(Hated)changing somenthing to be more "progressive" ends up being a bad thing

[u/Morr4Seiya]

Now to be clear,i am not one of these "anti-woke" losers that complain some people exist,and i am also not the type to complain about changing somenthing in a new version or adaptation,however there are cases where it did ended up being a bad idea.

-In the anime of Cowboy Bebop there is the character Gren,despite being short lived the character is very memorable specially thanks to his tragic story.Basically his story was that he was a soldier from the titan war who was a great friend with Vicious(the main bad guy)after the war he was emprisioned thanks to Vicious who testified against him and he was forced to take a experimental drug that caused him hormonal problems,giving him a feminine appearence and even breasts.

In the Netflix live action,for some reasons they decided Gren was going to be non-binary,which wouldn't be a problem(some people believe he was gay in the anime)if it wasn't for the fact that they also removed all the nuances and complexities that made the character memorable and interesting,instead of a tragic war veteran that was betrayed and had his body changed against his will,Gren is just kinda there.

-The original Rugrats cartoon had the couple Betty and Howard,Betty was a big and masculine woman while Howard was a smaller and nervous man,it was a genuine interesting relationship that stood out from the other couples who were the standard straight couple.

In the new series however they replaced Howard with a woman named Trish,two things,first off why?What was the problem with having a woman being the stronger in a straight relationship?Second why does Hollywood seem to think that every tomboy or masculine woman is a lesbian?

Overall not the worst thing but it is jarring that they had a gender reverse roled that was progressive and decided that wasn't enough.

-Oh man,this one pisses me off the most so i am gonna have to break it down

So back in the late 80s and 90s there was this anime called Saint Seiya also knows as Knights of the zodiac,it tells the story of knights who fight for the Goddess Athena to protect earth,being divided in the golden,silver and bronze knights,the anime was a huge hit in latin america and Europe and while it floped in the US it still has a loyal fanbase.

Being a fan myself i can't recommend it enough,now granted the story does have a fair share of flaws,and that's because the author was honestly just making stuff up as he went along(also a lot of side characters are poorly used or even forgotten about)still it is a great story you should check out

But then a couple of years back Netflix got the rights and decided to a 3D reboot,in this reboot they decided to make the story more "american" to try to bring more american viewers,now i could go on and on a big rant about how that was a bad idea and the execution was so terrible that it made me want to strangle someone but this post is about one specific change.

So Saint Seiya has five main characters,those are Pegasus Seiya,Dragon Shiryu,Cygnus Hyoga,Phoenix Ikki and finally Andromeda Shun.

While the other four characters were the standard masculine and brute male characters who were always ready to throw punches,Shun was smaller,more sensitive and even feminine looking,a pacifist who didn't liked fighting,but don't mistake that for weakness because Shun was loyal to his friends and was extremely powerful.

Then Netflix decided to change Shun into a girl named Shaun.

So wait,you have a male character who goes against every male stereotype and you turn him into just another generic female character?

When asked about it,the showrunner Eugene Son said he made that change because there was no girl in the group and having a all boys group wouldn't be acceptable nowadays

First off that's not true because Athena was also part of the main cast,yeah she wasn't the fighting type but she still helped quite a lot in the story even saving the knights on several occasions,second if you wanted to add a girl to the main group why not use Marin or Shaina?Hell,if you were going to change the story anyway why not turn Seiya sister into a knight?

Thankfully this monstrosity was cancelled(so much for trying to bring more fans)

[u/Atari774]

I’d throw the Halo TV show in here as well. They raceswapped Jacob and Miranda Keyes from white to black, assumedly in an attempt to make the show more diverse. But Halo is a series that already had a ton of diverse characters to choose from, which they completely ignored when making the show. For instance, Sergeant Johnson is one of the most famous black characters in video games, and is extremely important to Halo’s story, but he’s completely absent from the show.

And even with Jacob and Miranda Keyes, they changed their characters significantly to something that’s worse than what was there originally. Jacob doesn’t even make it to the Halo ring, and instead dies a completely pointless death on Reach. Miranda isn’t even in the military like she was in the games, and is instead a scientist. In Halo 2 and 3 she’s your commanding officer leading the fight, but that wouldn’t have been possible with the version of her we got in the show.

[u/Old_Potato_5450 → u/Atari774]

The frustrating part is when an adaptation changes characters so much that they barely resemble the people fans connected with in the first place. Halo already had such a rich cast and story to draw from, so why not build on what made it special?

[u/MsSelphine → u/Old_Potato_5450]

Man i watched pointlessHub's teardown of that show, and even as someone who hasn't played halo it looks like an abomination.

[u/Trick_Decision_9995 → u/MsSelphine]

I've played some of the games, but not enough to have any real opinion on the stories or lore. I liked the show well enough for what it was, a mil-SF adventure with solid action, high production values and great visuals. But it's also it's own thing, much of the time to its detriment since the bests parts are the parts that are closer to the games and the worst parts are the ones that are clearly show-original material.

That being said, the writing was going in a positive direction - there was a significant improvement from season 1 to season 2 which largely sidelined the less interesting parts and played up the more interesting parts. If you like science fiction in general and aren't married to the stories of the games, I'd say check it out.

[u/StreamingPanda → u/Trick_Decision_9995]

I only played the first game but loved the lore so much I started reading the novels instead but when they show was announced, I was really excited for the TV adaptation. They really dropped the ball with it. They made so many unnecessary changes that its become its own separate thing to the point where they should have just done that instead of ruining the chances for a proper adaptation.

There are so many excellent Halo books they could have adapted instead of this ridiculous non-canon TV show.

[u/Haunting_G5159 → u/Trick_Decision_9995]

Absolutely not. It butchers literally everything. Everything.