The three decade nightmare of development hell is over for the long awaited adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. It has finally arrived in television form on Netflix. The OG Sandman helped revolutionize comics in the late 1980’s and 1990s. It’s a sprawling tale spanning 75 issues (all written by Gaiman) so the streaming adaptation is something to be approached with trepidation. Book and comic-book adaptations often fail to live up to expectations. The whole appeal of adaptations is that they’re trying to distill into another medium what made the source material so special, which is why it’s so frustrating when so many shows or movies turn adaptations into generic “any stories.” The Netflix version of The Sandman stays true to the character, if not entirely true to the source material.
Being compared to the original source material is simply the risk you face when you engage in the process of adaptation in the first place. And it’s a perfectly reasonable one; part of the point, after all, is to see what’s been kept, what’s being removed, and how effectively or closely the adaptation translates the original. The Netflix series made changes that enhanced the story while at the same time getting the spirit of the original correct. I don’t think I’ve been this impressed or seen an adaptation that got it this right since the Lord of the Rings films. The point of an adaptation is to do or say something different from whatever you’re adapting. Otherwise, you’re not “adapting” anything.
On the one hand, it seems like they’ve tried to even out the tone a bit. The comic, especially in this early run, would shift tremendously in style and tone from issue to issue. Partly that was part of the design, with each issue of the first arc a pastiche of a different horror style. Partly it was because Gaiman was still finding his voice, and throwing lots of stuff at the wall to see what would stick. And partly it was because of editorial edicts and attempts to tie it into the DC universe.The Netflix show smooths things out, omitting things that were always an awkward fit (like Justice League cameos), and bringing everything else more closely in line with the dominant tone. So the grittiest parts get less gritty, the most whimsical parts less whimsical, etc.
I would assume that it’s pretty hard to find the perfect actors to play idolized characters from print media like comic books. The creatives here made changes both big and small bringing it to the screen. The results are crucial. Such great acting, so many talented performers. Vivienne Acheampong as a refreshingly developed Lucienne, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, largely wasted on Killing Eve, here perfectly finds the balance between Death’s well-known cheery disposition and her less-noted gravitas, Vanesu Samunyai giving us a great, hurt, brave Rose Walker, Sarah Niles as Rosemary, looking in her rear view mirror as her blood slowly freezes, Thewlis giving possibly his best performance since Naked, on and on.
Given the number of shows out there that draw out every potential story beat way way too long, The Sandman keeps things moving. In virtually any other series, collecting his things would have been two seasons long. It wasn’t an overly-stretched-out-movie or anything like a Disney 6ish episodic streamer, or Stranger Things season Netflix Event, instead it felt more like it was a book translated into another long-form of storytelling and that was really refreshing.