George R.R. Martin calls out TV and film producers who change things from the books

George R.R. Martin has been writing books for a long time. His most famous series, A Song of Ice and Fire, was adapted by HBO as Game of Thrones. The show changed a lot of things about the books. Martin, who has worked in television himself and knows the kinds of compromises producers have to make when adapting a written work for the screen, has never joined the groups of angry fans mad at this or that change. But it doesn't mean he's never watched a TV or movie version of some book he loves and been cheesed off that the producers changed things for seemingly no reason, and for the worse.

He outlined some of his thoughts on his Not a Blog: "Everywhere you look, there are more screenwriters and producers eager to take great stories and 'make them their own.' It does not seem to matter whether the source material was written by Stan Lee, Charles Dickens, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, Ursula K. Le Guin, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Raymond Chandler, Jane Austen, or… well, anyone. No matter how major a writer it is, no matter how great the book, there always seems to be someone on hand who thinks he can do better, eager to take the story and “improve” on it. "The book is the book, the film is the film,” they will tell you, as if they were saying something profound. Then they make the story their own."

"They never make it better, though. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, they make it worse."

Once again, there's no guarantee that he's talking about Game of Thrones here; it's very easy to find examples of TV shows and movies that changed things from the books in ways that made them worse. Right here on WiC, we've pointed out plenty of book-to-screen changes we didn't like, in shows like The Wheel of Time or even the Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon, based on Martin's book Fire & Blood. I like both of those series, but both also have moments that change things from the books for the worse, and I can't for the life of me understand why. Whenever a producer says, "we made it our own," I do consider it to be something of a red flag.

However, the House of the Dragon team also made plenty of changes I really enjoyed, so they're not always for the worse. Martin agrees that, "Once in a while, though, we do get a really good adaptation of a really good book, and when that happens , it deserves applause."

Like everyone else, Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin loved Shōgun

Martin has in mind the FX/Hulu series Shōgun, about an Englishman who finds himself in feudal Japan in the year 1600. Shōgun does change some things from the 1976 book by James Clavell, including by spending more time with the Japanese characters over the English Anjin, but still remains a faithful adaptation of the books, and a rollicking great TV show.

Martin also remembers when Shōgun was adapted as a TV miniseris in 1980, with Richard Chamberlain in the role of the Anjin. He thinks both versions hit the mark.

"The fascinating thing is that while the old and new versions have some significant differences — the subtitles that make the Japanese dialogue intelligible to English speaking viewers being the biggest — they are both faithful to the Clavell novel in their own way," Martin wrote. "I think the author would have been pleased. Both old and new screenwriters did honor to the source material, and gave us terrific adaptations, resisting the impulse to "make it their own.” Acting, directing, set design, costume… it’s all splendid here. Along with the writing. And if SHOGUN is a big enough hit, maybe the same team will adapt some of Clavell’s other novels."

Last we heard, the producers behind Shōgun are making a second season, despite the fact that the first season covered the entirety of Clavell's book. They may have no choice but to "make it their own." We'll see if the critical acclaim holds up whenever that comes out.

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