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So I thought if I posted my Movie-Howl Rant I'd feel less irrationally compelled to rant it whenever someone mentions it, but apparently I just feel irrationally compelled to link them to my Rant post, instead. When I did so in response to a friend's Facebook posting yesterday, she said something that cleared up the whole What Makes an Adaptation of a Book Work For Me issue. And she was just agreeing with me. "We don't love the props, the accessory: we love the PEOPLE, and the IDEAS (maybe values is more appropriate)," is what she said. But it made me see the issue in a new light: it's like Fanfiction.
Why do people write fanfiction? It's not an effort to replicate the PLOT of a story-- what would be the point? It's instead an opportunity to play in that universe, with those characters, to see how they react in new situations. Spend any amount of time glancing at the exploits-- fanfictiony or not-- of any rabid fandom and you'll see the passion directed not at the story, not at the words (except for some soundbite-worthy quotations, juxtaposed in beautiful fonts against pictures OF THE CHARACTERS THEY REFER TO), but by the characters, whom fans refer to as if they were real people-- wondering "What would Katniss think of THAT?" and "I bet Captain Mal is responsible here." It's the worlds and the concepts, the intricacies of Hogsmead and the myriad treats at Honeydukes, the customs and philosophies of the Jedi Order. It isn't about the STORIES so much. The stories have been done.
I admit I'm not much into fanfiction and/or online fandom. I've written a little bit, stories that tickle me enough into writing them, but not of the THIS IS FOR ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE FANDOM THAT I SPEND ALL MY TIME IN sort. But it's okay, I know of which I speak. I'm a FAN. I understand the FEELING behind it, the desire to stay with those people in that universe. I DO feel that way about stories I really love (and even sometimes only love a little bit), even if I don't always want to WRITE my imaginings or care to read other people's.
And really, movie adaptations-- if done properly-- are fanfiction. The non-properly-done ones are the ones where the movie makers don't particularly CARE about the original work, they just want to exploit it-- so you get the ones that have the same name as a book but do whatever the heck they want with the details. But the movie adaptations that WORK for me, work the way fanfiction does-- the movie makers believe in the characters and the universe and they're playing around with that, taking the characters they love and putting them in a visual, usually shorter, movie-shaped format. Sometimes the plot changes, but that's okay. This is why I think Peter Jackson's Middle Earth is a successful adaptation in my eyes (SHUT UP BRIAN YOU'RE WRONG....just anticipating a Facebook comment there). So much care is taken to MAKE that place Middle Earth, and dangit, IT IS. THE REAL MIDDLE EARTH, and you cannot convince me otherwise. The characters are also all true, even if not PERFECTLY right *coughFaramircough*-- the deviations can be attributed to personal interpretation rather than BLATANTLY GIVING A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CHARACTER THE SAME NAME (and, by the way, I am all about Arwen having been further developed --as opposed to changed. If they'd gone with one of their original ideas and turned her into a fighter, THAT would have been a Wrong change. Instead they just SHOWED more of her, in a way that you can completely believe, and that totally worked for me because when I first read the books I was like "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU ARAGORN EOWYN IS TOTALLY AWESOME AND IN LOVE WITH YOU you're gay, aren't you"-- I happened to be unrequitedly in love with a gay guy at the time-- I suppose that "unrequitedly" was redundant-- so by the time Arwen showed up again at the end I was like, "oh, HER? You were holding out for HER? WHAT IS THE POINT?!" but it was okay because Eowyn got THE WAY MORE AWESOME MAN IN THE END ANYWAY, but I'm SAYING, giving Arwen an actual presence FILLED THAT OUT and felt true to the story! Eowyn is still more awesome, but at least I could UNDERSTAND it better). (ALSO, ALSO, I've felt like ranting about this, yay, a place to get it out, but I AM TOTALLY OFFENDED by the amount of hate slung at the new female elf, Tauriel I think? --that they put into the next Hobbit movie in order to have more females in the story. I was indifferent to her, willing to wait and see, but when the first Desolation of Smaug trailer came out I came away with two heartfelt opinions on it: a, on the negative side, WHY THE HECK WAS THERE SO LITTLE OF THE TITLE HOBBIT IN THIS TRAILER you've ruined my planned gazing session; and b, ooh, I like that new elf, she seems Just Right. But then I'd read all these other reactions and people were like "I can handle the other changes but UGH, WHY, that girl elf totally doesn't BELONG" and I'm thinking "Of ALL the changes to complain about, you're harping on about her, I'm sorry, I'm not one of those who plays the Feminist Card much but you are TOTALLY coming across as 'EW, who let this GIRL in our movie!'" Because my impression from the trailer was that she totally fits. She belongs in the Middle Earth I know, in the elven culture. She's a new character added TO the fanfiction, not a blatant alteration of a canon character. THAT MAKES HER ALL RIGHT BY ME). Okay, now that the parenthetical parts of this paragraph have gotten completely out of hand, I'll try to sum it up, somehow-- what I'm saying is Jackson's making fan art, in a much more dramatic but not all that dissimilar way from a fan on YouTube who pieces together clips from a TV series to highlight a particular theme they've picked up on. He's got a huge wonderful world to play in, and he loves it even too much to edit it to a proper movie length.
