 Remember the Brad Pitt zombie movie? It's a decent film, nothing really special. It has a standard plot, mostly about some doctor trying to cure the zombie virus. There are a couple of fun action scenes that show stuff like zombies making a mound of bodies to get over walls. The acting is mostly pretty solid, not counting the kids. Considering how it was in development hell for something like 10 years, it's a miracle that it wound up being as watchable as it is. Here's the thing though. It's based on a book, and it's not called the Brad Pitt zombie movie, it's called World War Z. Ever since movies were invented, we've been adapting older stories into film, and I'm sure most of you have seen one and thought that the book was better. The most common reason for this is that aspects of the story were left out or changed. Several of the Harry Potter movies, despite printing money for Warner Bros., leave out major plot points that explain things such as Barty Crouch's backstory and why Aberforth Dumbledore changed his mind to help the heroes. If you hadn't read the books before seeing the movies, then things like that would have been confusing, or just not had the same weight as in the books. Or how about how the Shining is supposed to be about a man going crazy and he seems crazy from the beginning? Kinda takes away from that aspect of the story. Or how about how City of Bones gives away one of the big twists of the series during a brief conversation between two villains. If you lie and tell them they're both your children, you'll break their hearts. Come on, Jared Harris, your dad was Dumbledore. You're better than this. There's a level beyond crappy adaptation, though. One where the story is completely changed and the underlying themes are totally lost. At this point, they turn into a complete betrayal of their source material. There are plenty of examples of this, for now, I'll focus on World War Z. The original book isn't a traditional narrative with a hero and a villain. It's a series of interviews with people from all over the world and all walks of life who participated in a ten-year-long war against the zombies. By the end, humanity has reclaimed most of the world at the cost of billions of lives. But they haven't made a vaccine or a cure or anything, and they still have to deal with outbreaks. They've restructured their societies around the new threat. It's a story all about humanity, our ability to come back from the edge and adapt to our new circumstances. The biggest danger from the zombies is the way they break down social order. The Brad Pitt zombie movie is just about Brad Pitt saving folks from zombies. And I'd like to stress that that's fine, it's just not what Max Brooks wrote about. The very existence of a cure or vaccine at all completely misses the point of the original story. And yes, I know Brad Pitt technically doesn't find one, but close enough. In the book, zombies appear seemingly out of nowhere and the virus spreads through a variety of human failings. It begins in China, where the government suppresses information about the outbreak. Illegal immigration and the black market organ trade takes it to the rest of the world, where people don't want to acknowledge something that completely upends their view of how things work. The average American in particular is too absorbed in their own lives to pay attention to the looming disaster. Then propagandists spread misinformation, backed up by venture capitalists selling fake vaccines and cures. Governments either ignore the issue or use cheap, half-measures to control it, meaning things get worse and soon there are millions of infected in the United States alone. The military tries to show that it's capable of dealing with the threat and stages a large battle in Yonkers, New York. But the leaders are more concerned with looking flashy than finding a proper doctrine for dealing with large swarms of zombies and so they get overrun. Wasting lives and resources. Then there's a massive refugee crisis where everyone flees infected areas, taking up more resources, clogging infrastructure and a lot of times killing each other over things like food. Eventually things are brought under control and humans begin to retake their old territory. Now that they have proper doctrines, the world's militaries can safely take on both large and small groups of zombies with fewer casualties. They're slow and stupid, if you're prepared for them then they really aren't that much of a threat. And while they're still around after the war ends, people have found ways to deal with them. Militias and patrols are set up in most communities, children are educated on the threats, and overall humans simply adapted to their new circumstances. The biggest threat of the zombies is the way they expose weaknesses in our governments and communities. All we can do in response is patch over the weak spots. In the movie, the virus spreads because the zombies are really fast and you turn very quickly after being bitten. Then the world collapses seemingly all at once. There's very little human failing involved in the disaster. Brad Pitt's character, Gary Lane, wasn't in the book either. In fact, I had to look up his name to write this despite watching the movie two days ago. So I can't say that his personality was done differently or anything. At the same time, it's not like having one guy save the day is in line with the original either. The message there was that we all have a part to play, but none of us can do it alone. Every adaptation needs to be judged on two merits, how good of a movie it is on its own, and how well it adapts the original story. And on point number two, World War Z fails so completely that it's kind of impressive. There are other YouTubers who talk about film adaptations of books far better than I could, so I won't go into all the small changes the film made. Here's the thing that a lot of people forget though. Film and writing are separate art forms. What works in one might not work in another. And not just in the sense that movies are shorter so they can't fit in as much content, the structure and language of film is different. For example, let's look at the three act structure. This is a way of structuring a story that is basically divided into the setup, confrontation and resolution. While it's common in books, it's near universal in movies. Those that don't use them properly are generally not very well liked. Look at 2019's Gemini Man for an example. In