Not too long ago rumblings about a possible remake of Rob Reiner’s classic 1987 film,
The Princess Bride, made the rounds across the internet.
The vague announcement was met with nearly universal disapproval from fans and even some
stars of the original film.
This sort of outpouring of frustration comes up any time a popular property is being remade
or adapted from one medium to another, and the question typically at the heart of it
is: what value will this add to the original work?
And before I say anything about the value of a potential remake, I want to talk about
the first time this question would have been asked in regards to this property—that being
when William Goldman, the author of the original novel, decided to adapt what he claims to
be the only book of his that he actually likes into a movie.
Goldman faced multiple obstacles through the process of adapting his story, and the fact
that this film not only exists but is also good is a miracle.
The first obstacle came with the actual writing.
With any book to film adaptation, one of the major concerns from fans is that it will change
or get rid of too much, and due to the structure of the novel The Princess Bride, the film
ended up doing a fair bit of both.
From a logistical standpoint, The Princess Bride is kind of unadaptable.
It is an idea that really only works as a book.
The frame that is used to present the tale of Westley and Buttercup is wildly complex
and operates on many different levels.
For those unfamiliar, the book centers around a fictionalized version of William Goldman
as he recounts his experience of being sick with pneumonia as a child.
While he was sick, his father, an immigrant from the fictional country of Florin, read
him a story called the Princess Bride written by the famous Florinian author S. Morgenstern.
This experience proved to be a formative one for Goldman, and it is implied to be the reason
he eventually pursued a career in writing.
The frame story then jumps to the present with Goldman as an adult.
He wants his son to experience The Princess Bride as well, but after tracking down a copy,
he realizes that the story his father had read to him differed from the actual story.
Essentially, his father had skipped the long and boring sections and just kept the good
stuff, so Goldman decides to make an abridged version of Morgenstern’s work in the hopes
that it will be more accessible to his son.
The story of the Princess Bride itself, the one about Westley and Buttercup is filled
with notes from Goldman that range from why he cut certain bits to his interpretations
of passages to memories of his father reading to him.
It also has various notes from Morgenstern explaining the origins of certain words and
phrases and even a discussion of what his wife thought of his writing.
This kind of meta-narrative is pretty much impossible to do in a movie, so when Goldman
decided to adapt his own work, he had to find a way to make it play as a film.
With adaptations, people often e say they want it to be faithful, but things that work
on the page don’t always work on the screen.
A faithful film is not necessarily a good film.
Novels and movies are paced and presented in dramatically different ways.
Films are short and need to get as much information across as quickly as possible where books
can take a lot more time developing the story.
For an adaptation of a novel to work, it needs to be formed in a way that fits the medium,
and this means that those changes fans are afraid will come are almost a necessity.
Really, I would argue that many of the best adaptations fundamentally alter the source
material, and The Princess Bride is no exception.
Goldman’s experience as a screenwriter made him uniquely suited to mold his narrative
into a workable script.
The pulpy adventure involving Westley and Buttercup’s love story is mostly the same
between the two works, although some backstory is cut in the film for the sake of time and
a few budget restraints led to more simplified set pieces.
The major change between the two versions comes with the frame story.
The film takes the dynamic from the novel of Goldman’s relationship with his father
and morphs it into a young kid who is more interested in playing games than being read
to by his Grandfather.
A handful of the interactions between the kid and his grandpa are similar to ones that
occur in the book, but a few moments are added in order to give a more rounded narrative.
Goldman’s choice to simplify the frame story down to this single dynamic changes the core
lesson of the narrative.
In the novel, while it definitely explores themes of love and the connective ability
of a story, the major takeaway is really that life isn’t fair.
As soon as the four heroes ride off into the sunset, there are immediate complications.
Inigo’s wounds reopen, Fezzik leads them the wrong way, and Prince Humperdink is hot
on their trail.
The entire novel is a satire of traditional fairy tales, and this ending twists one of
the most common tropes of the genre by not ending with a happily ever after.
This theme of how life is unfair is pretty present throughout the novel; the fictional
Goldman often laments about his loveless marriage with his cold wife and his frustrations with
his ungrateful son (both of whom are fictional as well), and he ties his personal experiences
with the idea that life is not fair to what happens in the story.
The moral is that no one should wait around for life to start being fair.
When considering the actual origin of how Goldman began the novel, that being the real-life
William Goldman asking his two daughters what kind of story they’d like him to write and
one saying she wanted it to be about a princess and the other saying she wanted it to be about
a bride, it kind of makes sense that this ended up being the primary message of the
novel.
It is almost as if he is telling his daughters to not wait around for life to give them anything
because even If they get what they want, nothing is perfect.
