Claire

Contributing writer for The Artifice.

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Female-Driven Fantasy and Sci-Fi TV: Its Growing Power

The more studios and production companies bank on the power of women to keep us glued to our screens, the more interesting and complex roles for women there are for us to watch. Two recent series, "A Discovery of Witches" and "His Dark Materials" are both produced by Bad Wolf, based in Wales. Their female heroes are incredible to watch, but not at the expense of great male leads as well. Together, these two shows encompass the genres of supernatural fantasy romance and high fantasy with sci-fi elements. If this production company's first two series continue to be successful enough, they presumably will go on to make more series with similarly empowered female characters. This is how progress goes on, but the question is – will big Hollywood studios follow suit? In retrospect, we have heard that a director such as Joss Whedon, who created the empowered vampire slayer Buffy, was not as female-friendly as he appeared to be. Will the television industry continue to make strides for female characters and let them be the focus of big fantasy and sci-fi series?

Other series to comment on include The Witcher, which has shifted more focus in its second series onto Geralt's adopted daughter, and The Foundation, which placed women at the forefront of its plot.

This topic DOES seem quite opinionated. The problem seems to stem from the "fact" that you've depicted the female characters of the series you've cited are already awesome, without any proof or explanation as to why you think they're incredible. It might be better to make a comparison between other female leads from other series, just so you can take an objective stance. – Beaucephalis 3 years ago
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film

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The Missing Fantasy Book to Film Adaptations

Why do some great fantasy/sci-fi series, great children's or young adult novels, get launched into the film world only to fall flat and disappoint fans? There was one film made of A Series of Unfortunate Events (with Jim Carrey and Meryl Streep). One film of The Golden Compass (with Daniel Craig). One film of the City of Bones, and then a reboot into a TV series. All of these films arguably had great elements, some well-known actors, and were adapting a charming, exciting story, something that should be great on film. What went wrong? Did the movies just not sell enough at the box office? Did the filmmakers not see it as worth their time and money to make a follow-up sequel? Fans will always be disappointed when this happens – even if the movie did not live up to the book in some ways, they still want to see their beloved stories onscreen. There are still so many fantasy novel series out there that readers would love to see made into movies, but that never happen. Tamora Pierce is a major one – medieval fantasy has become a massive hit with Game of Thrones, so why wouldn't her books make great films? What about Scott Westerfeld's Uglies or Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses series: wouldn't these make timely adaptations to follow on from the success of the Hunger Games and Divergent? Perhaps certain writers need more support from their fans if they really want some film studio to get behind it. Arguably, young readers have had more power to catapult a book series and subsequent movie adaptations to success in recent years, so this is a relevant issue.