Also I just right clicked on all the wiggly red lines on my screen in that paragraph and ADDED ALL THOSE TOLKIEN CHARACTERS TO THE DICTIONARY, because COME ON. Fans know their characters belong in the dictionary.
Oh, and about loving the universe of the story: there IS Alternate Universe fanfiction, and there ARE adaptations that can get away with changing the setting of a story, too. In my Howl Rant post, one commenter suggested that the movie's steampunk setting might have further felt UNLIKE THE TRUTH OF THE BOOK, but I didn't mind that. I actually liked the setting. It seemed good for the story. But in order for an Alternate Universe fanfiction to work, it's GOT to be even MORE true to the characters, and the new setting will either run by similar concepts of the original setting, or it will acknowledge that the setting has changed and make those changes part of what they're playing off of. It's all playing "what if?" but it's still confining itself to the OTHER rules of the canon.
The more I thought about it after that post, the more I realized my negative feelings toward the Howl's Moving Castle movie may have had LESS to do with the blatant replacing-of-a-canon-character-with-a-boring-imposter-with-the-same-name, and more with the sense that this WASN'T Diana Wynne Jones fanfiction, after all. I don't know, maybe I should see the movie in Japanese. Maybe I should have seen the Japanese special features. Maybe Miyazaki gushed about Jones in the original special features, but in the English-language special features it was like Diana Wynne Jones didn't exist. And THAT'S not right. That's like somebody posting a fanfic and not acknowledging that it's a fanfic-- not naming the original source, trying to pass off the work as entirely their own.
And that's all I want from an adaptation. I want some sense that the people making it actually read the same book I did. That they did their research. That they're ACTUALLY FANS, like me.
Why do people write fanfiction? It's not an effort to replicate the PLOT of a story-- what would be the point? It's instead an opportunity to play in that universe, with those characters, to see how they react in new situations. Spend any amount of time glancing at the exploits-- fanfictiony or not-- of any rabid fandom and you'll see the passion directed not at the story, not at the words (except for some soundbite-worthy quotations, juxtaposed in beautiful fonts against pictures OF THE CHARACTERS THEY REFER TO), but by the characters, whom fans refer to as if they were real people-- wondering "What would Katniss think of THAT?" and "I bet Captain Mal is responsible here." It's the worlds and the concepts, the intricacies of Hogsmead and the myriad treats at Honeydukes, the customs and philosophies of the Jedi Order. It isn't about the STORIES so much. The stories have been done.
I admit I'm not much into fanfiction and/or online fandom. I've written a little bit, stories that tickle me enough into writing them, but not of the THIS IS FOR ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE FANDOM THAT I SPEND ALL MY TIME IN sort. But it's okay, I know of which I speak. I'm a FAN. I understand the FEELING behind it, the desire to stay with those people in that universe. I DO feel that way about stories I really love (and even sometimes only love a little bit), even if I don't always want to WRITE my imaginings or care to read other people's.
