Recently Netflix aired the first season of their adaptation of The Sandman, and I finally got a chance to watch it.
I loved the original comics, it’s one of my favourite works. I also listened to the audible production and I liked that one too.
So, like everyone on the internet, I am going to share my opinion on the tv series, and also on other adaptations, geopolitics, and everything else.
I mean, it’s a blog.
For those that don’t know anything about The Sandman, feel free to skip this part. Be warned, spoilers ahead.
Netflix’s Sandman
The important thing to know about the Netflix adaptation is that it saw the direct involvement of Neil Gaiman, the original author of the comics. This is, in theory, great.
The problem is: usually, when a work is adapted to a different media you can be angry at whoever ruined the thing you loved, but in this case that would be the same person who created it!
In particular, people got angry for a few specific reasons, and I’ll try to review them.
Woke casting
People accused the produces of changing characters to fit recent diversity-satisfying trends. This is the “Death was a goth with pale skin, she can’t be a black girl!“. This is, generally speaking, a pretty stupid objection, even if it is true.
The original comic was “woke” before the expression existed, sporting trans and non-binary characters, gays and lesbians, mixed ethnicities…
Generally having that typical ’80/90s “we should love each other even if we’re different” brand of good sentiments that you may remember from We Are the World or successful ads.
So, Gaiman did more of the same, intentionally. I don’t feel it’s reasonable to be upset about this.
But personally: we didn’t get John Constantine! I don’t mind that we got a Johanna, but I do mind that we went from a loser kind of guy with bad hair and a shitty trench coat to a fancy lady with a white immaculate one. Still, I don’t think it matters much.
Also, I didn’t particularly like Lucifer’s casting, nor Dream itself, nor Lucien. I did like Death a lot, and Desire, and John Dee, so I hope I’m not just being an old fart.
Plot changes
This relates to changes small and large, such as Dr. Dee not killing the lady who gave him a ride, his mother helping him, Dream recovering part of his powers by uncreating Gregory, the diner episode being vastly different, the battle with Lucifer instead of Choronzon, the Burgess story being somewhat different etc.
Overall, I don’t think these changes matter nor do they bother me much, but I feel many of them share a common trait: this version of Sandman, both tale and character, is kinder.
As an example, consider the Calliope episode. The original story is a lot more harsh, showing her always(?) naked and making the rape and abuse feel very real. I can understand why that might not fly on general audience TV. Also, using raped women as props is not great anyway, so she got more characterization for TV, which is good.
But then, at the end of the TV episode, she goes “to inspire the world anew” while in the comics she just goes on to fade from the world, the era of greek muses long gone. I liked the old ending more.
More importantly, the relation between her and Dream differs. In the original story Dream is very cold to her, as essentially he’s a dick.
The same is true for the story of Nada, which was omitted from the TV show. That story is great, because it shows Dream falling in love, and being angry and unfair and egotistical.
This was great, because Dream needs to be a piece of shit at the beginning of the story, or it will not matter to us that he needs to change.
Gaiman famously summed up the comic with the line
The Lord of Dreams learns that one must change or die, and makes his decision.
But in the TV show he’s just.. grumpy? By making the character less unlikeable, we automatically get a less interesting development. I don’t understand what the producers were going for.
Missing DC references
The original comics were firmly set in the DC universe. This meant that there were a ton of DC characters all over the place, some you may not even have noticed (Cain, Abel, Eve , Lucien…).
Many important ones, like Batman and Joker have been omitted from the TV adaptation altogether. This seems more a case of avoiding legal trouble than anything else, and I honestly didn’t miss them at all.
Am I lost in Translation?
So, yeah, I think the Netflix Adaptation is ok, but I do have a few gripes with it. But one may wonder: am I just an old fart who hates change, and I would never be happy with any adaptation?
Dear Reader, I think I am not. In fact, I believe the Audible’s audio adaptation is almost perfect. It has incredible cast, great production and is 100% better than Netflix’s, and in some ways better than the comics.
It only has 3 defects
- some of the background sound effects are too loud
- some of the special effects on voices make them too hard to understand
- for some reason they dubbed Death so it sounds like a 13yo who can’t speak properly
Maybe I have a specific issue with screen adaptations? Let’s review some.
A triptych of screen adaptations
As evidence that I do like screen adaptations even if they deviate from the source material, I will list 3 where I liked both the comic book version and the screen one, as I (re-)watched or (re-)read these recently.
V for Vendetta
The 2005 movie is quite faithful to the source comics, and I love it. There are some fundamental differences (e.g. the Leader in the movie is an a-dimensional bad guy; V in the comic is darker, crazier and less likeable) but it’s pretty great anyway! In fact, I think I enjoyed the movie more than I enjoyed the comics.
