I am forever bitter about Eragon…

  • Squids@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I don’t think we’ve had a single good adaption of an Isaac Asimov story - Foundation the show is very clearly not Foundation the series and I Robot is…not even worth acknowledging and infuriates me because like, if they wanted to do a murder mystery about Asimov’s robots and call into question his “laws”, Caves of Steel is right there and it’s great. I’d love a good adaption of Caves of Steel but nooo lets all adapt the nigh impossible to adapt because it’s dense as all fuck Foundation instead because that’s the story everyone knows.

    Also because you’ve mentioned kids media - How to Train your Dragon. The original series was this fun and interesting world where dragons have existed along humanity since the beginning and were our friends and work animals and the main character was a legitimately weak kid who was more interested in being a biologist and was legitimately pretty good at it, being able to actually talk to them and he had friends and Toothless was this highly entertaining small sassy green thing who was like, the world’s equivalent of a house sparrow. And then DreamWorks took the title and base concept of “dragons and vikings” and threw everything else out for a generic movie with a generic protangonist in a generic fantasy setting. The dragons are now big and scary but the main character goes out to prove that they’re not big and scary and Toothless is now just a giant dumb cat who’s the world’s equivalent of an invisible fire breathing polar bear but it’s ok because Hiccup is special and they replaced the fun gremlin Kamikazi with the generic female love interest character who’s trait is being better than the boys. But because everyone adores it we’re never going to get an actual adaption that actually follows the books are we?

    Also Solaris deserves a good adaption that isn’t actively hostile to anyone who isn’t interested in avant garde Soviet cinema. Stanislav Lem’s one of my favourite authors and because of that fucking film it’s legitimately hard to recomend Solaris the book to people because they’re like “oh I tried watching it and it was really boring and confusing and overly arthouse?”

    Also also I haven’t actually seen them but like, is there any adaption of Wuthering Heights that’s actually like, accurate? Because I’ve read the book and every time I talk to someone who’s only seen the movie or TV adaptions it feels like they’re talking about a completely different story that’s just like, “Austen but kinda deranged” and not the batshit anti-Austen sturm und drang trainwreck that is the actual story (and also they apparently kinda ignore the last third of the book with Cathy 2 and Linton and Hareton?)

  • shartworx@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Wheel of Time is currently getting fanfic-ed into oblivion by the showrunners. I’m watching it anyway to see the characters come alive but some of it hurts.

    • alcedine@discuss.tchncs.de
      1·
      1 year ago

      I gave up halfway through the Shadar Logoth episode (near the beginning of season 1).

      I could overlook the individual annoying little details, such as Lan complaining that his bath’s not hot enough, but the big issue I have is the tone. The books have an air of romantic optimism which, on the screen, ought to play out much more like Lord of the Rings than Game of Thrones. The series just discards that, going modern grimdark grittiness, and as a consequence something essential seems to be lost.

  • FoundTheVegan@kbin.social
    0·
    1 year ago

    World War Z.

    Book: Absolutely brilliant “documentary” from the survivors of a fictional zombie outbreak. Goes deep in to the details of high command and front line soldiers about how their initial assumptions were flawed and the ethical nightmare they were faced on a day to day basis. From wondering if they are killing infected people that could eventually be cured to strategically letting uninfected cities be used as zombie bait giving them time to prepare defenses elsewhere. All told way after the fact when the charcters have benefit of hindsight giving them lots of room to be reminest, express regret and throw shade at each other on why someone ELSES arrogance got people killed. Super funny writing and a nice tide clever book overall.

    Movie: Brad Pitt, playing a non-scientist, runs around and finds the cure for the zombie virus in like two days. Forgettable action movie that does nothing unique or interesting.

    Audiobook: Full voice casted by A list names who absolutely nail it. Faithful to the original text and lightyears ahead of. the movie. IMHO, it’s the best audiobook experince around.