When I hear news of an adaptation from the page to the screen, I am often set down on a roller coaster ride of emotion. I start with the highs: “I have been reading these characters and their adventures for multiple books now, and seeing it all played out on the television is going to be amazing!”
Then I slowly start to creep into the lows:
“What if they change the characters I’ve grown to love?”
“The world looks a certain way in my head, but when they create their world, it’s probably going to ruin everything I’ve imagined.”
“What if they skip my favorite part of the story because they can’t fit it into the runtime?”
“They are going to fucking ruin this aren’t they? Why are they doing this to me?”
Okay, maybe it’s less of a roller coaster ride, and more like walking up a hill, only to then plummet down into hell. Honestly, I really do love the idea, but this always seems to happen. I build it up in my head and get filled with excitement, only to be let down by the end product.
While reading Red Rising, I started to picture it in my head. This is becoming my new favorite series of all time and I can’t handle the stress that will come with an adaptation. I trust Pierce Brown so I will give him the benefit of the doubt. I, however, have had the same vision of what I would want the adaptation to be since about halfway through the first book. I didn’t have a website at that time to post all my thoughts on the subject, but now I do, so here we go.
MOVIE VS. SHOW
The first thing to start with, for me, is whether the Red Rising universe would work better as a movie trilogy, or a television series. The action is amazing in the books, but to fully encapsulate what the series brings to the table, we need more time than the two hours that a film takes. I’ll sometimes find myself mentally subtracting from the one hundred and twenty minutes the time that it takes to get through all the big scenes in each story. The math doesn’t add up to something I like. Here’s a hypothetical equation for Golden Son for you:
120 Minutes
-
20 minutes for general opening type things: showing the big city Darrow has been in, and showing the beginning scene of the him losing to Karnus in the Academy
-
10 minutes to show Darrow at the Gala and the duel between him and Cassius
-
10 minutes for the Augustus escape and Aja killing Quinn
-
20 minutes to show Darrow and Sevro taking the Vanguard and the lowcolors, including Ragnar, overrunning the Golds onboard
-
10 minutes to recruit Lorn and fight off Lorn’s invaders
-
25 minutes for the Iron Rain
-
10 minutes to show Mustang the holo of Darrow’s carving
-
10 minutes for the Triumph in the Garden
=
5 minutes
Five measly minutes is what’s left to include all the filler between all these amazing scenes and squeeze in any good character moments you can. I LOVE these characters, and to take away from those little moments that I cherish between them just hurts me. I want to hear about Tactus and the violin that Darrow gave him. I want to see Darrow and Mustang talking on the ship about what happened between them. I want as much Kavax and Sophocles as I can get!!
You can add to the two hour runtime, but it takes a lot of money to get that long of a movie put together. You can take away some of those estimated minutes from the battles, but all those scenes are amazing and to take away from them would be cruel. For my money, I’d rather have a TV show where I can get all these little moments between the characters, so that I get understand them and become attached to them like I am in the books. Whole episodes can then be added for the big battle scenes. I picture Battle of the Bastards (Game of Thrones) type episodes for the Iron Rain. The Triumph in the Garden would make one HELL of a season finale. It would all work so well.
DON'T SUGARCOAT IT
I don’t enjoy violence in television just for the sake of adding violence. On the flip side of that, I don’t like hiding violence if it’s necessary for the setting. The Red Rising Universe is pretty messed up and with that, comes a certain expectation of violence. If you wanted to convert the series over to the silver screen, then I feel as if it would hurt the quality of the product to have to work around what you are, and are not allowed to show. People are getting killed all over the place in this series. Pierce Brown rips our hearts out as he is ripping the life away from his characters.
I’d prefer Red Rising to be picked up by a streaming service, or one of the premium TV services (HBO, Showtime, etc.) so that they don’t have to work around the restrictions that a normal network would have. There are certain moments that could probably be worked around, like moving all the throat violence (Pax and Cassius take some damage here) to the chest or somewhere less gruesome, but there are bloody battles going on here. I’d hate to see the Iron Rain slighted by the fact that it has to adhere to a Teen rating. These battles are so impactful because of how real and devastating they are. To take that away would take away from the seriousness of the situation. Keep it real, and don’t sugarcoat it please.
PUTTING IT OVER THE TOP
So as it stands now, we have a violent TV show that really sticks to the madness of this world that the author has created. There are shows like this already out there, but my boldest idea is the one that would make this TV show an absolute dream series for me:
Make.
It.
ANIMATED.
I had a vision while reading Red Rising. It’s the beginning of the Institute, and Darrow and Cassius see food in the distance. They know it might be a trap, but they are hungry, and Gold, so they take off and ignore the risk. They end up being ambushed and fall into a fist fight with a few other students. During the fight, Darrow uses the low gravity to his advantage and leaps and flips over his enemy before taking him out.
It’s a cool scene, and we learn there that the low gravity really lends to the athletic bouts that take place in the series. I then think about these acrobats done on a TV network budget. Now, when I picture this sequence, I see bad cutaways and questionable special effects. And this is miniscule compared to the things that come later in the series with grav boots and space fights. I don’t want to see this adaptation squandered because it lacks the funds to get the effects it needs. With an animated series, that fear is off the table. You can have a smaller budget than a live action show would require and actually make it look better. I mean do we actually think the poor CGI in a popular show like The Flash (for the record, I love The Flash series) looks better than an animated sci fi universe (image from upcoming Godzilla animated movie).
I’d give up being able to see real people play these beloved characters for the chance at seeing this beautiful animation bring Pierce Brown’s world to life.
I want to also express another concern with the possible live action performances that would be portraying our beloved Red Rising characters. The Golds of this world are monstrous people in comparison to all other colors. I’m not saying that I’d expect a series to legitimately have Golds stand over seven feet tall, while our enslaved reds try to sniff five feet. We can find actors and actresses that resemble and portray the aesthetic of Gold without there being a strict height guideline. My biggest worry, is that when we need a large amount of people that are supposed to be the genetic apex of the universe, do we also believe that all of them are going to be top tier performers?
I’ve seen shows that require only a couple objectively beautiful people, and it’s always hit or miss on how believable they can be. Now, we are wanting to fill an entire world with them. Between Darrow, Cassius, Mustang, Victra, Ragnar, Aja, and so many more, we would need people who are beautiful, or huge, or both. I don’t like taking the risk that we will find the perfect combo of talent and comparable looks. With an animated series, we can stick strictly to finding talent and create the characters as a perfect representation of their novel counterparts. It would be amazing to see the incredible size difference between Ragnar and Sevro, which would only be believable if done with artistic realism.
IN CONCLUSION
I understand the flaws with the adaptation that I have laid out. There is sizable portion of the audience that gets cut out when we allow excessive gore. An immense amount more instantly becomes disinterested the second that they see animation. This isn’t the adaptation for the masses, but it’s my dream adaptation, as somebody who really and truly cares about this trilogy. I want to see it done in a way that optimizes the strengths of the series and, though it may not be for everyone, this is the closest answer I can come up with.
Comments