Of the new television shows coming out, the one I’m most looking forward to is HBO’s Games of Thrones. Based on the excellent fantasy book by George R. R. Martin, Games of Thrones is one of the 2 best books I have ever read (the other being Jean M. Auel’s Clan of the Cave Bear).
However, despite looking forward to the TV series, I’m also slightly worried about it. Basically, how close will the TV series follow the book? When material is moved from one mode of entertainment to another, almost inevitably producers has to change thing.
This is not always a bad thing. When Cryptic made an online game for Star Trek (Star Trek Online), they kept things close to the source material. Players can only play as captains of The Federation, and not as captains of The Klingon Empire. Players complained loudly. Of course we have producers who go to the other extreme and their shows and games have almost nothing to do with the source material (TV series like Dexter & Justified have almost nothing to do with the books).
How close should adaptations be from their source materials? The right answer I guess is that as long as it is entertaining, then it would be okay. As long as it doesn’t suck, right? However the Game of Thrones is such a favorite of mine, any change could be a problem for me. Oh well, I guess I’ll find out sooner or later.
2 comments:
"A Game of Thrones" was excellent! Very easily in my top 10. I'm hoping the tv series is popular enough to encourage George to finish "A Dance With Dragons".
I know I won't watch it until I hear some reviews.
One of my favorite things about reading the series has been how the viewpoint changes characters with each chapter. It'll be interesting to see how they pull that off on screen (or if they even try).
The changing viewpoints is one of the problem they will face. I mean how are they going to show Eddard's death? Jaime was the villain in Game of Thrones but in the later books, he was the tragic hero.
As for Martin finishing the series...well, I'm not actually a fan of the series. Game of Thrones was great but the later books were not. A Feast of Crows was terrible.
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