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Okay. Here are the things about The Count of Monte Cristo I adore, but I am certain adaptations will get wrong without having watched any adaptations.

Edmond's father being a major motivator for his revenge. Films, for brevity, mainly seem to focus on Mercedes and his ruined marriage. Thanks Hollywood.

Villefort having no connection to the other people who betrayed Edmond. One of the most tragic elements is that Villefort is actually about to save Dantes, right before he sacrifices him to save himself. I'm aware of at least one musical that has Villefort conspire together with Danglars and Fernand. I love the songs but that bothers me.

Caderousse. I can imagine some versions cut him out as superfluous. The musical seems to replace him with Villefort. But he's the fourth conspirator! And the first to fall.

A whole bunch of the subplots. Do the films need all the stuff with Monsieur Noirtier? Maybe not. Is Monsieur Noirtier the best character in the book? I think so. He's the most magnificent bastard in the plot.

The Morrels. Again, is it strictly necessary? I don't know. But, again, is there the scene where they reveal Monsieur Morrel's last words were to remember Edmond Dantes, making it my favourite scene in the book? You bet your ass!

Seriously, so many subplots I can see them cutting, but each one pays off in some way. Vampa, Franz, Eugenie Danglars, the Abbey Fariah's book

That scene at the end where The Count goes back to the Château d'If is beautiful

Adaptations will try to give it a happy ending, getting him back with Mercedes or something. But that isn't the point of the book.

Only a handful of characters get out of the book happy. And most of them have gone through hell first.

Also, The Count never actually fights anyone with a sword. He could, he's apparently lethal, but he never does. He's about to once, but then Fernand fucking panics when The Count puts on a sailor suit.

He literally leaves the room, gets changed, and then comes back in a sailor's uniform. It's so extra and I love it. And Fernand loses his shit! Understandably.

The whole revenge plan is so extra, so complex, so convoluted, there is no way you could adapt it all into a film.

And all because Edmond knows the Abbey Fariah wouldn't want him just killing them. Because that would be against God.

So instead he unleashes hell on them!

It's classic "No, I didn't kill them. They're just trapped in never ending misery for the rest of their days. So it's fine."

Bleed them dry of money, out them as a criminal, introduce poisons to his wife and introduce his illegitimate bastard to society.

I can see why you could never truly adapt this book.

Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it.

when-the-pawnn

The Count of Monte Cristo has bad adaptations and that’s due to filmmakers not understanding the novel.

The first thing is the films downplay his suffering in the château d’if. He spent years in solitary confinement and decides to starve himself to death before he met Abbé Faria. Something they clearly don’t understand was that Edmond Dantes essentially died there and the man that left was the Count.

Filmmakers also make the story about him and Mercedes’s romance and have them get back together by the end and live happily ever after. Edmond’s motivations are not about Mercedes - he was a young man, 19 years old, that lost 14 years of his life suffering and paying for a crime he never committed. His lost romance with Mercedes was only a part of the tragedy, but his love for her died with Edmond Dantes in the château d’if. Their romance is just a part of the tragedy of what his life could have been, but they are not supposed to end up together.

Old Dantes (his father) is also ignored a lot, and the spotlight is given more to Mercedes. His father dies during his improsinment, and this is one of the main motivations behind Edmond’s revenge.

Removing Haydee and not understanding her relationship with the Count. Haydee is the one person in Edmond’s life that understands him, since she has been wronged by the same person. There is clear affection displayed by Edmond/the Count whenever he’s with her. Is the relationship problematic by modern standards? Yes, but filmmakers could take creative liberties such as aging her up. If filmmakers can make changes such as making Albert Edmond’s son instead of Fernand’s, they can easily tweak a few things to Haydee. She is important to the plot as proven by her testimony exposing Fernand.

Overall, filmmakers need to understand the complexities of Edmond’s character and the storyline without reducing it to a star-crossed lovers situation with Mercedes.

gamorahww

the three laws of tragedies (insp)

demigoddessqueens

Love my girls!!!

sudenlyanime

toriz0

futurama episodes be funny as hell and then the last 2 minutes are like

ravenkinnie

princess bubblegum is honestly one of most unique tv characters, apart from the fact that she's a piece of gum who spends her free time committing unethical experiments on her subordinates, her storyline across all season is just like. her becoming less evil. not even like a full redemption arc, like she needed ten seasons to understand that being an authoritarian dictator is bad but like, she never actually stopped being a dictator yk. she just needed this much time to be like maybe I should commit less war crimes. maybe I should count to ten before defying god and creating life. and she has no tragic villain origin story, like they did kind of gave her that with her uncle and stuff betraying her but also, she's always been kind of like this, like she's always been prone to playing god with the concept of existence. if you think about it princess bubblegum could be a fucking batman villain