Adaptions better than the novels?

[strife_au]

Has there been in your opinion an adaption that was more enjoyable than reading the novels or the storline has been edited and was better?

[AresInvincible]

Personally, I've yet seen an adaption like that. Most adaptions edit out huge chunks of stuff from the original novels or alter the stories in certain ways. Also, as Jin Yong mentioned, when the readers read the stories, they get absorbed into the setting. They use their imaginations to think how pretty the female characters are, etc. Each person has a different taste, but the adaptions generalized that by using the taste of the director. Not everyone agrees with the director of who is best suited for what role.

[charbydis]

"God of Sabre" by Damian Lau, Angie Chiu and Mary Hon was way better to understand than the novel which had a messed up ending. at least Xie Xiao Yu has a good reason to hate and be vengeful, whereas in the novel, she seemed lost. It was heaps more sadder, but it was also more emotional cos I was able to keep in touch with Ding Pang wheras in the novel, he just pissed me off straight to the end.

[Candide]

Adaptations usually suck because their directors and script writers replace the author's work with complete nonsense of their own. It is understandable that certain things are unfilmable and most fans aren't too fussed about minor changes. E.g I couldn't care less if Yang Guo in the adaptation lost his left arm instead of right, if the actor is a right-handed man. However, scenes invented just to insert some lame, canned humour, or to please the teeny boppers and desperate housewives are what kill the adaptations.

[TommyH]

Novels are always better than the adaptions, especially adaptions where the scriptwriters and directors keep messing everything up. Wouldn't you guys be pissed if they made YG someone who became GJ's martial disciple and learned HL18Z and then learned 6MSJ out of nowhere?? Or when they make XLN lose her right arm and start wearing black? These are the worst things about watching wuxia adaptions.

[kidd]

Novels are always better than the adaptions, especially adaptions where the scriptwriters and directors keep messing everything up. Wouldn't you guys be pissed if they made YG someone who became GJ's martial disciple and learned HL18Z and then learned 6MSJ out of nowhere?? Or when they make XLN lose her right arm and start wearing black? These are the worst things about watching wuxia adaptions.

Well. I seem to remember that you really enjoy and love a certain adaptation that fits exactly your above description of what is the worst kind of adaptation. All I read is your praises for this adaptation that totally messed up the original storyline, relationship between characters and personality of the characters.

[TommyH]

Well. I seem to remember that you really enjoy and love a certain adaptation that fits exactly your above description of what is the worst kind of adaptation.

Haha! Yeah I remember. I watched it when I didn't know much about Gu Long. I just took it as another adaption. But you've got to admit they've got a "okay" storyline except that everyone dies in CLH01.

[kidd]

Haha! Yeah I remember. I watched it when I didn't know much about Gu Long. I just took it as another adaption. But you've got to admit they've got a "okay" storyline except that everyone dies in CLH01.

I'm talking about Lethal Weapon of Love and Passion where all you have is good words for it. Even after you know the storyline is totally messed up and it's 90% different from the original novel, you said you don't mind, you still love it and glad that TVB made the changes and even promote the series in another forum.

And now, you said unfaithfulness is the worst thing about watch adaptations? You got to be a bit more consistant.

[TommyH]

I'm talking about Lethal Weapon of Love and Passion where all you have is good words for it. Even after you know the storyline is totally messed up and it's 90% different from the original novel, you said you don't mind, you still love it and glad that TVB made the changes and even promote the series in another forum.

And now, you said unfaithfulness is the worst thing about watch adaptations? You got to be a bit more consistant.

Well...umm...well...um....welll......

Well...fine...well...umm...didn't you enjoy it too!? uhhh.....................i don't know? maybe it was a good modification

[owbjhx]

Theoretically, it's not difficult for adaptations of Jin Yong's novels (I base this on his Trilogy) to improve on the original source material. I like the books, but I reckon that they have a couple of fundamental shortcomings. Firstly, Jin Yong writes action novels, but words are simply a poor medium in which to render action sequences; these can look much better on film than they can ever look on paper. Also, the strange way in which Jin Yong wrote - i.e. for serialisation in newspapers - saddles his novels with problems which were too big to fix in his revisions: chiefly, tedious filler scenes and disappointing endings. A good adaptation can deal with these problems.

But that's theory. In practice, the increasing expense and complexity of making full-blown Jin Yong series means that commercial considerations are getting more and more important, and these aren't necessarily compatible with the 'artistic' considerations of making a good adaptation. Zhang Jizhong's 2006 version of ROCH is a case in point.

[patricia n]

hardly. it's rare to even find a movie adaption that's better than a one volume novel so i can't imagine finding a series that's better than a wuxia novel (usually 5+ volumes), unless the novel is extremely poorly written and boring in which case all of the modifications might appeal to the audience.