When I was a teenager I read Robert Ludlum's "Bourne Identity". I admired Mr. Ludlum's story telling and spy craft. It most definitely was not the story that made it into the script for the 2002 movie with Matt Damon.
One of my favorite novels growing up was "Moonspinners" by Mary Stewart. I also love the Disney movie with Haley Mills. It is not the same story. At all.
Last week I read "Bedknob and Broomstick" by Mary Norton. Again, 'based' on the book, but the only similarity in the movie is the use of the characters' names and even Emelius is really a Jones, not a Brown.
It happens in remakes of movies, too. Remember when "Red Dawn" was about Russians?
I think I've stumbled upon a doctoral thesis for someone seeking a doctorate in sociology. Here is the basic idea: How are modern societal norms reflected in the way Disney makes movie adaptations from the books they are based on, and in turn, how do the changes made affect societal norms? (I picked Disney because, #1. as a company, they've made major changes to the storylines of the books to movies they've created. #2. it's easier to pick one prolific, but definable company vs. saying all of Hollywood.)
Granted, at the end of Snow White, no one wants to see blazing hot iron shoes placed on the evil queen's feet and watch her forced dance of death. I much prefer the ironical way she dies from the boulder she tried to kill the 7 dwarves with. "Tangled" wouldn't be the same story without a dashing Flynn Rider or magical hair, but neither are in the story of Rapunzel. Every cartoon they've made is not the story it started to be in the mind of its author.
There is a minor tempest in the teapot over the movie "Frozen" right now and it's intended messages. I admit to feeling uncomfortable by parts of the movie as we watched it, but I could have been affected by my need to be completely and utterly sick. Whatever the reason behind the story changes, the movie is almost unrecognizable when compared to Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale, "The Snow Queen". Granted, the story on its own is rambling and has several crazy elements. I do like the beginning of the fairy tale better. It begins with a hobgoblin and a mirror that changes the way life is viewed. Everything becomes ugly when viewed through the mirror. The hobgoblin accidentally drops his mirror and it breaks scattering shards over the earth-- shards that imbed themselves in human eyes and hearts, blinding eyes to the beauty of the world and freezing the hearts of their victims.
The remainder of the story is about a little girl named Gerda and a little boy named Kay. Kay gets a double whammy with shards of mirror glass to his eye and to his heart. He leaves his beautiful friendship with Gerda and is carried away, not quite unwillingly, by the Snow Queen (who is a character in the stories his grandmother tells and is anywhere there is a thick snow flurry.) The main of the tale is about Gerda's journey to find her lost friend. That's where it gets crazy. She meets a witch who keeps her all spring and summer in a garden filled stupor. She finds a crow that tells her that Kay has just married a princess. When she finally gets into the castle by sneaking up a hidden staircase, she sees the neck of the sleeping prince (Kay) and calls out to him, only to find out he is not Kay. The prince and princess feel badly for her plight and send her out with a handsome entourage to find Kay. She is waylaid by robbers, but the robber queen's daughter feels sorry for her and takes her to talking pigeons and then lends Gerda her talking reindeer so that she can go up to Lapland where the Snow Queen has her summer palace. On the trip north, she meets a Finnish woman who gives her warm clothes, and a Lapland woman who tells her that she doesn't need anything other than the power of her love to bring Kay home (and sends Gerda off without her warm clothes).
It is Gerda's love that frees Kay. The Snow Queen has told a frozen Kay (she kissed his forehead until his body froze like his heart) that he can be his own master if he can spell the word love in the ice. He's not sure why, but he keeps trying to do it, fitting pieces of ice together like a puzzle. When Gerda finds him in the Snow Queen's palace of ice (the queen's not even there-- she's running errands) she cries over him. Her tears fall on his breast and soften his heart. He begins to cry and the shard in his eye is washed away. They lay down on the ice floor in their exhaustion. As they sleep (and by sleep, remember that these are little kids so they really are sleeping, which then again, begs the question as to how she ever thought that Kay was a grown, married man), the heat created from their love melts the ice and forms the word "LOVE". The end.
That doesn't at all seem like what I watched in the movie theater, though I guess there is a reindeer who kind of talks.
Clearly parts of that don't gel with our modern way of thinking. We wouldn't dare to call a witch wicked, and Gerda's sweet innocence and unflawed demeanor is unacceptable as a characteristic of today's modern, powerful heroine (who becomes real to us through her flawed persona). The questions I think need answering begin with how do the writers take the written words of authors and create a totally different version of the story line? Are there rules? There must be guidelines. What are they? How much is affected by current affairs and blowing of moral winds?
Then, once Disney creates its new character based on modern perceptions, how does that character go on to affect the way millions of little girls see the world, themselves, and their male counterparts in it? In turn, the question becomes, how do these children shape the world that they've grown up in?
I don't know. I just think it bears looking at, not that I'm willing to take the time and energy needed to study something this vast and perhaps undefinable. What do you think?
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