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If a book or comic becomes sufficiently popular, it will almost definitely get a TV show or a movie. While some fans rejoice upon hearing that their favorite series is getting an adaptation, all too often the hardcore fans will find themselves bitterly disappointed, and problems are especially likely to surface when the story is ongoing and the staff has to work with incomplete source material. The result of such circumstances tends to be a Base Breaker.
Sometimes, these complaints are heard, and the result is a Truer to the Text adaptation. When this happens, the story gets another adaptation, where the creators don't make as many drastic changes from the source material, or at least go out of their way to cover what they missed out on last time. This time there will be no annoying additions, no alternate ending, no important details ignored, just the original story, pure and proper. If done well, the Fandom will probably be quite pleased.
However, it's important to keep in mind that this is not necessarily a good thing. There are four closely related problems with this sort of adaptation.
- The first is that, however divergent, a series' first adaptation will probably at least begin with the same basic plot, which could give it a repetitious feel; the reboot starts by covering ground that's already thoroughly trodden.
- Thus the second problem: the beginning might have to deviate from the original story to make a re-adapted story seem new.
- Thirdly, not all fans of the movie/show actually read the source material. This means that they have no idea what they're supposed to be waiting for, so it might feel like this second version is just more of the same.
- Finally, depending on the differences between mediums, such as the inevitable problems that come with adapting a book into a film, "more faithful" does not necessarily equate to "better".
As such, this trope often results in Wilder Over Depp, when the "truer" version is a critical and/or commercial failure, while the less "true" versions are much more successful.
This is a list of examples that have already been done or are in the works. Do NOT list a series unless it has been officially announced. Mere rumors are not enough.
Adapted from Comics[]
- Arguably, the purpose of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's run by Marvel Studios, rather than owned by an independent studio (such as Fox, Sony or Universal), so they have direct control over the movie they put out. The Incredible Hulk and Captain America: The First Avenger are significantly more faithful to the source material than Ang Lee's Hulk or Captain America (1990 film) were.
- The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, despite having had the cases of Adaptational Badass, Adaptational Villainy (in the case of Simon Williams AKA Wonder Man), Adaptation Distillation, Adaptation Dye-Job, Composite Character (in the case of Nick Fury, Abomination and Crimson Dynamo), Decomposite Character (in Nick Fury's case again), and occasionally In Name Only (such as with the portrayals of Michael Korvac and his former girlfriend, Correna, and some of the episodes that are named after storylines from the comics such as The Private War of Doctor Doom, Act of Vengeance and Live Kree or Die), is the most faithful adaptation of the Marvel Comics series as well as the superhero team The Avengers and the mainstream (both original and modern) Marvel comics in general in comparison to the Marvel adaptations that have been created both before and after the show (both animated and live-action).
- Batman vs. the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is this compared to Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the TMNT aspect of the crossover movie. The designs are closer to the comic, they all have the appropriate weapons (nunchucks for Michelangelo, bo for Donatello, sais for Raphael and ninjatos/katanas for Leonardo), Leonardo is the leader, and Baxter Stockman is an adult (and is named "Stockman" instead of "Stockboy").
- X-Men: Dark Phoenix, compared to X-Men: The Last Stand. Jean's Super-Powered Evil Side is a result of fusing with a cosmic being called the Phoenix Force, Selene Gallio plays a role in the plot (albeit as a Brotherhood of Mutants member rather than a Hellfire Club member), there's an alien race that fills the role the Shi'Ar filled in the original comic storyline (and the most prominent member of said alien race also fills the role Mastermind filled in the original comic storyline), Dark Phoenix once again looks like "fire made flesh" (rather than the corpse-like look The Last Stand gave her), and there's no "Cure" subplot to get in the way of the main plot.
- The Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings features a version of the Mandarin much truer to the Mandarin of the comics than the In Name Only depiction from Iron Man 3.
- For all its faults, Morbius featured a version of Morbius the Living Vampire that was much more faithful to the character's depiction in Earth-616 rather than any Bowdlerisation that the character goes through in most Animated Adaptations.
- The Deadpool movies featuring Ryan Reynolds are far truer to the original character than the version that appeared in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which was mercilessly mocked in the credits sequence of Deadpool 2).
- Stargirl, in many respects. Jay Garrick is portrayed as a member of the Justice Society (in the Arrowverse shows, he exists in a different Earth than the Justice Society). Solomon Grundy is a huge muscular zombie, unlike the versions in Gotham, Arrow and Smallville. The show also has a truer version of Tigress than the one in Gotham, and a truer version of Artemis Crock than the ones in Young Justice and Arrow.
Adapted from Literature[]
- The animated Snow Queen movie and its sequels are much more faithful to the original fairy tale than Frozen. Of note is the Snow Queen herself: while they are both Winter Royal Ladies, Elsa is a Obliviously Evil Non-Malicious Monster, while the Snow Queen from these movies is a Fair Folk Evil Overlord like in the fairy tale.
- Gretel and Hansel is much more faithful to the original fairy tale than either Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters or Once Upon a Time.
- Dolittle is much more faithful to the original Hugh Lofting books than the Eddie Murphy movie and the sequels to that movie.
- Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein were intended as faithful adaptations of two books that had been quite heavily changed in previous film adaptations. They had their own changes and quirks, though.
- The 2000 Dune miniseries took some liberties with Frank Herbert's book but, compared to the 1984 David Lynch movie, its fidelity is nigh-slavish.
