Hmm. I don't think I made any of the assumptions you then go on to challenge.
I would argue, though, that in the "Lawnmower Man" case, the movie producers were misrepresenting their product, and that the only difference between King's lawsuits, and merely demanding a pseudonymous credit like "Allan Smithee" or "Cordwainer Bird," is one of degree.
I know I wouldn't be happy if somebody were to buy my novel, turn my protagonist into something she most profoundly isn't, and then release it under my name. No amount of money would be worth that.
I know I wouldn't be happy if somebody were to buy my novel, turn my protagonist into something she most profoundly isn't, and then release it under my name. No amount of money would be worth that.
To be fair, authors from Richard Matheson to Ursula K. Le Guin have occasionally grumbled about "bait-and-switch" tactics in which assurances made early on, when the deal is first struck, fall by the wayside by the time the film version finally makes it to the screen.
Before the contract is signed: "We love your book and will spare no expense to bring your vision to the screen, staying true to your characters and your message. And this is going to be an A-class production all the way. We're already talking to Big Name Directors like X and X, and Big Name Star is a huge fan and very interested in bringing your protagonist to life, just as you wrote them."
Six years and seventeen scriptwriters later: "Okay, this going to be a low-budget TV-movie starring Eric Roberts, we've replaced the spaceships with dragons, added a teen romance, and changed the protagonist from an astronaut to a ninja. But otherwise, it's exactly like your book!"
One can argue, of course, that the author should have gotten those assurances in writing, but . . . .
I know that one thing I would insist upon is a clause stipulating that the release of a DRM-encumbered e-book would be considered a breach of contract. Another would be a clause giving me absolute and unreviewable control over typography.
Realistically, however, I can't imagine most mainstream publishers agreeing to those terms. Or that any agent would choose those hills to die on.
An author can know what readers do, because they see them doing it, right here on this BBS!
And via reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, etc.
And that's how they tell them - indirectly sometimes.
You can read a book and figure out that the author used the same obscure word over and over without having to ask them if they did. But if a reader reads a book and misunderstands the plot, unless they talk about it somewhere (message boards. a letter to the author, a video) the author will never know.
You can read a book and figure out that the author used the same obscure word over and over without having to ask them if they did. But if a reader reads a book and misunderstands the plot, unless they talk about it somewhere (message boards. a letter to the author, a video) the author will never know.
Except my protagonist would still be unchanged -- in the book itself. An adaptation isn't a replacement of the book, it's a different work inspired by it. And it wouldn't be released under my name, but under theirs, as director, producers, and screenwriters. I'd just get a "based on" credit. Which, like Andre Norton, I could waive if I felt their version wasn't something I wanted to associate my name with. (Although Norton's agent convinced her to allow her credit on Beastmaster 2, presumably because she got more money that way.)
The Alan Smithee analogy doesn't really work, because that's something a director does if the studio takes their film away from them and changes it to an extent they don't want to be associated with. In that case, it's an alteration to their own original work, which would not be the case if someone else made an inferior screen adaptation of one of my novels, since my novel would still exist unaltered.
I actually pre-emptively addressed this in Only Superhuman; there was a running gag that the protagonist was annoyed by a cheesy low-budget biopic about her that had recently come out. Which would've worked as a meta-commentary if there had been a bad movie adaptation of the novel.
That just seems like the normal workings of the film business, no different for adaptations than it is for original projects. Most projects never get out of development hell, and those that do are often unrecognizably altered. So I think getting assurances in writing would probably backfire. If you say "You have to make the film this way or not at all," then when the workings of the industry inevitably produce changes (e.g. development drags on so long that the original people attached have moved on), they'd just cancel the film entirely and you wouldn't see any money from it beyond the initial deal.
I mean, you're the one who pointed out to me that even a bad film adaptation prompts a lot of new sales for the original book, so even a bad adaptation is better for the author than no adaptation at all. Even if people didn't like the movie, many of them will discover the book and like it much better.
And indeed it may very well be that those early assurances were made in good faith, but years of Development Hell defeated those good intentions.
And, of course, there's a spectrum here regarding the authors' reactions. I chose the verb "grumble" quite deliberately. An author can be philosophical about the process, grateful for the Hollywood money and extra royalties, and still be somewhat annoyed or disappointed that the final product did not live up to their early expectations.
