This meme celebrates an awesome adaptation related to a weekly category. Any format of adaptation (television series, film, web series, etc.) is acceptable as long as it is based in some form on a book. Awesome Adaptations was created by Alisa Selene at PictureMeReading.
An Awesome Adaptation featuring Hidden Identity
Title: Once Upon a Time
Adapted from: various Fairy Tales
Adapted from: various Fairy Tales
For this post, I'm focusing on the first season of Once Upon a Time which was really pretty much perfect. The way they weaved the past and present storylines together was just genius! As was the way each episode unveiled more of a different fairy tale character.
In the first season, each resident of Storybrooke in modern Maine lives a pretty nice life, but only the mayor, Regina, and the pawn shop owner, Mr. Gold, remember their real past - as people from a magical land. Regina, the Evil Queen, cast a curse to send everyone to a place without magic - here - in an effort to destroy Snow White and Prince Charming's happily ever after. Which it did for a time. With each episode, we learned more about what happened to each fairy tale character and very cleverly their backstory also mirrored what was happening to them in Storybrooke. I think the best part of this series is in how the fairy tales we are all so familiar with is reinvented - with almost all the female characters much more empowered than they are in the stories. And good and evil is never black and white. The villains are painted sympathetically sometimes, and it's interesting to see how seemingly innocuous decisions can have such lasting consequences.
Much of the suspense in the first season came from whether or not Snow White and Prince Charming (or Mary Margaret and David) would get together and if their long lost child - Emma - would believe what her son is trying to tell her and find out if she really can break the curse over Storybrooke's inhabitants. While we have that journey, the lives of the characters in their fairy tale land is just as compelling because we get to see what experiences shaped the characters and their potential. There are so many layers to the story in Once Upon a Time, and I love how thoughtful and innovative this first season was. I'm still enjoying the show, but I really think the first season was the best because the structure of the storytelling was flawless and cohesive, and it was so much fun seeing these characters in such a fresh and new light.
In the first season, each resident of Storybrooke in modern Maine lives a pretty nice life, but only the mayor, Regina, and the pawn shop owner, Mr. Gold, remember their real past - as people from a magical land. Regina, the Evil Queen, cast a curse to send everyone to a place without magic - here - in an effort to destroy Snow White and Prince Charming's happily ever after. Which it did for a time. With each episode, we learned more about what happened to each fairy tale character and very cleverly their backstory also mirrored what was happening to them in Storybrooke. I think the best part of this series is in how the fairy tales we are all so familiar with is reinvented - with almost all the female characters much more empowered than they are in the stories. And good and evil is never black and white. The villains are painted sympathetically sometimes, and it's interesting to see how seemingly innocuous decisions can have such lasting consequences.
Much of the suspense in the first season came from whether or not Snow White and Prince Charming (or Mary Margaret and David) would get together and if their long lost child - Emma - would believe what her son is trying to tell her and find out if she really can break the curse over Storybrooke's inhabitants. While we have that journey, the lives of the characters in their fairy tale land is just as compelling because we get to see what experiences shaped the characters and their potential. There are so many layers to the story in Once Upon a Time, and I love how thoughtful and innovative this first season was. I'm still enjoying the show, but I really think the first season was the best because the structure of the storytelling was flawless and cohesive, and it was so much fun seeing these characters in such a fresh and new light.
