veryfuller said:
I just think this is a misunderstanding of adaptation. When a filmmaker adapts a book, poem, song, other movie into a film, they have reasons they want to do it. Most of the time (and with most good adaptations IMO) its not that they want to make a straight retelling. I actually struggle to find many straight-up adaptations that are really great.
I guess this could be explained to general audiences more? But it just seems like maybe you need to adjust your expectations when it comes to adaptations. They often change things to try and make it a better story, or because they connected to certain element and they are highlighting that element, or to make it more efficient, or whatever. And I feel like most people do understand that going in to an adaptation. Which is why most of the time, "the book is better" is a thing you hear afterward.
Yes and no, though. You're quibbling over how much he can change. At some point it's not an adaptation but his own retelling and it's lost in anchored expectations from the original text.
There are adaptations of pride and prejudice, but outside of the really old black and white abomination, they're fairly faithful to the book and you wouldn't ask yourself why things are changed like one can with this movie. They compress time, but the themes are the same or similar. Casting choices don't call into question the world or era of the story, and changes of lesson and reinterpretation aren't introduced, characters are faithful. They know what they are and try to deliver that.
We can also look at Peter Jackson's hobbit which cobbles together additional lore, inserts romance and gory battle scenes and say it's his own work rather than an adaptation. Weaving together multiple works forces choices but not all of them are in service of the original story (elf dwarf romance), and some detract from it (Bilbo misses the entire battle unconscious but Jackson includes it). But he still calls it the hobbit because that's what he's trying to sell, that universe, and he winds up with something far less remembered and revered. My kids have only seen the old cartoon.
So what is this adaptation? Plenty of Nolan fans would see it if he didn't call it the odyssey but followed another warrior home from a battle in this era, take your pick. Explore ptsd, the gods, whatever you want and it's fair game. When you call it the odyssey without saying you're reinterpreting it, or retelling it, you run into these questions. How would people react with a well cast movie that doesn't infringe on fidelity to the tale, but retold with this 'Zeus law' perspective? Probably better, but the ptsd take isn't a great one given how much these warriors boast about killing each other before fighting (read the Iliad if you're curious) and Odysseus' fame for cunning.
His choices say he wants an ancient epic with a different story and characters, but ticket sales require something people know I guess. I think he could pull it off, there's a lot of source material to explore.
Edit: Jackson's LotR movies are great in their own way as adaptations. I love it and the book, both stand above other works on their categories. I'm not 100% out on adaptations.
