It's Franco to the rescue! (of the Great Luhrmann)
"The critics who’ve ravaged the film for not being loyal to the book are hypocrites. These people make their living doing readings and critiques of texts in order to generate theories of varying levels of competency, or simply to make a living. Luhrmann’s film is his reading and adaptation of a text-his critique, if you will. Would anyone object to a production of Hamlet in outer space? Not as much as they object to the Gatsby adaptation, apparently."
- James Franco
Let me help you Franco:
1 - 'hypocrites'
The critics would only be hypocrites if they personally did the same thing they're accusing Luhrmann of; which is unlikely; because most critics don't actually make films.
I think the concept you were attempting to allude to would be "double standard;" but I don't think there's a common derogatory noun to label people that you are generalizing with; so I can understand why you went with "hypocrite": it's just intellectually easier.
2 - "critique"
A film isn't a critique of a pre-existing work: it's an exploration.
A critique is an analysis; such would be made pior to - and perhaps during - the making of the film; but the film itself would not be a critique of the pre-existing work; though it could be a critique of something else.
3 - (re: "hamlet in space")
Surface details are utterly irrelevant. The issue is thematic flow.
if you change the overall themes - that is to say: veer from the intent of the source material - it is no longer an exploration of the original work. It is a hack of it; and thus the culprit becomes a hack his self.
And in such cases insisting on calling the new work by the same name it hacks from... is frankly disrespectful.
Judging from the films of Luhrmann's that I've seen...
He simply lacks the maturity to wield his vision with any kind of grace or poise.
The easily impressed get wowed by the grand gestures.
The more perceptive see the clumsiness in the execution.
I've not seen The Great Gatsby; so I've no opinion beyond I'm assuming it's like his others: an anticlimactic, gaudy... waste of time; with brief occasional instances of inspiring failure.
My points are simply that your logic is laughable.
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Yeah I know: Franco - and likely anyone else - doesn't remotely give the slightest flatulence what I think.... of what Franco thinks... of what such and such critics think... of Luhrmann's latest film;
but setting the record straight in my own mind was educational for me.