This marvelous play by Shakespeare was especially interesting to read because of the intriguing twist at the end. The part that made it a little hard was the language, and that we had to constantly keep looking at the footnotes to ensure we’re understating what we’re reading.

We decided to convert this book into a movie. One of the reasons was because no such adaptation of the play has been done before, so it would be a completely new and different version of it, and would help the audience look at it from a different perspective. We also decided to change the language to modern English. This was done, as during the movie, it would be tedious to go through footnotes, and watching it in the language we all understand would be easy and understandable. Along with that, we changed the Knights to superheroes. This helps us relate to a wide audience, rather than just one kind. Not just teenagers, but also children can watch and appreciate Shakespeare through the movie. To make it even more interesting, we have given them special superpowers, such as super strength and super senses for Arcite and Palamon respectively. This is not on random basis, but is done based on their parts in the story. For Arcite, since he wins the battle against Palamon, he has the quality of super strength. Another major modification we did was to remove the jailor’s daughter. This was done as her role in the play doesn’t shape the story, and in a movie, it is better to have fewer important characters than to have many less important ones, as it’s economical and less confusing. We also reduced the number of queens to just one for similar reasons.

As an audience, we thought it would make a movie complete to see some action since it is a superhero movie. So, we have added an entire scene of the fight between Palamon and Arcite. This creates tension in the viewers and also a huge suspense as to what is going to happen next. Watching a movie is really different from reading a text, the emotions, which are expressed in text over many pages, are shown in movies in just a few seconds. This is why we have given numerous effects to the fight, which are more relatable to the theme of super heroes.

While doing this adaptation, even though I had already read the play more than two times, I felt like I was able to understand it even better. I focused on every dialogue not just to translate it but also to change the theme all together. This was a major challenge while adapting the play. As, even though I had completely understood everything, directly translating every word was a challenge I had to overcome. However, I did, and this helped me get into the nitty-gritties of the characters and understand his/her emotions during the conversations.  I was able to connect with the character, for example, when Palamon is defeated and going to be executed, he talks about it s positives and how he is more powerful than the other old people who die and go to heaven. While reading the play with the footnotes, I understood what he was saying, but while translating it, I was also able to empathize with him. This was probably because I was imagining a movie in my mind, with real characters.

In all, my experience with the adaptation was an interesting one, as it felt like I was writing the script of an actual movie, which is going to be watched by a huge crowd. In all, other than making the play easier for the general audience to understand, we have made it more interesting to a larger audience.