional writer Terrence Mann as a replacement for [[RealPersonFic J.R. Salinger]] from the book (undoubtedly for various legal reasons). Plus, the movie saves the bit about [[spoiler: Ray's late father joining the team]] as a big reveal for the end, when it actually is revealed pretty early on in the book and is significantly less poignant.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* The ''{{Warcraft}}'' novel ''TidesOfDarkness'' is an adaptation of a RealTimeStrategy with two opposing campaigns with conflicting storylines, consisting mostly of generic "destroy the enemy base/capture an object" missions and scarce on memorable characters at the Alliance side. So the novel took the most memorable and significant parts of the campaigns, forming them into a cohesive narrative, interleaved them with [[EarlyBirdCameo heavy references to later canon]], and "enlisted" the FiveManBand from ''Beyond the Dark Portal'' for the protagonists. Whether it ended up condensing the war too much or not is [[YourMileageMayVary debatable]].

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* The phenomenon of many people preferring the ''TheIncredibleHulk'' TV show to the 2003 big budget [=CG-fest=] movie. While the former removed and simplified elements from the comics original, the latter added whole layers of story that were never there - the "more is less" principle at work. ([[http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Hulk_2003.aspx Agony Booth recap]])
* ''TheDresdenFiles'' TV series replaced the talking skull Bob from the books with a ghost inhabiting said skull so they could have an actor providing a visual component and emotions to the character. The result was well-liked even by those who did not think too much of the series, and the airing of the previously unaired two-hour pilot which did feature Bob as a talking skull showed pretty clearly to everyone why the ghost was a better idea. Of course, the brilliant portrayal of the character by [[EstrogenBrigadeBait Terrance Mann]] helped a lot.
* The ''{{Dexter}}'' novels eventually get a ''lot'' darker and weirder than the first book, with Dexter's "Dark Passenger" turning out to be [[spoiler: a fragment of an ancient god of murder]]. The series maintains the balance of dark humor and creepiness evident in the first book, and keeps things realistic by comparison.
** Most ''Dexter'' fans want to forget that the third book even exists, and the author is reportedly [[spoiler: pretending all the supernatural crap never happened]] in the fourth book. Most of the reviews I've seen tend to agree that the TV series is much stronger and more coherent than the book, with better characterization and development.
** To be fair, [[TheRealCJ This Troper]] found that a MonsterOfTheWeek format with an overarching storyline as portrayed in the Show worked a lot better than the books, because it doesn't seem as jarring to see him murder someone new every week, rather than ever chapter.
* DavidCronenberg's adaptation of the unfilmable ''Naked Lunch'' took story elements from the book and melded them together with parts of William S. Burroughs' biography.
* In the transition from TheSookieStackhouseMysteries book series to {{HBO}}'s ''TrueBlood''; cutting out Sookie's (often {{Wangst}}y) first-person narration and adding in occasional snatches of thoughts Sookie catches made Sookie instantly a more sympathetic protagonist.
* {{MASH}} does this, to the extent that [[AdaptationDisplacement many are unaware that it began as a book]]. This is not surprising, however, seeing as how the original novel from which MASH sprang was horrible; full of hornball {{JerkAss}}es boasting about how much sex they get/how good they are at sex, and more sexism than you can shake a stick at. For example, the ''doctors'' not only know a whore in the local brothel is being forbidden to seek treatment for her epilepsy because the fits she throws make her so popular with the customers, but actually '''approve''' of this state of affairs and regularly vist her themselves. For another, "Trapper" John's nickname stems from an incident that is implied to be borderline rape, and all the other doctors care about is the fact he managed to "get some". It should be noted that one of the two co-writers who created the original novel absolutely ''hated'' the TV series and added several {{Take That}}s to the future novels he wrote (for example, M*A*S*H Mania has Hawkeye commenting on how enjoys going to State University to "kick the shit out of a few liberals), which probably only contributed to the relative obscurity of the novels.

