The #1 Secret to Writing GREAT ADAPTATIONS

Video Written and Recorded by Jag Gill and Nehemiah Jordan

Why do certain adaptations work while others don’t?
Some argue that it’s the removal or addition of characters, scenes, and settings
While others may say that it’s the complete reworking of existing characters and story elements.
But adding, removing, or adjusting content doesn’t necessarily make your adaptation any better or worse.
A literal adaptation of a source material that may be very accurate oftentimes won’t have the same impact on film.

THE GOAL: Take in all user feedback to write the story as close to your vision as possible.

[emmanuelgonzalezcaseira]

Gotta say, while I really liked Tyler on the screen, the presentation of these last videos has gone up by a ton. Nothing wrong with what he did before, it is just that now you are doing a lot more with each video. The results are great!

[blurbseason]

Here a bit late though I like the idea of having characters for the sake of driving the plot forward whilst playing on the overall philosophical conflict of the story! Especially for adaptations and those from books. I’d also like to add that novels are typically written in ways to invoke emotion and get you to create your own image. Movies, however, give us our best interpretation of that image. That’s where I believe there’s a gap as well! Using prose and the interesting words from the book can cluster the image-based movie… and that’s the key… images! How can you visually show the thematic arguments and philosophical conflict by means of expressions, uses of hands and eyes, size of object on screen (depicting importance), camera angle and lighting. There’s many more though these can help the use of the pictures to display your thematic argument like giving more screen time to HOPE when they’re winning and show the lows when the conflict happens! So it’s interesting and just a thought 😂

[cjkalandek]

Using the theme of the source material as a unifying focus is more or less how *Hello Future Me* put it in his video _"The Last Airbender_ is the WORST film ever made. HERE'S WHY".

In that video, he talks about how the reason it failed as an adaptation lied in Shyamalan's method rather than his intention. Because it's like he was genuinely trying to make a faithful adaptation of the show that movie was based on. But the very root of his problem was everything about the movie that was from the show was strictly surface level; it's recognizable but completely devoid of meaning and purpose. In other words, Shyamalan understood these moments were important to the story and the fans, but he didn't understand WHY they were important to begin with.


And that is precisely why I HATE the _Percy Jackson_ movies. They completely failed to understand what the story of the book series was about. At the end of the day, the _Percy Jackson & The Olympians_ book series was a story about the trauma that came from being part of a messy or dysfunctional family; a story that asked you if you were willing to support your folks even if you feel they have wronged you. But in the movies, by having the gods ignore their kids because Zeus passed a law that forbade them from seeing them, it completely changes the story and makes the villain less justified in what he was doing.

[avifor]

Thanks Jag. I love that you're talking about theme a lot. My favorite adaption of all time is A Little Princess (1995). There's a really strong theme in that film. That's what makes it one of my favorite movies of all time. It's fascinating to see how much stronger it was able to get than the book, and the previous movie. Would love to hear your opinion on it. It's such a great theme.

[randomspirit]

Clear, concise, easy to follow. Excellent!

[JacobPatrick]

I like to watch this one at 1.5x speed, and it's GREAT!

[Jettayu]

This is a very good analysis! But I'm curious about one thing...

What if The Rings of Power had a strong thematic argument and the characters had strong philosophical conflicts, making the show a better story and experience, but those two things were completely different from the ones in the original Lord of the Rings trilogy (if The Ring of Power's theme still wasn't about having hope against all odds), could it still be considered a great adaptation?

[ThePianoman]

I have watched many of your videos and am impressed. Have you ever written a screenplay and it got signed or produced? Do you have any credits in any movies that are out in the movie theaters? Thanks.

[lonjohnson]

In short, the tools to make a good story still apply to adaptations.

[Vizible]

It's interesting to see how we're talking about adaptations. Yet Arcane wasn't mentioned or even any animated adaptation because animation somehow are just for kids and not supposed to be included when we're talking about writing drama and human experience. When and what progress the animation industry has to do and achieve to get the same level of respect with live action?

