[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/B-Z_B-S]

Rings of Power.

They had the rights to the Lord of the Rings, but not the Silmarillion, so they had to deliberately get things wrong where they could only have gotten the knowledge from the Silmarillion to avoid copyright infringement.

[u/Boarderdudeman → u/B-Z_B-S]

I havent seen it, but this seems like a nightmare from the writers perspective. Squeezed by both sides.

[u/CaptainMikul → u/Boarderdudeman]

I watched half of season 1, unfortunately I just found it boring.

Production was good, actors were good, and for a while it really captured the "Lord Of The Rings Vibe".

But you could almost feel the writers having to thread that needle. Everything just felt slightly off, slightly forced, like someone shaved the magic off LOTR because, well, they didn't have the rights to it.

[u/Otterable → u/CaptainMikul]

someone shaved the magic off LOTR because, well, they didn't have the rights to it.

As a massive LotR fan, the rights are not the actual issue with the show. That's just a salient excuse that gets latched onto by people who haven't actually read the Silmarillion. Even with all the rights the show would still be bad.

The reality is the writing is just poorly done and the creative changes they made especially the introduction of the Harfoots do not create a compelling narrative, or in the case of the harfoots actively take away from their ability to create one. On a closer watch, you can see a legitimately deep understanding of the lore by the creators, but the thing that matters most in TV is the plot, and they needed to create one to dramatize and compact the era they were telling a story about and it fell completely flat.

[u/pocketbutter → u/CaptainMikul]

Having finished season 1, I can tell you: a lot of the writing quality was sacrificed in favor of setting up for a twist at the end. I’m not saying it justifies it, but just that some of the choices make more sense once you’re aware of it.

[u/CaptainMikul → u/[deleted]]

I don't tend to do cost benefit analysis whilst watching a TV show about elves and goblins.