addition, every act is split into different scenes which might follow one character or jump around between a large cast. By default, every movie is a third person fly on the wall narration style and the only things you know about the character's inner thoughts comes from their actions, mannerisms and dialogue. Whereas books can be third person limited, third person omniscient, first person, even second person in some rare weird cases. So if you're taking something that's written in first person, say Cirque de Freak, or help most young adult books, then it would be difficult to get across certain aspects of the story, such as the protagonist's feelings and views, and easier to get across others, such as what side characters do when the protagonist isn't around. Film is an audio visual medium, something that might sound cool or scary in your imagination could look silly on camera. For example, when HP Lovecraft wrote about impossible geometry or colors that no one had seen before, it sounds unsettling, but once you have to film that, you have to stick to what's possible, and that rarely works out. You can also jump around to different settings and characters without confusing the audience easier than you could in books. And so on and so forth. What I'm getting at is that some things are just impossible to translate from one art form to another. Frankly, I tend to be understanding of changes made in adaptations when it comes to story, since that's the hardest to translate. The ones I'm less forgiving of are changes in character, and more importantly, theme. Let's look at the other stuff I've talked about recently, namely Aragon and Artemis Fowl. As far as adapting the original story, these are both awful. The first Aragon book was basically just a retread of A New Hope, so it should have been a simple story to translate to screen. But when Aragon flees his home, the filmmakers forgot to add a reason for him to flee his home, or even set up a journey for him to go on. Yeah, you ever noticed that? In the book, it's explicit that Aragon is going after the Razak as revenge for killing his uncle, and he only goes to find the Varden after Brahm is killed, and he realizes that trying for revenge is going to get him killed. Then he gets captured and stumbles across Arya, who he then saves. In the film, he's just a hero who knows things and saves people because... Well, he's the hero. This oversight strips the story of purpose and the characters of agency. They're just going through the motions of the hero's journey with no feeling. And by leaving out explanations about things like the Razak, the elves, and Farthander, the world is robbed of any sort of identity. It's not even a generic fantasy world. It just sort of exists. In this case, not following the book cost the movie its soul, which is a big part of why it's so hated by fans of the original. As for Artemis Fowle, well, that one hasn't come out yet, but just look at the trailer. He's the bad guy in the book. He kidnaps a fairy to get ransom money. In the movie, he's some kid who stumbles upon the fairies and stops the evil ones, or something. He might still be a genius in the film, but in the book, he found the fairy world all by himself, cutting through layers of secrecy and chasing tiny clues. When you take that away, you take away arguably the smartest thing Artemis ever does, robbing him of one of his most defining character features. In the books, the fairies lived underground because they wanted to be left alone, and because humans could have wiped them out if they felt inclined. If they're warlike in the film, then why would they bother hiding? Hello? Anyone? And Artemis is a kendo master, for some reason? Feel like that speaks for itself. At least Colin Farrell gets to use his real accent for once. Then there's another weird phenomenon that pops up from time to time, where the movie will be based on a book series, but they'll take a book from the middle of the series. Like the Disney animated movie from the 80s, The Black Cauldron. It's based on the Chronicles of Perdane series, but for some reason the movie started on the second book, and from what I understand, it left out a lot of worldbuilding details that were covered in the first book. The production of the movie was difficult in a lot of ways. But people tend to gloss over the issues with writing the script. The books have a sprawling story with dozens of characters, which would be difficult to fit into a film, so things were cut out or simplified. That makes sense, it's just part of the adaptation process, but when Joel Hale became the producer, he squashed things down even farther than they already were. The Horned King was a minor character in the books, but Hale rolled several other villains into his role to make him the main antagonist. In the end, I would say the movie is more inspired by the books than based on them. And if you're a fan of hilariously bad movies, you might be familiar with the 2017 flop, The Snowman. The Snowman is based on the seventh book in the Harry Hole series. While I haven't read the books, they seem to be pretty standard thriller crime novels. A Norwegian detective goes around solving murders and stuff, and the stories are all somewhat self-contained, so these seem like they would be easy adaptations to make. Even taking an entry from the middle of the series wouldn't be too big a deal, since there isn't much of an overarching plot. They managed to do everything wrong, though. The movie makes a few references to past events and character relationships that the audience gets little explanation for. My only theory as to why they adapted the Snowman story is because they thought it was better than the first book. The thing is, if the filmmakers wanted to use the Snowman serial killer plotline, then they would have to somehow fold all the character introductions into it. A difficult task, but not impossible. Of course, before they could do that, they would have to pave over the plot holes that resulted from 10% of the script, not even being filmed. That's true, by the way. Look it up. This movie failed to be good on its own AND it failed to adapt the original story into a new medium, and I'm not even sure why they decided to go this route. At what point did this seem like a good idea? Did they consult fans of the books? Fans of murder mysteries? Any humans at all? I would love to see a documentary about the making of this movie one day. I want to circle back