[smepable]

An adapation will always be caught in the expectations of the ones who know the original story. Thus these people will be irritated by any changes. If you want to epxress the same theme, make a completely other movie instead. Or make something that is so different under the same title that no one will have the expectations, like Westworld Series vs the original movie.

[cjpreach]

Want to see a GREAT screen adaptation of a GREAT book? See the BBC mini-series called "Little Dorrit, " by Charles Dickens. Andrew Davies wrote the screenplay. BRILLIANT work! Starring Claire Foy, Matthew Macfadyen and Andy Serkis.

[jboushka]

It would be interesting to see an example with a recent film, maybe #WheretheCrawdadsSing (2022) which is supposed to be book-to-film direct.

[MTCHSMLN]

I have a slight correction I would like to make about the theme of the Lord of the Rings that makes a huge difference in the analysis and I think might problematize your analysis here. I'm no expert, and I'm not trying to say this video isn't worth it or that this is bad advice, but I don't think that your examples align so neatly with your thesis.

The theme of LotR is not the difference between whether one keeps or does not keep hope; rather, it is that where one places one's hope and whether one remains faithful to that hope that determines whether one perseveres or not.

Frodo does not keep hope that he will save Middle Earth or even the Shire: he keeps hope that the shadow will not last forever, and nothing he can accomplish or fail to accomplish will change that. Therefore, all that remains is that he must at all times be faithful to the values passed down to him from the same source of his hope, never ethically compromising or taking shortcuts.

Boromir places his hope in Gondor: not even Gondor as ruled by his father the Steward and maybe one day by himself. Boronir believes that so long as Gondor is strong, all is well with the world. This is how the ring tempts Boromir: the ring could make Gondor powerful enough to at least last through his lifetime, and Sauron capturing the ring would spell certain doom for Gondor. That’s why his greatest despair is not at the thought of his own death, but at failing to protect Gondor and honor it.

Galadriel in RoP puts her faith in strength and cunning, which is why Halbrand is such a perfect tempter for her at this stage: he presents himself as cunning enough to be useful, but neither powerful nor ambitious enough to be threatening; he makes her feel powerful and cunning because she can save him while also using him. This is brilliant if they utilize it in the next season, because hopefully we will see her learn to be more cautious as well as willing to listen to counsel.

Galadriel in the LotR is more mature and less violent/vengeful, but she still places her hope in holding back the shadow by making her own realm into a beacon of light in Middle Earth. She is no longer so naïve as to be tricked into trying to use raw power and might against Sauron, but she still is tempted to think that any resistance to Sauron’s evil must involve her. This is why she played such a pivotal role in the White Council, and the fact that she was almost entirely successful in driving out Sauron from Dol Guldur only makes that lie even more persuasive. Had by some impossible contrivance of fate caused her to have met Bilbo at that time (the end of the Hobbit) and had she recognized what he found in Moria, there’s almost no doubt that she would have insisted on taking it, and nobody would have defied her then, having already defeated Sauron once and having already carried and made such effective use of Nenya for so long (Lothlorien was largely possible because of her and the ring of Adamant). It isn’t until the last moment of choice, when Frodo offers to give her the ring, that she finally sees through the deceit of the enemy and lets go of the false hope of overcoming Sauron and redeeming herself. Instead, she finally resolves to accept the grace of the Valar without merit and sail to Valinor.

I could go on much longer, but I think that this is something that Rings of Power legitimately got right: hope that is founded on any ideya of success or even survival is fragile and ineffective when pitted against elemental forces of evil and hatred (“what good can men do…?”) and can even lead good people to do terrible things in the name of good. Therefore, it is better to have no hope but a fool’s hope than to hope in men, or power, or subtlety.

