One of these is not like the other

The second part of Mark Finn's interview with Adventures Fantastic (the first part of which I swore I commented on, but apparently haven't) is up, and as ever, Mark has a lot of things to say.  Mostly in the manner of the Texan, natch.

However, the beginning of the interview just hammered something home to me:

Howard films…I have to tell you a quick story, an anecdote.  We managed to get ahold of a copy of Solomon Kane from a friend who taped a bootleg.  My wife Cathy was real excited to sit down and watch it.  We were five minutes in, and she said, "Was this Robert E. Howard right here?"

And I said, "No."

Then she said, "Okay."  And we watch a little bit more.  He goes through the things he goes through and he's killing people left and right, and she says, "This has got to be Howard."

And I said, "No, this isn't in any of the Solomon Kane stories."  

"Huh."

I said, "I'll tell you what.  I'll let you know when the Howard stuff shows up 'cause I'll probably get real excited about it."

She goes, "Great."

Thirty minutes go by.  She says, "He's met the family now.  Is this Howard?"

"No, this isn't Howard."

We get to about ten minutes before the end, and she says, "Honey, is there any Robert E. Howard in this?"

I said, "Well, the guy's name is Solomon Kane." 

She said, "Honey, that doesn't count."

The friend I went to the cinema with to see Solomon Kane didn't ask, but then, I'd been bleating about SK's divergences beforehand and told her that this was basically a made up story featuring a dude called Solomon Kane.  Come to think of it, I think I might do a Youtube video of Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, Kull the Conqueror and Solomon Kane consisting *only* of the elements one can find in the original stories.  A bit like the purist edits for Jackson's Lord of the Rings, only they'd be about 10 minutes long.  Altogether.

This part spoke to me too:

You know, it's a little sad that the best one of the bunch is still the old "Pigeons From Hell" Thriller episode.  Boris Karloff's adaptation of "Pigeons From Hell" still stands out as following the storyline.  Which is such a novel approach.  Why didn't I think of that?  Why not just take something from the books?  How simple and how basic.  “No, no, no, you don't understand, Mark, we've got to rewrite Conan so that he's on a quest for vengeance.”  Oh, cause that hasn't been done to death.  Yeah, yeah, that makes prefect sense.  Yeah, why not, why not?  In fact, I got an idea.  Why don't you have a Vikings kill his family.  We've never seen that before in a film. 

It just makes me crazy that these guys in LA have…I don't think it's ignorance.  I think it's a willful self confidence there that feeds an ego that has to be the size of C’thulhu.  It's the only thing that makes sense.  If I come to them with a proposal set in a savage land in a distant time about a guy who walks into town out of the wilderness and through strength, cunning, guile, his own wits, he pulls himself up by his bootstraps to become the most famous rogue in town.  But because he's still new in town he hasn't counted on the forces of civilization rallying around him, and so the story ends when he's betrayed and has to leave town.  And they say, "What's the name of this piece?"  and I say, "Krogan the Mercenary".  They'd be like [snaps fingers], "Awesome, we'll run with it.  It'll be just like Walter Hill did in Last Man Standing.  Yeah.  We won't give him an origin.  No, it makes him mysterious.  Perfect!  I love it!" 

That should be the Conan movie.  That should be the Conan movie.  But no, noooo, let's give him a family.  Even though Robert E. Howard's stuff so seldom uses family for anything, much less a motif for vengeance.  Usually it's an excuse to move away.  

Inspired by Mark's post, I created a little bit of comparison between the fantasy films and television series which we've seen in the past decade.

The Harry Potter film series - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

The Lord of the Rings - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

The Chronicles of Narnia - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

Bridge to Terabithia - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

The Golden Compass - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

Stardust - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

Hogfather - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

City of Ember - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

The Spiderwick Chronicles - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

Coraline - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

The Twilight film series - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

Conan the Barbarian - made up a story, characters, themes and settings that can't be found in the original literature. Bares no resemblance to any of the original author's actual stories.

A Game of Thrones - stuck to the story, characters, themes and setting of the original literature. Some egregious changes, a few additions and many omissions, but it's at least recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories.

Can you see anything unusual there?

*As James noted in the comments, calling some of these "recognizably an adaptation of the author's actual stories" might be over-generous on my part, but in comparison to Conan the Barbarian...