Why do people think adhering to lore will make a good story?
Why do you rely on "respecting the lore" to be your reason for disliking something? Maybe the lore needs to be disrespected. Perhaps what you respected from the original set of writer's had PROBLEMS. Could be the new writer's want to do something different in this world of rehashes or something.
It could also go wrong, and even kill the reason you love the story. So let's look at two different examples of adaptations of video games. Sonic and Halo…not perfect I know but stick with me.
I should also mention I enjoy the Halo show and the Sonic movies irritate me with it's changes.
STICK WITH ME HERE.
Let's take a look at the similarities of the both:
Produced by Paramount
Major Changes from it's source material
It's own timeline separate from their games and extended lore
Live Action when it probably shouldn't be
More likely to use/keep intact deep cuts from the source lore
More likely to change up key aspects most everyone knows
Let's take a look at the differences now:
The Sonic movies are beloved by many of it's fans
The Halo show is just discourse town and hated by many of it's fans (The tide of this is turning. I might come back to this.)
The Sonic movie's demographic is children
The Halo show's demographic is adults
The Sonic movie is allergic to the game's music
The Halo show has used several themes and music styles from the games
Halo is military sci-fi
Sonic is shonen
We can ignore those last two. I'm just salty the Sonic movies don't really use any of the game's AMAZING music or hire any of those composers to help out or EVEN JUST, HOVER AROUND THE VIBE OF THOSE OSTs! Actually let's not ignore it, because that's a good point to start with. Despite such an annoyance in my eyes, the Sonic fanbase hasn't made much a stink about it. And we take a look at Halo and throw many different fires that the show doesn't use the OST. Now how could that be? Didn't I just mention they actually use themes from the games?
Oh yes, the Halo show even uses THE Halo Theme in several key moments. So why are the complaints brought up? Well so I can go to sleep at a decent time I'll get to the point, or a point. I've noticed many different aspects going for and against each franchise adaptation into live action. One being the audience each genre brings, military sci-fi usually brings in those wiki types who act all high and mighty like they've read the extended lore but all they've done is quote a wiki. Or worse, a youtube video. Shonen can run quite hard on cool factor, and less on lore trappings. Even if people fixate on power levels, a story can move in and out of an establish power scale and still keep an audience…if it's fucking cool.
Halo by and large, has a pretty consistent quality. With an aged fanbase who from day 1 hates anything new.
Sonic I've noticed has changed a LOT, and has varying quality and all the fanbase begs for is something good.
That point isn't too good. Let's go back to Halo :3 The point from before was speaking to how despite the consistent quality the fans would have you believe the current company has killed Halo and never made a good game ever. Then you play them and see that even it's worse is still a fine game. And then you wonder, "Why do y'all act like these games are the worst thing ever? Do you not know worse games or can you not see your bias and act accordingly?"
The same goes with the show, while, not perfect…is fine even at it's worse. But they'll have you believe it's literal unwatchable dogshit. You look at any popular tweet about the show and it's probably going to be something changed from the lore and people acting like the sky is falling.
I see the Sonic movie show up and people are just enjoying the goober. Or quoting Idris Elba's knuckles. rip Tails Or Jim Carrey's eggman chewing the fuck out of the scene. Despite ALL OF THIS, being different. Because this audience isn't lore heavy sci-fi fans, they're shonen fans. It's cool factor, it's Knuckles stopping Sonic and taunting him. It's Super Sonic wiping the floor with a giant mech, it's Eggman being a charismatic confident jerk. Who cares i-oh wait, I'm getting a phone in…Sonic fans do not enjoy the human subplot….yea…yea. Okay. Makes sense, if you came from epic anime hedgehog moments, the comedic human subplot would probably do that. But it's not enough to make every Sonic movie tweet inevitably show up going, "Erm, but the movies suck though!"
Yes the Halo show has that. It's very annoying. But honestly sci-fi especially military sci-fi just has the problem. I don't know why, but it is annoying as hell. The mass demands lore, no not that one, no not that one; yanno the good lore. The one the audience liked as a child. The original one. The never changing lore; except the one that changed things but it was good!
Getting side tracked. There was a point here. Eh who cares, but I'll leave you with some wild shit I've seen.
"The Halo show is a Mass Effect show in disguise."
Evidence:
A Commander Shepard cameo in the dialouge in one scene referring to a Commander Shepard.
The show has Romance.
That's it. From what I've heard from Mass Effect fans, this take is even worse because you'd have to be media illiterate to relate the both. Or it's self admittance you know nothing of Mass Effect except it has romance.
"The Halo show disregards the games. The writers said so!"
The very first episode had several references to Halo CE. And the actual quote was more like, "We looked beyond the games." Which is extremely true because the more books I read, the more I noticed the inspirations for their choices.
For example in the first book the Main Director for the Spartan 2 Super Soldier program mentioned that she rejected the advice of wiping the Spartans memory. (or something to that effect). Her reasoning being that if they were to find out they were stolen from their parents, it won't bold well for their caretakers. So she went with just indoctrination. The show doesn't listen to this advice and guess what happens. A Spartan finds out about his past and doesn't take it well. This is used as evidence the show doesn't know the lore.
Taking a "what if" moment and exploring it. It's annoying. One can critique the pure indoctrination angle is a more psychologically interesting one but well, that's not what this post is about. This is more about how people act like the lack of KNOWLEDGE of lore is the fault.
And with Season 2 taking a different direction and even more characters more in-line with the extended lore depictions of themselves….this still happens. "The alien ship looks bad because they don't know the LORE man. Do they not know the lore???"
"I will act like choices I don't like are because of ignorance or arrogance from the writers, and not a creative decision I disagree with."
-Sci-Fi fans or something.
Patch Notes: Captain Shepard has been change to Commander Shepard Added a "Keep Reading" Marker