At writers' group tonight, we got to talking about the news that Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere (multi-book spanning cosmology) is being optioned and put toward film franchises. While this is cool news, it got me thinking about what Hollywood producers are aiming to get out of fantasy franchises. With the undeniable success of Peter Jackson's adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, as well as the country's continued fascination with Game of Thrones, there's obviously a connection to well-rendered fantasy worlds that has mainstream appeal.
I worry, however, that producers are reading the wrong message. For every Lord of the Rings, there are a dozen Eragon or Percy Jackson films. For every Game of Thrones, there's a slew of Legend of the Seeker-type IPs that get out there, flounder, and fade away. What's different? What sets apart some of the tentpole properties from the rest of the herd?
First and foremost, the caliber of the stories has to matter. While I think Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (off of which the TV show Legend of the Seeker is based) is well done, the broadest strokes of the story are fairly familiar fantasy tropes, especially the earlier books. And I don't think that Goodkind can write stories as well as Tolkien or Martin (who, in my opinion, is an incredible author, even if the last two books fumble a little in terms of pushing us toward another watershed moment of the world of Westeros). Neither, for that matter, can Sanderson, though he approaches the whole thing from a different angle (as he does for most things).
Again, that isn't to say that the source material is so poor that the translation to screen was bound to be a failure. I might say that about the insufferable Eragon, but the overall point is that the story has to be something strong enough to survive the adaptation, and not all fantasy novels are that flexible.
The second concept is that the ones that I am most drawn to--and seem to have the widest appeal--are the stories that can rely on ensemble casts. This seems to be particularly true of LotR and GoT, because both allow a branching out of the story, a fracturing of the main "team", as it were, that provides different types of stories.
I've been watching a lot of Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go! the last few months, and part of what continues to pull me in is the fact that the team is so well rounded. An uneven number (five) with different personalities, interests, motivations, and quirks in which no one feels like "the main character". This also happens in Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings. During its strongest moments, The Walking Dead also ran closer to this concept. Part of why (I think) people's interest in TWD is waning comes less from the formula (which doesn't help, of course) and more from the fact that it's become so Rick-centric that the other characters don't get enough screen time for us to care about their gruesome deaths (with a couple notable exceptions).*
Here's the thesis, then: Adapting The Way of Kings because it has, like Westeros and Middle-Earth, a robust, detailed world to explore is the wrong reason to adapt TWoK. A panoply of worthwhile characters who take turns being "the main character" will survive the adaptation from page to screen more readily. And, despite their epic scope, TWoK and Sanderson's Mistborn aren't ensemble pieces. They have, at most, three or four main characters, and in the case of The Way of Kings, two (sometimes three) of them are in the same location much of the time.
Different locales, different people, different views of the world--that is what a fantasy needs for a successful film adaptation. The inwardness that a novel allows can't translate to the screen, so the world's development--something that can be done so thoroughly via a visual medium--becomes a crucial part. Allowing separate areas to work in tandem, despite being far apart, is part of the recipe of success of the overall work. And the best way to create that separation is to create a strong, diverse ensemble.
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* Most everything I'm arguing here can be disproved (or further proved) by additional examples. The Dark Knight was a tightly protagonist-centered piece, and it is one of the best superhero movies of all time. However, look at The Avengers. Who's the main character in that? That's right: The Avengers. But in Age of Ultron, it becomes more Stark-centric, and the wheels fell off. Why wasn't Captain America: Civil War an Avengers movie? Because it actually is about Captain America. He's the focus, and the story functions better that way. Look, Lord of the Rings would never have worked if it had only focused on Frodo without giving time and attention to Sam, Gollum, and the rest of the fractured fellowship. Case in point? The Hobbit films focus so tightly on Bilbo in the early parts of the series that, when he drops out of view during Battle of the Five Armies, the film's tone shifts and we aren't as invested in what's happening--Jackson tried the same trick he'd used before, but there wasn't enough establishing the individual dwarves' stories to make us care as deeply as we did with Bilbo. I also want to point out that I think this is an analysis about fantasy (and comic book) films. I feel like fantastical trappings are what producers think makes LotR and GoT successful, but I disagree that's the point.
