There has been a lot of chat going on around here with regards to the X-Men film and the upcoming Fantastic Four. A little while back I put up a post about the LOOK of comic characters on the big screen, but I also think there are other challenges that comic book fans (like myself) need to take into consideration before jumping down the throats of the studios for something in the movie that is inconsistent with the comic book.
Take for instance the issue of Gambit in the X-Men. I’ve got a lot of email from people who want to see a Gambit spin-off movie where he can have his proper romance with Rouge. After all… this would be more accurate with the comics right?
The Problem with the idea of a Gambit spin-off is that he’s not a popular enough character. Now, before all you Gambit fans out there (and I’m one of them) get mad at me, try to look at it from an “outsiders” point of view.
Easily the most popular character in the X-Universe is Wolverine. Hands down. Cyclops and Jean Gray have always been the heart and sole of the X-Men. Magneto is an insanly popular character (especially for a “villain”)… and we start to get further and further down the scale.
No studio in their right mind would make a comic spin-off with a title’s 4th, 5th, or 6th most popular characters. They tried with Elektra… and look what happened. Now, if they had made a decent Bullseye spin-off…
Also, No studio will make a comic book movie that ONLY appeals to the comic fans. It’s just not financially realistic. To make a comic film, the director has to make it appeal to both comic fans AND the wider public audience. That’s why you’ll never see (nor SHOULD see) a 100% accurate comic movie. And that’s a good thing.
Comics are written for comics, not the big screen. If you’re going to translate it to the big screen you have to adapt it somewhat, while still keeping the spirit of the comic intact. It’s the same thing for novels that get made into films.
Lord of the Rings fans understood this and forgave the minor (and sometimes major) differences between the books and the films. Comic fans need to understand this as well.
I get a little nervous when I hear some comic fans say “Fantastic Four will suck because The Thing doesn’t look big enough”. What!?!? You mean just because a character looks a little smaller on screen than he does in the comic book the whole film will suck? In my opinion that’s a little short sighted. We as comic book fans are notorious for being very protective of our beloved superheroes… but at the same time we need to more open to looking at the big picture when translating a comic into a film.
A movie has limited time and a limited budget to make a good story. We often forget that some of our favorite storylines in the comics sometimes take MONTHS or YEARS to tell with even MORE YEARS background behind them. A film maker doesn’t have that luxury. He’s got to get you introduced to the characters, get you to like them, set up the conflict with the bad guys and tell a great story all in… 2 hours. I think we should cut them some slack if they need to change a few things to get that done.
It’s a lot easier for films like BATMAN or SPIDERMAN because they only have 1 central major character to focus on. Films like X-Men or Fantastic Four have multiple characters to work with in the same time frame (2 hours). I honestly don’t know how a director does it!
Your thoughts?
i totaly agree with him its all about casting. They sould have picked samule l. jackson for wolverine hands down. he would have been more beliveable and would have looked more like the wolverine from the comics with musceles and stuff
My biggest beef with any comic book movie is casting
My biggest beef with any comic book movie is
casting, primarily regarding the race of the character.
If the character in the comic book is white, then
the actor chosen to portray the character should be, or at least look
white. I was highly ticked when Michael Clarke Duncan was cast as the Kingpin.
It still ruins Daredevil for me. By the same token, (no pun intended),
Jessica Alba can use all the peroxide she wants, she still looks Hispanic. And
last I checked Alicia Masters is a blue-eyed redhead, not black. Ironically, I
thought Halle Berry didn’t look black enough to play Storm in the
X-Men movies, and I would have chosen an actress with stronger African
features, like Vivica Fox.
Now, I think the FF movie will suck because
I feel the casting is off and therefore the visual aesthetic of the characters
suffers for it.
What do you think?
“personaly i think that you are a bit of a chod coz fair crack wolverine is the best x men charicter but cyclops and jean are turdy boring melrose place style charicters. you are also forgetting that u missed out punisher which was a shit film but it did look like a comic on screen you have some good veiws on the fact comics shouldnt be made into films but please some taste cock
Posted by: plztek bag mayn at February 24, 2005 04:36 PM”
What in the living name of snot was that?
