Adaptations vs. Remakes: A Look at The Fall Guy

I recently watched the film The Fall Guy, and after realizing there was an early 80s TV series of the same name, I wondered if the two are connected. To a not-so-shocking surprise, they are. The film was based on the original 1981 TV series created by Glen A. Larson and starred The Six Million Dollar Man himself, Lee Majors. This connection got me thinking about remakes, reboots, and adaptations altogether. This is a prevalent trend in the film and TV world nowadays. In fact, "remaking" things has happened since the beginning of storytelling—more on that in another article.

Ultimately, all this made me ask myself, "Is The Fall Guy a remake, an adaptation, or something else?"

Before we go further, let me spoil the "something else". It's not; it's definitely one of the two former options. I just did that to be dramatic as well as immediately undercut myself. Why? Well, it's my article, and I can do it however I want. Plus, I see folks use the phrase "Is it something else?" as a mystery to pique interest and ultimately find out it's straightforward with no mystery at all—the same with this film. Nothing is shocking about my conclusion, but the why and how are very interesting to me.

But first, let’s establish a foundation by reviewing the story and definitions. Let’s start with the definitions.

Adaptation vs. Remake

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, adaptation is “the action or process of adapting one thing to fit with another or suit specified conditions.” Taking the original and tweaking it. Got it.

Also, from the Oxford English Dictionary, remake means “to make a second or further time, or differently.” It means taking the original and redoing the same thing. Double got it.

Both words are similar in function. They both take something that has already been done and do it again. However, the difference is in how a person goes about doing it and their intent. So, armed with the definitions, let's dive into the differences between the two and give context as they relate to the storytelling medium.

Adaptation

Adaptation is about taking the source and creating it through another lens or using different elements to create something new. Basically, any book turned into a film or TV series is this. American Fiction, Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, High Fidelity, The Boys, and even the best action film ever made, Die Hard, are all examples of adaptations. Yes, even Die Hard was based on a novel, Roderick Thorp's 1979 Nothing Lasts Forever.

Also, every biopic or medium based on true events is an adaptation. The reason why? They are taking true events or persons to create a representation of that person or event. When you see Jamie Foxx play Ray Charles in Ray, you’re not seeing the real life of Ray Charles or even the chronological sequences of his life. It’s a fictionalized version of him. The creators only had two hours to try to capture the life of Ray, while Ray had seventy-three years to capture the life of Ray Charles. This necessitated the creators to take creative liberties in adapting the life of the legendary music icon to film.

Whether it’s a book, person, history, or another film or TV series, the creators are not trying to make an exact copy of it, even if they are trying to be faithful to the source material. They simply take the elements they need to tell the story and adapt them for that medium.

Remake

A remake uses every element from the source material and repeats it in the same way—essentially making a carbon copy. The closest examples in film you’ll get to this are the 1998 Psycho and the fan-made film of Raiders of the Lost Arc, which are almost entirely shot-for-shot to their respective sources. I would still argue that even these are adaptations since they use new elements, including technology, to tell the story through their lens. 

For this purpose, yes, I'm ignoring the "differently" part of the definition of a remake. “Why?” Because when you remake something, the goal is to get it as close to the original version as possible. When an electrical engineer makes a computer chip and wants a second chip that functions the same way, they don't say, "Hey, I'm gonna go without this circuit here."  Chances are the new chip will not work how they wanted it to. So they have to do the exact same thing and use every element from the original chip to remake it. Technically, it’s different because it’s not a clone of the original and will have the subtlest differences. But all the elements are in the same order, fashion, and function.

However, if they want a similar but different function or use updated parts different from the old one, they’d be adapting the chip.

Who is The Fall Guy

In both versions, the story is about Colt Seavers, a Hollywood stunt performer tasked with finding a person in hiding. Where they differ is the reasoning for finding said person. In the film, Colt, played by Ryan Gosling, is trying to find the person he stunt doubles for, Tom Ryder, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson. But for the original TV version, Colt moonlights as a bounty hunter when not being blown up, set on fire, or doing a cannon roll. Both versions of Colt inevitably do the said stunts for real when tracking their respective targets. Both versions are high-concept for their mediums and a whole lot of stunt-performing fun and mayhem. 

