Well, and as you know, Your Humble Blogger is fascinated by the art of adapting books into movies, and having at last read
Babe the Gallant Pig, I have a new entry for my Top Five Free Adaptations: Babe. The great George Miller and the otherwise unknown Chris Noonan adapted Dick King-Smith’s nice little book with a free hand, and made a very good movie.
The main thing they added was the character of Rex, aging and deaf, proud and cold, redeemed by his willingness to recognize Babe’s ability, and to open himself to a universe he had not perceived. Yes, they added the duck and the mice and the cat, but those were comic relief, and as well-created as they were, they didn’t make the movie a substantially different creative endeavor. Rex did.
In fact, Babe is a particularly good example of an adaptation because it combines the new creations of Rex and the comic relief characters with faithful and wonderful recreations of the main characters of the book (Babe, Mr. Hoggett, Mrs. Hoggett, Fly and Ma-a-a-a) and the main plot points. They also change a few things, but not much. They make Mrs. Hoggett more blind to Babe’s non-culinary qualities, where in the book she independently decides that Babe is not meat. They give Mr. Hoggett a penchant for odd inventions, and an obnoxious son-in-law. Just a few things like that. Of the things that I think are impressive about adaptations, I think these three head the list: something newly creative that makes the adapted version something different than the original, getting right the characters (and settings and actions) of the original, and willingness to change what needs to be changed to make the thing work. As far as I’m concerned, the movie displays all of them, and balances them very well.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.