I agree that it is exceedingly hard to make a comic book into a movie. Take the X-Men for example, I would be hard pressed to compact 40 years to history into a two hour time frame. Spiderman is much the same. When start getting into Batman and Superman we are talking somewhere between 60 and 70 years of nearly continual history.
If we work with just page count alone (approx. 32 pages per comics) we are looking at 23040 pages of comic on Superman giving a modest estitimate of 60 years.
Anyways, I’m all for a faithful redition, and adaptation of the characters and situations. I don’t expect Batman to have all of his history, but I do expect him to be the grim nearly psychotic defender of Gotham that he should be.
personaly i think that you are a bit of a chod coz fair crack wolverine is the best x men charicter but cyclops and jean are turdy boring melrose place style charicters. you are also forgetting that u missed out punisher which was a shit film but it did look like a comic on screen you have some good veiws on the fact comics shouldnt be made into films but please some taste cock
I disagree with one aspect. Elektra failed because it was a bad movie, not because it was based on a lessar character. The problem with comic book movies is that first and formost they must make them good movies. The extra problem is that people love the characters and actually feel personally insulted if they are treated bad.
Also the fact that these movies have years of anticipation. One of the Marvel people at the ECCC mentioned that they do not like releasing information too early. When you hear of something coming out, you write the comic book in your head. It is very hard for them to write one that is better to you than the one you write in your head. These movies have at least 2 years since they are announced till they are being developed. By then you already have an idea of how you want Spider-Man to look or how you just don’t want Elektra to suck. Man did that movie suck. So boring. So stupid.
A Gambit movie could work if they made a good movie that is about the character. People love good movies so they would go this movie about this guy who happens to be based on a Marvel character. Problem is most movies based on something suck.
Bravo John! Your comentary was well versed. I often have to remind myself of these very points whenever I watch a movie adapted from a comic or novel.
Yes, there is always some disappointment when certain points are left out, but usually in a second watching I can understand why it was written/filmed that way. Then there are other times I don’t – but then again, I’m not paid the $$ to make those decision. A part of me wishes I was – of course I’d likely be critized harshly by the those who feel something else was more important.
Jaemeel – I’m in complete agreement regarding Storm. I feel like the lone supporter of this character!
I completely agree with John…every word is taken out of my mouth!
Although I wouldn’t really have minded if the X-Men looked like X-Men…I mean once you’re in tights, does it really matter what color they are?
I understand that the movies are an ‘adaptation’ of the book, which means it will pull elements from the source material and combine it with new elements to create a more solid story for the big screen.
But what I have problems with is when the writers/directors can’t get specific elemtns down that are important to the character. And you really have to wonder if they have someone on staff who should be pointing out these mistakes.
X-Men movies, as good as they were… the writiers just didn’t understand the character Storm. She was so poorly written that regardless of how medicore of a performance Berry gave, the writing was what made it schlock.
Spiderman 1’s New Yorker Trash throwing at Gabby and the Unmasking on the train in 2 was just gutwrenching and totally unecessary. IMO they actually hurt the films.
But in the grand scheme of things, those problems irk me because the films themselves were good and I still love them as a whole. There are many examples of terrible comic movies, but bad flicks are going to made in order to come across great ones.
Same thing happens in any genre.
One of the reasons I enjoy Spider-man movie so much is that Sam Rami was able to tell the story keeping in mind that the audience is more sophiscated than before. I can understand why he decided to change the idea that Peter Parker’s spider webs is not artificial created but biologicaly encoded in his body. It would be hard for people to suspend their disbelief that Spider-man was able to swing around the city with a tiny pouch around his wrist that shoot web. Stan Lee himself said that what looks good in the comic may look ridiculous in live action. In the comics, when Superman puts on his glasses and fix his hair style, all of sudden, no one recognize his face as Superman, yet the physical appearance of his face remain the same. So basically I agree with Stan Lee about what may work in comics, may not work in the movies. Therefore, I can understand why directors may feel the need to adjust certain aspect in the comics when making a movie adaptation.