to the idea that we should keep in mind that sometimes things NEED to be changed to work on the screen, a good example being the way the Hunger Games films cut back on violence. That franchise is aimed at a younger audience and they couldn't have marketed it to them if they kept the same level of blood and gore that was found in the books, nor could they have shown anything that Katniss didn't experience if they did a direct adaptation since the books ARE in first person. Or how Game of Thrones jumps around between storylines more frequently than the books do, so you don't have to wait as long to learn what's happening in your preferred story, or how some superfluous characters were folded into the bigger ones, or how the show actually finished while the books are stuck in limbo. Sometimes adaptations just straight up make the story better. I know they're not popular, but the Maze Runner films took a story that's kind of nonsensical, then added phenomenal action scenes and cast actors with actual charisma to give life to the characters, while also making the story even more nonsensical than it already was. I've defended the books in the past, but the films fixed issues that others had with them, turning them from frustrating examples of young adult gibberish to serviceable action movies. The director, West Ball, even likens the adaptation process to making a new dish with the same ingredients. The point is that sometimes changes can or should be made during the adaptation process. The important part is that the underlying themes and tone are kept intact. Except Dune. If they altered one word of that 600 page tome, I will start a revolution. But what if an adaptation completely changes things because the world has changed? War of the Worlds is a very good book with two major film adaptations, one from the 1950s and one from 2005 with Tom Cruise. Both movies moved the setting from 1890s Great Britain to the United States, one in the 50s and one in the early 21st century. They follow a lot of similar story beats too, with the Martians invading Earth, the most powerful military forces available being unable to stop them, and a main character viewing all of this with horror. They all end the same way as the books, too, with the Martians dying from Earth's bacteria. However, both movies have a different feel to them than the book and for different reasons, mostly due to the small changes made throughout. The 50s one has a higher view of religion than the book, specifically giving God the credit for killing the Martians, whereas in the book, the only representative of religion was a sniveling coward. Hell, the first Martian we see in the movie is literally killed in a church. It's a change that seems odd at first, until you remember when it came out. The US was going through a religious revival at the time, mostly to differentiate themselves from those supposedly godless commies. Then there's the 2005 version, which has the aliens just pop up one day and start wrecking shit, as opposed to the extended process of them landing and being dismissed by most people as an unthreatening curiosity. They were wrong, obviously, but that's how the book did it. The arrogance of the humans is missed here, but the fear of random violence that Americans felt in the aftermath of 9-11 comes through. Sort of. You have to squint to see it. What both of these movies missed is that the original book was a metaphor for imperialism. Think about it, creatures from a mysterious, far-off lands that we know little about and have incomprehensible technology come in and start killing us to take our resources, and they land in England, the heart of the biggest colonial empire of the time. It's not exactly subtle. Since modern imperialism is very different, War of the Worlds probably wouldn't translate well as a criticism of modern superpowers. They could still criticize 19th century imperialism, but then they'd probably have to set it in the past, which might alienate modern audiences and, frankly, it would be preaching to the choir. The changes here make sense when all of this is taken into account, but these adaptations have a bit of a hollow feeling to them. They're fine movies that you forget about an hour after you finish. They haven't taken the heart and soul out of the story, they've just taken one of its lungs, so it can't run marathons like it used to. That was a weird metaphor. Let's go back to World War Z. World War Z is an insult to fans of the original story because it removes the heart, soul, and lungs, then revives its corpse with necromancy to make a thrall that'll be obedient to the whims of focus group testing. There's almost nothing here that made the fans love the book. Some decent action scenes and solid acting won't make up for that. What makes it even worse is that the very existence of the Brad Pitt zombie movie means we'll never get a proper big-budget World War Z adaptation. If someone wants to make a proper adaptation of Artemis Fowle or The Hobbit or Percy Jackson, they can't because the film rights are owned by Lionsgate or Universal or Disney or some other studio. Wait, Percy Jackson is getting a show? Oh fuck yeah, do it right this time. That's where the pain comes from. From having your hopes raised by the possibility of a proper adaptation, then having those hopes dashed forever. Or dashed for 36 years in the case of Dune. Either way, it feels as though the thing you loved was irreparably damaged by those in charge of the adaptation. I know this last bit is a cliche, but it needs to be said. Even if the adaptation is bad, you still have the original to go back to. That hasn't been taken away or damaged. Not yet anyways. And we should always keep in mind that different types of media require changes by necessity. You can be disappointed or upset, just keep in mind that the big emotions matter more than the small details. Thanks to my patrons who voted for this topic, including Appo Savilainen, Brother Santotis, Christopher Hawkins, Christopher Quinten, Emily Miller, Joel, Joseph Pendergraft, Madison Lewis Bennett, Taylor Briggs, Tobacco Crow, and Vaivictus, as well as the other names you see here. If you want the chance to vote on topics, get your name up here and get early access to my content, then consider donating. If you can't, or won't, then simply liking this video and subscribing to my channel helps to keep me afloat in these difficult times. See you the next time I give a long-winded speech. Bye.