MIddlearth, OZ and faithfulness

[Sauron the White]

Nerwen - of course nobody has used the term IDENTICAL. But the idea of a far more faithful adaption has been brought up many times as I hve indicated in quotes and thread links in my post above.

The problem with that is simple. How do you measure such things? Is there a objective scale of agreed upon measurement which pronounces the purity of such changes from one medium to another? Of course not. In the end, this reality will always permit complaining, carping and fault finding with any adaption in the minds of some viewers.

My point is that there is no relationship at all between faithfulness and film quality. So to use faithfulness as a criteria in judgement as to if a film is good or not is fundamentally flawed and unfair. Judge the films as films. There is plenty to praise and also to find fault with just on that basis alone. Judge something by what it is - not what it is not.

Like it or not, fidelity to the original is something people tend to want in adaptations. It's not unique to this forum.

Of course that is true. But it is a demand that cannot be ever measured or clearly identified one way or the other. Its merely another excuse to keep complaining about something which can never be proven or quantified or measured. A book and a film are two different things. Accept that and then judge something on the basis of what it is - not what it is not.

In the end, faithfulness means little or nothing regarding the success, quality or public acceptance of a film. WIZARD OF OZ shows that. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA shows that. The three LOTR films show that.