Imprinting and canon

[nancylebov]

I tend to think of the print version of a story as the real one, but that may be because I've generally read the book first. Have you ever thought that the real version of a story wasn't the first you saw?

Comments

[andrewhickey.info]

Yes, Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy. I saw the TV version first, but I think of the radio as the 'real' version, with the print version less 'real' than the radio but more than the TV. (That's only the first two radio series - the radio adaptations of the last three books are less real than the TV because they were adapted somewhere else),
The computer game is somewhere off to the side, and there is no Hitch-Hikers film, no matter what anyone says.

[eftychia]

There are movies that I saw before reading the book, where I consider the book to be the 'real' version. (And a few where I consider the book and movie to be equally 'real'; separate but related works rather than versions of each other in different media. I have to think more about what triggers that reaction for me.)

And there are novelisations I've read before getting around to seeing the movie, where I consider the movie the 'real' version.

I think I read Damnation Alley before I read "Damnation Alley" but still think of the short story as more 'real' than the novel (I haven't seen the movie yet), but at the moment I'd be hard pressed to say for sure whether that's because the short story was written first, or just that I thought it was more effective than the novel (though each has its strengths).

I think of the classic DC Batman as the 'real' one despite having been exposed to the Adam West Batman (and loving it) long before I saw the comic book ... and in a relative sense, I consider Batman Beyond more 'real' than the early 1990s Batman: The Animated Series (though both secondary to the original comic book). FWIW, I kinda lost track of print versions of Batman shortly before the graphic novel that went all gritty (which I mean to get to one of these days), so I haven't been exposed to reboots, alternate-Earths, etc.

I did think of the Ventures version of "Tequila" as being the 'real' one until very recently when I looked it up and learned that it was a cover, the original being by the Champs.

Hmm. I think I have a strong bias toward considering versions produced earlier more 'real' than later versions, and a weaker bias toward considering the first version I encounter more 'real' than versions I discover later, but I'm not having much trouble coming up with exceptions to both of those patterns.

[sgsguru]

The only one I can think of right offhand is "The Princess Bride". I hated the book -- it was a nice little fantasy, suffocated under four layers of satire[*]. The movie left out all the stuff I didn't like.

* Heroic fantasy, "reminiscences of childhood" stories, ultra-detailed "historical" novels, and "mainstream literature".

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

There have been a very few films that improved upon the original printed subject... those I regard as the 'real' ones. IOW, whichever is better, is real, usually with respect to film remakes.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I tend to lend credence to the version that appealed to me most.

[nosebeepbear.livejournal.com]

Yes. I saw a remake of It's a Wonderful Life before the original. That's the only example I can remember.

[madfilkentist]

If the movie was made from the book, I think of the book as "real" regardless of which I encountered first. Novelizations are a different matter.

Movies which are extremely familiar may be an exception; while I formally think of Baum's book as the "real" version, the movie Wizard of Oz is the one which always comes to mind first.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, to me the real Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is Theodore Sturgeon's novelization of the original film.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I don't think of any Disney fairy tale stories as real versions, even though I saw them before I read the older fairy tale later.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

As a youngster I tended to stick by whatever version I encountered first. Nowadays I often ask, what's the original version? (This is not a hard and fast rule; many 1960s and 1970s James Bond films come to mind. Then again, IMO the books and the flicks were aimed at very different target demographics.)

Some stories are more prone to variations and embellishment of course -- I'm perfectly happy with multiple takes on "Beauty and the Beast" to pick on one well-known example. In those cases it's the common plot that I consider canon.

If a dramatic version started out as a novel or short story, in most cases I've read the book first, just like you.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

Oh, hell yes. One jumps right out at me immediately. Bruce Tim and Paul Dini's take on The Batman is probably the 5th or 6th reimagining of the Batman I'd seen by that point, and at least two more since then, but Tim's DCAU version is THE definitive Batman, to me.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Of course it depends on what you mean by 'real'.

Some people push for an early novelization of Star Wars as the real or canon (because it has more detail, more backstory, etc). Someone's FANTASTIC VOYAGE

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

... Someone's FANTASTIC VOYAGE novel fixed the flaws in the movie.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

Isaac Asimov wrote the Fantastic Voyage novelization. Tossing out some handwaves for the basic scientific problems with miniaturizing objects was an incidental fix -- more substantively, Asimov improved on the story in a couple other ways:

1) Noting that the sub has to be brought out along with the (surviving) crew, and thereby making the ending even more tense than the original movie (the crew had to get out and keep the white cell that had eaten the sub right on their tail).

2) Treating the identity of the saboteur as a mystery that could legitimately be figured out from clues (of the "if unfortunate incident X was actually sabotage, then person Y would have been able to do a much more effective and less obvious job of it, therefore person Y is almost certainly eliminated" type).

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Not sure quite how this fits your question, but for me the 'real' version of Hitchhiker's is the one I experienced first -- the radio version.