Adaptation: The Original Lacks the Drama of a Car Chase!

I've just watched two versions of Heidi, the Shirley Temple one and a different one that was darn near three hours (but pretty well put together, and it did better justice by the "ghost in the house" scene than any other I've seen... also, Fraulein Rottenmeir was, for once, a beautiful actress who could easily have been a romantic lead).

In the Shirley Temple one, I was laughing my head off because, among other drastic changes to the plot, they had to include... a car chase.

No, wait. That was after Fraulein Rottenmeir went off the deep end and tried to sell Heidi to the gypsies. And that was after the Grandfather, in trying to locate Heidi, came off as a creepy old man trying to kidnap children and got locked up and busted his way out of prison.

But a car chase. In Heidi. Okay, it was buggies, not automobiles, but still: a car chase.

So what, the original Heidi plot didn't have enough drama for you?

So then we watch this other version, which was, as I said, quite well put together. Came across as clumsy in a few points, and I really didn't like the Klara actress or the way they wrote her, but overall it was a good presentation. They even made Peter's smashing of the wheelchair more like an accident: He kicks it in anger, and it rolls away before he can catch it, which is much more understandable.

And then, at the end, Heidi - child of the Alps, remember this! - she runs and falls off a cliff.

It's the catalyst for Klara to exercise her legs, and for the three of them (Heidi, Klara, and Peter) to make up after an argument they'd had. So I get that much.

But really? Again, the drama of the original storyline isn't enough for you? You had to go and include a Literal Cliffhanger?

I'm sure there's a trope for this and I'm too tired to look for it now, but I was wondering: What examples do you guys have of stories where you know the source material very well, and had a strong reaction to them adding a source of "drama" that seemed out of place in a piece that didn't really need it?

(I had the exact opposite reaction to the film version of Howls Moving Castle, by the way: They sapped all the drama out of the final scene by destroying the threat that the original villain represented. It turned into a "standard" Miyazaki ending, with none of the fire of the original - and coming from a filmmaker that gifted, it's really sad that it ended up that way. But anyway.)

I think it's a Foregone Conclusion that adaptations of books are almost never that good when compared to their source material.

In a slight change of subject, have you seen the Shirley Temple version of A Little Princess? If you haven't, don't.

All that I can think of off-hand is The Lord Of The Rings, whose source material was hardly lacking for drama or conflict. But some of the changes, IMO, did make for a much better movie. In the book, Aragorn is a rather static character, but the movie has him wrestling with his destiny and only really embracing the role of king in the final film. Similarly, Faramir from the books immediately rejected the temptation to take The One Ring to his father, while Faramir in the movies didn't reject said temptation until he'd already taken Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath (and in the DVD bonus materials, Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh outright admit that they did this to pad out Frodo's half of the story); it works, at least in the Extended Cut.

On the other hand, I still can't stand the part of the movie version of The Return of the King where Frodo turns against Sam. That was just unnecessary.

So you're saying Donald Kaufman adapted Heidi?

I do understand that a lot of adaptations fail to live up to the source material. I've come to terms with that.

But this year was the first time I saw - or at least the first time I actually realized - that they could insert a pointless dramatic action sequence into an already dramatic story.

Are these things all over the place and I've just never paid attention? I'm 33. I've seen lots of movies. How has this managed to slip by me?

1. 02 Mort:

Not really. It might be more often the case, but the True Blood TV series and the movies of The Godfather and Battle Royale are improvements on the original novels. Admittedly, the latter might be down to a bad translation, but still, it wasn't as good as the film.

Hmm. on the Battle Royale thing. I loved the first film the first few times I saw it. Then I watched the second one, the one everyone else seems to hate, and that changed like someone flipped a switch inside my skull.

The second one is superior. The things that most folks find pretentious and controversial are just some of the reasons why. And more of the kids survive

Agreed on the Godfather. How Coppola got two and a half good movies out of that one very slim volume is a lesson in good direction and scripting.

edited 9th Mar '12 7:36:06 AM by TamH70

True Blood, as an HBO series of Sookie Stackhouse, cannot possibly be better. If it keeps her narrative voice, it might stand a chance of being nearly as good, though.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is certainly better than the original. So is Dexter. But those are the only two I can think of.

Television is the best visual format for book adaptations, because of the time issue. Sometimes time constraints are a lukewarm excuse for inexplicable cuts - you can identify those by the amount of time they spent on gratuitous pointlessness - but there are other times when time compression is best introduced with a thunderclap and a "LIBER SCRIPTUS PROFERETUR". Particularly if the writer has a different view of the work from the one most of the audience has.

edited 12th Mar '12 8:24:22 AM by Bealocwealm