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[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''{{Warhammer 40000}}: DawnOfWar'' was quite well-received for capturing the "grim and dark" feel of its source material. Of course, there are fanatics who claim it was not close enough to the tabletop game and either prefer the earlier title ''Final Liberation'', which followed the system even more closely, or are working on mods that attempt to replicate the tabletop's style.
** Mostly the game mechanics: Space Marines are supposed to be super soldiers... and you can take them down with Guardsmen or Orc ranged fire easily. And the SM build bases, even though they are the equivalent of special forces. In all fairness, they are changing this for DoW 2. We hope.
**Okay, so how is that a PragmaticAdaptation? What elements were changed but generally accepted because they just couldn't stay the way they were originally and were replaced by something interesting?
*** Primarily, the core game mechanics. The rules of the tabletop version just ''don't'' translate well to an RTS, even in loose adaptation. Thus, they didn't even try to do a direct adaptation, and just made a new framework that borrowed elements of the tabletop. Most people agree this worked out well, and led to one of the best 40k games to date. They also tweaked the core army abilities a bit to make things more balanced -- The Imperial Guard from the expansion was hit with this pretty heavily, gaining a lot of perks they don't have in the tabletop, where they're even more of a vehicle-focused army than in ''Dawn of War''.
*** They also changed the functions of many of the special weapons and abilities considerably, as well as the summon process for demons. They also dropped the psyker's "Perils of the Warp" check. Overall, the changes were good; since, although these things tend to work well in slow-paced, turn-based tabletop play; they would be complete game-breakers for an RTS game.
** To be honest even the tabletop rules themselves qualify for this trope as the fluff implies that even 10 or so Marines are more then a match for regular sized army; but that wouldn't make for a particularly fun game if the rules reflected that.
*** The Codexes can be called PragmaticAdaptation from the "real" world battle records within the 40k universe. It's all propaganda, in the end.
* You really can't do ''FateStayNight'' justice by just following the Fate route, but the episode/continuity limits don't really let you do two and tell a coherent story. So they took Fate and add a little UBW to it and came up with something that's pretty good, even if it doesn't match the original in quality.
** They also threw in the odd reference to Heaven's Feel as well- namely [[spoiler:the revelation that Rin and Sakura are sisters.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* Several {{Disney Animated Canon}} movies differ from their sources for this reason.
* Nearly every adaptation of Wolverine in a [[MarvelUniverse Marvel TV series]] tends to focus more on building his characterization (notably ''XMenEvolution'') than on his violent berserker rages, because of {{Media Watchdog}}s and their attitude towards violence in [[AnimationAgeGhetto children's TV.]]
** ''WolverineAndTheXMen'' takes elements of the vast, contradictory mythology surrounding the Pheonix Force that look like they might work well together, and constructs a basically new story out of them. Likewise combining the various {{Bad Future}}s of the comics into one.
*''TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' started as a violent and gory (if satirical) black and white independent ComicBook with an ongoing storyline. ([[spoiler:Shredder dies messily in the very first issue; later his surviving minions feed what is left of him to a colony of worms that take his form and his intelligence. Worm-Shredder destroys the Turtles' and April's home, and nearly kills Leonardo. After a year of healing, Leo heads back to New York, chops off Worm-Shredder's head, and burns him.]]) In the early process of licensing and adaptation, the Turtles developed a litany of catch phrases, color coded costumes, a {{Garfield}}-like food fetish, and an army of ineffective recurring villains; Raphael changed from a sociopathic {{Jerkass}} to "cool but rude", Baxter Stockman was changed from a homicidal black man to a feeble white guy, Splinter's whole backstory was rewritten to avoid the question of death; they abandoned character and plot development for syndication-friendly standalone episodes... and yet it all kind of worked. The 2003 series is a much closer adaptation of the comics (even bearing some traits of AdaptationDistillation); any carry-over from earlier adaptations (such as Michaelangelo's use of lingo from the earlier show) is generally [[LampshadeHanging Lampshade-hung]]. There's still much conflict over which cartoon was actually better -- ratings and profit wise, they did the same.
