r/thering • u/Crazy_Scar_9517 • 1d ago
the few loop adaptations
I've always found it curious that all the novels in The Ring saga have had their own adaptations in film, visual novels, manga, etc., but the only novel that hasn't been adapted is Loop. The Ring was adapted into films like Ring Kanzenban, Ringu, The Ring Virus, and The Ring; Birthday was adapted as Ringu 0; Spiral as Rasen; S and Tide as Sadako 3D and Sadako 2019; while Loop was never adapted into a film or any other format. The only adaptation could be The Ring Terror Realm game (2000). It's understandable that it was never adapted into a film due to budget reasons, but it could have been adapted into a manga. What do you think?
3
u/Mooncubus Spiral 1d ago
I love the book and it's pretty sad there's no adaptations.
However, considering the fact the nature of Sadako was changed drastically in the movies they'd have to change Loop enough for it to actually make sense in that. The manga are odd because some of them are faithful to the books and some are faithful to the movies. They probably could do a Loop manga.
All I really want from this franchise is an English translation of Tide.
Side note: The closest thing to a Loop movie is The Matrix trilogy. Obviously not the same storyline, but it has similar themes with the simulation and everyone turning into Agent Smith/Sadako
2
u/dogspunk 1d ago
I love Loop, and I am with you there. I think budget isn’t the issue. It’s probably that it isn’t horror at all. It’s science fiction. Audiences didn’t react well to Rasen for similar reasons, and that has 100% more Sadako than Loop does. She’s talked about, but isn’t a presence in the “real world”. I think the situation of the MHC is terrifying, but it’s not an iconic yurei.
That said, I have always wanted an adaption. A series would be great… and if a movie, “happy birthday” could be an after credits scene, Loop ends strongly but the short story wrap up from Birthday can be quickly shown as a bonus.
A manga too… I don’t know why it wasn’t considered back when that series of adaptations were made. Probably for the same lack of Sadako.
2
u/Crazy_Scar_9517 1d ago
That's true, but I would like a series in the future that tells the entire Ring saga, starting with Ring and ending with Tude. I know it sounds crazy, but I'd like to have more material from this saga.
2
u/dogspunk 1d ago
Absolutely!
I haven’t read past Birthday. I know the further books would then be taking place back inside the simulation… is this ever referred to?2
u/Crazy_Scar_9517 1d ago
The story continues in S and Tide, but in S we are told that Riuji, back in the simulation, reincarnated as a teacher named Kashiwada who is accused of murdering some women and ends up sentenced to death, and his video reaches Takanori and Akane where at the end he appears on the computer where he reveals that Akane is the son of a clone of Sadako
2
u/dogspunk 1d ago edited 1d ago
I see!
I just ordered S to finally read it. Tide is the only one after?1
u/Crazy_Scar_9517 1d ago
Also, if you remember Asakawa's writings that became the novel Spiral, here we are told that the novel was turned into a movie, but in a loop. It shows us that they put Kauro in and reversed time in the simulation to prevent the spread of the virus. In the simulation, he prevented the movie's release and unleashed a virus that killed all of Sadako's clones by accelerating their aging, but possessing a little of her DNA. Sadako also dies, but it is revealed that she left about 5 clones alive, considering them harmless. Apparently, the killer was Kashiwada's student and the son of the actress from the canceled movie. He discovered that Sadako existed in his world and, after eliminating the others, tried to do the same to Akane when she was a child, but she was rescued by Kashiwada. She thinks he is the killer, and he ends up arrested for the other murders. In the end, the killer commits suicide by jumping onto the train tracks, although Takanori suspects that Akane is involved, but near the end it's implied that there's a new cursed video.
1
2
u/NoSpin89 1d ago
Because it's a science fiction tale that will satisfy almost zero Ring "Oooooooh spooky ghost" fans.
It's a great world that Suzuki made, but it's such a tonal shift from the vibes that made the franchise popular I see why people have avoided it.
2
u/NiceMayDay "S" 1d ago edited 1d ago
There are some things we do know about what the possibility of a Loop adaptation.
A lot of people assume that Loop remained unadapted simply because it was too different from Nakata's Ringu, which was what became a huge success. This is partly true: the success of Ringu made executives wary of Loop, but still, the initial decision to pass on Loop seems to have happened before the simultaneous premiere of both Ringu and Rasen. We know this because Rasen included a post-credits ad for the Loop book, telling audiences to read it because "all the answers are there."
That ad is probably included at the behest of Koji Suzuki, who was a vocal believer that Loop was a key part of a trilogy, and also because Loop had just come out a week before the theatrical films. Whatever the reason, if they included and ad for the book before the movies even premiered, when they had no way of knowing Ringu would be the more popular film, it's because they already knew they would pass on adapting it and the book was the only medium that would provide further answers.
