1. No, you're clearly not the only one who doesn't care about accuracy to source material. Otherwise this show wouldn't be so popular. Otherwise, all these comic book movies wouldn't be so ridiculously successful.
2. An a writer myself, and a film and book fan in general, I have to strongly disagree with this idea that "story-tellers have every right to do their own thing with the source material if they want to." First off, the writer of the original story is the story-teller in that instance, NOT the script-writer or director. All they are SUPPOSED to be doing, is adapting that story to the screen. If you ask me, ESPECIALLY when it is a first time adaptation, ala The Shining, you have a responsibility to the book, its author, its fans, and to your audience, to be faithful to the source you're allegedly adapting. If you, as a screen-writer or director, want to tell your own story? Then make up your OWN story. Don't use someone else's work, to piggy-back your ideas and vision onto the screen, cashing in on the name value and fans of the book to do so.
I am well aware that Hollywood, and film in general, has a long sordid history with taking original literary works, and altering them, sometimes almost entirely, when making a film "Adaptation". There times, such as honestly with this show, where the "Adaptation" barely resembles the source material whatsoever. Just using the name and basic concepts, maybe a few character names. That has been done a LOT throughout film history. And I'm saying it shouldn't. I don't buy the notion, especially in this day and age with the filmmaking technologies available, that "you can't do a 100% faithful adaptation of a book to film". That, simply put, is bulls***. For one thing, it's already been done, on the rare occasion. And for another, again, with today's means, there are zero legitimate excuses to deviate, especially wildly, from the source material.
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TheReccher (344)
5 years ago
I never understood the phrases "butchering the source material," or "altering the story." To me, it does nothing but chain the film down and denies it to the right to be what it wants to be. The book is still there, and it's still the same story. Nothing happened to it and no damage is done by the fact that a different version of the tale was told.
And no, I would never say in today's age you can't adapt a book accurately. If that's what a film-maker wants to do, he can. What I'm saying is, you don't need to. I don't think a film has any responsibility to the source material's fans, I think the only responsibility a film-maker has is to owe the audience a great experience. And I think it's unfair to say that a film is piggy-backing on the source material, because sometimes a great story has to wear its lineage on its sleeve, sometimes, a director/writer has to tell his version of a story. Stanley Kubrick committed no crime, because he he made a great goddamn film, and he had to do so by plucking the seeds from an established story, than so be it. A story is as distinct and delineated from its creator as a child is from its father.
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