This example describes in great detail why the original was very different and, in the opinion of the author, inferior to the adaptation rather than focusing on new material added to pad out a longer versions. It needs to be more in line with the trope's focus and written without inserting the editor into the entry.
- This happened with How To Train Your Dragon, which started as a fairly short children's book written in a large font to boot) about an inept kid going down to the dragon nest with his much more promising agemates to collect a dragon to train. This is achieved, says the book, through yelling at the dragon until it does what you want it to. Having seen the movie before she read the book, this troper assumed the baby dragon Hiccup got (he ran out of the cave without having time to look at it) would be a Night Fury or the book's equivalent, and they have an extremely condensed version of the friendship and adventures they do in the movie, since Hiccup has mostly the same personality. But no. The dragon hates him, it does whatever it likes, it doesn't pay attention to him when he yells at it (or does anything else, frankly), and it basically uses him and then ditches him when danger arises, with the author's assurance that all dragons are as snooty and disdainful as this one. Plus, it ranks about on the level of a garden snake in terms of dragons, and it's a runt, for that matter. The other dragons clear out when the Green Death shows up, since they're pretty sure it's going to kill them all, and the humans are left on their own to figure it out. This has the Family-Unfriendly Aesop that shouting, violence, and brute force, when applied to beings smaller than yourself, will get you an obidient pet, and that no matter how much kindness (instead of violence) you show said beings, they will screw you over if there's any risk. Yeah, I can see why they changed it.
Originally the "See also" section was much more complex — talking about concepts probably better handled in other articles:
Be mindful of where you place examples of Adaptation Decay, Adaptation Distillation, Compressed Adaptation, or Adaptation Expansion, as some combinations are not mutually exclusive. A compressed adaptation may decay or distill, or simply be shorter without being better or worse for the wear. For reference, imagine Decay and Distillation falling on an X axis while Expansion and Compression fall on a Y axis. (Though it's hard to Expand and Distill...)
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... imagine Decay and Distillation falling on an X axis while Expansion and Compression fall on a Y axis.How the Hell can an Expansion be a Distillation? Doesn't Distillation mean "bring to the core essence"? And while that would not always require a compression, how would "the core essence" be made more visible in an expansion?!
Ketchum's corollary to Clarke's Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced tactic is indistinguishable from blind luck. Hide / Show Replies
Different media have different strengths. The original work may leave unshown or undescribed what the adaptation must show or describe. (For instance, in The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, CS Lewis describes the White Witch's minions as too horrible to describe — but, since the camera has to point that direction anyway while Aslan is being killed, a film has to show them.) If what the adaptation shows or describes pounds the original point home better than the original lack of description did, then it's a distillation.
Or you may be adapting a film into a book. You elect to recreate the inner thoughts of the hero even though the film had no narration. If the actor in the original film tended toward inappropriate Dull Surprise, you can easily get an improvement... IMO, many novelizations of action films are both Adaptation Expansions (since they always contain background the film didn't have room for) and Adaptation Distillations.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage — Paul McCartney
By taking a central idea of the original and adding plot to expand on it. "Expansion" doesn't always mean "excess". You could expand something by adding in something that is entirely in keeping with the work's "core essence"
There seems to be a lot of natter on this page, which isn't all that surprising considering the topic. Is there anything that can be done to prevent opinions from creeping in?
As Above, So Below