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Adaptations Whose Biggest Weakness is their Source Material


vanguard333
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In the past couple decades, we have been getting a lot of adaptations of different media, and a fairly significant number of them have been met with significant criticism from fans for being inferior to their source material; perhaps they were rushed out by a team that was uncaring or didn't understand what people liked about the original, perhaps the original was simply really hard to adapt to other mediums due to something about it, perhaps it was going to be a strong adaptation but it suffered severe meddling or a troubled developed, or any other reason.

This is not a thread about those types of adaptations.

Instead, I wanted to discuss the cases where it's almost the opposite: you saw an adaptation and its source material, and not only did you come away thinking that the adaptation was the better version, but also that the adaptation actively tried to fix that which you didn't like about the original. Basically, the kind of adaptation where, in your opinion, the biggest problem it had was the source material itself.

 

Note: this thread is not an excuse to just rant about a story you did not enjoy; for every example you give about a problem with a specific source material, please also provide what you thought the adaptation(s) did to try to fix it.

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I would say Star Wars, but that horse has been beaten long into an mausoleum. There's that Superman movie where General Zod was well on his way on destroying the Earth and subsequently going on an rampage. Sure, it isn't exactly fair because the original film was an byproduct of it's time and I never actually hated it; but it also felt like that they've missed out on an lot of characterization for Superman, iirc.   

 

I also used to know someone who was going insane over this topic in regards with how an certain serious of video games got an line of comics, some crossovers. He was fucking pissed when I mentioned that I kind of liked the crossover edition, and for not being sufficiently angry enough over an certain scene; however, the game it was an based off didn't really do much with explaining the setting and the 2 comics that I've read took forever for the real fighting to start.

 

As with video game adaptations, I generally stay away from that kind of stuff, nowadays. Aside from most of the Star Wars games, most of the other stuff generally existed as either an cash cow or  something that wasn't doomed by how terrible the source material was.

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3 hours ago, Armchair General said:

I would say Star Wars, but that horse has been beaten long into an mausoleum.

Star Wars is originated as a movie franchise, not a book, video game, nor a TV originated series (The Clone Wars is the first source material TV series into the Star Wars universe). The main source material is the movies. I always do know that those Legends content aren't source materials (even The Prequel Trilogy and The Clone Wars had retconned the Legends stuff). But I definitely do know that The Bad Batch had actually started the major retconning from the Books and Comics from the Disney era like the Kanan Jarrus comics for example. (Even the Ahsoka novels did get retconned from three times by The Clone Wars Season Finale twice and Tales of the Jedi that I don't technically count them as adaptions since Dave Filoni was pretty much want to do his own thing instead of connecting the plot from the books and comics)

I think the only major source material in Star Wars has to be the movies and the TV series post The Clone Wars.

 

I wanted to say might have the weakness from adaptions was: Big Nate on Paramount+ since I did heard that it didn't adapt well from the comics and maybe the main Pokémon anime since that is completely loosely based on the Pokémon games. (Origins and Generations did started the following the source material closely than the main Pokémon anime)

Edited by King Marth 64
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Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 is probably one of my favorite adaptations out there. It was an anime that eventually caught up to the source material it was adapting, so the decision was made to take it in it's own direction and run with it, and I absolutely adore it for that. The ending to 2003 and Conqueror of Shamballa is very bittersweet, but I think it's an ultimately satisfying conclusion for the story that was being told, and it's the ending I prefer the most among versions.

However, 2003 is a unique case in that it's source material was never "bad" or "weak" to begin with (quite the contrary!), and I don't think it was ever held back by the manga aside from the fact that the manga was still being serialized at the time, so there was only so much to work with up to a certain point. Even so, just the fact that I can even question whether or not it's better than the manga and Brotherhood should be a testament to how well done it was.

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  • 1 month later...

I realize now that I never provided an example. I have one: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations (the anime)

This one is an odd example: originally, the anime wasn't presented as an adaptation of the manga; the idea was that, since the manga is a monthly release, both versions would be canon, with the manga being the more skeletal version of events and the anime being the version with more flesh and more time spent on side-characters. That was the idea anyway; it's become increasingly clear that, due to poor planning (and I suspect poor communication), the anime is basically an adaptation of the manga.

I enjoyed the anime initially; the protagonist: Boruto, was easily my least favourite part of the story until the fifth arc (the arc that adapted the movie), but I really liked the side characters and I liked some of the story arcs overall. However, after over 200 episodes and after seeing what the manga is like, it has become clear to me that all the things I liked were either anime-only or things the anime expanded and improved, and all the worst stuff was stuff from the manga that the anime just couldn't fix.

