Bad Writing Makes Me Angry

Bad writing makes me angry. I have read, watched, and listened to so many types of literature (books, poems, comics, movies, plays, etc.) over the years. I love all forms! 

Lately, a common trend in our society is adapting a work of literature into a movie or something of the like. For example, Marvel is exploding! Where do all those movies come from? Comic books. They are stories that have already been written, but are being adapted into movie format. Another common trend is making modern adaptions: taking a story that takes place in the past and transferring it into modern times with modern talk, modern contraptions, and so on. For example, Sherlock or the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. 

I have absolutely no problem with any of this. I love seeing familiar things and I love seeing literature I love on the big screen (or small screen... or internet) if it is done well and reasonably accurately. However, sometimes it is not and that just burns my buns. 

Now, I understand that when it comes to adapting a long book into something viewable (especially when it’s a 1 1/2-2 hour long movie), changes have to be made. But the right changes should be made to keep the story good and understandable as well as keeping the fans of the original work happy.

The reason I am bringing this up is because I just wasted several hours of my life watching a vlog series adaption called Twelfth Grade (Or Whatever). It’s an adaption of William Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night (Or What You Will) and like I said, it was a huge waste of my time. 

It starts out promising enough and it seems like a good update on the classic play. It’s sort of set up like The Office with the characters talking to the camera and voicing their opinions on different things going on. They’re very quirky and likable and the setup is good... But then it slowly takes a turn for the worse and about halfway through, you realize it’s totally lost its grip on the story and is focusing on all the wrong things. Then by the end, nothing is resolved the way it should and you are left completely unsatisfied. 

The number one problem was that is was using the story to campaign for LGBT people. I mean, literally every single character in the story is gay, transgender, bisexual, etc. (except for the Malvolio character who is a jerk). Now, I have no problem with a story having those types of people in it especially if it helps move the story along. Because that is the reality of this world; those people exist and they should be represented. HOWEVER, there is a such thing as overdoing it. Statistically, there are more straight people than gay people in this world and for this many LGBTs to be attending this one small school is just ridiculous. 

There were some things that could have worked. For example, Sebastian and Antonio as a couple. That is sometimes sort of implied in the original play and accepted by many people as canon, so I could let that slide. Then changing Sir Toby to a woman is fine (because it makes sense to have more girls hanging around Olivia) and to still have her in a relationship with Maria is completely plausible and acceptable. And even having Viola have a gender crisis I could have put up with because it sort of makes sense after all she went through, but I only would have accepted it if it had resolved itself properly and she ended up with who she was supposed to.

Those were the only LGBT things I would have accepted. The rest were all bullcrap thrown in for no reason in order to campaign for those people. If the writers want to do that, that’s fine, but don’t destroy an awesome story in the process. 

So that was the main issue. They focused way to much on identity problems, relationships, and other unimportant nonsense rather than the actual story. I am not hating on LGBTs because I would have been just as mad if they were throwing in any other issue, characters, pointlessness, or whatever. The reason I'm ticked off is because they ruined the story in the process of their overzealousness.

What parts of the story they did focus on was not even important or executed well. They skim over so much and just focus on stuff they made up. By the end, nobody ends up where they’re supposed to be which is what makes me the most angry. 

I put up with all their sloppy writing out of curiosity to see how they would resolve it because surely they would stick to the canon of Shakespeare’s work, right? Wrong! (SPOILERS if you still plan on actually watching this show...) The only couple to get together from the original work is Torri (Toby) and Maria. Viola and Orrin (Duke Orsino) don’t end up together and decide to be just friends. Olivia and Sebastian never even meet and Olivia decides she still wants to date Viola who says maybe someday they will. ARGH!!! No, no, no! This is exactly what I was talking about before. Sometimes there are some changes that need to be made when adapting something, but there are some you can't make otherwise you piss off the fans of the original work. I mean, you CANNOT change the original ending like that to satisfy your own stupid ideas!

(I just had to get all that out there because I feel that my time was greatly wasted. If you're still curious for whatever reason, here's a link to the full playlist)

But Twelfth Grade (Or Whatever) is not the only example of this. Think of The Cat in the Hat (2003), Eragon, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Alice in Wonderland (2010), The Scarlet Letter (1995), Daredevil (2003), Inspector Gadget (1999), Fantastic Four (2005), Batman and Robin, and The Golden Compass. The original work is a lot of fun and/or well written, but these adaptions... not so much.

Anyways, that’s all I have to say about that. I hope that whatever literary works I put out there in the future are a slight step above any of these and if by the slim chance a book of mine gets chosen to be adapted to the big screen I REFUSE to let them change anything too drastically like that!