They don’t have to be 100% true to the books but at least 75% of the time.
But is being true to the comic important if you don’t think the movie is any good? Spider-Man or Spider-Man 2 for example.
Ouch. Shadopup had to bring up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Although they were not costume-laden heroes, Moore’s first volume about a Victorian Era ‘Justice League of the British Empire’ was just brilliant in comic form. The movie, however sucked. It was incredibly disappointing. Also, I dont blame you for getting the name of the main character,Allan Quatermain, wrong either, since the makers of the movie did the same thing on his tombstone at the end (forgive the spoiler). Ouchie.
I know its just a minor detail, but they cant even get the casting right. Sue Storm (Fantastic Four) is blond and blue eyed and Jessica Alba aint, same with redhead Jean Grey, which Famke Janssen isnt. Oh well, enough ranting about that, when you can easily dye your hair anytime.
Now that John has accurately pointed it out, any discrepancies from some comic books to film adaptation doesnt bother me that much, not in the same way that they MASSACRED Lord of the Rings. Its a different thing not putting some of the scenes you know wouldnt work in the book but to add things to change the story? Thats totally unacceptable.
Going back to the comic books, I am up for it now as long as they show us some more of these superheroes powers. Oh and if Cyclops does come back in X-Men III, please make him kick more ass, please use more of his visor, and as the X-Men’s leader, give the guy some work to do!
I don’t know if I would count movies like Ghost World (which I love, by the way).
I’m thinking what John is discussing is “comic book superheroes”.
I’d even go further than that and say that maybe even Blade doesn’t count — because most people did not know the character started as a comic book hero first.
You know, maybe Constantine doesn’t count either.
Basically, the less a comic book superhero character is known by the general public, the less of an issue there is in fiddling around with the character for the movies.
Superman and Batman, on the other hand, are essentially ICONS. They’re modern-day American myths. That’s why people have gotten upset when their origins are fucked around with too much. As crazy as this sounds, it’s like screwing around with the story of Jesus — blasphemy.
I think one comic book writer, who I can’t remmeber said this (Warren Ellis?), in a recent interview: America is personified by both Superman and Batman. Superman represents “America” the ideal; Batman as its most grim.
Thanks for the correction, DC continuity is so confusing and complicated.
I think the absolute best comic book to movie adaptation is a close 1 & 2 between Ghost World and American Splendor.
Ghost World the movie had a fairly major plot change from the graphic novel which lead to Buscemi’s incredible performance as Seymour.
Actually, in some versions of the Superman comic book mythology, Clark and Lex were indeed pals back in Smallville. DC Comics will initiate re-interpretations of its characters’ origins every generation or so to keep them fresh and relevant to the modern reader.
The most recent major example of this was with Batman. Back in 1988, Frank Miller got the job to re-establish Batman’s origins in his “Batman: Year One” mini-series, which became canon (among other things, Selena Kyle was a prostitute). Year One is the basis/inspiration for the next Batman movie, Batman Begins.
I never read a comic before seeing the original Batman movie and as a kid I loved it and had a crush on Kim Basinger from then on.
However, when I found out that the “real” Batman or in other words the comic book version didn’t wear armor of any sort, I thought, “What is he nuts??” It was a shock to me as a kid. I also never knew that the face bandage unwrapping scene was actually taken from Two-Face’s origin.
I did however, become a huge Spidey fan before the movies and nit pick at the differents incessantly. The organic webshooters was very hotly debated. In fact, the comic has changed so that Peter has organic webshooters now (I thought this was a dumb change until I find how how this happened which was even dumber even by comic book standards). Monthly comics sometimes themselves don’t do justice to the character.
I too am somewhat uneasy about Dr Doom also being on the spaceship. Have you noticed that in the movies, TV and very much in comics even before the movies that creators were going back and readjusting origins so that villains had a closer, perhaps even more personal connection to the hero to sort of amplify their conflict?