One major example is the death of Kurama; I have no problem with Kurama being killed off, so long as it was done well. The way the manga handled it was extremely bad, and the anime tried desperately to improve it, but there was very little that the anime could do.

After watching a fun anime-only arc focused on Himawari and Kawaki, I gave up on the show, because I saw what was happening in the manga and I just knew there was no way the anime could save it. Over a year's worth of chapters consisting of nothing but poorly-written expository dialogue, mysteries being immediately and anti-climactically resolved in dumb ways through even more bad expository dialogue, and that's it. The leaks of the most recent chapter finally had something happen, and it was somehow even more insulting.

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On 3/16/2023 at 10:43 PM, vanguard333 said:

I realize now that I never provided an example. I have one: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations (the anime)

This one is an odd example: originally, the anime wasn't presented as an adaptation of the manga; the idea was that, since the manga is a monthly release, both versions would be canon, with the manga being the more skeletal version of events and the anime being the version with more flesh and more time spent on side-characters. That was the idea anyway; it's become increasingly clear that, due to poor planning (and I suspect poor communication), the anime is basically an adaptation of the manga.

I enjoyed the anime initially; the protagonist: Boruto, was easily my least favourite part of the story until the fifth arc (the arc that adapted the movie), but I really liked the side characters and I liked some of the story arcs overall. However, after over 200 episodes and after seeing what the manga is like, it has become clear to me that all the things I liked were either anime-only or things the anime expanded and improved, and all the worst stuff was stuff from the manga that the anime just couldn't fix.

One major example is the death of Kurama; I have no problem with Kurama being killed off, so long as it was done well. The way the manga handled it was extremely bad, and the anime tried desperately to improve it, but there was very little that the anime could do.

After watching a fun anime-only arc focused on Himawari and Kawaki, I gave up on the show, because I saw what was happening in the manga and I just knew there was no way the anime could save it. Over a year's worth of chapters consisting of nothing but poorly-written expository dialogue, mysteries being immediately and anti-climactically resolved in dumb ways through even more bad expository dialogue, and that's it. The leaks of the most recent chapter finally had something happen, and it was somehow even more insulting.

Yeah I'd say so. The anime has to bend over backwards to accommodate the ball and chain that is the manga. Most importantly the timeframe. The Boruto manga moving at a snails phase means the anime most constantly keep this in mind, and the anime wasting time by adapting stuff like the Boruto movie rather than focusing on new material isn't exactly helping matters. The manga also had some questionable design choices like keeping the focus on the stupid aliens despite this being a trainwreck Boruto should have distanced itself from.

The manga also introduces a pretty big powerscaling problem. Madara being about a thousand times stronger than anything that came before him was already a gigantic stretch, but now they introduced some random shota robot who's randomly stronger than Naruto, Sasuke, Code and the aliens. With such strong characters being introduced its hard to imagine how characters like Inojin, Iwabe or poor poor Konohamaru could remain relevant. 

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57 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Yeah I'd say so. The anime has to bend over backwards to accommodate the ball and chain that is the manga. Most importantly the timeframe. The Boruto manga moving at a snails phase means the anime most constantly keep this in mind, and the anime wasting time by adapting stuff like the Boruto movie rather than focusing on new material isn't exactly helping matters. The manga also had some questionable design choices like keeping the focus on the stupid aliens despite this being a trainwreck Boruto should have distanced itself from.

The manga also introduces a pretty big powerscaling problem. Madara being about a thousand times stronger than anything that came before him was already a gigantic stretch, but now they introduced some random shota robot who's randomly stronger than Naruto, Sasuke, Code and the aliens. With such strong characters being introduced its hard to imagine how characters like Inojin, Iwabe or poor poor Konohamaru could remain relevant. 

I agree with your overall point in the first paragraph. However, the manga repeating the movie was the far greater waste of time than the anime repeating the movie. At least the anime expanded upon the movie's story and actually made it something resembling good. The anime version of the movie's plot was yet another example of the anime being shackled by having to improve upon its source material: the pre-movie arcs having to recontextualize Naruto not being around as a difficult transition after previously being able to spend the whole day with his kids, the movie arc having to add back in characters and plotlines that were cut from the movie for runtime (namely everything involving Urashiki), having to rewrite the scene where Boruto gets caught cheating to have it actually mean something, and having to add the belated-birthday scene so that the central character arc could actually have some resolution.

