Analysis of the tale of Rostam and Sohrab in Shahnameh and Kianoush Dalvand’s animation according to Richard Krevolin’s adaptation process

Due to having dramatic and story appeals, many dramas, operas, and screenplays were adapted from the tale of Rostam and Sohrab so far.  This tale is one of the most prominent and controversial stories in Shahnameh in which destiny brings father and son in two opposing sides.  One such adaptation is the animation of Rostam and Sohrab produced by Kianoush Dalvand in 1392. Since production of animation in our country is quite new and needs substructures according to the writers of this article the most important of which is screenplay hence the purpose of this article is to compare and contrast the screenplay of this animation with the criteria proposed in Richard Krevolin’s book “How to adapt anything into a screenplay” which is the most important reference in writing screenplay adaptations. This comparison further provides aid to systematic writing and finds errors in the screenplay adaptations produced from the masterpieces of Persian land’s literature. From this perspective and with the comparison of the genuine story with its animation copy it was concluded that the Shahnameh text lends itself well with the structure and content proposed by Krevolin, yet the animated screenplay adaptation has certain discrepancies such as not dealing with the genre of adaptation, not considering the spirit of the tale, sudden change in the story’s end without providing the foregrounds, changing the tale’s theme, and not introducing the tale’s author.  Furthermore, alterations made in the tale caused the work to get out of its main genre which is tragic epic, and thereby induced distortion in such popular tale.