If you look at Ultimate Spider-man, they include Norman in his origin as well as Doctor Octopus. The TV show Smallville goes even further to have Lex & Clark as friends first before being destined as enemies. It seems to me that it’s quite popular in many stories to have the hero & the villain have some sort of past or personal connection even if it never existed there in the original comics. It seems to have yielded good results but it does kind of feel almost generic sometimes when it’s used so often.
The League of Extroadinary Gentlemen had some characters’ personalities altered a lot like Quartermain and Peta Wilson’s character. This was obviously done because of the star power of Sean Connery. Was this a good sacrifice to get that comic series to the big screen?
As a 70s-80s era Marvel fan, I have been most gratified to finally see the quality of movies like the X-men and Spider-Man films being produced. I am also OK with the Daredevil and Punisher films, although they were far from satisfying. I enjoyed the first 2 Blade films but gave Trinity a miss after seeing a trailer. I now find myself somewhat skeptical and yet hopeful about the upcoming FF film.
As you have stated, due to length and pacing, a film must, at the very least, condense any comic series story line. If the director manages to keep the spirit of the story, as Raimi and Singer did so well, who honestly cares if Wolverine is 6′ tall and Mary Jane Watson is more like Mary Gwen Stacey?
However, I still have some doubts about the Fantastic Four story line being used in the upcoming film. Perhaps it’s just that I wish they had gone for the Galactus/Silver Surfer story. Mayhap they will get around to that one in the probable sequel. Making Doctor Doom a 5th Beatle (so to speak) seems to me to be a most grievous decision. I have no qualms whatsoever about the casting or even the Thing costume, but something somewhere in the mix just seems amiss.
When I go see the film, and I will, I’ll clear my mind of preconceptions as best I can. I can only hope it surprises me.
I have far higher expectations for Sin City.
I think the R&G spin off would still work well because there are a lot of characters and history that can be spliced into the storyline. I’m not sure how it would do now that you put it that way, I am sure that there are a heck of a lot of people very upset because there was no Gambit and Rogue is not quite right, no one cares about Storm’s puny part, Jean and Cyclops have a boring relationship, is there really a whole lot left for Wolverine to tell all on his own? They already are a little wierd with Magneto, he is pretty agressive with Charles and their respect and love for one another is what made Magneto such an awsome bed guy! Well and his incredible powers! I don’t think it is that unreasonable, I think it would do well but what do the poles say I wonder, what kind of spin offs would pay off? I think Gambit is more popular than you think, it also seems that people who love Gambit love Wolverine and vise versa, so people are attracted to these guys naturally. I’m tired, I hope this all made sense!
Sure no one should expect it to be the same, that wouldn’t work, the important thing is to get the character’s right and there is a reason the most popular ones are popular. If they put Gambit in x men movies like they should have people would love him because there is a reason they do. Spiderman was great, x men good, but disapointing on so many levels but there will be a different director and hopefully the characters will get straight!
Astute analysis, John. I’m a comic book fan too, and understand that the comics and films have to be looked at as separate mediums. In fact, analyzing the changes made to accommodate film greatly interest me. (“Okay, I see why they did that.”) No matter what appears on screen, the comics will still be there – even without the presumed “affirmation” of making the transition to live-action.
I’m new to your blog, but enjoy what I’ve read so far. Great stuff. If you get a chance, I’d love for you to check out mine: http://friedricethoughts.blogspot.com.
John,
Excellent commentary, and I couldn’t agree more. I’m a comic fan (much to my wife’s chagrin) — but I’m also a fan of comic movies. I’ve long since accepted that chances are, what I read in the ‘pulp’ is not what I will see on the screen, and have been fine with that. As you said, these movies are made to appeal to the two groups — fans and regular movie-goers. And I’ve been alright with that.
A fellow comic fan once told me that she considered comic-based movies almost like Marvel’s ‘what-if’s’ or DC’s ‘elseworlds’ — variations/interpretations of the characters, but with the essence at heart. I rather liked that analogy.
I’ll admit, I’ve had my moments — Keanu as Constantine rather than a blonde brit? Another rubber-suited Batman instead of classic grey and black? Yeah, I griped. But I’ll still go see the movies, and I’ll still enjoy them for what they are — interpretations.
Keep up the great work.