zlacker

>>GavCo+(OP)
Media changes, art is reshaped by new generations. Roald Dahl is dead, the rights to his books have been sold and people are updating them to keep them relevant. This happens to translations (as an example) all the time as the popular lexicon changes. This is how media and art stays relevant. The world changes. The owners of the books have a vested interest in modifying them to continue to be relevant. The tweaks have not impacted the heart of the story, so why do people care? Other than a knee-jerk reaction to 'wokeness'.

>>a2tech+Bl
I understand why the IP holders want to keep the revenue flowing by adapting the works to meet current market demands/expectations (while offering lofty talk of the "timelessness" of Dahl's art). Setting aside the question of what this sort of editing does to his art (though for the record, I think that the transgressive meanness of Dahl is an integral part of his artistry, whether one likes it or not), the fact remains that most art is timeful, not timeless -- even works that "work" very well in their own time are usually consigned to obscurity once the world moves on. I tried to read "King Solomon's Mines" a couple months ago, and it was truly unreadable to me -- it relied upon cultural assumptions that are just utterly alien to me, and I couldn't enjoy it. And that's okay. I don't want to read a version that excises all the cringe-inducing language, because forgetting one story makes space for new ones (I can enjoy Indiana Jones movies if I want adventure, for instance, and they might not have been made if H. Rider Haggard's work had been picked up for an updating and franchising.) And endlessly bowdlerizing the "classics" means leaving little room for new ones to be written, read, appreciated, and canonized.