The TV and Streaming Thread: US Writers/Actors Strike Edition

[Hurlshort]

Huh, green foliage? Don't they know everything is brown and gray in Fallout?

[LadyCrimson]

A live action Fallout series? Mmm....maybe.

The ghoul actor pic was kinda cool tho.

Edited November 29, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[uuuhhii]

1 hour ago, Raithe said:

https://www.polygon.com/23979399/fallout-tv-series-amazon-prime-video-images-teaser-power-armor

bos again

would they make the same mistake bethesda did

[ShadySands]

Was reading about how the Witcher folks ignored the input of the Witcher writer and similar stories from Sanderson about WoT and was wondering, are there any shows or movies that are as good or better than the source material? I've heard the Expanse is better but couldn't make it past the first couple of episodes and never read the books it's based on either.

[uuuhhii]

39 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Was reading about how the Witcher folks ignored the input of the Witcher writer and similar stories from Sanderson about WoT and was wondering, are there any shows or movies that are as good or better than the source material? I've heard the Expanse is better but couldn't make it past the first couple of episodes and never read the books it's based on either.

edge of tomorrow and the boys

those would be total garbage if they follow the original

[uuuhhii]

watched 2 episode of the new scott pilgrim

not bad but not enthralling either

[Lexx]

Fallout tv show is the only time ever where I think less input from the "creators" is better. It's already at a bad start since everything we see so far is very much Fallout 4 inspired. If they do Bethsoft quality writing, I probably won't even last the first episode.

[LadyCrimson]

After a quickie search, apparently Todd thinks some of this show will be official lore? Chr. stuff or something?

The only visual media where I thought it was either equal, even if different, to slightly better, from an original source material would be on the film side. Like Shawshank Redemption. TV series .... can't think of anything off hand. Although I think there were several more modern series that I liked a fair bit, or at least liked a first season, but these days I typically have never read/seen/heard of their source material so can't compare.

I really liked the old Shogun mini-series from the 1980's, but I wouldn't at all say it's better than the book. It was very good for a mini-series tho - for its time.

Edited November 29, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Raithe]

2 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

I really liked the old Shogun mini-series from the 1980's, but I wouldn't at all say it's better than the book. It was very good for a mini-series tho - for its time.

And we have that new adaption coming out in a few months, although the trailer does have a certain glorious spectacle to it.

[LadyCrimson]

6 hours ago, Raithe said:

And we have that new adaption coming out in a few months, although the trailer does have a certain glorious spectacle to it.

Hiroyuki Sanada is excellent casting, but that's all I can say about it at this point.

Edit: I wonder if they'll keep the "no subtitles" re: Japanese/Blackthorne not understanding/learning, like the old mini-series did. I hope so.

Edited November 29, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Raithe]

13 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

Edit: I wonder if they'll keep the "no subtitles" re: Japanese/Blackthorne not understanding/learning, like the old mini-series did. I hope so.

One of my old amusing pieces of trivia is that Toshiro Mifune insisted that all scripts had to be corrected so that none of the Japanese was modern, and that all anachronisms were changed to be 17th century appropriate.

[melkathi]

15 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I've heard the Expanse is better but couldn't make it past the first couple of episodes and never read the books it's based on either.

 

The Expanse series is better by the simple virtue of those writers not being lazy like the original authors of the books. The belter patois for the series was properly researched. In the books it was machine translated using very bad, outdated translation machines.

For any German speakers who haven't read the first book and wish to groan:

"Schrauben sie sie weibchen." Shirtless said in Belter inflected gutter German, leaning forward.

[LadyCrimson]

I suddenly remember the Lonesome Dove mini-series, which is excellent. The novel is a bit on the dry and perhaps overlong side so I think I enjoyed the miniseries more than the novel. This was in large part due to the performances of Duvall and Jones, ofc. And even so, I don't think I'd say it's better than the novel. It's a case where they are almost equal, imo, but still very separated because of medium.

Based on reactions from people who played the game (I have not), The Last of Us did a pretty good job of bridging that gap, but that was a largely linear narrative game vs. a free form open world rpg like Witcher or Fallout.

The thing about novels - or games I suppose - in my opinion of course - turned into video mediums is there is never going to be a true rendering of all the lore, character depth, etc that the written word - or the sensation of playing *as* a chr, making choices, directing the path, in the case of games - can generate into people's minds. Lord of the Rings trilogy is a fantastic film trilogy, but you can't cram all the lore of Tolkein into even six hours, and some stuff wouldn't be "cinema" enough for screen. So you kind of have to judge adaptations more on their own merits/demerits re: their specific artistic medium vs. knocking them down solely for not religiously following established lore or something. I mean, you could have a series that followed lore to a T and still be terrible/not entertaining.

That all said, I also think adaptions have a larger chance of working better when there's a firm end planned from the get-go. TV series sounds better on paper then film for adaptations, but ... I don't think it works out that way very often because they're too concerned with a season 2, 3, 4, 5.

Edited November 29, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Lexx]

51 minutes ago, melkathi said:

 

The Expanse series is better by the simple virtue of those writers not being lazy like the original authors of the books. The belter patois for the series was properly researched. In the books it was machine translated using very bad, outdated translation machines.

