Adaptations have long been a staple of the entertainment industry with all forms of media — especially books and comic books — being given new perspective and new life as translated from words on the page to figures on the screen. And for just as long as there have been adaptations of beloved works, there have been critiques of those adaptations, with fans of one version of a story unimpressed or displeased with another, a common complaint being matters of faithfulness to the material. We’ve seen an example of this recently with Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, with many viewers feeling mixed about the series and its adherence to Tolkien’s work and various creative liberties taken with the beloved source material. It’s a conversation likely to stir up again when AMC launches its adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire as well, with trailers for that series already indicating major changes from the book to the show. But while there is something to be said for wanting an authentic and carefully detailed adaptation of a beloved work that lines up closely with the source — as well as discussion about adaptation in general — it’s important to remember that there needs to be room for creative liberty as well and that that creative liberty can make the enjoyment of the original so much stronger: adaptations don’t need to be “perfect” to be “good”.