[RodrickMarsMoon]

Simple: keep everything crucial and that the books fans enjoy and make the less crucial/beloved stuff shorter in the movie/series, and respect the tone of the source material, or at least make it even more serious and intense.

That's why Alita, His Dark Materials and the four japanese live-action adaptations of Death Note are masterpieces while Netflix's Death Note and the Percy Jackson movies are sad garbage.

[gigaman]

I think this video misses the mark on several points, even regarding the very arguments it attempts to make in assessing the two adaptations' quality. The fact that TLOTR was an actual story from which to adapt and TROP was not based off of a story but was instead adapted from footnotes and appendices from the original books sort of pours water on the whole argument that these two adaptions were even starting from similar positions, much less make valid pieces for comparison of this kind. The job the latter team had to do is arguably harder, especially when you consider 1) that they were not allowed to use the well established lore from other sources made by Tolkien and 2) that they had to contend with expectations that have been set up not just from the original works but from the Peter Jackson adaptations that preceded it as well.

The video's central argument rests on the claim that the show "lacks a specific thematic argument" that's in keeping with Tolkien's core theme from the original books (an entirely separate story not at all being adapted here). While it's fair, I think, to have an expectation that the show should at least try to align with the themes of the original work, it's hard to gauge if the show is failing or succeeding in that effort after only one season, especially since, as we know, this show and it's characters are predestined to fail in their efforts and leave the world in a much more precarious place by the end of the series and these character's stories are not done yet. It makes little sense to try and compare the quality of the adaptations with one having a completed story over the course of 3 films and the other having a deliberately incomplete story over the course of only one season.

It feels like this video is willfully uncharitable to the characters of the show even as they hold them to the arguments they are trying to make. The video says that the characters DO NOT fall within the dynamic set for the them (hoping against hope (cat1) vs. Giving up and accepting reality(cat2)) yet in the show there are obvious frames with which to view the main characters that fit almost directly into those dynamics and those philosophies are evidenced in and highlighted by their actions in the series, It just comes off that the video isn't really interested in examining them in a light that challenges the preconceived point the video is trying to make. It's as if the video is arguing that the characters from LOTR didn't constantly shift between those two dynamics as their arcs hit peaks and valleys. Elrond in the show falls into cat2 re: the state of the world and the impending threat on the elves, but also falls into cat1 re: his relationship with Durin and his trust that his friend will come to his aid. This is the inverse of the dynamic Elrond in the movies goes through (as the video points out) that begins with him falling into cat2 re: the nature of man but eventually moving into cat1 as he finds Aragorn's will to be compelling. That the show is attempting to bridge that gap and show us how the characters we know and love from the Peter Jackson films came to be from seemingly oppositional standpoints seems to me to be the whole point of a prequel series.

This also aligns with Galadriel. In this video, the claim is made that Galadriel keeps fighting not because of hope but because of vengeance, is not totally accurate on it's face. In the very first episode it is established that her hope is placed in the idea that her brother's mission (to root out the evil that remains in middle earth) was not abandoned in vain and that there is still purpose in his death. She's determined to find that, even as she is unsure of the form the enemy will take. Although she is motivated by revenge, she has to maintain and hope against all odds that there is something on which to take revenge left in Middle Earth. She clearly falls into cat1 and it's at her lowest where she becomes challenged by this not unlike Frodo in the example the video gives. Galadriel finds the resolve to move forward by convincing herself that Sauron can be thwarted by undermining his plan and creating the rings in a set of 3 rather than 2. Being proven right that evil did remain in middle earth but was ushered on by her very pursuit of it allows her to reassess herself and forge a new hope, that this evil can be thwarted by her being more cautious in how she pursues it.

I think there are plenty of legit criticisms to levy against the show as of now, and those have been brought up ad nauseum online, but the claims brought up in this video just ain't it and feel like a naked attempt to gin up content and clicks.

[RajeshRaj-kjro]

I want to learn writing from the basics can you give me ur email or something to learn 1on1from u?