If you’re a fan of a popular franchise I’m sure you are familiar with the idea of an adaptation. In case you aren’t, the Oxford dictionary definition of adaptation reads as follows, “The process of making a work of art upon the basis of elements provided by an earlier work in a different medium.”
A good example would be the “Dune” and “Hunger Games” movies. Both franchises originally started out as book series that received theatrical adaptations years after their original release.
While it’s most common to see a book get adapted into a film or television series, pretty much anything can be adapted into something else. A show can be turned into a game, a toy line can turn into a film series, and so on.
When it comes to adapting a story there’s a lot of questions you have to ask yourself. There’s the obvious ones, like how to translate a specific element or finding the right actor for a character. However, after a while, you’ll find yourself running into much more pressing issues, one of them being, “what do I change?”
Due to the nature of translating a story into a different media, it’s almost impossible to do an absolute perfect adaptation. There will likely be something you have to replace, move around or outright get rid of. As you can imagine, this can have a significant impact on the story and characters.
While most adaptations try to be as faithful as possible to the original source material, every so often you run into one that tries to do something wildly different. This is most often seen in comic book related media, especially when it comes to Spider-Man.
Oct. 20, 2023 marked the release of “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2,” the newest entry in Spidey’s long running series of video games. I spent my winter break playing through the game’s story. As much as I enjoyed it, I was left feeling disappointed at how the game handled many of its main characters, leading me to write this article and ask the question, “Is there a correct way to adapt something?”
Before we start I would like to drop a quick spoiler warning. I will be talking in great detail about the story, especially the third act.
First I will be talking about the parts of the adaptation that I honestly consider bad. Unlike previous games, “Spider-Man 2” has dual protagonists, Peter Parker and Miles Morales. Both Spider-Men have their own supporting cast and list of villains, meaning this game has an awfully large amount of characters. When you’re writing a story with a large ensemble cast, there’s a pretty high chance that some characters will get more attention than others. However, one would think that wouldn’t apply to the leads.
I believe the game could’ve handled the characters of Venom and Mary Jane Watson in a much better and more respectful way. I would like to praise the game before I speak negatively of it. Peter Parker was handled amazingly well, the game did a fantastic job showing off his personality and inner struggle. His undying love for MJ, the questioning of his morals and just everything about black suit was all great. He may not be a one-to-one replica of his comic counterpart, but the game was still able to keep his important traits.
Now, let’s talk about the character who is the complete opposite of Peter. Both in terms of character and writing, Venom. The interesting thing about Venom is that he cannot exist without being attached to another character. Venom by himself is a shapeless alien symbiote that is incapable of speech, however, once he finds himself a host to bond with he becomes an antihero with attitude.
In most Spidey adaptations the symbiote bonds to disgrace journalist Eddie Brock. “Spider-Man 2,” however, decided to do something different with its version of the character. Instead of joining forces with Eddie, the symbiote is attached to Peter’s best friend Harry Osbone, which on paper, isn’t a change I hate. I will say, however, that I believe it was handled extremely poorly.
Unlike Peter, Venom pretty much has nothing in common with his comic version outside of his name and design. He may look and sound like the character but I assure you, he is not. First of all, let’s talk about the relationship between Harry and the symbiote. The symbiote and the host tend to share the same goal, usually being to ruin Peter’s life. The game, however, goes for a different approach. Venom’s main goal is now to take over the planet, explaining the symbiote hive mind. This is extremely out of character.
While Venom may be an alien, it isn’t a character trait that’s often mentioned. That’s because it isn’t really important. I always believed that the beauty of Venom comes from the idea that two separate entities can hate a single person so much that they literally come together for the sole purpose of making that person’s existence a living nightmare, an honestly pathetic reason to become a villain. Making him this big bad world destroyer takes away from that.
Adding on to that last point, the symbiote and host don’t share the same hatred for Peter. As I mentioned before, Harry is Peter’s best friend. He doesn’t really agree with what the symbiote wants to do, making the entire relationship one sided.
His name doesn’t even make sense within the context of the game. Eddie and the symbiote gave themselves the name Venom due to seeing themselves as the poison that inflected Peter’s life. However, the game just sort of gave him the name for no apparent reason. Yes, the player may know them as Venom, but the in game characters have no real reason to call them that, especially when you consider the fact that Harry’s main goal is to “heal the world.”
Moving on from the main villain, let’s discuss the main love interest, Mary Jane Watson. Non comic readers tend to misinterpret MJ’s character. General audiences seem to believe that she is nothing more than a damsel in distress, someone that Peter has to constantly save. This couldn’t be more wrong.
MJ has always very much been her own distinct character. In the comics she was introduced as a lively, energetic, fun and irresponsible party girl who ran away from her problems, someone who was the exact opposite of Peter. Later on she would learn the same lesson about responsibility that Peter did and leave her life of partying behind.
She would go on and become a world famous model, actress and businesswoman. She would find success through her own skills and merits, learning to move on from her past struggles, keeping her carefree and extroverted nature.
The game’s MJ is much different. She is a lot more like Peter in terms of personality. She seemingly has a lot more in common with her partner. Instead of being lighthearted and relaxed, she’s more awkward and worryful.
Her career even changed. Instead of having any of the previous jobs I listed, she’s now a reporter, much in the same as Superman’s love interest Lois Lane, with the only difference being that she isn’t successful.
With all of that being said, I have to say, I didn’t hate MJ’s character like I did with Venom. Sure, she has very little in common with her comic counterpart but overall she is still a fun character to see on screen. This raises the question, is heavily changing a character fine just as long as they’re still written well?
I don’t have a simple answer to this. Yes, I would like the character to be similar to how they were originally portrayed. However, what if it clashes with the tone of the story? “Spider-Man 2” tells a pretty dramatic story, so I can see if the writers thought that it would be more fitting if MJ had a more serious personality.
While I can sort of agree with this, why adapt Many Jane at all at that point? If they wanted Peter’s love interest to be more serious than why not adapt someone like Gwen Stacy, a character who is known for being angsty and broody?
So, is there a correct way to adapt a story? Writing is extremely subjective, so there’s no such thing as right and wrong answers. Some people may desire a perfect recreation of the original story, while others may want to see something new.
In my very personal opinion, I want to see a mix of the two. I want the characters to share traits with their original counterparts while offering something new. I want to experience a story that is familiar, yet new. What I’m saying may sound a little bit greedy, but I believe it’s the least the writers could do for the fans.