For any German speakers who haven't read the first book and wish to groan:

"Schrauben sie sie weibchen." Shirtless said in Belter inflected gutter German, leaning forward.

I lol'd. It could kinda work, I guess, but at present time I've never heard anyone ever talk like that.

[Bartimaeus]

19 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Was reading about how the Witcher folks ignored the input of the Witcher writer and similar stories from Sanderson about WoT and was wondering, are there any shows or movies that are as good or better than the source material? I've heard the Expanse is better but couldn't make it past the first couple of episodes and never read the books it's based on either.

Feels like "better" will largely depend on which you happened to experience and enjoy first, though that's not universally true (for example, I strongly prefer the book version of Peter Pan even though I watched Disney's adaptation a number of times in the couple of decades preceding me reading the book). A few of my favorite movies are adapted from books, but I watched the movies before reading the books and so I'm biased when I say I very much prefer the movie adaptations (e.g. Perfect Blue and The Lord of the Rings films - the latter of which I have the distinction of reading all of in spite of the fact that I quite dislike Tolkien's prose for those books).

Edited November 29, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[Zoraptor]

There are a decent number of 'as good as (or better)' adaptions. The Boys, I Claudius, Game of Thrones (up to S4), House of Cards (UK), The Wire/ Homicide: LotS, Generation Kill. That's only shows I'd rate as very good/ excellent though*. There is of course a far longer list of adaptions that were either awful, or worse than the original. If the stipulation was no or ignored input from the original author as well almost all of those would be excluded, which is not coincidental. Could probably add some historical stuff too like Spartacus* and the like for being ultimately based on history books, but that may be a stretch.

*or in The Boys'/ Spartacus' case, very enjoyable.

Edited November 30, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Hurlshort]

I never read The Shining, but I'm guessing the movie fares well in comparison. It seems like Stephen King has decent string of his books becoming good on the screen, but he's also pretty involved with that aspect.

I'd probably argue that The Hunger Games were fairly mediocre books that looked pretty good on the big screen.

[Gfted1]

Iirc, the only movie King ever directed was Maximum Overdrive.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

7 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

I never read The Shining, but I'm guessing the movie fares well in comparison. It seems like Stephen King has decent string of his books becoming good on the screen, but he's also pretty involved with that aspect.

I'd probably argue that The Hunger Games were fairly mediocre books that looked pretty good on the big screen.

Steven King was actually unhappy with Kubrick's film and thinks a different adaptation is better. It's been a long time since I've read or watched any of them, but I think Kubrick's film works better as an adaptation than the TV miniseries.

[Zoraptor]

Funny how many better movies were made of books than TV series. Seems to be the shorter the audiovisual medium, the more likely you are to get an enjoyable conversion of it. Even on my TV list half of them have ten episodes or fewer.

[Hurlshort]

56 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Funny how many better movies were made of books than TV series. Seems to be the shorter the audiovisual medium, the more likely you are to get an enjoyable conversion of it. Even on my TV list half of them have ten episodes or fewer.

I've always been curious if the Sharpe series the BBC produced was as good as the books. Netflix adapted Cornwell's Northumbria stuff pretty nicely for The Last Kingdom. Those books fit the episodic tone of a TV series, so it makes sense that they adapt well, but most books aren't really written to be drawn out like that. 

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

I've always been curious if the Sharpe series the BBC produced was as good as the books. Netflix adapted Cornwell's Northumbria stuff pretty nicely for The Last Kingdom. Those books fit the episodic tone of a TV series, so it makes sense that they adapt well, but most books aren't really written to be drawn out like that. 

I wonder if a movie/tv-series adaptation was ever made of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. At least I could have held the fast forward button down

It was painful reading through it, but maybe I was just too young and immature to enjoy it at the time. I was way less proficient at English too (at 15).

[Zoraptor]

Sharpe is an excellent series. Also one of those series where there's almost always a young guest star you recognise from later stuff, like Paul Bettany or Mark Strong. Its only drawback is that when it comes right down to it Cornwell's heroes are all basically the same character and there's a certain template the stories tend to follow.

[bugarup]

14 hours ago, PK htiw klaw eriF said:

Steven King was actually unhappy with Kubrick's film and thinks a different adaptation is better. It's been a long time since I've read or watched any of them, but I think Kubrick's film works better as an adaptation than the TV miniseries.

I saw that adaptation and it sucked. Could be a great example of how too literal an adaptation is a bad thing because of differences between mediums, e.g. while a writer can make hedge animals scary, a cinematographer most likely cannot. 

[Raithe]

14 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

I've always been curious if the Sharpe series the BBC produced was as good as the books. Netflix adapted Cornwell's Northumbria stuff pretty nicely for The Last Kingdom. Those books fit the episodic tone of a TV series, so it makes sense that they adapt well, but most books aren't really written to be drawn out like that. 

As mentioned, the series is a pretty good adaption for the characters and storylines.  The battles however are lacking, due to the budget issues. And as I recall, it was mostly shot in Hungary, so the majority of extras playing the French and English troops mostly didn't speak English and had some issues with the translations from the Director and co-ordinators.