What’s in an Adaptation?

The Walking Dead has aired two episodes as of this post. I wrote earlier how the premiere smashed AMC’s first episode record with 5.3 million initial views. With the second episode keeping up the quality of the first, as well as garnering 4.7 million views, the zombie/ character driven show has been picked up for 13 second season episodes. Looks like AMC has another hit on their hands, and has given me a topic for this week’s article.

Adaptations can be a tricky venture. With the success of X-Men (2000) superhero and comic book movies have become a source of stories to adapt to the big screen. While X-Men isn’t the first superhero movie, or the pinnacle of superhero movies, it did show present day studios that cinema was at a point where superheroes could be shown on screen in realistic fashion.  Once superheroes became popular so too did other comic book genres, as all types of books were turned into films. 

What we seemingly have gotten though are two different types of adaptations; ones that follow a book panel-by-panel and others that don’t, and either of these aren’t necessarily bad or good. Films like Sin City, Scott Pilgrim or Watchmen are essentially the graphic novels in motion, films that do look beautiful, but, at least for me, don’t add anything to what the books had already said. Films that use this panel-by-panel adaptation are generally graphic novels or mini-series’ that are essentially one shot stories. While not everyone who has seen a film like Sin City has read the books, and it can be said that the film merely lets those who wouldn’t read the book in on the story that Frank Millar has told. It can also be argued that the film is a great noir film and can be added to the staple of this genre for future stories to use.

There are films though that don’t adapt a story panel-by-panel that are both good and bad films. Look at The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 3. The Dark Knight uses a number of story elements from a plethora of Batman books to weave its tale, where Spider-Man 3 seems to use only a few elements from its source, almost 40 years of Spider-Man comics. This is not to say that an adaptation’s success is based on its faithfulness to its source material, but it’s what it does with that source material that makes it a success, especially with characters that have such a large source to tell a story. While Spider-Man 3 had three villians to The Dark Knights two, the Dark Knight weaves in the history of each villian together within the film that makes sense to the story, where as Spider-Man 3 throws in various villians at various times, and yes these villians do test Peter, they are each incongruent to the overal plot of the film. Plus Peter goes emo, dances and hits a women, very different from most of the sources that come before it.

The Walking Dead is an adaptation that isn’t based on a panel-by-panel adaptation, but takes an ongoing comic, though one that doesn’t have the age of Batman or Spider-Man’s books, and uses it as a guideline to create a story. The first episodes of a six episode season covers the first two issues of a six issue first arc, but it adds pieces that aren’t in those first two issues, mostly character work. The second episode however starts pulling from different issues, as well as inserting new elements and characters that are new to the series; this allows a new type of tension, one that is familiar to live action shows or films, but not necessarily comic books. The scene in question (spoilers ahead) is when new character T-Dog drops the handcuff key accidently down a drain leaving another new character, Merel, handcuffed to a pipe on the rough as the walkers approach.  This scene is not in the comic, but without seemingly sacrificing characters established in the comic before they are intended, it allows the audience to witness what life has become in this new survivalist world at a pace that differs from the comic.

Adaptations are tricky, and ultimately I believe they should add to the source they are using, not just creating a copy for consumption by consumers. By adding to the source I mean adding something to the overall story, not just the genre. I wonder though, what would Watchmen have been like if it wasn’t a panel-by-panel adaptation, and was allowed to use the graphic novel as a guideline. Maybe that will be part two of this article.