I worry, however, that producers are reading the wrong message. For every Lord of the Rings, there are a dozen Eragon or Percy Jackson films. For every Game of Thrones, there's a slew of Legend of the Seeker-type IPs that get out there, flounder, and fade away. What's different? What sets apart some of the tentpole properties from the rest of the herd?
First and foremost, the caliber of the stories has to matter. While I think Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (off of which the TV show Legend of the Seeker is based) is well done, the broadest strokes of the story are fairly familiar fantasy tropes, especially the earlier books. And I don't think that Goodkind can write stories as well as Tolkien or Martin (who, in my opinion, is an incredible author, even if the last two books fumble a little in terms of pushing us toward another watershed moment of the world of Westeros). Neither, for that matter, can Sanderson, though he approaches the whole thing from a different angle (as he does for most things).
Again, that isn't to say that the source material is so poor that the translation to screen was bound to be a failure. I might say that about the insufferable Eragon, but the overall point is that the story has to be something strong enough to survive the adaptation, and not all fantasy novels are that flexible.
The second concept is that the ones that I am most drawn to--and seem to have the widest appeal--are the stories that can rely on ensemble casts. This seems to be particularly true of LotR and GoT, because both allow a branching out of the story, a fracturing of the main "team", as it were, that provides different types of stories.
I've been watching a lot of Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go! the last few months, and part of what continues to pull me in is the fact that the team is so well rounded. An uneven number (five) with different personalities, interests, motivations, and quirks in which no one feels like "the main character". This also happens in Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings. During its strongest moments, The Walking Dead also ran closer to this concept. Part of why (I think) people's interest in TWD is waning comes less from the formula (which doesn't help, of course) and more from the fact that it's become so Rick-centric that the other characters don't get enough screen time for us to care about their gruesome deaths (with a couple notable exceptions).*
Here's the thesis, then: Adapting The Way of Kings because it has, like Westeros and Middle-Earth, a robust, detailed world to explore is the wrong reason to adapt TWoK. A panoply of worthwhile characters who take turns being "the main character" will survive the adaptation from page to screen more readily. And, despite their epic scope, TWoK and Sanderson's Mistborn aren't ensemble pieces. They have, at most, three or four main characters, and in the case of The Way of Kings, two (sometimes three) of them are in the same location much of the time.
Different locales, different people, different views of the world--that is what a fantasy needs for a successful film adaptation. The inwardness that a novel allows can't translate to the screen, so the world's development--something that can be done so thoroughly via a visual medium--becomes a crucial part. Allowing separate areas to work in tandem, despite being far apart, is part of the recipe of success of the overall work. And the best way to create that separation is to create a strong, diverse ensemble.
---
* Most everything I'm arguing here can be disproved (or further proved) by additional examples. The Dark Knight was a tightly protagonist-centered piece, and it is one of the best superhero movies of all time. However, look at The Avengers. Who's the main character in that? That's right: The Avengers. But in Age of Ultron, it becomes more Stark-centric, and the wheels fell off. Why wasn't Captain America: Civil War an Avengers movie? Because it actually is about Captain America. He's the focus, and the story functions better that way. Look, Lord of the Rings would never have worked if it had only focused on Frodo without giving time and attention to Sam, Gollum, and the rest of the fractured fellowship. Case in point? The Hobbit films focus so tightly on Bilbo in the early parts of the series that, when he drops out of view during Battle of the Five Armies, the film's tone shifts and we aren't as invested in what's happening--Jackson tried the same trick he'd used before, but there wasn't enough establishing the individual dwarves' stories to make us care as deeply as we did with Bilbo. I also want to point out that I think this is an analysis about fantasy (and comic book) films. I feel like fantastical trappings are what producers think makes LotR and GoT successful, but I disagree that's the point.
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