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So last week in Grobsteins discussion we talked about adaptations, good ones and bad ones.  In particular we were talking about literary adaptations and the different medias that are used for these adaptations.  We though it might be interesting if this class talked about adaptation of literature through different medias.  The film version of Howard’s End spiked our interest in this but the class didn’t follow through!  In particular we were talking about what makes a good adaptation and what makes a bad adaptation.  We all agreed that Zadie Smith was a bad adaptation but that we did think that there could be good ones.  For example, there are several different interpretations of Hamlet but we all agreed that the Ethan Hawke version was a BAD adaptation!  Yet, the modern adaptation Scotland, PA was an enjoyable good adaptations of Macbeth.  We started talking and we though that perhaps it involved how much was changed from the original and what happened to the main message of the original story.  I think that for an adaptation to be “good” in literature, we like to see big changes, we like to see things drastically changed (lines, setting etc.) but not the main message of the story.  When a story or book is not changed enough it is easy to get caught up in the little details and not focus on the full effect.  When the adaptation is closely married to the original we expect it to be the same and in our class we didn’t quite feel that this was generative, when the change is drastic you are not expecting anything and are pleasantly surprised how the same message is reached or addressed with a different story.