Adaptations of literary works | Ramblin' & Amblin' | Nov 4, 2026
Ramblin' & Amblin' Field Notes with Mike Hall (Staff Software Engineer)
Recorded on the move: engineering observations, systems architecture, and software craftsmanship reflections.
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Spoken Overview:
"Adaptations of major literary works and plays, or you can say those are literary works too, can be very dangerous because they have a flattening effect and they've been run through a filter, a lens, literally...."
Recorded: November 4, 2026
The Interviewer
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Adaptations of major literary works and plays, or you can
say those are literary works too, can be very dangerous
because they have a flattening effect and they've been run
through a filter, a lens, literally. I think about, I've really recently picked up an anthology
of Philip K. Dick novels, and I'm realizing that I've
actually never read Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep. I hadn't ever read it, and then I sat down with my very
limited attention span these days, and I spent a bit of
time reading through the first couple chapters,
and, uh, oh my gosh, it is a different book, entirely, uh,
than the movie.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Again, I haven't finished the book, uh, you know, again, it
focuses on the thing, on the best thing, and having a
device, um, is an attention breaker. But, uh, I think about, uh, 1984, and, uh, more recently,
though, um, the, uh, which it felt like it was trying to be
faithful, uh, to the gen-1980 thing, but the, uh, uh, uh,
hook, I think it was? Um, the one that I, uh, uh, hook, I think it was a little
bit more, uh, hook, I think it was a little bit more, uh,
hook, I think it was a little bit more. Um, and, uh, hook, I think it was a little bit more, uh,
hook, I think it was a little bit more, uh, hook, I think
it was a little bit more, uh, hook, I think it was a little
bit more, uh, hook, I think it was a little bit more, uh,
hook, I think it was a little bit more, uh, hook, I think
it was a little bit more, uh, hook, I think it was a little
bit more, uh, hook, I think it was a little bit more, uh,
hook, I think it was a little bit more, uh, hook, I think
it was a little bit more.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
and the problem is, even my son, wasn't he? I love Blaze Runner, and he gave me, and I have this book. And I haven't recorded that yet. Oh, yeah, it's basically the book.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
The book is very, very cool. It's so funny. It's so funny. It's so funny.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
It's basically what people would be worried about
disappearing. It's that it's society. But it's society. If you--okay, it's prestigious to have an animal that's in
the world.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
It's society. In order to, as I understand it, again, I'm still in the
middle of reading it. If you can't afford an animal and care for it, and that's a
shame because he has to talk to somebody who can. And that other person doesn't understand at all the anxiety
that the protagonist is dealing with.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And the protagonist then reveals that his sheep that he has
, which looks exactly like a real sheep, kind of like it's a
replicant, is an android. It's an electric sheep, and it's a humiliation for him that
he can't afford to have a real sheep because his real sheep
died and he couldn't do anything about it. And we think that these are the stories that are being told
. And by just basing off of a reimagination, a retelling of
it, sometimes I think too much legitimacy is given to these
.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And it causes people, like myself even, to not really dig
into what the real story was. It's like not reading the original Lord of the Rings. And you might think, "Oh, you know, was Tom Bombadil really
that important?"
Yeah! Yeah, he was.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
He showed that there's a limit to what Sauron can do and
who he can affect. And that there is somebody, there's something in Middle-ear
th that literally doesn't care about any of this stuff. He's so powerful. He's so far above the fray.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And that tells us a lot about what Tolkien's belief systems
were and what he valued. Do I think that was terribly lost in the movie? Ah, no. You know, there's limits to what you can have.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
I don't think that was an intentional rewriting of the
story. It just got clipped. But when I talk to somebody who doesn't want to watch the
movies, I don't know about this character at all. Or the scouring of the Shire.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And much like what I said in an earlier video about the
tick of my leg, now I'm, you know, I got it off and it
seems okay today. But what about in a few days? What about in a few weeks? What about when I've gotten back from Mount Doom and I'm
thinking I'm safe in the Shire?
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
But Saruman and Wormtongue have different ideas. So this destruction and retelling of the original stories
by preserving books is important because they tell the
original story unmodified. But these retellings or adaptations, you got to look at who
's making them. And what they're thinking about, and we can say separate
the art from the artist.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
No. You have to, the art is the artist. And that's what we're looking at with AI and why we're
seeing the destruction of these, these, these literary
works. Because the AI companies, they gather the books up, they
scan them, they destroy the original.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
There's no way to go back and check to see if the original
matches up to what the AI said. And they can change that narrative to whatever they want it
to be. They're on the fly. They're on the fly, tailored specifically to your
weaknesses.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
I'm going to call it that. I'm not going on the side trails today. So, be mindful of these adaptations and what they're really
trying to do. And that just accepting them as the final authoritative
cliff notes version.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Again, cliff notes. If you're young enough that you didn't experience cliff
notes, it's, it's, before GBT, when it was, you had to read
a Dostoyevsky novel for, for class, you'd go by the cliff
notes. And the cliff notes were synopsis and, and, and excerpts
and, and, and pre-built summaries, all of which ran through
a filter. If somebody, you don't know, you don't know them, you don't
know what their agenda is.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And even if they are the most benign, um, egalitarian
people, everybody has an agenda. I have an agenda. You have an agenda. Even if we don't, uh, articulate it, we all have our own
perspective and lens that we view reality.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And when you're looking through two or three abstractions
of somebody else's agendas, who pulled from somebody else,
who pulled from somebody else, you're leaning a lot on
somebody else's interpretation and what they think you
should know. Just like a movie, just like Animal Farm. So, be mindful of, of these adaptations, that they are not
replacements for the original source material. And, and AI summaries, even more so.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Because we know who's in charge of them. So, just keep a copy of a book. Now, there's a reason they say keep a copy of the
Constitution. Pre-AI copy of Constitution.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Keep a copy of important books. Even the Bible. Even the, your religious texts. All of them.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Have some core reference that you retain in your own store. So that way you don't turn into Fahrenheit 451. Where we've ceded all of our own imagination and
storytelling to some outside source. And we don't even read anymore.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
I'm not doing that. Um, I'm, I'm a reader and you're not. I am not. I, I am struggling with focus too right now.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
But, um, having those handy is something you can go back to
. And it's kind of like, uh, you know, the, that, that steel
that they have to go find at the bottom of the ocean from
pre-atomic bomb testing. Because it's the only thing that isn't irradiated in the AI
and this hyper-partisan, um, world we're in now. Where the truth is dictated by media and, and other
interests who have their own agendas.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Hold on. Hold on to your originals. So that'll be sometimes, that might be the only way to know
what the actual truth was and who and what it was that we
were being warned about by the authors. What it was they wanted us to take away.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Not how somebody else told you, but how you understood
yourself. And we all need to do that. So, yeah. Libraries are important.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
And so, so are books. And now I'm starting to loop back on myself. Uh, I think I, uh, covered what I wanted to. Alright, thanks.
Mike Hall
Host, Ramblin' & Amblin'
▶ Speaking
Bye.