Based on a book: good or bad?

First, I think we do have to separate movies from tv shows, because they are two separate animals. Movies generally tell a story in one sitting. TV shows need to bring people back to the screen week in and week out with stories that keep their interest.

Not that there isn’t one, but I can’t think of an example of a long running series that is based strictly on the plot of a series of books.

Shows like Dexter followed the books for the first season but after that veered off in its own direction. Sure, Rome was based on a historical account, but the real heart of the show was the fictional story lines of Lucious Verenus and Titus Pullo. And even the historical aspects were given their own fictional flurish.

True Blood may be the exception, but the jury is still out on that one. We don’t know how strictly it will follow the books from here on out, and even if it does, there is no telling if it will be sucessful or not.

Basically, this is a long way of saying I have no idea, but it is certainly a valid conversation to be having.

Anon: You have a point about movies being a different situation than TV shows. However with movie series such as LoTR and HP, you have multiple movies, so there is an element of having to “bring people back to the screen.” Obviously, people did not have a problem coming back to Hogwarts or Middle-Earth, whether they knew the story or not.

The TV series Legend of the Seeker is awful, awful along the lines of Xena warrior princess and Hercules.

Why do people keep bringing that awful show up?

Anon and Rer, I have to completely agree.

The SoT series is one of my favorites and the series absolutely stinks. I cannot stand it one bit. I did manage to get a few people into the series to read the books based on them watching the series. But as soon as they did, they couldn’t go back to the TV show.

Rer, it’s funny you should mention those two shows because the people who are in charge of it are lots of people from those shows. Which is one of the reasons I think it stinks. They are trying to turn the Sword of Truth into another Zena and Hercules with a traveling band of people who gets into trouble, and that is the story.

But to the topic at hand I think the series being based on a book clearly has an option for success. BUT if they mess up the series then the book fan base will hate it. If they can get the story even mostly correct then the book lovers will watch, and people who’ve never heard of it will hopefully watch, which I think gives the series a better overall chance of success.

Well, I’ll take trueblood as an example. I’m not a fan of the books, and the series didn’t inspire me to go buy them to find out what happens. Nevertheless, I enjoy the series, and want to know what happens next. If the same thing happens to Game of Thrones, I’ll be happy.

“The Passion of the Christ” was huge and everyone knew the ending to that one.

Thanks for picking up on my musings … I mostly started thinking about that ‘issue’ while browsing the web community concerning Lost – which reminded me again that part of its big success is definitely also the enormous speculation potential within the fan base. I have never said that being based on a book is a bad thing in itself that would mean a disadvantage, but with Lost in mind, adaptations are deprived of this one potential helping factor – and I want Thrones to be as successful as possible :)

Anyone curious enough to be prepared to spoil it for themselves does not even have to go to the library, the Internet holds all the answers. Not that many people would do that, though – in my opinion. I expect the participation in intense online discussions to be mostly limited to the fans of the books (= us :)) as others wouldn’t join en masse for the fear of spoilers. Discussions thus unfortunately have far less free range if the future plot line is not a public mystery.

Which brings me to a good point (of comparison) brought out above: we can compare Lost and True Blood – original script vs. adaptation on the one hand, but perhaps more importantly, the level of ‘mystery’. Same as one of the anonymous comments above, I watch True Blood with delight, wondering what the next episode will bring, but not excited to the point of reading the books / search for clues online. The question that bothers the viewer of this show is then ‘What is going to happen next?’. In contrast, the important question viewers of Lost ask is different: ‘What the hell is going on?’ :) This last one, I think, incites people more to go online and discuss things, as merely waiting for the next episode won’t answer their question. I expect Thrones to work more like True Blood, which is good.

More food for thoughts: I have long known the high quality of HBO productions. Recently I have watched a lot of their stuff, also older, and not only series, but also tv films, miniseries, play adaptations and the like, both historic and fictional – and still I am amazed by them. Have they had any blunders in the past, say, 10 years? If so, how many? Were there series with big expectation that flopped, and didn’t gain success even later on with time? Were they forced to drop a series? Rome of course was dropped prematurely, and I’m glad they regret that :) – as it has been pointed out a couple of times in this blog already.

Just to make clear, those were proper questions, not rhetorical :) Delving into the unsuccessful/defeatist/failure side of the otherwise high-quality HBO …

I couldn’t agree more about the quality of the writing, or at least the quality of the story (though I trust the writers of the show as well). When the plotlines are envisaged in advance, that is indeed a great boon; you have a proper dramatic arc and consistency in storytelling. Not something you often find, unfortunately.

