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Originally Posted by Leto Being a Dune fan (both book and movie, but hating with passion the mini - mostly for bad acting and bad directing IMO) I can understand why an adaptation can't be strictly following the novel, or even be loosly based on. What I can't understand is the specific problem Mrs Le Guin brings : the whitening of the characters. Why was it necessary ? From what I read in her article, it's as stupid as if they tried to whitening the cast of "Roots: the next generation" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078678/). |
I agree. The traditional differences between cinema adaptions and their literary sources do not explain some of the changes the producers chose to make. There are always going to be some differences between a book and a film of the same story. They are two different mediums with two different set of tools that are necessary to make the entertainment work. However, when a film adaption chooses to purposefully undercut and/or erase key centeral themes, plots, and thesises for the sole purpose to make the story more marketable, it is not only doing the source a great disservice, but it is even disrespecting the very author they are hoping to profit off of.
"Marketable" has become a curse word for me. I feel that it has become the cowardly way of creating and has somehow been largely accepted in film and television entertainment. In truth, what is or what is not deemed "marketable" in this medium is determined by business people pointing to pie charts of racial demographics of the average Pepsi drinker. "As you can see, most Pepsi drinkers are white; therefore, it is of the best interest of this project to make all the main characters also white."
The mindset of "marketable" isn't necessarily the best policy. Studios need to take a chance with stories that break from their profit profile. When it is followed strictly and exclusively, the story suffers. Don't for a moment think that audiences have an unwavering interest in watered-down entertainment. Disney has suffered huge hits in its profit in films and television in the last decade largely due to having more and more competitors who are willing to flush the prescribed formula down the toilet.
Spongebob Squarepants gathers more viewers than any of Television Disney's cartoon line-up, and
Shrek 2 toppled
Finding Nemo's (a Pixar project back when Disney still believed they could call all the shots) record of the most successful 3D animated film ever. Why? Because
Shrek 2's story was more fresh and hip than what the recycled story that
Finding Nemo had to offer. But I am sure there is a guy curled up in a ball sobbing in a corner of a boardroom while hugging his pie chart somewhere at the moment.
I have the feeling that if the televised
Earthsea overlooked the more artistically devoid aspects of the "marketable" mindset and instead kept truer to the vision of a proved author, the Sci-Fi channel would end up reaping more profit in the long run.