Wk 2, Q1: The effects of transposition on narrative...

One example I can think of is that of Super Mario Bros which started out as a video console game and was later made into a movie. All I can remember about the transposition from game to movie was that the story was changed quite drastically where the game was brought into a city context and the characters were given personalities and the plot became much more complex than the jumping over the little old men or spike-shelled turtle-ducks who would come towards Mario in a very predictable fashion. I guess this goes on to show how the notion of interactivity alone is sufficient to sustain attention over what seemed like a somewhat simple story (the aim in the game is, after all, just to kill enemies and jump over gaps to get to the last stage to fight the ‘king’ and save the princess). In a broad sense, the story in the movie follows that of the game, where the ultimate essential event (can we call that a kernel), is to save the princess in distress. However, in the movie itself, many more intermediate events are included in order to sustain audience interest throughout the movie. What this goes to show is how interactivity can actually allow one to focus less on the story of the narrative but still manage to sustain the attention of the ‘reader’ through the narrative.