For a while now, I have been thinking about whether it is better for an adaptation to focus on the fans or on a larger audience. Which is better for the overall story. I can think of adaptation which focused on what the fans wanted and were good properties
and adaptations which focused on the fans and were bad properties.
The same goes for the focus on the larger audience.
For me, I think the world has to feel like the same sort of world. Walden's LWW was not perfect by any means and I nitpick it a lot more readily than I did back in the day when I first watched it. I have grown to acknowledge the glaring problems although, when I watch it I can still enjoy it for the most part, and nostalgia can always take me back. Prince Caspian, I enjoy more now than I did back then, but, I still enjoy LWW more. Most of the time I cannot even watch VODT.
These adaptations tried to give Audiences what they thought we wanted (spoiler alert they were wrong a lot of the time), but, it was not just for Narnia fans in general but, rather for generic fantasy lovers.
Honestly, the Percy Jackson movie focused on the larger audience and cared little for the fans and although the fans bashed these movies for years, we may be seeing people warming up to these movies and them soon becoming classics (or at least the first one), because the Percy Jackson tv show cared only about the book and made the adaptation long and drawn out somewhat boring and hard for new of casual fans to enjoy without general confusion.
The one that confused me and started writing this post in the first place was One Piece Live Action and Avatar the Last Airbender.
Eventhough, it seems to me that they did the same sort of things to these adaptations, it confuses me that they got completely different reactions from fans.
I was not a fan of the Last Airbender and I loved the tv series, but, I have seen so many online who did not like it as fans. As for One Piece, I loved it and a big chunk of the first seasons of One Piece anime. And I have found no one online who did not love the series fans or not.
But, this is what confuses me: These shows did pretty much the same things, they changed storylines, plot details, had some different character arcs and different script lines. To me, they are exactly the same in how they handled the material. So, why was general consensus different (although, my opinion was not different, I loved both.)?
I still do not know but, I just wanted people to think about this and come up with some suggestions and ideas. Is it better to focus on the fans or stick with the larger audience, or focus on making a good story out of the adaptation or stick to the same beats as the story?
What I would say from my research is there has to be some sort of spirit that the audience feels is close to the property the adaptation is from. In other words, it has to remind the audience of that property in a good way.
As for Easter eggs in stories I find them completely useless unless they actually help the story in some way. (Why did they include the albatross in VODT if the albatross served no purpose to the movie story? This just seemed like an insult to fans because they took out all meaning out of that scene.)
Some will argue that the characters for Avatar The Last airbender were not the same as the characters of the animated series, but, that cannot be the reason that it is disliked compared to other adaptations because I can point out several adaptations where the characters were different or had different character arcs and the fans and others still loved those adaptations. Walden's LWW is the first one that pops into my head, Peter was not a reluctant hero in the book like he is in that movie. In the One Piece Live action, Sanji had quite a few different characteristics and characterizations from the anime.
Last of all but not least,I am once again going to reference Anne of Green Gables (Kevin Sullivan 1st movie), Gilbert in this movie is not the same character in the book. He is more mature in the movie, in the book, he is teasing girls on a regular basis and calling them names not to mention pranking them. He and Anne both grow up during this book. In the movie, he starts at a different point then Gilbert. I would say that in the movie, I do not feel like he grows up and changes but, only Anne does. But, everyone praises this movie for being so book accurate.(Which is why I have another beef with the Anne with an e series, Gilbert is a perfect character in the series and can do no wrong, Anne on the other hand messes up all the time.)
Anyway, this was very interesting to note and I hope I can get others thinking about this and coming up with different theories.
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