Bu I have seen the movie before the comic, maybe that tinted my opinion? Let’s try another one.
All you need is kill
Here, I read the manga after I watched the movie The Edge of Tomorrow. Interestingly, they are both adaptations, the original source being a light novel.
I think they are both good, but the manga has a better plot, with a nicer ending. The movie devolves into standard hollywood good-kill-bad happy ending, while the manga/light novel keeps you on your toes with an ethical conundrum and leaves you once that is solved, the ongoing alien invasion remaining in the background. Once the battle for the character’s soul is done, we don’t really need to care too much about aliens.
But ok, this was a manga, what about western stuff?
Watchmen
I loved the Watchmen graphic novel, including the squid bit. But I loved the movie too!
First, it has gorgeous photography and great casting.
Second, it has one of the best intro ever made for a movie, managing to sum up an entire backstory in 5 minutes of stunning imagery and perfect soundtrack.
Third, the changes from the original material are there and not always good (Rorschach becomes a positive character, the sex scene is far too long, the lack of squids disappointing), but they don’t really impact the plot.
Is it the same as the original graphic novel? Nope, but it’s still good.
The problem with people
So, I don’t think I’m particularly biased against adaptations, but I just don’t think The Sandman on Netflix was very good. I would watch another season, but heck, I watched the Cuphead show too.
But the whole kerfuffle was interesting to me. A lot of people got pissed off by the adaptation, and Neil Gaiman has been kind of a dick to some of them, much like they were being dicks to him.
I have seen people get upset at adaptations for a long time, and I have been upset myself. When the revolution comes, people who produced The Dark Tower movie will be the first against the wall.
But why do people get upset? Some of the people who make noise about media products do it out of general politicking: they don’t care about the material, and are just looking for an excuse to spew their favorite opinions. Shit there’s people arguing about a homosexual couple in Peppa Pig these days.
Some others get upset because they love the material, and feel betrayed. It’s easy to frame everyone who got upset about Death being black as being a racist bigot, but I think some of them genuinely just loved the specific representation of the character and wanted to see that.
Did you notice it? I did the same about the audio version of Death.
If you spent a bunch of time with anything it becomes part of your identity, and when someone makes an adaptation which does not match your interpretation you perceive it as an attack on you.
This is essentially the reason why italians get mad at foreigners’ faux italian food.
Fans are people
And the thing is, it doesn’t really matter if the consumer of a work is aligned with the author. Alan Moore famously said
[Rorschach] is what Batman would be in the real world.
But I have forgotten that actually to a lot of comic fans, ‘smelling’, ‘not having a girlfriend’, these are actually kind of heroic!
So Rorschach became the most popular character in Watchmen. I made him to be a bad example. But I have people come up to me in the street and saying: ‘I AM Rorschach. That is MY story’.
And I’d be thinking: Yeah, great. Could you just, like, keep away from me, never come anywhere near me again as long as I live?
For those people, Rorschach is good, and he’s part of their identity. Changing it would upset them.
Dear Reader, I know what you’re thinking: but Gabriele, these are idiots, and we should tell them to fuck off.
Well, I agree in part. But I think it’s worth exercising some empathy anyway. Yes, some people hold opinions that I find reproachable, but I think we should try to be compassionate. It’s easy to be nice to those you like, but we should be nice to those we don’t.
As the saying goes, do not judge someone until you walked a mile in their shoes.
Authors are people too
At the same time, fans should try to show empathy to authors too. Yes, maybe an adaptation is not a good as the original, but have you considered the author’s reason?
This could be the best they could do, and you would have done the same.
Or maybe the author changed over time? I’m pretty sure Gaiman@2020 is very different from Gaiman@1980.
Or maybe, they were trying to stick to a theme, and they have just produced a different representation of the same message.
Yes, sometimes people just make money-grab adaptations of something, which basically only share a name with the original (looking at you, I Robot).
In those cases, i recommend keeping your hopes up, and just consider this stuff as random productions you don’t care about.
Understand this does not damage your self. The thing you loved is still there. They made a shit job, but they also had reasons, you just don’t know why.
The problem with geopolitics
I am too incompetent to discuss about big themes, but I wanted to share a last thought: in Europe, a lot of attention in 2022 went to the Russia-Ukraine war. Maybe now we will now start paying attention to the Azerbaijan-Armenia war.
Wars are a terrible thing, we should help the people who are being attacked in every way, and condemn the attackers. There is no argument about this.
I just have a thought on talking about the war. You may unintentionally upset someone, and be hurt in return. Try to be tolerant and empathic, you don’t know what the others experienced.
A lot of good things start from empathy, maybe peace too, in the very long term.