An adaptation completely botches the original theme and message

[u/Morr4Seiya]

Mulan(2020)-They give Mulan superpowers which is not only lame it goes against the message of the original about equality and struggle,plus they removes Shang because apparently having Mulan date her superior was "problematic" even though Shang genuienely respected Mulan and their rank was never brought up

I am Legend(2007)-You know why the story is called "I am legend"? SPOILER ALERT the protagonist is the actual monster,humanity is gone and the vampires have a actual society and the protagonist kills and terrorize them

Animal Farm(2026)-On the very slim chance that Andy Serkis ever sees this,here's the thing Andy,Animal Farm was not a children work it was not supposed to have a happy ending,you never heard of cautionary tales before?

[u/metal_gearmen]

Betty from Rugrats.

In the more recent series, they turned her into a lesbian simply because she is big and masculine, thereby discarding the show's original message: she was married to Howard (a smaller, more nervous man), and while they had reversed gender roles, it didn't matter—they were a happy family.

[u/kisamasochist → u/metal_gearmen]

It also just kinda pushes stereotypes; Oh the loud deep voicied woman with short hair and broad shoulders, let's make her specifically a lesbian.

It's like the Velma series where they made the smart and unattractive (in that version) character indian, made the exotic and beautiful character east asian, and kept the leader white. They tried to be inclusive but just conformed to stereotypes

[u/-Release-The-Bats- → u/kisamasochist]

Or when they released the first look at the cast for the new Harry Potter series: the only black person (hell, the only dark-skinned black person) in the new cast announcement was Snape, the child-abusing wizard nazi.

[u/Scared-Jacket-6965 → u/-Release-The-Bats-]

It's gonna be so awful cause Harry gonna be suspicious of Snape in first season cause in the books he found Snape creepy. In the TV show its gonna come off hella racist. "ITS SNAPE TRYING TO KILL ME! HES WORKING FOR VOLDEMORT!" bro gonna accused the sole black teacher as being an agent for wizard world's HITLER.

[u/First_Foundationeer → u/Scared-Jacket-6965]

You've made the show so much funnier for me that I want to watch it now.

[u/fresh-dork → u/Scared-Jacket-6965]

well, he's a known consort. also, they hang him from a tree

[u/Scared-Jacket-6965 → u/fresh-dork]

YEAH its questionable at best, cause this is gonna be the first time watching Harry Potter for some people, and Harry is gonna be suspicious of the ONLY BLACK TEACHER, claiming he's a Wizarding World equal to a Nazi. AND then if we finally get to Snape flashback, suddenly James is as bad for bullying a black student and HANGING HIM.

[u/fresh-dork → u/Scared-Jacket-6965]

of course, this makes no sense as a trope, because it's british and they didn't go around lynching black people.

[u/Scared-Jacket-6965 → u/fresh-dork]

Still gonna look horrible, I mean, that's always what the bullying was meant to be awful, BUT bullying the sole black kid, OOF! even british people didn't lynch black people, seeing a black person get hanged no matter what ethnicity they are, is still bad.

[u/fresh-dork → u/Scared-Jacket-6965]

so we're back to questioning this absolutely baffling casting choice.

imagine casting dumbledore as a black guy (since we are apparently obligated). works fine, he's an authority figure and well respected. get avery brooks - done.

[u/Scared-Jacket-6965 → u/fresh-dork]

simple answer is brownie points. They made Snape and Hermione black cause. "IT'S REPRESENTATION!" don't get me wrong, representation is good; give minorities a character who's their race to look up to, BUT my entire problem with this is these characters existed before and weren't that race; changing their race has 0 narrative reason and is basically hand-me-downs.

"Oh, you want an original character who is your race to look up to? All we can afford is a pre-existing character who was originally white, but we made the same race as you, just for you!" The only time I swear this worked was Miles Morales. 1 success vs. 1,000 failures isn't a good track record.

[u/fresh-dork → u/Scared-Jacket-6965]

Miles is black spiderman - JustSomeGuy refers to him as that - he isn't spiderman, he's the black version.

Herms is a mousy haired bunette white chick - she's described broadly as such. why even race swap anyone? but if you're going to do that, exercise some common sense.

[u/HonestAbe1809 → u/Scared-Jacket-6965]

Your point is undermined a bit by the fact that said teacher has an irrational grudge against Harry based solely on who his dad was.