- The 1997 miniseries of The Shining was far closer to Stephen King's book with the huge exception of the Bowdlerised ending. This is a strong example of "more faithful" not equaling "better": the miniseries was underrated (and scarily effective in its own right), and the 1980 film has significant weaknesses, but Kubrick's vision - however un-Kinglike - still resulted in a better movie.
- The Coen Brothers said this was their intention when they made their film adaptation of True Grit.
- Carson McCullers adapted her novel The Member of the Wedding for the stage herself, despite never having written a play before, to preempt the production of a more conventionally theatrical adaptation by another writer.
- The first two Harry Potter films are noticeably closer to the text than the movies the followed. On the Sliding Scale of Adaptation Modification, the first two movies would score a "4" and the rest would score a "3". Fans are divided over which approach was better. Critics are less divided and prefer the later films (except for Roger Ebert).
- John Carpenter's The Thing compared to The Thing from Another World. The older film used the beginning of the plot of them finding a UFO in the ice and it containing an alien but, from there, diverged quite a bit. Carpenter's version had the alien keep its assimilation powers and overall stayed much closer to the plot of the book.
- The 1982 animated version of The Wizard of Oz featuring Aileen Quinn as Dorothy and Lorne Greene as the Wizard is Truer to the Text of L. Frank Baum's original book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, retaining many elements of the book that were omitted from the 1939 classic movie (such as the Kalidahs, the wolves and crows, and the Wizard's other guises), though it lacks the staying power of the 1939 classic. The Wiz, setting the Setting Update and Race Lift aside, is also a lot closer to the book than the 1939 movie.
- The 1939 classic film of The Wizard of Oz, meanwhile, is Truer to the Text of the original book than the earlier 1925 film starring Larry Semon and Oliver Hardy, which, aside from the basic premise of Dorothy being transported to Oz by a tornado, made no attempt to follow the original story. Semon and Oliver Hardy's Scarecrow and Tin Man are actually farmhands in disguise, Dorothy in this version is allegedly not just an ordinary Kansas girl sent to an extraordinary land but Princess Dorothea the rightful heir to Oz, and instead of the Wicked Witch the villain is Prime Minister Kruel, an authoritarian ruler who casts a curse on Dorothy in an attempt to maintain his power. Those who aren't Oz scholars or film history buffs might not even know about the 1925 film, and those that do largely regard it as a curiosity at best.
- The 1939 film went through several earlier drafts that departed greatly from the original story, including a plot where the Cowardly Lion was actually a prince transformed into a lion. In the end, they dispensed with that plot thread and several others, and settled on a version that was fairly faithful to the original book, minus episodes and incidents that really only served to pad the story (such as the Kalidahs, the wolves, crows, and bees, the Wizard's other guises, and the journey to Glinda's palace), adding only a few elements of their own (Kansas counterparts for many of the Oz characters, the Horse of a Different Color, the All Just a Dream/Or Was It a Dream? ending, and the deleted Jitterbug sequence).
- Return to Oz, though not an entirely faithful adaptation of the books The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz, is nonetheless truer to the text of those books than the earlier animated movie Journey Back to Oz, using a far greater number of characters and plot elements from both books.
- Rounding up the Oz franchise are the prequels: Oz the Great and Powerful is much closer to the Baum books than either the Wicked book or the Wicked musical. Oz is a hero, the Wicked Witch of the West is a villain, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man have their Baum origins, and Glinda is closer to Baum in personality and powers and moral alignment.
- That being said, the musical is more faithful to Baum in portraying the Wizard as an heroic figure.
Adapted from Manga[]
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was to be a far more faithful retelling of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga. The first anime adaptation was quite popular in its own right, but at the same time, it left manga-only fans livid since it Overtook the Manga and therefore went in a VERY different and quite cynical direction. That being said, many fans found Brotherhood lacking as well.
- Hellsing, in a rather similar vein, got a more faithful adaptation in the form of an OVA series, titled Hellsing Ultimate.
- Mahou Sensei Negima is an interesting case. The OVA releases have been faithful to the manga, but they're so deep into a story that none of its multiple previous adaptations properly covered, that they won't make much sense to anyone who hasn't read the manga.
- A new anime for Hunter X Hunter was announced for the Fall 2011 Anime season, to be a retelling from the very beginning.
- Dragon Ball Kai serves as a remastered Adaptation Distillation of the Dragon Ball Z anime, with most of the Filler removed (not to mention greatly reducing the original show's infamous abuse of Talking Is a Free Action).
- The first Sailor Moon anime was quite different from the original after also falling victim to Overtook the Manga, whereas the second adaptation, Sailor Moon Crystal, followed it much closer (though it wasn't a carbon copy either).
- The first Fruits Basket anime only covered part of the manga, leaving out a few characters and plot points as well as The Reveal about Akito and ending on a romantically ambiguous note. The 2019 anime is sticking more closely to the manga's story, with Rin already having made an appearance.
Adapted from Visual Novels[]
- The anime version of Tsukihime left many fans quite irate over how much it deviated from the source material. There was, however, a manga that retold the original story quite faithfully.
Adapted from Western Animation[]
- Bumblebee is tonally much closer to both the original cartoon and comics than the Bayverse films. To exemplify it, Bumblebee has his classic VW Bug alternate mode rather than a Camaro.