And really, movie adaptations-- if done properly-- are fanfiction. The non-properly-done ones are the ones where the movie makers don't particularly CARE about the original work, they just want to exploit it-- so you get the ones that have the same name as a book but do whatever the heck they want with the details. But the movie adaptations that WORK for me, work the way fanfiction does-- the movie makers believe in the characters and the universe and they're playing around with that, taking the characters they love and putting them in a visual, usually shorter, movie-shaped format. Sometimes the plot changes, but that's okay. This is why I think Peter Jackson's Middle Earth is a successful adaptation in my eyes (SHUT UP BRIAN YOU'RE WRONG....just anticipating a Facebook comment there). So much care is taken to MAKE that place Middle Earth, and dangit, IT IS. THE REAL MIDDLE EARTH, and you cannot convince me otherwise. The characters are also all true, even if not PERFECTLY right *coughFaramircough*-- the deviations can be attributed to personal interpretation rather than BLATANTLY GIVING A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT CHARACTER THE SAME NAME (and, by the way, I am all about Arwen having been further developed --as opposed to changed. If they'd gone with one of their original ideas and turned her into a fighter, THAT would have been a Wrong change. Instead they just SHOWED more of her, in a way that you can completely believe, and that totally worked for me because when I first read the books I was like "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU ARAGORN EOWYN IS TOTALLY AWESOME AND IN LOVE WITH YOU you're gay, aren't you"-- I happened to be unrequitedly in love with a gay guy at the time-- I suppose that "unrequitedly" was redundant-- so by the time Arwen showed up again at the end I was like, "oh, HER? You were holding out for HER? WHAT IS THE POINT?!" but it was okay because Eowyn got THE WAY MORE AWESOME MAN IN THE END ANYWAY, but I'm SAYING, giving Arwen an actual presence FILLED THAT OUT and felt true to the story! Eowyn is still more awesome, but at least I could UNDERSTAND it better). (ALSO, ALSO, I've felt like ranting about this, yay, a place to get it out, but I AM TOTALLY OFFENDED by the amount of hate slung at the new female elf, Tauriel I think? --that they put into the next Hobbit movie in order to have more females in the story. I was indifferent to her, willing to wait and see, but when the first Desolation of Smaug trailer came out I came away with two heartfelt opinions on it: a, on the negative side, WHY THE HECK WAS THERE SO LITTLE OF THE TITLE HOBBIT IN THIS TRAILER you've ruined my planned gazing session; and b, ooh, I like that new elf, she seems Just Right. But then I'd read all these other reactions and people were like "I can handle the other changes but UGH, WHY, that girl elf totally doesn't BELONG" and I'm thinking "Of ALL the changes to complain about, you're harping on about her, I'm sorry, I'm not one of those who plays the Feminist Card much but you are TOTALLY coming across as 'EW, who let this GIRL in our movie!'" Because my impression from the trailer was that she totally fits. She belongs in the Middle Earth I know, in the elven culture. She's a new character added TO the fanfiction, not a blatant alteration of a canon character. THAT MAKES HER ALL RIGHT BY ME). Okay, now that the parenthetical parts of this paragraph have gotten completely out of hand, I'll try to sum it up, somehow-- what I'm saying is Jackson's making fan art, in a much more dramatic but not all that dissimilar way from a fan on YouTube who pieces together clips from a TV series to highlight a particular theme they've picked up on. He's got a huge wonderful world to play in, and he loves it even too much to edit it to a proper movie length.
Also I just right clicked on all the wiggly red lines on my screen in that paragraph and ADDED ALL THOSE TOLKIEN CHARACTERS TO THE DICTIONARY, because COME ON. Fans know their characters belong in the dictionary.
Oh, and about loving the universe of the story: there IS Alternate Universe fanfiction, and there ARE adaptations that can get away with changing the setting of a story, too. In my Howl Rant post, one commenter suggested that the movie's steampunk setting might have further felt UNLIKE THE TRUTH OF THE BOOK, but I didn't mind that. I actually liked the setting. It seemed good for the story. But in order for an Alternate Universe fanfiction to work, it's GOT to be even MORE true to the characters, and the new setting will either run by similar concepts of the original setting, or it will acknowledge that the setting has changed and make those changes part of what they're playing off of. It's all playing "what if?" but it's still confining itself to the OTHER rules of the canon.
The more I thought about it after that post, the more I realized my negative feelings toward the Howl's Moving Castle movie may have had LESS to do with the blatant replacing-of-a-canon-character-with-a-boring-imposter-with-the-same-name, and more with the sense that this WASN'T Diana Wynne Jones fanfiction, after all. I don't know, maybe I should see the movie in Japanese. Maybe I should have seen the Japanese special features. Maybe Miyazaki gushed about Jones in the original special features, but in the English-language special features it was like Diana Wynne Jones didn't exist. And THAT'S not right. That's like somebody posting a fanfic and not acknowledging that it's a fanfic-- not naming the original source, trying to pass off the work as entirely their own.
And that's all I want from an adaptation. I want some sense that the people making it actually read the same book I did. That they did their research. That they're ACTUALLY FANS, like me.
