“The Little Mermaid,” and 14 Other Movies That Changed Their Source Material

The usual suspects have been deeply traumatized by the latest trailer for a Disney movie (as though we have nothing better to worry about). In the forthcoming remake of The Little Mermaid, Halle Bailey, a Black woman, will play Ariel, who was, in the cartoon, white (Disney would need another two decades to create a Black princess).

These purists are, presumably, upset that the titular mer-creature is portrayed as a beautiful young woman with a gorgeous singing voice, and not as a horrifying siren of the deep intent on luring sailers to their doom. (That must be it, because there’s no reason to get mad about the race of a fairytale character whose skin colour has no bearing on the story.)

It’s hard to judge from a single trailer, but the remake at least looks good. The studios string of live-action remakes have been a mixed bag, but hope remains that one might be a masterpiece on par with its original, even as it tweaks elements of the original that seem out of date. It’s probably going too far at this point to imagine an updated Little Mermaid will improve upon the original, but anyone who’s watched those viral videos of young Black girls reacting to the trailer can tell you this version already has Halle Bailey to recommend it.

And The Little Mermaid will hardly be the first film or TV show to deviate and/or make improvements to their respective source materials. This doesn’t mean you have to throw out your copy of the original books or DVDs — only that there are elements that work better the second (or third) time around.

The Little Mermaid (1989)

Source: Hans Christian Andersen’s literary fairy tale “The Little Mermaid.”

With the latest round of Little Mermaid discourse, we’re forced to pretend that Disney had a spotless reputation for fidelity to source material back in 1989 (chortles audibly). Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 fairy tale has been described as an allegory for queer longing, though it would take far too many words than I have room for here to sort out Andersen’s messy and complicated passions (he seemed to fall obsessively in love with just about everyone he ever met, making him, among other things, a famously awkward houseguest). The 1989 cartoon doesn’t capture the weird, paradoxical alchemy of the original (different readers will come away with different ideas as to whether or not it’s a happy story or a sad one), but it also smooths out the book’s bumps and makes the title character (Ariel in the film) a more fully-formed character with goals and motivations, rather than one who’s largely buffeted by cruel fate. Plus, there’s that Jamaican crab.

The Shining (1980)

Source: Stephen King’s novel The Shining.

I love the novel The Shining, and I love the movie at least as much. They’re two very different things that happen to share nearly identical synopses involving families who make ill-conceived winter plans. Had Kubrick committed more fully to following the rather brilliant book, we would have been robbed of one of the all-time most disorienting and haunting horror movies. The book has autobiographical elements, with Jack Torrance standing in for King himself (in certain regards) — a troubled, substance-addicted, and guilt-ridden father who is haunted by forces in the Overlook that have every intention of using his worst tendencies against his family.

The movie isn’t nearly so sympathetic to Jack, who is portrayed as a largely unrepentant alcoholic and abuser; for him, the Overlook is a chance to cut loose from social restrictions and fatherly obligations. It’s argued that he doesn’t have much of a character arc in the film, but I think that’s beside the point: he’s a bad guy who gets worse once there’s nobody around to stop him. King tells the story from Jack’s point of view; Kubrick and company ask what it would be like to live with Jack. And it’s not pretty.

Contact (1997)

Source: Carl Sagan’s novel Contact.

Another case where both the movie and the novel are worthwhile (certainly any book written by Carl Sagan will reward your time). While the book spends time with a larger number of characters and eventually sends them all through the story’s custom-built wormhole, Robert Zemeckis and company make a smart choice in paring down the story to its emotional core and focusing on Jodie Foster’s Ellie Arroway, who favours rational science over unverifiable belief. She’s the real reason we’re here.

Psycho (1960)

Source: Robert Bloch’s novel Psycho.

Robert Bloch remains an underrated writer of crime and horror fiction, and his novel Psycho (based, in broad strokes, on the life of real-life serial killer Ed Gein) is an effective dive into the mind of killer that spends a lot more time examining its characters than does the movie. The movie, however, benefitted from two innovations: the filmmaking craft of Alfred Hitchcock, who took material that was seen as both unsuitable and unfilmable and made it into an American masterpiece; and Anthony Perkins unsettling presence as Norman Bates. The book’s Norman is middle-aged, pudgy, and wears glasses — the typical vision of a serial killer. The movie gives us a villain who we don’t ever really see him that way: young, appealing…even a bit sexy in a nerdy way. A guy who seems like he wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Little Women (2019)

Source: Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women.

I’m a big Louisa May Alcott fan (both of her work as a writer, and of the fascinating and unconventional life that she led), so I’m not here to suggest that any particular film version of Little Women is superior to the novel. But Greta Gerwig’s 2019 take adds a small twist to the finale, putting Jo March in Alcott’s shoes as the writer of the novel Little Women. Alcott famously fiddled with the novel in order to make it sellable, and the film version wonders what might have happened had the author had a free hand. It’s a clever, meta twist.

The Remains of the Day (1993)

Source: Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Remains of the Day.

Like The Shining (to which it has probably never before been compared), The Remains of the Day is a film that’s almost identical to its source material on a synopsis level, but which winds up delivering a rather different experience. Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1988 novel is centered very much on emotionally stunted butler Stevens (the Anthony Hopkins character in the movie), while the James Ivory film widens its scope to encompass other characters while maintaining an appropriately chilly distance. We’re still in that oppressive, downtairs world, but the inclusion of characters who actually seem to feel their feelings mean the still-reserved emotional beats hit harder.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Source: Stephen King’s novel Doctor Sleep.