By contrast, all the manga added was the scene where Momoshiki places the karma seal on Boruto; something the manga did not need to repeat the entire movie just to show; a simple opening flashback scene would've sufficed.

Wow; I thought I knew everything that was going on in the manga, but I had no idea about the random robot. That sounds terrible. As for how side characters are supposed to remain relevant, therein lies the problem: as far as the manga is concerned, that's not its problem, as the manga doesn't spend any time on Inojin, Iwabe or Konohamaru except when they want Konohamaru to be the latest villain's punching bag for the millionth time. I imagine that, every time the manga pulls out a new villain, the anime writers furiously wonder how they're possibly going to have the side characters stay relevant.

Have you seen the leaks for the newest chapter? It looks like the blue-haired girl that's obsessed with Kawaki pulls a village-wide Book of the End (if you'll pardon the Bleach reference) out of nowhere: basically rewriting history to have swap Kawaki and Boruto's backstories in the minds of everyone in the village. It's ridiculous.

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15 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Wow; I thought I knew everything that was going on in the manga, but I had no idea about the random robot.

Random was a bit of an overstatement on my part. He's one of those two android siblings and an important character, but him coming mostly out of nowhere and for some reason being so much more stronger than anything seen before or since is kinda stupid.

 

16 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Have you seen the leaks for the newest chapter? It looks like the blue-haired girl that's obsessed with Kawaki pulls a village-wide Book of the End (if you'll pardon the Bleach reference) out of nowhere: basically rewriting history to have swap Kawaki and Boruto's backstories in the minds of everyone in the village. It's ridiculous.

I think you might want to spoiler tag that one 😅

I'm mostly open to it. Illusions and brainwashing exists so it being cast on a large scale isn't too odd. Especially if its a purely localized affair. 

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2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Random was a bit of an overstatement on my part. He's one of those two android siblings and an important character, but him coming mostly out of nowhere and for some reason being so much more stronger than anything seen before or since is kinda stupid.

Ah; okay. To be clear, are you referring to the one who causes all damage/thoughts of damage to hit the attacker instead? If so, then I know who you're talking about, and yeah; their powers are stupid.

I think what threw me off was you calling them "androids", which, to me, means "humanoid robot". I think the correct word for those two is "cyborg".

 

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I think you might want to spoiler tag that one 😅

I'm mostly open to it. Illusions and brainwashing exists so it being cast on a large scale isn't too odd. Especially if its a purely localized affair. 

I figured that, since it's a leak (and therefore not official or even guaranteed), it would be fine since it's not a spoiler unless it actually happens.

I suppose. My main problem with it is that Momoshiki said that Boruto's own blue eyes would, "Take everything from [Boruto]", but this would make that Eida's doing.

 

Going back to the anime, is it true that the anime arc where Boruto gets trapped in some weird squid game (the arc after the Kawaki-&-Himawari at the academy arc), revealed the missing 8th Kara Inner... even though all the Inners besides Code were supposed to be dead?

Edited by vanguard333
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18 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Going back to the anime, is it true that the anime arc where Boruto gets trapped in some weird squid game (the arc after the Kawaki-&-Himawari at the academy arc), revealed the missing 8th Kara Inner... even though all the Inners besides Code were supposed to be dead?

Yeah but its actually a kinda decent arc, and the Kara member seems interesting enough

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1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Yeah but its actually a kinda decent arc, and the Kara member seems interesting enough

I see. Thanks for the info. I'm probably still not going to watch that arc, but it's nice to know that that character was "interesting enough".

Anyway, going back to the topic, are there any other examples you can think of for an adaptation whose biggest flaw is its source material?

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I've heard people say this about the first Wonder Woman in a weird way, about how the villain at the end of the story detracted from its overall message about war being a product of mankind's own inward deficiency rather than outside influence. While I haven't given much thought to the truth of that assessment, I think it's more due to the conventions of the film's genre than the source material itself (though the source material helped shape the film genre's conventions, so in the end, it doesn't even matter).

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Everything is an adaptation of my life and my life is the worst source material. The point of everything else is to make something superior to my life. It's always a success.

Edited by Original Alear
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4 hours ago, Original Alear said:

Everything is an adaptation of my life and my life is the worst source material. The point of everything else is to make something superior to my life. It's always a success.

Nah man, 'cause your life didn't inspire the specific story. It's an adaptation of some other dudes' lives.

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