Newest IB was wonderful, but had a heartbreaking moment for me

[1000CremlingsInATrenchcoat He/Him]

For those who aren't up to speed, there are going to be a few Intentionally Blanks in a row that are from a Quorum that Sanderson held at Dragonsteel Nexus with Dan Wells, Robin Hobb, and Matt Dinniman. 

On the topic of whether adaptations of fantasy should be preferentially done in live action versus animation, it seemed like it was broadly agreed that animation serves the genre far better. I have always felt this way, even as a big fan of some good live action fantasy films. Sanderson has pushed for having his biggest stories, particularly Mistborn to be done in live action because it has a higher potential to reach a broader audience than just his readers. I do believe he is right, and I think Scadrial would be easier to do in live action than all his other worlds, but the fact that at his core he believes animation is better for fantasy, but live action has to be the direction for the sake of business... it just really bums me out. 

I absolutely adore animation and have since I was very young. I am not a visual artist or an animator myself, but it's just always felt like more fun to me. You can tell crazier stories with fewer grounded elements, and good animators and VAs can create just as deeply moving an experience as anything live action. I don't think Sanderson is a sellout for being of two minds about this; getting a show of any kind made is a massive amount of work, so if you're gonna take that swing once, you should probably shoot for big reach. I just wish it didn't have to be this way. I wish people didn't feel like they had to try and recapture the magic of LotR (you can't these days anyhow because studios don't take risks), and that we could just move on, accepting that high fantasy in live action just invariably creates CG messes that annoy fans of the original works, taking away from the power and beauty of the original.

It's a first world problem of a sort, yes, but it's just something I feel passionate about. Lord help anyone who ever tries to adapt SLA for live action - the actors will be bored to death standing in front of green screens all day. 

Anyone else catch this episode and have any thoughts or feelings on this discussion or others?

[Ookla she/her]

I didn't catch the episode, but I do have thoughts.  

I think animation would be the ideal format for many of Brandon's books--I think Mistborn could get away with being live-action, because the effects are easier to simulate with practical effects and good sets, but with Stormlight you'd have a hard time pulling off a live-action adaptation. Personally, I think Stormlight would look WAY better in an anime or anime-Western-animation-blend style than virtually any other format.

As for the bit where live action reaches a wider audience, I think that's true--but I think that's at least in part because movie companies seem to have this mentality that anything animated MUST have a live-action adaptation (see Disney's live-action adaptations of classic fairy tales, which I admit was fun for Cinderella and Aladdin, but otherwise I felt were unnecessary; Avatar: The Last Airbender's various live-action adaptations, and the How to Train Your Dragon live-action adaptation that is in the works now). It's like they don't believe that animation can be a perfectly good and valid medium of storytelling in its own right, and frankly, that's what I feel most frustrated about in these kinds of discussions.