** In the comics, Splinter is the mutated pet rat of a ninja murdered by Shredder. In the (first) cartoon, Splinter is a human ninja (and rival to Shredder) mutated into a rat. This change feels less like a [[{{Bowdlerise}} bowdlerization]] (even though it is) and more like an AdaptationDistillation. It simplifies Splinter's back story, gives the turtles a more direct tie to ninjas (trained by an actual ninja as opposed to the pet rat of a ninja), and gives scenes between Splinter and Shredder a personal edge. The show even did a good, touching episode where Splinter briefly regained his human form.
* The second animated adaptation of Herge's ''{{Tintin}}'' comic book series often streamlines the original narrative to make the story of each comic book fit into two half-hour episodes by cutting out subplots that don't affect the main plot overall, but otherwise faithfully follows Herge's original plotlines.
*[[http://www.angelfire.com/la3/goldenroad15/episode36.html Frank Maggiore]] commented on a change made to a ''WinxClub'' episode; in the dub, Sky went from being killed (it's [[NeverSayDie never explicitly said as such]], but Flora mentions his lack of pulse at one point) to being [[NeverSayDie put into a deep sleep]] (by having the Trix, who "killed" Sky, explicitly mention this a few times). It seemed to him that it made a lot more sense when Bloom revived Sky; this changed a never-before-seen magical BackFromTheDead ability to a ''Sleeping Beauty''-style awakening that seemed more [[MagicAIsMagicA 'probable']], especially since that these new powers were played as "healing powers" in either version. The kicker? Not only did a normally eyeroll-worthy NeverSayDie edit give some cred to the story, it was made by [[FourKidsEntertainment 4Kids Entertainment]]. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
** That said, they still left in Flora mentioning Sky's lack of pulse, thus confusing the viewers a bit. Also, Bloom's resurrective powers would become a plot point later on.
* The first half of ''{{Superman}}: Doomsday'' runs ''TheDeathOfSuperman'' fairly straight save for the absence of the Justice League, but the second half, based on ''The Reign of the Supermen'', gives us a single replacement Superman, who's a clone like Superboy, but [[CompositeCharacter with elements of both]] the Eradicator (crimefighter with [[WellIntentionedExtremist extreme zero-tolerance policy]]) and the Cyborg (secretly working for a villain), and drops the complex Mongul plot entirely in favour of a straightforward battle of the Superman.
* ''{{Green Lantern}}: First Flight'' literally breezes over Hal Jordan's classic origin story in about 5 minutes to focus on the intergalactic dealings of the GreenLanternCorps. This was partially because of plans for a LiveActionAdaptation of ''Green Lantern'' that would likely go into that origin, but also because of examining much of the same story in ''JusticeLeagueTheNewFrontier'' and they didn't want to rehash his origin with every new DTV.
* The cartoon movie adapted from TheKingAndI was absolutely ridiculous about this.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Theater ]]

* ''{{Wicked}}'', the novel it was based on was about anarchy, cruel dictatorship, persecution, and watching a woman's descent into insanity. The Broadway musical of it changed around the story into being about friendship, shoes, and drama over stolen boyfriends.
** And [[WordofGay extremely]] [[{{Hoyay}} romantic]] [[RomanticTwoGirlFriendship female]] friendships. In the book,it's less noticeable on Elphaba's side,but arguably more noticeable on Glinda's side.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Well Nigh Unclassifiable ]]

* ''[=~The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy~=]''. Starting as a radio show, it has been adapted with various degrees of pragmatism and decay into the (more well-known and certainly well-loved) novel series, the (well-loved) computer game (DouglasAdams said it bears as much resemblance to the original story as ''RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead'' does to ''{{Hamlet}}''), the (pretty-well loved) BBC Series, and the (LoveItOrHateIt) movie... not to mention various and sundry Comic Books, Stage Productions, Sound Recordings and Towels. Of course, since each new adaptation [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_in_versions_of_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy added and removed ideas from the central story]], it is almost nigh-well impossible to say what exactly is meant to be an adaptation of what, or how well its been done. This is probably how DouglasAdams would have wanted it.
** Considering he was directly responsible for most of the differences...
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