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Subjective
Adaptation Decay
I don't see any Stars and they sure aren't Trekkin.

Mercutio: Will's writing a novelisation of the Lord of the Rings movies?
Mercutio: I'll see if he can put in some catgirls!
Irregular Webcomic #768

"The only thing Out Of Africa owed to the book was an apology."
Barry Norman

The gradual distortion or even disintegration of a world and its characters during its odyssey from original source material to movie to TV movie then to television series then to video game and finally to licensed derivative work. The dramatic equivalent of photocopying a photocopy of a photocopy.

Every step away from the original property involves new input from multiple directions which dilutes and changes the flavor and behavior of the story. When handled well, Adaptation Decay can be minimized, and each generation of the process will remain reasonably faithful to the original. Handled poorly, and the TV series version of a favorite novel will look like a completely different product that just happens to have some of the same names, and subproducts on the "lower" levels may not even have that much resemblance.

Decay is inherent — practically expected — in adaptations between print and other media. Because visual works are typically limited in the amount of runtime, there are many decisions that have to be made about what to cut, and how best to condense what's remaining, that hopefully preserves some semblance to the original work. While it's perfectly possible to squeeze thirty pages of material into a few seconds of video, the audience of a visual work doesn't have the same ability to scrutinize details that their fellow readers had. All it takes is one clumsy decision to remove something that appears to be disposable, yet was integral to the story, for an adaptation to fail in many eyes.

Because of its tendency towards using poorly coordinated pools of writers, its need to economize on sets and locations, the interference of know-nothing network executives determined to get their two cents' worth in, and the limitations of the medium in general, television is particularly prone to egregious Adaptation Decay. One specific type would be the frequent act of relocating a story to the Los Angeles area from wherever else in the United States World it was originally set, simply to make it a bit cheaper to film, regardless of whether or not the local flavor is a vital part of the story.

Another form of Adaptation Decay comes when alterations are made to a story to give it more resemblance to a recent success (which itself might have been an adaptation), a specific form of Follow The Leader that can involve Plot Tumors. As many have commented, the climactic battle in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is relegated to a few paragraphs, since the focus characters were elsewhere at the time, but the movie decides to show it, a choice likely inspired by The Lord Of The Rings' then-recent film adaptation. Western animated features are full of this sort of thinking when it comes to adaptations, as you'll see below (especially sidekicks).

Other typical effects of Adaptation Decay include:

Anime frequently suffer some degree of Adaptation Decay, since many series are based on either manga or video games, which are subject to less censorship than TV shows. One of the most obvious effects is the reduction of explicit sexual acts from a dating sim to mere fanservice in the anime; a very understandable change. However, more egregious examples include dropping or adding characters (both of which happened to Excel Saga) and changing characters' hair colors to allegedly make them more distinguishable (Mahou Sensei Negima, Ranma 1/2, Revolutionary Girl Utena).

Additionally, when an anime series is brought to the United States, it may suffer further decay if it is being translated with an eye toward broadcast markets — Japanese character names will be replaced with Western ones, dialogue may be arbitrarily changed or censored, and entire plotlines may be removed. See Sailor Moon and Yu-Gi-Oh for two of the more prominent examples. Very few American anime license holders "Americanize" their shows in this way these days, however. (With the prominent exception of shows like Beyblade and Yu-Gi-Oh, that are designed primarily to market toys to little kids.)

Sometimes, Adaptation Decay can result in a product that's good in its own right but has little to do with the original source from which it was adapted. (See also Woolseyism.) In fact, many iconic film works are a product of Adaptation Decay from the original literature source. If an attempt is then made to move it closer to the original material, it will usually get grief from fans of the new version, who liked it the way it was, and fans of the old version, who don't think the changes are enough.
Tropes

Distantly related to Sequelitis.

Examples

    open/close all folders 

    From Literature to Movies or Television 

    Comic Books 

    Anime and Manga 

    Video Games to Television and Film 

    Television and Film to Video Games 

    Stage To Screen 

    Video Games to Comic Books 

     From Television to Movies and vice versa 

     Webcomics 

    Fictional treatments of Adaptation Decay 

    Show Within A Show examples