While each is a peak into the life of a stunt performer, and the protagonists share the same name and Hollywood profession along with some same-named supporting characters, like Jody, they differ in the type of story they are telling. The Lee Majors's Colt Seavers is a stunt guy trying to make it by with a thrilling after-hours job in a mark-of-the-week TV structure. Whereas, Ryan Gosling's Colt Seavers is striving to regain who he once was and ensure his love interest, Jody, played by the immensely talented Emily Blunt, gets her movie, Metalstorm, made.

Fun fact: Metalstorm is an actual stunt-heavy 1983 movie that tried to cash in on the Mad Max and Star Wars phenomenon. Check out New Rockstars' breakdown of The Fall Guy to learn about more fun easter eggs like this.

That little side quest aside, let's make some banana bread.

Let's talk about banana bread.

Seriously, let's hop over to the kitchen. Not too long, though. I don't want to make you hungry. 

When I want to make my mom's banana bread the same way she made it, I use the same recipe she used. I want that same flavor, texture, and moistness, so I don’t do anything different. If the bread comes out too dry or off-flavor, I did something wrong and failed at remaking my mom's recipe. To be honest, I probably did everything wrong. I can cook great, but I ain't no baker. Regardless, if I want the same banana bread I grew up overindulging in as a kid, I have to go back and follow the recipe precisely to remake it.

Even though I would never want to change my mom's recipe, for argument's sake, let’s say I did. I want a hint of vanilla and some crunch while maintaining the same banana flavor and moistness. From my mom’s recipe, I would include the two new elements while ensuring I keep the primary elements that are the hallmarks of her banana bread: the banana flavor and moistness level. When the bread's done, it still has the same banana flavor and soft cakey feel, but with an added flavor to give a hint of bananas and cream with a bit of crunch. Thus, I adapted my mom's banana bread.

Just like my take on my mom’s banana bread, filmmakers keep the hallmarks of the source material but add new elements or alter others to fit the new vision or medium of the story they are trying to tell. And that is what makes true film and TV adaptations work so well.

For example, the book The Hunger Games has three aspects crucial to the story's success, which make it The Hunger Games. First, the story is told through Katniss’ eyes. Second, the actual games and the most crucial piece—Katniss was just trying to protect her sister. It wasn’t about winning or taking down the Capitol. It was simply about keeping Primrose safe. If you took those elements away from the film, you don’t have an accurate adaptation, and it is something else. Just look at World War Z, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. However, in The Hunger Games, the creators keep those essential elements in the film. 

So what is The Fall Guy?

Adaptation, baby! Many will argue it's a remake or a reboot. It’s neither. And both words are thrown around too much anyway to describe stories based on previous source material/IP. Yes, reboots are a thing in some instances, and I’ll get to them in another article, but a vast majority of them are still adaptations. Here's looking at you, Amazing Spider-Man. And I will die on the hill that remakes aren't a thing. What is called a remake is just an adaptation.

Just as I adapted my mom’s banana bread recipe to make something new, the same process was used for the film version of The Fall Guy. There was just less time with aprons and flour everywhere. Though, both still had a lot of fire.

The creators took the hallmarks of the original TV series, such as the main character being a stunt actor who must track down someone, characters that Colt can collaborate with well (TV Series: Jody Banks and Howie Munson, Film: Jody Moreno and Dan Tucker), and of course, the sheer number of stunt performances along with adding new elements and changing the way the elements worked together to adapt the story into something new.

Right off the bat, the first difference in the film version is Colt is not a bounty hunter tracking a bail jumper. He is wrangled into tracking the missing star to help save Jody's film. He's also not at the top of his game when we see him after the film's hook. He's an underdog, working as a valet. In the series, Colt is the best, a badass on and off set. 

