Episode 467 - Adaptions and Transmogrification!
Feb 23, 2020
The process of adaptation is quite interesting. Stories go through all sorts of changes when they're transferred from one medium to another. A lot of the time we bemoan that as “not staying true to the original” or “the book was better”, but there are many times where the adaption is really interesting in its own right, even though it's quite different from what it started out as.
Topics and Show Notes
A straight out bad adaptation (in my opinion) is Peter Jackson's “the Hobbit”. Instead of simply transforming the story to better fit the medium of film, it was changed to accommodate current fashionable Hollywood tropes- an A, B, C, and D story structure, romantic interests, tragic heroic characters, nemesis characters, high speed action sequences etc. It didn't retain any of the spirit of the story it was based on. Retaining the “spirit” seems to be the important part of making a good adaptation, details don't matter so much.
In that vein, Conan the Barbarian is considered to be quite a good film. It's the only successful Conan adaption from the original stories apart from the comic series. For the movie they changed details about the character (supposed to have square-cut long black hair instead of ragged brown hair, supposed to be swarthy skinned, and his origin was changed massively). The story in the film was loosely based on a few different Conan stories, but mainly it was its own thing. The story of the film stayed true to the theme of Robert E Howard's philosophy and character even though the details were all wrong, this made it a very good adaptation because it's the theme of the stories and character that makes Conan so good, NOT the details. Later adaptations in the form of other films, games, and TV series never managed to get that same vibe.
In the Quackcast we cover things like War of the Worlds, Robin Hood, the Marvel Universe, DC movies and so on.
What are some good or bad adaptations that you've seen and why did they succeed or fail?
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to TRUMPed, or rather the “making-off” the theme for TRUMPed. You can see what boundless taste and sense of style this fellow has in his choice of theme tunes, no Eleanor Rigby style classical sounding stuff for the blonde haired buffoon, Heavenly choirs and stately piano pieces are far too serious, subtle, stylish and sensible! Nothing less than a bubblegum jingle will please the Pres!
Topics and shownotes
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Links
Banes' creen Adaptations newspost - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2020/feb/20/page-to-screen-adaptations/
Featured comic:
Hyperbolic Fabrications Presents - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2020/feb/16/featured-comic-hyperbolic-fabrications-presents/
Featured music:
TRUMPed - - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/TRUMPed/, by Rawdale, rated M.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Episode 466 - And then What?
Feb 16, 2020
What happens to characters after the big action scene or climactic moment? This could be anywhere in the story but it's usually close to the end. Do they process any of the things that have happened to them to lead them up to that point or do they just forget about everything and simply act as if nothing except the last 4 seconds matter? The later seems to be the trend in a lot of badly written fiction, and it's a notable trope in 80s style action films. Death of family members or lovers are irrelevant when you have a hot action star standing next to you!
Episode 464 - The current digital art landscape
Feb 2, 2020
I recently had to upgrade my main computer because Windows isn't supporting Windows 7 any longer and I don't want to install Windows 10 on the perfectly functioning old one in case it ruins it and my main programs can't run any longer… SO I had to get a new PC. This got me thinking though: The barrier to getting into digital art is lower now than ever!
Episode 441 - Cooperation = cool
Aug 26, 2019
Cooperation Vs Competition. For decades the mantra was competition is good: it produces progress and makes things better… Well that's actually false. Competition is what you're forced into as a response to limited resources, so you do what you have to to win, which mainly involves losing everything that doesn't serve that specific objective. Competition is massively harmful to progress in general, it ONLY helps you excel in one small area to massive cost. Think of it in terms of an Olympic sprinter: they become the fastest runner in the world, but to what point? Only the artificial structure of a sporting event… they spend years training, exercising, eating right, wasting a huge portion of their lives, creative, and intellectual potential on that one meaningless goal, and IF they achieve it they might get a bit of fame and money and a footnote in history because someone else will inevitably take their spot. More likely though they won't achieve the goal and instead be forgotten.
Episode 394 - Nostalgia, creative fuel?
Oct 1, 2018
Nostalgia! - Where does it fit in the creative process? People are the product of their influences. For a lot of us the strongest influences happen when we're growing up and learning about the world and all the things IN it for the first time. As you get older the things you experience don't make as much impact, simply because your brain has already had most of its “first times” and it's already learned enough about the world to be fully functional and independent.
Episode 390 - Imprinting on your characters
Aug 15, 2018
We nicked the idea for this Quackcast from a newspost by Emma Clare. What we chat about is the unintentional process of giving your characters you own traits or even traits of people you know without realising it: Every time you draw an expression for your character you're not really creating a generic expression but basing it on yourself… when you character is being quizzical or irritated for example people may recognise that as you. It could be in other things too: their taste, the way they dress, what they like to eat, their furniture. things that annoy them, their hobbies etc. It's interesting how tied they are to us.
Episode 347 - Psychopomps and Death Personified
Nov 6, 2017
A psychopomp is a physical manifestation of death. These are of course impossible in reality since death is a process, not a force or anything that can be personified, but culturally death has very different meanings and resonances! Most cultures have a psychopomp in one form of another, like Valkyries and Charon the boatman to name two, and there are even more in literature and movies. In this Quackcast we go back to Kawaii's great Halloween newspost where she asked people about their fave psychopomps and we talk about a few of our own. ^_^ This week Gunwallce has given us the theme to The Constellation Chronicle - In the cold, blackness of space, suddenly a twinkle appears, bright light shoots out, supercharged particles race on their path into the void at the speed of light, travelling through glowing, spidery filaments as thick as a sun that make up the frozen explosion of a giant nebula, bending their course towards the radioactive chaos of an event horizon, to take a deep dive into eternity, towards the mysterious singularity within.
Episode 340 - Reviews
Sep 18, 2017
In this Drunk Duck Quackcast we chat about the importance and the process of reviews! Good ones, bad ones, why they all matter, and also why they often don't! ;) Reviews are an interesting animal, they're a parasitic form of entertainment. They rely wholly of other forms of entertainment for their existence, while those forms do not require reviews at all! But reviews also serve a good function, they tell us what's bad or good, what fits with our tastes and emotions, and lets us know what we may be interested in seeing. They can also save us from wasting time on horrors. Sometimes though they can drive us away from something magical… Here we discuss all that and more! Gunwallace's theme this week was for Reversion, This is a really dreamy, evocative tune about warm, faraway places, it’s squinting into the distance down a long dusty deserted highway and sighing.
