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Adaptation
Apr. 28th, 2008 04:32 pmSo as the seven stalwart players (although not Chris F., with whom my only contact is occasional ghostly music on my car radio late at night) already heard, a film student emailed me the other day to ask if I was the person behind the game Unknown USA, and if so, if it would be OK for him to adapt it as a screenplay. I said it was up to the other players as well as me, but that if he wasn't doing anything commercial, I didn't have any problems with it, and indeed I'd love to see the finished project when it's done. (If any of you who played in the game do have reservations, let me know. It's your baby as well as mine.) It's just a student project, but it's flattering, and hey, who hasn't imagined a screenplay or a movie of one of their games?
But I'm already doubting if I have the equanimity for adaptation: I said in an email something about how big and sprawling the story was and that I wondered how it could be shaved down into a screenplay. The student said "oh, I know I'll have to cut things - for instance, I was thinking the Doc Lully subplot will have to go." And in my head I was instantly CUT DOC LULLY NO WAY HOW CAN YOU CUT DOC LULLY WITHOUT LULLY THERE'S NO IAM AND NO DERO AND NO WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN IV IN MEXICO AND DANNY'S STORY WON'T MAKE ANY SENSE AND DANNY'S LIKE DOROTHY, HE'S THE MORAL CENTER OF THE WHOLE THING!!! Even though intellectually I can see how one might cut the Lully-IAM-Monarch mind control/historical shift part of the story, the truth is my emotional response would be the same to any cut. The homicidal state trooper with the chimp? The Cuban cop with a walk-on part in the second session? The old couple selling frozen lima beans outside Ochopee Swamp? Deathless brilliance, I tell you! Remove the tiniest figment and the whole masterpiece collapses like a house of cards!
Would you be any different if it was your game?
But I'm already doubting if I have the equanimity for adaptation: I said in an email something about how big and sprawling the story was and that I wondered how it could be shaved down into a screenplay. The student said "oh, I know I'll have to cut things - for instance, I was thinking the Doc Lully subplot will have to go." And in my head I was instantly CUT DOC LULLY NO WAY HOW CAN YOU CUT DOC LULLY WITHOUT LULLY THERE'S NO IAM AND NO DERO AND NO WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN IV IN MEXICO AND DANNY'S STORY WON'T MAKE ANY SENSE AND DANNY'S LIKE DOROTHY, HE'S THE MORAL CENTER OF THE WHOLE THING!!! Even though intellectually I can see how one might cut the Lully-IAM-Monarch mind control/historical shift part of the story, the truth is my emotional response would be the same to any cut. The homicidal state trooper with the chimp? The Cuban cop with a walk-on part in the second session? The old couple selling frozen lima beans outside Ochopee Swamp? Deathless brilliance, I tell you! Remove the tiniest figment and the whole masterpiece collapses like a house of cards!
Would you be any different if it was your game?
