Pride and Prejudice is hands down Jane Austen's most famous work and Adaptation Overdosed and Re-imagination Overdosed. Every decade or two, The BBC or other TV or film studio goes on a Jane Austen kick and remakes the famous work as a miniseries or film. Pride and Prejudice also gets a lot of Setting Update treatment. There are Bridget Jones books and movies, Bollywood versions, Lost in Austen, or web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.
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Tropes common in various adaptations
- Adaptational Attractiveness: A mild case. While Lizzy is attractive, Jane is supposed to be the prettiest. Precious few adaptations pay any attention. Those that do tend to play with it via
Values Dissonance by making Jane more attractive by the standards of Regency England (which generally stressed a 'classic' form of beauty as inspired by Grecian and Roman art), while making Elizabeth more attractive by modern standards. - Adaptation Personality Change: A lot of adaptations file off the unlikable parts of Mary, making her more sympathetic. While she is a Shrinking Violet in the novel, she's also a Know-Nothing Know-It-All who loves to lecture and moralise.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Mr Collins's characterisation tends to waver between 'sexual predator' (Adaptational Villainy) to 'awkward but sincere'' (much better than he ever is in the book).
- Mrs Bennet will often be portrayed as good-natured despite her vulgar ways.
- Informed Attractiveness: The book is quite clear that Jane is supposed to be the prettiest of the Bennet girls. This is kept in the dialogue of the films, since it's something of a minor plot point, but most adaptations neglect to actually cast Jane as prettier than Elizabeth.note
Film and television adaptations:
- Pride and Prejudice (1940)
- Pride and Prejudice (1995)
- Pride & Prejudice: A Latter-Day Comedy (2003)
- Bride and Prejudice (2004)
- Pride & Prejudice (2005)
- Lost in Austen (2008)
- The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012)
- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)
- Fire Island (2022)
