On adaptations and dragons

As you are all undoubtedly aware, the Peter-Jackson-directed Tolkien-related orc-genociding movie trilogy for this decade is The Hobbit, which was for many cause of puzzlement and bewilderment, as the novel it is based upon is much shorter than The Lord of the Rings, and hence does not seem to be the kind of story that needs nine hours to fully tell. The way it was stretched in a trilogy became readily apparent as soon as the first movie was shown and subsequently reinforced by second one, and that is by way of adding a lot of made up stuff that was not present in the book. This move has had a lot of fans and purists up in arms, who have regarded all these additions with the suspicion reserved for a filthy hyperactive child who excitedly asks to hold some valuable item. The fear in both cases is that our precious’ pristine original beauty will be dirtied and destroyed by this immature peasant and RUINED FOREVER because it is not handled with the reverence and respect due to holy relics. Rivers of ink and fields of pixels (if pixels are indeed measured by the fieldful) have been written in nerdrage about this subject, and I cannot understand why some people are so upset by the additions.

Alright, I’m lying. I understand perfectly why people are upset, and, when scrutinised closely, it comes down to one of the tritest and oldest clichés in the book: the fear of the unknown. I get it: when you know in advance how every scene is going to play out because you’ve read the source material and suddenly there’s something different, or a character that wasn’t present in the original, or, god forbid, an interpretation of a certain plot point that doesn’t match, there is the potential for a sense of loss and dismay. Additionally, a departure from the established canon can be a risky mistake in terms of the overarching narrative, as a change of even a small element can have a domino effect on the rest of the story, and be ultimately detrimental if it ends up invalidating a plot point that would’ve made sense had the scene been kept as in the original. As proof of this, there have been plenty of adaptations of books which have ended being subpar on the silver screen because of half-baked backstories and extraneous details that were not present in the novel. Just go on any forum to discuss any adaptation ever and you’ll find lots of people who complain how changing even one iota of the original betrays its spirit and intention. While in many cases they can be correct, in that there have been adaptations that are inferior to the source material, the problem is that the changes and additions have not be done well rather than that they have been done at all.

The question, at this point, is what should an adaptation be, and while the prevailing opinion might be “a recreation that is as faithful as possible to the original in a different medium”, I don’t think that that is the best way to approach the subject. Treating the source as the ultimate and perfect authority, essentially making it some sort of dogmatic canon, is rendering it a disservice and needlessly confining it to one interpretation. For starters, different media have different ways of telling a story, and expecting a scene that works in a book to work in the same way in a movie might be outright impossible. Even assuming that it translates perfectly, anything that is not outright stated (and even then, in many cases it still can) lends itself to massive speculation and hole-filling from the viewer or reader: the motive of a certain character, the reason of a certain unlikely friendship, the cause of something unexplained, this and much more can be discussed and analysed. It is as old as time itself: people were trying to figure out which interpretation of minute lines in the Iliad was the correct one for centuries, and have done the same with pretty much anything worth discussing.

But the thing is, even if Homer rose from the dead and explained what was going through his head when he wrote that particular bit, it still wouldn’t be a bad thing to offer an alternative interpretation. The only piece of literary theory that ever stuck with me is the Death of the Author, which states that we must separate the author’s life and circumstances from the story he or she has written, and that the text does not, therefore, have a single “true” explanation. The conception that every work has one theme, one set of symbols, one possible way of being read, that a scene or character or plot point means one thing and one thing only, is perhaps a remnant of school-age literary analysis, where students are made to learn only one interpretation as that is easier to assess and test.

Regardless of origin, this idea can be seen in any backlash against any adaptation that departs from the original; but I feel that an adaptation that adds and changes elements is perhaps the best thing that could happen. I already know that I’ll like the story, because I liked the original; but instead of just being the same thing again, it has new pieces, different ideas, alternate takes that perhaps I hadn’t considered. The original will always be there, and it cannot be sullied or ruined, no matter how much the geeks complain; an adaptation can expand on it, complement it, give it a different look, all in a familiar frame that means I’m going to get more of what I love. Sure, sometimes this is not done in the right way, and the story can be messed up by the additions; but is parroting the original just so we can keep the same traditional scheme and not be frightened by the difference really something we need to enforce for every adaptation?

Ultimately, every change should be judged on its own merit rather than in terms of the distance from the source material. To take the example I’ve begun with, I’ve enjoyed many of the additions in The Hobbit. I like how all the dwarves have a more distinct personality and appearance that was definitely absent in the novel, I like Evangeline Lilly as an action heroine and I like how they gave a proper reason for Gandalf leaving the party so often other than “if he stays with them he’ll just solve all of their problems with magic”. The romantic plot was a bit clumsy and awkward (though I feel it can be satisfactorily concluded in the third chapter), but generally I felt the additions helped the movie. You can disagree and claim every change was detrimental, and you are entitled to your opinion, but you should be asking yourself a question: did you not like them because they made for a worse story, or just because they were changes?