There are two possible answers to your initial question that you seem to ignore here, as many before you have. The first being that perhaps the film adaptations that have never gotten a sequel were simply badly produced or badly executed films and didn't succeed in captivating audiences the same way the book versions did. Or the second possibility, being that the books themselves simply cannot be adapted into films, because their structure simply will not allow it. A film has to be a certain way in order for the story to flow and make logical sense. Also, narrative description must be rendered into visuals in order for the existence of a narrator, in most cases, to be rendered unnecessary: as the old adage "show-don't-tell" is extremely important to keep at the forefront of any film project. Books like "Inkheart," "Ender's Game," "The Spiderwick Chronicles," "The Giver," and "The Golden Compass" make for captivating reading material, but they're often so dense in their descriptive language, strange and otherworldly in their tone and atmosphere, and sometimes very heavy-handed in their subtext and messages, that trying to adapt them into film results in much of these elements either feeling very off-putting and creepy because of how serious and gritty they are, or certain story elements and character interactions becoming laughable if not presented in the best possible way compared to how the book version does it. It's a difficult tight-rope to walk when you want a book adaptation to do justice for the fans, but you also want it to entice new audience members enough to warrant a sequel or two. The Chronicles of Narnia got two sequels, but the subject matter was such that even Disney gave up on it after two films and chucked the license over to 20th Century so they could try their hand at "Voyage of the Dawn Treader." But did that lead to films for the rest of the books? No. And that was likely in part due to the other books not revisiting the same characters from the previous stories, which is an issue that a couple of book series have: that being that later installments follow completely new characters from the last book, even if the world is the same. And doing that sort of thing in film is much more difficult, because you market films on the characters, not on the world or the writer's style. I could go on, but I'm rambling on as it is. Just a few possible avenues to go down when looking deeper into this subject. – Jonathan Leiter 9 years ago
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I know that The Giver was in production for what? 20 years before it was made into a film? A lot of it is about money, interest, timing. – Jaye Freeland 9 years ago
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A big factor here is that most novels - especially a series, such as The Golden Compass rely on progressive/continued reading for it to be interesting. Meaning, one film is not provocative to those who have not read the book, because it doesn't end in a logical manner the way other films do; they don't wrap up neatly at the end. Therefore, audiences would be forced to go see subsequent films for it to ultimately make sense and end in a satisfying way. Ending the first film on a cliffhanger or with unresolved questions does not hold their interest. Additionally, many series are just too long and detail-oriented for them to transfer successfully to film. Peter Jackson had to stretch the LOTR trilogy over three movies - about nine hours total - to get the full story in there, and there were still Tolkien zealots who were upset about missing elements left out, such as Tom Bombadil (with those films, I believe they were just so darn exciting that even viewers who hadn't read the books were interested in subsequent films anyway). In the case of Harry Potter, Rowling's first three books ended in a satisfactory fashion; they appeared to be stories in and of themselves, and didn't necessarily indicate there was more to come (we didn't hear "Voldemort is back" in any definitive sort of way for a while. Initially, we assume he is defeated entirely). Therefore, audiences who had not read the books saw them and enjoyed them as a complete entity in and of themselves. By the time the story progressed to the point where they knew there was a continuing story that was not complete, audiences were already hooked on the characters and unique fantasy universe, and wanted more. – Katheryn 9 years ago
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I think it has also got to be mentioned that the intent behind a film is very important - those films that flopped (Golden Compass - which should have been the Northern Lights! - and a Series of Unfortunate Events in particular) were clearly more money driven and dulled down, and did not appreciate and respect the original sources. – Francesca Turauskis 9 years ago
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Another question might be: does the film industry respect fantasy/sci-fi as a genre on its own, or is it simply adapting these books because they were popular? I hate to bring up the Sign Seeker film, but that in my opinion was the pinnacle of young adult fantasy butchery...(I am a huge Susan Cooper fan, so I may be biased) However, I would love to see this topic written! – sophiacatherine 9 years ago
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I think a lack of promotion or too much promotion adds to the question you pose. The City of Bones film was so over promoted to the point that I would change the channel anytime a related commercial would air, and I'm sure many other TV viewers would as well. Sometimes shoving something down someone's throat has the opposite effect promoters hope - it just makes people annoyed rather than intrigued. A lack of promotion also plays into this as not seeing enough of a film before its release will have less people showing up because they either never heard the film was coming out, or they simply forgot. – llsebben 9 years ago
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Latest Comments

Feb 9, 2016 Claire This article provides a very helpful picture of why the Oscars voters tend to favor certain types of films and actors. I think some people become somewhat apathetic surrounding the Oscars, and it isn’t that useful to do that. It’s possible to be very critical of the whole institution but still engage with it. Idris Elba should have been nominated, but if we think -the Oscars are dead! what an outdated, useless spectacle! – then what happens if Idris Elba is nominated and wins next year? It would be nice if we supported more diverse actors getting their work appreciated then.	Oscars 2016: Recent Trends
Jan 27, 2016 Claire This is very intriguing, to look deeply at the work of Mary Shelley through how tangled her relationship with Percy was. I am glad to read so many details about their personal lives as they come into contact with the work – amazing to learn more about the Shelleys than one can see in just Frankenstein!	The Monsters We Marry—The Weight of Percy Shelley On His Wife, Mary
Jan 27, 2016 Claire What a superb article! I like the critical, academic basis of it, yet you make it very accessible and interesting to a wider audience. I think even if I did not happen to be taking a class on Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon literature this term, I would have still found it interesting because of how wide an appeal Lord of the Rings has. Very interested to see this analysis of stories crossing centuries and cultures.	The Origins of Middle-Earth: Gods, Poems, and Dragons
Jan 27, 2016 Claire This is a very wide-ranging and fascinating look into a subject that is not often discussed in this way. I think that the examination of nudity/sex as objectification vs. being pertinent to the story and characters is really well done. Our culture often conflates movies’ portrayals of sexualized women with certain films dissecting and challenging those conventions. Artful and meaningful use of sexuality can be as profound in film and television as in literature.	Sex in Cinema: Poetry vs. Pornography (Explicit Content)