Yeah, I know I didn't go through and look at any GOOD adaptations. And I realized it's a really good idea to do so, as many will hold up the Marvel Cinematic Universe as good adaptations. Largely, they aren't adaptations; they're standard "hero's journey" action films, with some notes from the comics stories and characters.
So, what's a good adaptation? I'm going to look at Road to Perdition, as I hold it is quite possibly the best comic book adaptation yet. Oh, there are changes made in the story, but most of them are sensible to the translation of time constraints and well, a minor bit of believability, regardless of history.
First change was the name of the Quad Cities crime family leaders. They were the Looney family. Max Allan Collins wrote them as such, as they were a historical truth, The book was part gang history, part Lone Wolf and Cub. Why the change? It's not a common name, and some might think it was too on the nose, never mind that it wouldn't be very recognizable as Irish anymore.
The scene in the Capone headquarters? It's in the comic. I'm not sure on the history, though there are several tomes on the Angel of Death.
What else got changed? Well, the amount of the time on the road, robbing banks feels very condensed. That's FINE, they manage to give the impression without the time. Going from a novel to comics, somethings won't work as well, due to sheer descriptive ability vs. having the art present.
There were multiple hitmen after Michael O'Sullivan, not just one. Again I don't have a problem with the condensing of this as he was portrayed as a real threat, and a fairly constant presence.
One last change they made, and that's more a movie audience(normies world wide) versus a crime comic audience(gritty is good). The graphic novel ends with the son being the one that shoots the final hitman. Likely that would have caused an outrage, and there was no reason for that. The movie was a one off, no sequels, while the comic is written so that sequels could happen(and they do, in both novel and graphic novel form).
There's a few other really good adaptations out there, and I might cover more later. Or more bad ones, even if they make decent stories themselves.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
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