I'm really not sure just what some people expect here. From the comments, usually posted by anon writers, it seems like there is just nothing anyone can do to please some folks. Lost, BSG, Rome, Deadwood, Sopranos were all great series. They had their ups and downs, but generally, they were all pretty damn splendid. I'm not sure what people expect if they weren't satisfied enough by these great efforts.
AGoT the series is never going to live up to the books in terms of quality. Its impossible. Martin's imagery, descriptive ability and intricate web of a plot can never accurately be portrayed on screen because it robs us of too much self-fueled imagination. There will be fights that happen unlike we pictured them. There will be characters who don't come close to resembling the couterpart that we have conjured up in our heads. There will likely be significant portions of the books that need to be pruned for editing. Also, there are countless tiny little gems that will be impossible to represent on screen. The bit about Tywins army blossoming like an iron rose for example. You can show an army riding out, but visually there is no way to make that connection.
The series won't be perfect, but part of the fun (or I guess you could say advantage) of a series with previous source material is comparing it to the original. ASoIaF is so good that we don't need to be kept in the dark about what will happen next. We will tune in because next week Joff, the little prick, is gonna get his hand bit, Or the wights will rise in Castle Black, or Bronn will be dueling with Ser Vardis, or Ned will be getting a shave on the steps of Baelor's Sept, or Dany will be breastfeeding dragons. We've read the source material, but we're really anxious to see how it comes across in living color.
One more quick observation that kind of fits with this category. Some of the LOTR highlights for me were the added scenes that weren't in the book. For the most part Jackson did a great job adding new scenes that blended seemlessly into the original plot. The warg battle was great for example.
The pilot script that was leaked has some very good examples of this as well. I for one hope that they continue to add nuggets such as these where appropriate. People have complained a bit about the opening scene. Perhaps they can pay homage to the original scene later in the series by using Othor and Jafer Flowers. It might be nice here and there to get a glimpse of Benjen that we don't see in the books (yep, this one would have to be handled verrrry carefully). It could increase the loathing we feel for the Lannisters if we actually see some of the reaving taking place in the Riverlands.
One of the advantages that B&W have that Jackson didn't is that they have the source author to use as a sounding board for ideas like these. George seems like he would be collaborative enough on a project like this to be open to offering input on new scenes. I don't want to see dramatic changes that don't make any sense. But the ocasional added scene to bolster the action or help establish a character's motives would only serve to make the series even better than it would be if it followed along exactly as the books unfold.

I don’t have HBO.

If song of ice and fire comes to HBO.
I WILL HAVE HBO.

bottom line, good for HBO.

Good job Winter….I agree with Anon above…your doing a great job of keeping the discussion ongoing…I think part of the problem with series losing steam after a couple of seasons is the lack of consistency in who’s scripting the series. Many writers seem to move on and don’t stay with the shows. I hope Benioff and Weiss remain the lead writers for the shows entire run, but the chances are slim I think.

As far as HBO shows with big expectations that flopped there was a little show called John From Cincinnati from David Milch (Deadwood). What a disappointment. I couldn’t get through the first season. It was canceled quickly. And of course there were the prematurely canceled shows (Rome, Deadwood, Carnivale). Honestly the only series that I thought had a successful ending was Six Feet Under, which imho, is still one of the best endings to a show I’ve ever seen. I think a series with source material has a better chance at an ending these days. Of course that all depends on the source material…

I believe Rome was never intended to run for more than two seasons, and even season two was more of an afterthought than a planned thing.

I think it will definitely help the series. Asian countries make tv series based off of books and comic series all the time and they usually get high ratings. The series are usually following the books pretty closely. The no surprise factor isn’t usually issue. They may even change a couple things just to make it slightly their own who knows.

How could I forget The Wire? Love that show, and yes, the end was pretty good, though the 5th season wasn’t as good as previous seasons. I still maintain that Six Feet Under’s ending is the best.

As far as Lost is concerned, you won’t be able to compare the two. People ask “what’s going to happen next” because it’s purely a plot-driven show. You don’t hear anyone talking about the acting or the character development do you? I feel that those who watch HBO watch it more for the writing and the acting.

Well you’re basing this on the idea that a lot of people WANT spoilers. LOST spoilers are readily available all over the internet, and there are people who choose to read them, and people who don’t.

If the show is anything like the books, predictability won’t matter (to met at least). I have read the series 4+ times now, and I still get just as tense reading the “famous execution scene”(wink wink) in the first book, as I did the first time. I still hope that someone rides in and saves the day. Same with the Red Wedding…

red snow-

depending on GRRM’s progress, i wouldn’t be surprised if they meshed the plotlines of AFFC and ADWD together since, from what I’ve heard, at least the very beginning of ADWD takes place over the same time period as AFFC (and then extends several months beyond).

and actually, if that’s the case, it wouldn’t really logically make sense to make AFFC and ADWD into two separate seasons. most viewers aren’t smart enough to make the connection that one particular scene is happening at the same exact time as another scene they watched one year ago.

Yep! That’s exactly what I meant, and assuming that the books’ timelines mesh together in a workable manner, it would probably be a great idea.