It’s not just The Odyssey

Three successful films that ignored their source materialWe are staying on The Odyssey bandwagon as Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus hits cinemas, causing controversy and uproar. While global reviews have been, by and large, highly enthusiastic and positive, reviews from Greece have been more lukewarm, with many critics pointing out that Nolan deviated from the source material. Taking artistic liberties is borderline a crime these days, as fans expect to be fan-serviced at every step and become vocal critics when a creator decides to take his own path. I believe that expecting a creative person to fit into pre-existing moulds and not allowing them to deviate is on par with killing that creativity. Creative people should be allowed to put their own spin on classic material, as sometimes the reinterpretation of a familiar tale breathes new life into it. There are other hugely successful films that ran away from the source material in a way that today would be unacceptable. The Lord of the Rings If The Lord of the Rings was shot today, the same people who frame it as an iconic film trilogy and the bar every fantasy film director needs to reach would burn down any cinemas showing it. What many fans conveniently gloss over is the fact that director Peter Jackson took a lot of liberties with JRR Tolkien’s work. He shortened events from the books, changed characters completely and left others out. He expanded Arwen’s part by giving her lines from other characters, turned the eloquent and profound dwarf Gimli into comic relief, completely altered the iconic Battle of Helm’s Deep, as no elven army ever showed up to sacrifice itself in the books, and completely removed the part where the hobbits return to a devastated Shire. Jackson changed the story so much that Tolkien’s relatives hated him for it. His grandson accused him of “eviscerating the books” and actually declined to meet him. And yet, he delivered a trilogy that was critically acclaimed, financially successful and remains relevant to this day. Die Hard What’s not to love with Die Hard? A Christmas setting, an underdog fighting against all odds to save his wife and a spry Bruce Willis cracking jokes while walking on glass. Here’s something you probably don’t know. The film was based on a book called Nothing Lasts Forever, and the director took many, many liberties with the source material. In the book, the protagonist is much older and haunted by his wartime experiences and violent life. The whole thing is much darker in tone, with the protagonist agonising over the morality of murder while blasting away women. Oh yeah, there were several women among the terrorists in the book! There’s no comic relief, no jokes, just murder and a struggle to survive. The ending was also completely changed. In the film, McClane saves his wife from Hans Gruber, who falls from the skyscraper, and everyone’s happy. In the book, Gruber is shot and takes the protagonist’s daughter with him. A distraught hero then shoots a woman who tries to surrender in cold blood, before finding himself in a shoot-out that leaves him an inch from death and emotionally broken. The Prestige Since we are on the Nolan train, The Odyssey is not his first adapted screenplay. The Prestige, the 2006 magician-rivalry science-fiction hit, was also based on a book of the same name. Not that you would know it if you read the book, though. Nolan completely changed it, scrapping characters and entire plotlines. In the book, the rivalry between the two magicians reaches into the present day, with their descendants trying, and failing, to mend old wounds. This is a key plotline running throughout the book that the director simply cast aside. Imagine The Odyssey without Troy. The tone of the book is also drastically different. While the film is more of a science-fantasy action thriller, the book is closer to a Poe-esque gothic horror story. In the film, one of the magicians, Angier, manages to secure a device from Nikola Tesla that can produce full copies of him, which he needs to kill during every performance. In the book, the device produces weakened copies, which the real Angier calls “prestige materials”. When an angry Borden, the other magician, tries to sabotage the machine, it results in the creation of a copy that is incorporeal, while the real Angier becomes physically weakened. The two manage to reunite in some form, resulting in a wretched, immortal existence. Nolan did away with all this, and much more, giving us a movie that many argue is his best.