Without going to the extreme of demanding their name taken off the movie or whatever.
And, of course, there's a spectrum here regarding the authors' reactions. I chose the verb "grumble" quite deliberately. An author can be philosophical about the process, grateful for the Hollywood money and extra royalties, and still be somewhat annoyed or disappointed that the final product did not live up to their early expectations.
Without going to the extreme of demanding their name taken off the movie or whatever.
The most annoying thing about those damned Trek authors ?
They just keep writing those damned Trek novels.
PS - I really LIKE the way Christopher L Bennett keeps using real science to explain technobabnle.
Trek's never going to be hard sci-fi but it should be distanced from fantasy.
They just keep writing those damned Trek novels.
PS - I really LIKE the way Christopher L Bennett keeps using real science to explain technobabnle.
Trek's never going to be hard sci-fi but it should be distanced from fantasy.
I guess sometimes they have a...one Trek mind.
The book follows a Native American named Hosteen veteran of a war against aliens in the future, who moves to an alien planet after the aliens who humans fought again destroy the earth, and he is teamed up with a group genetically engineered animals he can communicate with.
In the movie Dar is a white blond warrior who developed the ability talk to animals because a witch moved him from his mother's womb to a cow's, and he find fighting different evil kings and war lords. The movies mostly take place in a barren desert, except for the second one where he ends up in what was then modern LA, which is still kind of a barren desert.
I'm not sure if the show ever got into the origins of Dar's powers, but his basic description is the same as the one in the movie, but it was filmed in Australia and takes place mostly in forests and jungles. It also has a bigger variety of magic users and creatures.
I'm pretty sure that I've read that some of the big names authors of popular books have had it in the contracts that they get approval over the script and casting.
Hell, even some movies and shows with the original author directly involved, have had pretty significant changes, some even made by the original author themselves. I haven't read the book yet, but I think Anne Rice wrote the script for the Interview With The Vampire movie, and made some pretty significant changes from what she did in the book.
Oh, certainly. Usually nobody's happier to change a work than its original writer. After all, the work itself is the end result of a process of trial and error and revision along the way, and most any writer looking back on their older works will see ways they could've done things differently and would happily change if they had the chance. At least, they won't want to retell the exact same story, because they already told it and would rather try something new.
Also, of course, working on a collaborative process like a movie or TV show is bound to be different from a solo project like a novel, since there are other creative voices in the mix. And any writer experienced with both prose and screen will understand that the different media have different strengths and limitations, different demands.
Plus, it's not as though creating a different version of your work will erase the original, though the newer one might be the preferred version for some readers/viewers.
I'll check a used book store. Not sure when I'll get to them though.
And comics in particular will often change the comics counterpart to more closely match a popular screen version.
The most disappointed I've been seeing a movie adaptation of what was to me a beloved short story (of Asimov's) was after seeing Nightfall (1988), which was absolutely horrible. In broad strokes, you could say it was faithful, but it was boring, shallow, and not fun.
Or incorporate adaptation-original characters into the comics, as with Jimmy Olsen, Perry White, Harley Quinn, Mercy Graves, Phil Coulson, etc. Even the later Sherlock Holmes stories incorporated a character created for the stage play, a page boy named Billy. Johnston McCulley's post-1920 Zorro stories altered Zorro's costume to resemble the screen version and gave Don Diego a personality quirk from the 1920 silent movie (asking "Have you seen this one?" before doing a magic trick), and the final, posthumously published Zorro story, released after the debut of the 1950s Disney TV series, called the lead character Don Diego de la Vega as in the show, instead of the usual Don Diego Vega. (Although since that was posthumous, it may have been a change made by the editor instead of McCulley himself.)
And there have been cases of novelists writing sequels to be closer to the movie version, since the movie audience is larger and the authors want to appeal to them by offering them something they recognize. The novel 2010: Odyssey Two is a sequel to the movie version of 2001 rather than the prose version. The sequel to Logan's Run was nominally in continuity with the original novel, but opened with a quick explanation that things had changed in the interim to create a situation more like the one at the end of the movie. (Or so I've heard -- I haven't read it.)
Like when Ian Malcolm died but not really.
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