[u/Scared-Jacket-6965 → u/HonestAbe1809]

TO BE FAIR, we don't find that out till later. Like Book 3, I believe? Like, Harry doesn't realize Snape hates him for a reason until later books; he originally thinks Snape hates him because he works for Voldemort.

[u/HonestAbe1809 → u/Scared-Jacket-6965]

Then it’s even more reasonable for Harry to be suspicious. Snape just absolutely despises Harry from the moment he lays his eyes on him. It doesn’t help that the real agent for Voldemort, Quirrell, acts like he’d profusely apologize to a fly for swatting it.

[u/Scared-Jacket-6965 → u/HonestAbe1809]

Honestly, I get it, the suspicious BUT let's look at this from a new-to-the-series person, Harry, who thinks Snape is evil cause it rubbed him the wrong way, BASICALLY went all of season 1 assuming Snape is evil, only to be proven wrong.

We also see Snape not like Neville, so it could realistically be assumed Snape is just the teacher who is a dick. To a first-time viewer, they can assume. "Oh, Harry hates Snape cause Snape is a bit harsh, and assumes the man is evil cause of it."

In the first season, first impressions are key, and Harry assuming the only black teacher is EVIL is gonna make an awful impression on newcomers. CAUSE we gotta look at it through a first-time viewer's eyes, cause thats what this series is aiming for.

[u/HonestAbe1809 → u/Scared-Jacket-6965]

It might be a transparently obvious red herring in hindsight but Harry wouldn’t know it. All he sees is a man who loathes a kid who hasn’t done anything to him for seemingly no reason.

[u/Scared-Jacket-6965 → u/HonestAbe1809]

Fair, I think we gotta look at the series from 2 angles: newcomers and old fans. The entire point of the TV show is to bring new fans to the IP who aren't influenced by the old fans. As older fans, they know what's gonna happen, BUT to new fans who never watched the movies or read the books, they won't know what's coming.

I'm looking forward to this series, cause the movies had to cut alot of shit from them to fit the runtime. I HOPE the TV show actually shows that cut stuff. I will say I'm iffy about the race change; I think it's important to see the stuff before you make a judgment call. ONLY idiots judge a series off a trailer alone, cause saying you hate a TV series after 1 minute of footage is judging the book off the cover.

You follow my thinking? I will say I'm iffy about Snape being black cause the whole issue it brings, BUT if Harry can explain well, then I won't be too judgemental.

[u/HonestAbe1809 → u/Scared-Jacket-6965]

And I’m saying that even with the tone deaf diversity for publicity casting the first book’s story is set up to make Harry’s suspicions regarding Snape look reasonable.

I want it to work but I don’t have HBO MAX and we already have enough streaming memberships.

[u/UncommittedBow → u/-Release-The-Bats-]

And also the one who EXPLICITLY gets lynched in the books by his childhood bully.

[u/1_Am_Andrew_Ryan → u/UncommittedBow]

Your father was a Great Wizard, Harry!

[u/Royal_Bitch_Pudding → u/-Release-The-Bats-]

Given that they're English I would have expected him to be Irish instead

[u/crimson_713 → u/kisamasochist]

I honestly am baffled that Velma got made at all. It feels like they specifically crafted it to be rage bait but when you hear Mindy Kaling talk about the show she's so eager and enthusiastic about it in a way that comes off as out of touch and tone deaf.

It's rare that something is so genuinely terrible it pisses everyone off.

[u/WeirdIndividualGuy → u/crimson_713]

The worst part was the Velma show insisting on being a Scooby Doo property instead of just being its own thing. People probably would’ve been way more receptive to the show if it didn’t fully butcher everything that made Scooby Doo great

[u/Stunning-Disaster-21 → u/crimson_713]

It's cause Mindy has a huge blind spot for her white man worship, it shows up in all her writing. The Indian girl always goes for a white man (and a particular type of white man too).

[u/Hi_Zev → u/crimson_713]

A show that aimed to be inclusive ended up making all its jokes revolve around body shaming men born with smaller-sized penises.

[u/Scared-Jacket-6965 → u/kisamasochist]

Not just that they made Fred the leader and brains of the gang, the rich white boy moron trope. Hating on white people cause our ancestors did the awful shit is dumb at best and harmful at worst. Everyone ancestors did awful shit, that's human history.

[u/fresh-dork → u/kisamasochist]

no they didn't. they made velma look like mindy so she could creep on teenagers in her 30s, made fred literally retarded, and spent half her dialog making mean spirited jokes about his dick.

this isn't inclusion, it's mindy's self insert fantasy