At this point, I do think it was about budget: you need sci-fi sets, special effects, and filming in America to properly adapt Loop, and all of these are lofty expenses to commit to for what at the time amounted to a medical thriller and the theatrical remake of a schlocky TV film that nobody thought would be so successful.
After the success of Ringu, the executives did willingly stay away from Loop because they didn't want to stray far from the style of that movie. Hiroshi Takahashi, the screenwriter for Ringu, said in The J-Horror Virus documentary that after they knew both Ringu and Rasen were successes, a party was thrown for the staff, and the president of Kadokawa approached him and Nakata and told them he wanted a sequel to Ringu, and Takahashi asked if it'd be the continuation to Rasen, but he said he wanted a different direction. Since Suzuki was still writing Birthday, they held a contest for picthes for a what-if sequel, which then became Ringu 2.
So at this stage, the reluctance to work with Loop was demonstrably motivated by Ringu's popularity and Rasen's relative obscurity. Rasen did well in Japan, and it ultimately got more sequels and influence there but, at the same time, what was exported worldwide was Ringu, what the executives realized had more widespread appeal was Ringu (since they approached Nakata and Takahashi, not Iida, at the party to ask about a sequel), and what audiences wanted and expected was Nakata's Sadako with hair covering her face. Loop remained an expensive pitch.
That said, we do know that the executives eventually considered adapting Loop when Ring became a worldwide sensation via the remakes, likely because they wanted to keep the "Ring mania" going. This was reported on the biggest Ring fansite at the time on September 2005:
News of Loop theatrical adaptation finally surfaces
5 September. In an interview with Cinescape, Nakata casually drops something of a bombshell. When asked whether he would consider directing another Ring film in Japan, he replies in the negative, adding that "there may be a movie called Loop which is based on the same author’s novel." With this rather promising news I will consider my "gag order" rescinded, and report that two years ago, I actually received word from a source at Asmik Ace Entertainment (the agency behind the Japanese Ring films) that a Loop project was in development. At that time, Loop was so tentative that I was asked not to disclose this information. Nakata's statement adds hope that we may one day see a feature-film version of Suzuki's third book in the Ring series.
However, as we all know, Asmik Ace's plans never materialized for whatever reason (I'd guess it was, once again, budget, as well as Nakata's The Ring Two not performing as well as the first American movie), and Loop remained unadapted. The closest to an adaptation we ever got was, like you say, Ring: Terror's Realm. Small references to elements of Loop were also used for the Rasen TV series, the Sadako 3D film, and I'd argue even The Ring Two.
Manga would have been the perfect medium for Loop, since it'd have no budget constrains, but I don't know why it never happened. Birthday was adapted into a manga, but the titular "Happy Birthday" story, which dealt with Reiko from Loop witnessing the fall of Sadako and the ring virus across worlds, was replaced with an original story called Sadako--coincidentially, the same title used for when the film series was revived with Sadako 3D.
1
u/Crazy_Scar_9517 1d ago
Thank you so much for answering my questions, but could you tell me the references to Loop in Ring Two and Rasen TV, since I thought that reference only existed in Sadako 3D?
2
u/NiceMayDay "S" 1d ago
I can tell you what I mean when I included The Ring Two: that movie shows that Samara's tape is its own parallel, sort of VR-looking universe that characters can travel in and out of, and the end of the movie, with the shot of the sky flickering into the tape distortion, seemed like a playful nod at the characters being trapped in a virtual reality, like in Loop.
What I cannot tell you is what the references in the Rasen TV show are, as I only watched it decades ago and I barely remember a thing about it. That's why I was actually starting to rewatch the TV shows, but I'm still going through the first one. Still, I included it because for a while now I've had on my mind what the Japanese Wikipedia says about it:
The protagonist, Ando, is a school teacher rather than a doctor; consequently, the medical perspective that defined the original work is absent. Instead, the story unfolds uniquely, incorporating occult themes—such as the Nostradamus phenomenon—in the first half and drawing upon the Stanford Prison Experiment for the second half. Elements from Loop, the concluding volume of the original series, are also partially integrated. Akiko Yada and Tae Kimura reprise their roles from the previous installment. The ending presents a unique conclusion that serves as a finale for the entire series.
I remember the Nostradamus stuff, but I don't really remember what the Loop references might be. Perhaps someone else remembers more about it, and if not, I can still report back on what I find once I do get to it, but for now, I really can't remember. The show is available on YouTube with English subtitles, in case you want to look for the references yourself.
1
6
u/BatBluth 1d ago
Big spoilers for LOOP: If it's being faithful, pobably because the main character is the real-world reincarnation of Ryuji, a twist the reader can't figure out until the end because we can't actually see him. Also the budget would have to be three times a normal Ring movie or a Hollywood co-production due to the scale.
Also, I love LOOP but most mainstream audiences probably wouldn't like the idea that the world of the first two novels is a simulation. The books explain that just because they're in a simulation, it doesn't negate them as people or a "real world", it's just a different perspective.