Over the past few years, television has changed. Episodic series, while certainly still in existance for the mainstream television viewer, seem to be past their hayday. With the advent of such programs as 24 and Lost, the television serial now rules the airwaves. Personally, I'm overjoyed at this turn of events. While movies - running between 90 and 150 minutes - used to be the long-form medium, television is now able to tell a far longer and more in-depth story. Perhaps the popularity of the DVR has virtually lengthened peoples' attention spans.
It's because of the new long-form that stories like George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire are now able to come to television. My expectations for this show could not be higher. If it does for the Song of Ice and Fire series what Peter Jackson's movies did for Lord of the Rings, it will meet my expectations. Like I said - very high expectations. It's got all the markings of greatness: a cast of mostly-unknown actors who visually seem like perfect fits for the characters, a script that will remain faithful to the book, and outstanding source material. This ain't gonna be no crappy Legend of the Seeker. If this goes well, I'll hold onto my hopes that we'll see a similar treatment for The Wheel of Time.
It's rare that a great book is made into a decent movie. More often, the outcome is something like Time Traveler's Wife, Eragon, or Battlefield Earth - a poor facsimile that barely hints at the original's greatness. The same is true for video games. Both video games that are made into movies (Doom, Alone in the Dark, Tomb Raider) and movies that are made into video games (Iron Man, Clash of the Titans, The Blair Witch Project) are generally terrible. To my mind, this is because the producers and developers fail to acknowledge and deal with the fact that movies and games and fundementally different media. The differences are many, but one of the primary ones is the fact that games are a longer-form medium than either movies or television. While a season of television might run as long as 15-18 hours, its duration doubling even an epic trilogy like Lord of The Rings, a video game might play for 30, 50, or even 100 hours.
This is why I'm so surpised that the creators of a video game like Lego Harry Potter would be based on the 2 hour movies when another far more detailed source is readily available: the same source that the movie drew from. The book. Pages and pages of content were omitted when the screenplay for the movie was drafted. As the writer of a game, you need more material, and you likely have to fabricate it. This comes in as silly battles against the same old enemies and puzzles which are likely not nearly as fun as the book's story. What were they thinking?
I should probably end here, as my stream-of-consciousness thoughts on media have become a bit of a rant.