LPHA said:
I guess I watch shows differently than a lot of yall. I'm enjoying the hell out of this
I think adaptations have to fall within two distinct bands of deviation from the source material to be universally accepted and successful.
The first band is what you could call, "Inspired by," where everything is wildly different to the point of being almost completely original. Characters, places, names may be used, but storylines are nothing at all like the source. How To Train Your Dragon fits into this category, because if you read the books they're absolutely nothing like the movies or shows. The only similarities are in some of the characters and details.
The second band could be called, "As true as feasible," where everything matches as closely to the source material as possible. LOTR fits into this category, because for the most part it is very true to the books. There are certainly omissions and deviations, but those are mostly deemed acceptable because a movie can't flow or have the same exposition as a book. It's also limited by runtime. Shows have fewer issues, but they're also limited by to split stories into episodic pacing and runtime as well.
Adaptations in between tend to be received poorly, and I guess you could call this, "The Uncanny Valley of adaptations." This is where plot points and characters may be taken from the source material, but there are also major changes to things like characters' personality or motivations or relationships, added/omitted storylines and plot points, or major shifts in tone or theme. These are adaptations where the writers and/or producers are trying to make their version or vision of the original, but it's most often a tone deaf and self-aggrandizing venture that hijacks the original work and/or misses why people liked the original material in first place. The Hobbit and RoP fit here. The Hobbit was the fault of the studio putting undue requirements and timelines on production, which pushed it into the uncanny valley. The need to add a female character and stretch one book into three movies really killed it. RoP faced a lot of the same issues. It had character additions, added themes, and character changes that threw it into the uncanny valley and kind of made it a mess.
This adaptation of HALO seems to fall into the uncanny valley. It draws heavily from the source material for characters and plot, but it's also a huge departure in terms of changes to existing characters, added characters, and added plot points. For a lot of HALO fans, it really misses the mark on what made the original material great. Master Chief is the prime example. In the original material, he's mysterious, stoic, and dedicated to the mission. We don't know a lot about him and he does next to no emotion or attachment, so every tidbit we learn and every minor emotional interaction is more impactful. "I'm here to finish the fight," hits super hard at the end of HALO 2, and, "Wake me when you need me," hits hard at the end of HALO 3 because of this. It's a big part of what makes him so interesting. That's all gone in this adaptation and he's something completely different, much closer to a generic soldier who just happens to be really good at soldiery things.
