Julie Johnson is a bestselling author (USA Today) and her tweet thread got me thinking about an important aspect of media. We see a lot of movies, books being made/remade into TV shows and new adaptations.
And she makes a decent point, should old classics be remade? Especially if their dialogues have been changed in a way that does not reflect the actual story? Is that fair to the story?
Firstly, in today’s world, the rights of almost everything are owned by someone. So for the average person, or even a celebrity to judge (in this case, Plead) and urge someone not to make something in their own creative vision is just wrong.
The media industry continues to evolve with the generation. People change, their dialects change, the way they speak change and clothes change. As such, how many of the younger generation, today, watch old classics. I love watching them, but really I’m a nerd that adores and analyzes acting and story.
Most people watch it for entertainment and if they cannot relate to the ‘dad jokes’ then they cannot feel the excitement that the previous generation felt.
Julie Johnson means well. Jane Austen is a classic and she highlights some of the quotes that have been converted into 5-word sentences. I’ll list some examples:
Jane Austen: “There could have never been two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.” Became: Now we’re strangers. We’re worse than strangers. We’re exes.
JA: “She felt that she could so much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind never varied, whose tongue never slipped.” Became: “Because he’s a ten. I never trust a ten”
JA: “She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.” Became: “Now I’m single and thriving”
You get the gist. It’s funny when you see these dialogues isolated and without the entire movie/show. It feels like ‘Oh why are you taking these wonderful quotes and then just condensing them into today’s dialect’.
Simple - because the story is great but the dialect no longer resonates with the youth. India has seen numerous remakes and remixes and some of them have become even more popular than the original. It’s important to reinvent and if people don’t like it then that is time, energy and money wasted. There is a cost to remaking these things, there is a financial, a physical and an emotional cost as well.
So yeah, I don’t agree with her ‘begging Netflix’ to stop and adapt books ‘properly’ next time. I’ve seen the Harry Potter movies, I’ve seen eragon. The sheer vastness of the books means that the movies can never compete with the books 1:1 and neither should they have to. Movies are a different medium and they have to play to their strengths.
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