Back to Shining country with Doctor Sleep, Stephen King’s sequel to one of his earliest works. The book itself received mixed reviews, and director Mike Flanagan fiddles with the source material to make a film that works as a sequel to both the Kubrick film and the original novel — perhaps with the hope of healing the decades-long rift between lovers of King and Kubrick. In a movie context, the Overlook’s survival in the first film (it blew up in the book) means that we get to revisit that iconic location. Flanagan also sharpens the material by going darker and bloodier than the book, upping the body count and the stakes.

Battlestar: Galactica (2004 – 2009)

Source: The 1978 Battlestar Galactica TV series.

The original Battlestar Galactica TV series was incredibly ambitious for its era, cramming Star Wars-level special effects and intriguing hints of a mythology into a weekly, episodic format that couldn’t quite contain them. It lasted for a single season before being retooled into a forgettably Earth-bound adventure series. The 2000s-era reboot sowed the seeds of the earlier series on fertile new ground, exploring survivor trauma (with echoes of 9/11), complex spirituality, and post-humanism in a hard sci-fi context populated with deeply complicated characters.

The Thing (1982)

Source: John W. Campbell’s novella “Who Goes There?” and the 1951 film The Thing from Another World.

John Campbell’s novella “Who Goes There?” was an impressive piece of Cold War-era paranoia, and the original Howard Hawks’ film adaptation runs with those themes; it remains one of the most enjoyable science fiction movies of its era. John Carpenter’s take bests them both in different ways: first, the film twists the core concept just enough to make it less a parable about the dangers of communist infiltrators and more an examination of societal breakdown in the face of an unrelenting threat. Carpenter’s The Thing adds some all-time great make-up, prosthetic, and puppet artistry that makes it more faithful to the alien invaders of “Who Goes There?” than Hawks was able to manage at the time.

The Fly (1986)

Source: George Langelaan’s short story “The Fly” and the 1958 film of the same name.

The short story was a Kafka-lite take on the psychology of transformation, while the Vincent Price film was a particularly thoughtful bit of 50s-era sci-fi horror. David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake, meanwhile, is the movie that brought body horror to the masses. His version captures the true horror in the idea that our bodies are capable of betraying us in cruel and gruesome ways. At the time, it felt like ia potent allegory for HIV/AIDS; today, you can slot in nearly any major disease as a metaphor — or even the simple, inevitable, terrifying process of ageing.

Jaws (1975)

Source: Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws.

Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel is a fabulous beach read (depending, I suppose, on the beach), but it’s also full of underdeveloped characters and workmanlike prose. Steven Spielberg took the basic ingredients and crafted from them an unlikely masterpiece: a summer blockbuster that’s also a great and enduring film. In part that’s pure directorial skill, but in developing the material, on a character and thematic level, Spielberg gave it true depth (water pun intended). There are plenty of movies about shark attacks, but few of them include so many memorable, human, deeply quotable characters.

Hannibal (2013 – 2015)

Source: Thomas Harris’ novel Red Dragon.

Thomas Harris’ Red Dragon is a smart and crafty novel, one that works both as a piece of literature and as a pop thriller — there’s a reason that it’s inspired several sequels (including Silence of the Lambs) as well as several movies (of widely varying quality) and TV series. Bryan Fuller’s more recent adaptation pulls the focus away from the investigation into murders committed by “the Tooth Fairy” killer and places it where it clearly always belonged: on the core relationship between profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen). It adds visual flair appropriate to the television medium, and the episodic format allows for a deep exploration of both of these characters over time, queering the material in fascinating ways.

Westworld (2016 – )

Source: Michael Crichton’s film Westworld.

Writer/director Michael Crichton’s 1973 Westworld is a fun, if very dark, high-concept action film that introduces interesting ideas about artificial intelligence and the dehumanising nature of technology without ever really doing anything with them. The HBO remake, from Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, sometimes gets lost in a maze of its own making (i.e., gets its head stuck up its own arse), but it isn’t afraid to explore those shadowy philosophical avenues. The movie suggested that advanced technology would destroy us; the show asks if there’s a possibility we might coexist.

Jurassic Park (1993)

Source: Michael Crichton’s novel Jurassic Park.

Speaking of Michael Crichton: the writer moved between the worlds of film and the printed page, and his novels were frequently adapted as films. Jurassic Park, the book, has moments that feel like they were designed to be translated to the screen, but also lots of the writer’s trademark scientific exposition. It’s one of his best books, but once Steven Spielberg got hold of the material, there was no going back. The director sharpened and condensed the novel’s plot (and scientific jargon) to summer blockbuster palatability. Dinosaurs, in the right hands, simply need to be seen to be believed.

City of God (2002)

Source: Paulo Lins’ novel City of God.

The 1997 Paulo Lins novel is a tour through hell, based very much on the author’s own experiences in the Rio de Janeiro favela of the same name, a neighbourhood rife with violence, drugs, poverty, police corruption, and racism. The film adaptation stays true to the themes of the novel while adding a propulsive sense of momentum as well as, perhaps most significantly, a clearer sense of the natural beauty of Rio. The book makes much of the contrast between the sun-kissed, tourist-friendly city of brochures and the desperate conditions within (especially true during this era), but the movie makes that contradiction more clear, and thus more deeply tragic and infuriating.