#really I ought to start a reading tag that isn't book-specific

[cool-as-steel]

in subjects unrelated to any movies I may or may not have very recently watched, I've decided to actually read all the way through dylan meconis's 'family man' (first attempt at it ~7 years ago didn't go that well) and I'm thus far intrigued to report that in the intervening years I have become the kind of person who really likes a lot of what is going on in that comic thus far.

[trans-elrond]

im not tagging this because this isn't a criticism of the show per se (ok maybe a little) but primarily of fans' attitudes........... but the thing that reeaaaally gets my goat (lol!) about the pj&o adaptation (and other book to show/film adaptations of popular fandom material, do NOT @ me about rings of power) is that people assume it's easy and always correct to adapt a book "just like they imagined it" or that it's easy and always correct to be ~faithful~ to the vision of the book in their head because all they have to do is "bring it to life" correctly. (ugh! there's my archnemesis Textual Fidelity again. well, what if i love infidelity! what then!) [like we can all agree there's a spectrum of close and distant adaptations but WHAT IF we also wanted distant adaptations and we valued them for being singular works of art instead of judging purely by fidelity. what then.]

like... as IF there's a Correct and Singular Version and it is, naturally, YOUR interpretation. as if there's a hierarchy of interpretation and it's Good if your interpretation is visualized and Unfathomable if someone else takes their interpretation and runs with it. (does not apply to racist casting like the shyamalan ATLA movie obviously........... this is about making interesting or subversive choices instead of being slavishly devoted to source material as a philosophy, which IS the disney/riordan/fandom philosophy regarding PJO and it's what people WISH was rings of power's philosophy.) anyway a fandom's measure of the success of an adaptation is how closely it cleaves to their memory of their interpretation of the book, which is frankly a huge loss to adaptation as an art form, and a huge win for adaptation as pure commercial entity

because really your act of interpretation and imagination is so singular, so specific to you, and everyone else's is going to be different in a myriad of small and big ways. and a massive creative team working on the economic machine that is a television show are making millions of choices to adapt it, translate it into a new medium, in a way that makes sense as visual & auditory material. and that is pretty much going to fit into thee popular interpretive framework that fans will like (of what's important or what's essential to the text,) because it's a commercial product and Disney wants it to be successful, but like... does it have to be. DOES IT HAVE TO BE. the book is right there if you want the book. why can't a show be its own show. why can't TV be TV and not The Book, But We're Reading It Out Loud Now In Settings Effectively Conjured From The Pages Of The Book. because that's how you end up with characters talking exposition to each other for 7 minutes. text-to-screen translation is supposed to make that textual stuff visual and auditory!! pjo fails in that regard in so many scenes--you just have characters talking at each other! it's fun for fans to see those scenes come to life but it's not good TV scene writing!

anyway. text-to-screen adaptations. a) they're hard work. it's invention and creativity that stands on its own (or ought to stand on its own). it's not second-rate, lower-tier artistry that's somehow worth less than fiction because it has its starting point in a novel. they're not easier than original work [they might, in fact, at least at their best, be harder because of the expectations of existing fanbases.] but if adaptations fall for the "fidelity" argument too much, you wind up with Oh I Just Typed Up The Novel's Dialog And Description Into Screenplay Format, which DOES NOT WORK onscreen

and b) there's no One Version that exists in the ether, it's all choices. it's all choices! a text has one stream of communication—the words themselves are the only stuff of a literary text. meanwhile visual & auditory media has dozens of streams of meaning—the script, yes, the words they say are obviously important, but there's casting, costumes, props, hair, makeup, sound design, editing, all the little things of production design and cinematography and focus and emphasis. that creates new meaning. or it could. maybe it should?? should it???? i want it to!

so it's like. okay guys. you like this show because it meets your threshold for a Faithful Adaptation. what does faithfulness mean to you what does it MEAN that you feel like you will only accept a show that meets YOUR interpretive standards. is it good because it's close to the book? is that the one and only standard? fidelity or bust? is it good that your interpretation is popular enough to become thee reigning fandom interpretation? should there be hierarchies of interpretation based on what the author (or wider fandom) has okayed? don't you ever want interesting, subversive interpretations. don't you ever want directors to go "hey i'm exploring new meanings embedded in this text." because the book exists already the book will always exist. why must the adaptation be a carbon copy always. what's the worth of that if the book is already there waiting for you to reread it. do u ever want to go apeshit do u ever want to shake Disney and go pls fucking make a courageous creative choice??