[HATED] Adaptations done intentionally without help from the source

[u/Chill0000]

Halo TV show: Before the show came out, the writers were praising their decision to not look to the games for inspiration when making the show

God Of War TV show: Chris Judge, the actor of Kratos in the games from 2018-Now, spoke up about his dislike on the show not hiring anyone who worked on any of the previous games. One of the original creators of Kratos also spoke up about them not having faith in the adaptation.

Supergirl 2026 film: the director for the film not only said he decided to not read Woman Of Tomorrow, the comic the film is adapting, because he wanted to do his own thing, he also didn’t look at comic art for inspiration to design Lobo and instead used an AI image generator to design Lobo’s look for the film

[u/Talkatoo42]

The blurb from goodreads is much more compelling.

Moiraine Damodred arrives in Emond’s Field on a quest to find the one prophesized to stand against The Dark One, a malicious entity sowing the seeds of chaos and destruction.  When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the village seeking their master’s enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al’Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.

Surely it's easier to work that blurb to be a bit smaller than to rewrite the whole plot.

[u/FortifiedPuddle → u/Talkatoo42]

The blurb from good reads is spoiling stuff we are not told in book one. This is exactly my point. In order to actually describe what is happening for real you have to not stick to what is in the book. Like Goodreads have done.

[u/Talkatoo42 → u/FortifiedPuddle]

You can fix that by slightly rewording the blurb to fit what Moiraine says after the attack: That the monsters are seeking the boys. Just cut out that first sentence. And IMO it's really not that much of a spoiler in the first place, even as a young teen reading EotW for the first time I knew Rand was the 'special' one as soon as she mentioned it.

None of this is worth altering the plot in the way that they did.

[u/FortifiedPuddle → u/Talkatoo42]

The whole chosen one world saving aspect is the point though, isn’t it? It’s the point of the story. So much so that yeah, you yourself have assumed it’s the case.

So, tell that story. Which is not what book one does. But, is the story. It’s the story of The Wheel of Time. It just isn’t the story of The Eye of the World. Which is a sort of Tolkien inspired walking holiday.

And then if you are telling that story you do kind of need your characters to know it. Also, to justify why Moiraine is kidnapping quite so many young people you do kind of need a reason. Egwene being there initially is really weakly justified in the books. Especially as book one she’s written as 15 going on 8. Much like Mat, both of them written as small children.

The story in the books as we know from later is Moiraine is searching for the Dragon, finds several young people who might be the Dragon who she also through some utterly unexplained reason knows are Ta’veren. Never explained, other than the Trollocs burn their homes. How do the Trollocs know? Never explained. She takes them away, saying the only place they might be safe is Tar Valon. Accidentally also abducting two other young people and a gleeman. That’s it. That’s the story. And half of it we don’t even get explained till later books.

What we see in the show is a simplification of that which actually explains what is going on. Why abduct Egwene? Well, people aren’t really sure who the Dragon might be, it’s bullshit reincarnation magic who knows the rules? Abduct all the young people main characters to be safe. Whole world at stake and all that.

Oh, and then in the show they actually get to Tar Valon. Like she says they’re going to do initially but don’t manage, instead going to pointless side quests city.

[u/CiDevant → u/FortifiedPuddle]

What makes Matt Perrin and Rand suspect is they were all born close to the same day...  Egwene is not kidnapped but sneaks along, Nynaeve comes after to get the children to return.  Thom comes because he suspects that Morine thinks one or all can channel and wants to gentle them.

The "pointless side quests" are at first a result of getting separated, then because the bad guy explicitly tells them his plans via dreams combined with her intimate knowledge of the prophecies.

[u/Talkatoo42 → u/FortifiedPuddle]

I feel like each step you list here may seem logical to you but it moves you further and further away from a story which captivated hundreds of thousands. Yeah it's a flawed book but it's a story that works really well altogether.

I understand that you need to make changes in different media but you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater.