#hotcakes

"ah dito namin binago ang script"

"grabe kasi backlash ng klaybarra noon eh, pinatawag na kami ng head ng network"

"there is no such thing as emotional cheating. we just wanted to explore the different sides of klay and ibarra."

🥞🥞🥞

In fact, when I first saw Frances (in 5th Grade), she was most DEFINITELY The Most *BEAUTIFUL* Girl I Had EVER Seen In My Whole 10 Year-Old Life!! I actually even thought she was exactly "Pancake Stack Beautiful", haha...

😻😻🤭

🥞💯🥞

because rizal's politics was quite indecisive and inconclusive in the books and in his own life. In order to sell to a more general audience, you usually need a resounding parting message or a strong good vs evil narrative. NMT and EL FILI both don't have this since it criticizes both reforms and armed revolution. Rizal favoring one over the other has been, for decades, a contentious topic among different sectors since he was a member of the elite social class. History also showed us that seeking independence and self-governance isn't that simple with so many political, social and economic factors playing behind the scenes.

The books were caricatures and they reinforced so many harmful stereotypes and bad habits that these ilustrado propagandists were known to have.

A 1:1 adaptation would just reinforce victorian age traditional patriarchy which rizal (and the other ilustrados) subscribed to. They didn't hate women per se, they just had a very specific way of adoring them that doesn't really jive well with today's feminist standards.

the age gap is problematic (especially if they want to adapt salome x elias accurately)

Normally what the adaptations have to fit the source novels to the audience. Here's how they did it.

1961 movie- pacing was fast. Despite how close it was to the book, the following scenes were dropped: outcome of ruedas delas fortunas prediction regarding ibarra's school, salome x elias, theater and riot scene, aftermath and epilogues were missing, etc.

1992 CCP series - expanded characterization of many characters (that means more dialogue not from the books), showed a deeper and more playful chrisostomo x maria clara relationship, dropped the following chapters: outcome of ruedas delas fortunas game, salome x elias, elias visiting pablo, riot, etc.. Some of the endings were changed: made sinang more emphatic for basilio, pilosopong tasio didn't die alone, his books were also not burnt, etc.

maria clara at ibarra (GMA 7 2022) - changed a lot of characterizations, dropped so many chapters (can't list them all, they still give me headaches to this day). One of the most notable changes is aging up salome (making her an adult) and having her in a physical/sexual relationship with elias. It got rid of the age gap but also compromised elias's original characterization.

cebuano RMN drama -had expanded characterization of all characters, gave more highlight on ibarra x maria clara that was not in the book. they added salome x elias but did not mention that she was a teenager. they also made damaso more involved in ibarra's death, etc..

As you can see, many of these big budget productions had to change a lot of things from the story. A big issue in the source material will always be Rizal's treatment of women as passive vile creatures prone to weakness and subjugation from the priests. Therefore, producers are faced with the challenge of giving these female characters the agency and nuance that would be more than what they had from the books in order to appeal to a much broader audience.

Moreover, the books do not really reflect 19th century Philippines accurately. NMT and EF were satirical works meant to be late 19th century anti-friar propaganda set in manila/laguna. Therefore, producers will have to choose between going for historical accuracy (We already have so many reference materials not to mess this up) or to sticking to rizal's reimagined late 19th century philippines (remember when he wrote these he was already out of the country for at least 6 years).

This would require a freakishly large budget to get the settings and look right. It would also demand screenwriters and producers be grappled with the satirical nature of the work, the contradictions it has with historical records/studies, it's penchant for misrepresenting many marginalized sectors, the controversies and ironies surrounding rizal (and his contemporaries in the Philippine Propaganda Movement and Revolution) and the audience's ever evolving 21st century values.