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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35891 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 3, 2022

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The answer is no, they don't know it will make it "suck" because they don't care if someone who's read the Silmarillion doesn't like what they did to Tolkien's lore.

Sure, but I think that's bad reasoning, and even a corporate executive could see why.

The original version managed to sell. Yes, to a limited audience, but it still managed to sell when other works of that same type wouldn't sell to that same audience. If you randomly change things, you're going to end up changing the qualities that distinguish it from similar works that don't sell. Those qualities are also likely to make it sell in another medium that inherently has a larger audience.

I think the actual explanation is a combination of ideology and wanting to take credit. Executives like to change things because if they succeed, the executive can take personal responsibility for the success. If the executive doesn't do anything creative to the work and it succeeds, they can't take credit; Tolkien or whoever gets all the credit.

Right, but you can see why they'd make changes that they explicitly claim will appeal to a larger audience, as opposed to random ones?

Sure, but I think that's bad reasoning

No, it isn't.

The original version managed to sell. Yes, to a limited audience

This is why.

  • -13

The point is that if the work sells to a limited audience, it has traits that, in a work directed at a larger audience, would make it more likely to sell to that larger audience.

(Especially if it has a larger audience because the medium inherently has a larger audience independently of content.)

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