Episode 647 - characters screwed over by adapters
Aug 7, 2023
We're having a chat about characters that differ from the source material and turn out crap because of it. Characters where the people adapting them didn't care, understand, or even take time to read the original stuff because they thought they knew better.
Topics and Show Notes
There are a lot of instances where characters are adapted from source material and get totally messed up because the writers either don't understand or care about the source material they're taking from. Were not talking about being exactly true to a book, we're talking about understanding and respecting the characters so you can translate them to another medium and still have them recognisable and be themselves.
There are many examples of poor character translation… apparently this is what happened with The Witcher in the 3rd season of the show. The story is that the led actor, Henry Cavil is a fan of the character from the books and games and took exception to the character's dilution and sidelining as the series progressed. We've been told that the writers for the show would openly laugh at the source material, something they're not really qualified to do since even the well regarded first series is extremely badly written and only gets the praise it does because of Cavel's portrayal of the lead character.
An example that's very near and dear to me is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie. This is a sort of a special case since the author had SOME involvement in it before he died but not enough apparently. the characters of Arthur Dent as played by Martin Freeman and Ford Prefect by Mos Def are terrible interpretations, so much so that they end up actively damaging the movie and harming the story. The essence of Arthur's character is a bemused, suburban British superiority: He has an expectation that as a British citisen his rights should be respected, his opinion should be listened to, people should understand his language, and things should conform to his suburban understanding of what is normal and good, all this is signaled by his wearing of Pajamas, a dressing gown and slippers the whole time. Whereas Martin Freeman's version simply doesn't understand what he's seeing and goes through the whole movie with an affronted frown on his stupid face. This is absolutely incorrect! Rather than not understanding anything Arthur is suppose to believe that he understands everything, but only in simple, suburban British terms,so that he can go through the story with a sense of befuddled superiority.
Ford Prefect is supposed to be cool. He's easy going, and just meshes with whatever situation he's in, even if he doesn't understand it. He's very smart and quick to adapt. Mos Def's version is just a moron who looks good. All that said,Sam Rockwell's version of Zaphod was more perfect than perfect, and Zoe Dashenell was perfectly fine as Trillian, but that character was never ever written well to begin with in the original.
What characters do you think with translated poorly in an adaption? Adam West's Batman? Hernry Cavil's Superman? Who?
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme inspired by Oi Tales of Bardic Fury - A Jangling, reverential, exotic, evocative sound of places far away, the smell of sweet spices, mulled wine, and cured meats on the warm breeze in the salty air…
Topics and shownotes
Future cast: TRON and TRON 2
Links
Featured comic:
RATKIDS - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2023/aug/01/featured-comic-ratkids/
Featured music:
Oi Tales of Bardic Fury - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Oi_Tales_of_Bardic_Fury/ - by Omeow, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
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Episode 644 - Psychocast
Jul 17, 2023
We're talking about the pop-culture myth of psychopaths and sociopaths and other stuff like serial killers. Yes those conditions do exist, well sort of (not exactly with those names), but the pop-culture versions we know from the media are mostly myths. The real things aren't as exciting or flashy as the versions we know and love/hate from movies, comic, books, TV shows and podcasts.
Episode 639 - Nudity
Jun 12, 2023
Today's topic is Nudity: Nudity in comics, censorship, self censoring, what you can get away with on DD, ratings, nudity on other platforms and how it affects the reach of your work, and more!
Episode 636 - The Cusscast
May 22, 2023
We're talking about swearing! Swearing in comics, types of swearing, the use of swearing, causing offense, taking offense, swearing used as a term of endearment, and some history behind various types of swearing. We barely even scratch the surface! We don't swear in the Quackcast if we can help it so we're talking around and about the language without using it, though we DO swear in our Patreon vid, which is free to all patrons, even the $1 level.
Episode 634 - Boomer-myth
May 8, 2023
Generational tensions are a cultural constant. It's popular to pick on the young and say they're lazy, irresponsible, stupid, changing things in silly ways etc, but it's also just as popular too defend them and debunk myths associated with younger people, we don't have that with older people and I find that a bit sad and disturbing. This cast tackles the myths associated with “boomers”.
Episode 631 - Entitlements
Apr 17, 2023
What rights are people actually entitled to? That question is a lot bigger than you think! The Quackcast today is sequel to last week's about entitled people, this one is about actual entitlements- what people SHOULD be entitled to. i.e. rights and such. It's a topic that Banes and Tantz really wanted to do and my purpose was to link it to writing and comics (not just theory and politics), which I think I did ok. This topic turned out to be very interesting.
Episode 630 - Entitled
Apr 10, 2023
The Quackcast this week is about entitled bossy Karens. In fact it was originally going to BE “the Karencast” but the whole “Karen” thing is a bit sexist and pejorative. So why a Quackcast on overly entitled people then? Well aside from we stealing it from Tantz's newspost on Friday, those kinds of people make great minor villain characters. They can be comic relief baddies but they can also be deceptively dangerous when they really DO have connections to back up their arrogance!
Episode 629 - Reevaluation cast
Apr 3, 2023
Have you ever watched a series devotedly then lost touch with it for some reason for a while and then gone back to it a couple of years later and tried to get into again but this time you look at it with a very different perspective? Or maybe you loved a movie when you were young and decided to watch it again as an adult to see if it holds up?