Who says life is fair?
Where is that written?
This theme certainly exists in the film, but not nearly to the same degree.
The frame story of the movie doesn’t have the bordering-on-bitter tone of someone who
has found themselves in a life that they aren’t entirely happy with.
In fact, the film ends on a very optimistic note; its primary theme is the value of true
love, whether that comes from a romantic relationship, a close friendship, or the connection between
a kid and his grandfather.
It’s mushy and sentimental and god does the final line make me want to cry every time
I watch it.
The frame story of each version fundamentally changes the interpretation of the base tale
being told.
Both share similar themes, but the way those themes are approached give the two version
drastically different tones.
And when considering how audiences have historically engaged with films, this tonal difference
between the book and movie makes a lot of sense.
Going to the theater has been a form of escapism pretty much since the Great Depression, and
the expectation of the audience more often than not has always been that they’d leave
feeling happier than when they came.
Obviously there are plenty of films, television shows and plays that do not end with a happily
ever after, but a lot of media has been crafted to meet this standard.
Goldman’s success in adapting the Princess Bride is in part to him understanding the
differences between how people walk away from a film versus a book.
He wasn’t precious with what he had originally made and was willing to change the coree of
his story in order for it to play better as a film.
While I don’t think that every movie should have a happy ending, given the setting of
the story and the decade that the film was made, one where people craved stories with
happily ever afters, adapting it in this way proved to be effective.
Of course, I don’t think every adaptation can get away with this sort of thing.
Most modern-day books that are turned into films are commercial behemoths with massive
fanbases, and The Princess Bride very much was not.
The novel sold well enough to grow a cult following, but it didn’t make its way on
the bestseller list at release.
At this point, I imagine more people have seen the film than read the book, and I’d
be willing to bet that the majority of those who have read it, did so after seeing the
movie.
This was also a time before the internet, meaning it was a time where fandoms were smaller
and less organized.
There weren't high expectations or even really a demand for the adaptation
Studios expressed interest in it early on, with Fox buying the rights to the book before
Goldman had even written the screenplay, but that had more to do with Goldman being a sought-after
screenwriter than it did with the popularity of the material.
It then found itself in development hell for around 15 years because of a variety of complications.
It went through a handful of rewrites before the studio head at Fox thought it could play
as a movie, and then that studio head got fired and his replacement refused to make
it, which is actually a pretty common practice in the industry because if a film chosen by
a past studio head does well, the new one doesn’t get any of the credit for picking
it.
Goldman eventually bought back the rights to the story, and he got close to getting
it made a few other times, once even being just a weekend away from the start of production
when the studio planning to make it got shut down, seemingly leaving the adaptation dead
in the water.
All of this is to say that any hype that had existed for this film died long before it
came out.
Really, the people most excited about it being made were the people who ended up making it.
And without the track record of those people, they never would have been able to convince
a studio to go for it.
With Goldman’s history of successful screenplays and Reiner being at the midpoint of one the
greatest hot streaks of any director ever, they were able to get it greenlit.
It wasn’t a cash grab.
It wasn’t in demand.
It was a passion project of a writer who assumed it would never get made and a director who
made sure that it did.
The focus was on making a great movie instead of making a movie that fans will want to see
because by then, most people didn’t care.
This mindset helped them create something special.
They truly adapted it to best fit the medium of film.
One of my favorite things about the film is the way it ended up spreading and becoming
the beloved classic it is today.
Upon release, it found modest success but it wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination
a massive hit.
However, once it made its way to VHS, the film found new life.
In the same way that the grandfather shared the story with his grandson, those who had
seen the film and loved it shared it with the people in their life.
Where it was hard for trailers to sell the film to perspective audiences because of its
odd mixing of genres and lack of big stars, it was easy for people to tell their friends
and families, “hey, this is a film I really loved, and I think you’ll love it too.”
Between the film having a stronger focus on the connective power of a story and the reality
that it is easier to convince someone to watch a 90 minute movie than it is to get them to
read a 300-page book, it became something people wanted to share.
So, when it comes to the question of what value would a modern remake of The Princess
Bride offer, “nothing comes to mind.”
I am not fundamentally opposed to the idea of remakes; they can update a film to make
it more accessible to a modern audience, and I think that can be great.
With that said, the value of the original film adaptation comes from 30 years of fans
sharing it with loved ones.
The Princess Bride has not faded into nothingness; it is as popular as ever and as more people
discover it, it will continue to grow.
The history that the film has is part of its appeal, and while Hollywood will do what it
wants to do, especially if there is monetary gain it, as a fan, I have no interest in passing
on a new version of The Princess Bride to the next generation; because I want to pass
on the one that was passed to me.
Hey.
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