In the film, Colt's two primary allies are Jody and Dan, who are stand-ins for their TV counterparts, Jody and Howie. Even though they are supporters and collaborators of Colt, in both versions, helping him in the mission or on set, they differ in significant ways. Jody Banks, played by Heather Thomas in the series, is a fellow stunt performer and primarily a sex symbol. It was the 80s. Not an excuse; it just was. Jody in the film is a camera operator turned director and, while a love interest, is not used as a sex symbol. In the film, Dan, played by Winston Duke, used to work with Colt as a stunt performer, but now, on Metalstorm, is the stunt coordinator. Whereas in the series, Howie, played by Douglas Barr, is Colt's cousin trying to break into stunt work.

The difference is subtle in the characters but dramatically affects Colt's dynamics with the two supporting characters between both versions. In the series, Colt is the big man with power over Jody and Howie. In the film's professional hierarchy, Jody and Dan have power over Colt. When on set, he has to obey their directions or defy them. It makes for different types of conflicts and interactions for Colt than what he had in the series. I'd even argue the film version creates even more interesting conflicts, hurdles, and interactions because of these character differences.

"So what? The characters differ, and Colt is lower on the call sheet. It's basically the same thing." No, they're quite different, really, and that's where the plot comes into play. 

The basic plot structure of the series is procedural. Colt has to balance working on set while also getting his man to collect the bounty. Pretty cut-and-dry 80s television structure. Doesn't make it any less entertaining or good. It's just basic and expected for that type of programming. Plus, anyone who says it was a failure is wrong. The show went on for five seasons with 112 episodes. That's success in my book. But I digress.

Now, for the film, the emotional backbone of the story is that Colt wants to rekindle his flame with Jody. He needs to accomplish this through the plot by tracking down the star, Tom Ryder, and becoming the top stunt performer he once was so that Jody can complete her film. There's more to the plot, but I'd rather you go out and see this film than me spoiling it here. I already spoiled one thing in this article. Don't need to add two spoilers.

Focusing the plot through Colt's want makes it personal and integral to the character, which the series lacked. This allowed for deeper exploration and heightened the stakes as the movie progressed. Is it groundbreaking in film? No, but from where I sat in the theater, I saw something unique in its own right because it was made through the lens of creators who saw a different take on these characters. It's an adaptation of a series, not a remake of one.

Why is the distinction important?

Yes, on the surface, this is all just semantics. However, as a lover of words and someone who knows the importance of the right words for the right things, the distinction is not semantics. It's about correctly recognizing what something is and giving credit for what it is—good or bad.

A remake makes it sound like it wasn't an original thought or take on something. It's generic, a carbon copy, a less than. Yes, there are plenty of bad adaptations, such as The Last Airbender (both live-action film and TV series), Eragon, The Hobbit, Catwoman, and countless others. But there are numerous examples of great adaptations. See the list from earlier.

Hell, there are even adaptations that people argue are better than the original they are based on: The Godfather, The Thing, Ocean's Eleven, The Shining, Jurassic Park, True Grit, and even my beloved Die Hard. You would not call any of these remakes or unoriginal. They are and will always be original adaptations.

Saying any of these are remakes does not give credit to the creators. Remake is really code for “They had no other ideas in their head and just wanted to redo something that has already been done cause it's ‘easy’.” Writing and filmmaking are anything but easy, no matter what story you are trying to tell. And no creator sets out to make the same thing someone else made. They want to create something with their unique voice and vision, no matter where the idea originated.

So, in closing, yes, The Fall Guy is an adaptation. It was an original one at that because the filmmakers took an original approach to it. They made it through their perspective of the world of stunt performing.

Just because Hollywood has become the trope of "remaking everything" does not make films adapted from original sources any less original. We need to stop thinking of adapted stories as remakes because when we do that, we generally judge something as unoriginal before we see it. The creatives deserve respect for being original filmmakers, even if they base something on material already done.

Now, excuse me while I enjoy the banana bread I adapted from my mom's recipe.

…Bleh, too dry