Great to hear Sanderson's viewpoint, especially with his additional inside info. Thanks for that!
Admittedly, the fact that producers and scriptwriters have to make such changes is one of the reasons I wish there was less adaptions and more individual works. But if that involves too much risk for the powers that be, then all we can do is pray for intelligent adapters.
On the one hand, gosh yes, I agree, I would love to see more original creativity in film and television.
On the other hand, I love seeing the differences in adaptation, especially when changes are made to really make best use of the different medium in telling a story, and seeing what that highlights and throws into relief about the source material. For instance, I really enjoy both film and book of
The Prestige, where the story has significant changes from one medium to the other, but both are excellent stories for their own medium where that story would not work so well in the other medium.
On the other other hand,
Good Omens was so very faithful, and so very delightful. (Though now I'm thinking of that story Gaiman tells about sticking to his guns and insisting on the sequence of Agnes Nutter's execution being filmed, because he wanted it for Terry, while the execs were like, "I'll be so much cheaper if we do it as woodcut animations." And I enjoyed the filmed version, but the animated woodcuts sound fabulous!)
