The problem with adapting superhero comic books into movies is that very often the comic book title is saddled with years, even decades, of backstory and origin stuff. That’s fine for the comic book geeks, but (a) no movie studio is going to devote three hours to an elaborate origin story, and (b) you’ll lose your non-comic-book-geek audience members. That puts the movie director/producer in a quandry – do they start at the beginning and lose the current appeal of the title, or do they start where it is now, and simplify the back history for the non-geeks out there?
The latter is what X-Men did, and I can’t blame them. Do you want to explain to the non-geek about Rogue’s entire backstory, including her tussle with Captain Marvel (“Who’s that?”) and her adoption by Mystique (“When did that happen?”)? Or how about Wolverine, the guy with seven different origins, each of which contradict the others and all of which are supposed to be false implanted memories? Oy. :rolleyes:
Spider-Man, on the other hand, is “more faithful” because it sticks with the first approach, of starting with the hero’s origins. Sure, Sam Raimi rolled up Liz Allen and Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane into one character, but for the most part it’s a straightforward adaptation. Already the comic geeks are clamoring for Venom in a future sequel, but you can bet that if that were to happen, we will not get Secret Wars, the alien symbiote mess, and the Sin-Eater mess (which caused Brock to get fired in the first place and develop his pathological hatred for Spider-Man).
Instead, it’ll just be Eddie and some nutzoid science experiment gone awry, and the geeks will complain because of all the stuff above that got tossed out…
I don’t know if I fully agree with that. The source material isn’t inviolate. Origin stories, backgrounds, motivations, have all been changed over time within the comics. Also, unlike changing the movie version of To Kill A Mockingbird, or Harry Potter, where you’re only dealing with one book (or with Harry Potter, 4 books), when they made the X-Men movie, they took on an entire universe, with 50 years of comics. How do you provide 50 years of backstory in a two hour movie? Out of necessity, you’re going to have to simplify, and change things. I was impressed by the X-Men movie, and how realistic, given the limitations, they actually got the atmosphere.
Well, he said “faithful as possible” not that there couldn’t be any changes whatsoever. I don’t like it when they fundamentally change the heros origin or his character. For example the Batman does not kill. And yet in the first two Batman movies we see him kill the Joker and he kills a carnival thug in Batman Returns.
**
You certainly bring up a valid point. Some comics have years of history some of which is no longer relevant to today or were just plain bad so they are now ignored. Here’s a Batman change I didn’t mind.
In Batman: The Animated Series the 2nd Robin is Tim Drake not Jason Todd from the comics. And it isn’t even the same Time Drake from the comics.
I suppose I should have mentioned that not having Jason Todd die does make Batman in the animated series a bit different then you’ll find in the comics. In the animated series Batman has no anxiety about losing his sidekick.
My qualifer is this. I don’t mind them changing things from the comic book when I find them lame. I thought it was horrible that people voted to kill Robin in the 80’s and even more horrible that his death was meaningless. If he died to save Batman, Gotham City, or during some other suitably heroic action I wouldn’t have minded. But instead his death had no dignity and no purpose which is something I just can’t accept in a comic book superhero.
Incidentally I feel exactly the same way about the wounding and crippling of Babs Gordon a.k.a. Batgirl.
Marc
Fenris, was the 1970s Spider-Man you mentioned the one from The Electric Company? That brings back memories.
And in the first Superman movie, I never could understand why everyone thinks he’s turning the Earth backwards. He’s obviously flying around the planet at faster than the speed of light, so as to go back in time. Seeing the planet turn backwards was just an indication of time travel.
In general, I think that if a literary work is good, you should stick with what made it good, and if it’s bad, why are you adapting it? I’m not nearly enough of a comic book nerd (not at all, really) to recognize the changes specifically, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the original versions were better. And personally, I really would have preferred yellow spandex
<Smacks self in forehead> Jesus, why the hell didn’t I figure that out the first fifteen times I saw that movie? Holy Hell, am I stupid. That totally changes the tenor of the end of the film! Thanks, Chronos.
Rogue is around 15 or so in her first appearances. If necessary I can route through my collection for a specific issue number. Her personality was a confused young woman struggling with her mutant power, loyalty to Mystique and her own conscience.
Mystique-This is a pet peeve of mine. Pfeifer revealed no skin from from the chin down as Cat Woman. Mystique’s traditional outfit is a tight, white dress with a high collar and slits to the waist for kicking and jumping. I hate it whenever an artist decides that a female character should be nearly naked for no particular reason. The Black Widow, Batgirl, Harley Quinn, Diamondback, Clea etc all manage to be very sexy without showing any cleavage. Diamondback’s costume is skintight, and bulletproof. Sending any character who isn’t invulnerable into battle naked (or in high heels) just pisses me off.
IMHO Angela Basset would have been a better choice for Ororo. Though Storm isn’t older than the rest of the team, she always seems more wise and mature. Ororo calls Professor X “Charles”. The others, except Wolverine, call him Prof or Professor out of deference to his status as a “grown-up”.
Regarding the non-appearance of Beast in the X-Men movie, the DVD has a section of concept art for Beast, as he definitely was intended to be part of the cast. The filmmakers didn’t feel they could adequately pull off the makeup effects, so they decided to ditch him and gave his doctor duties to Jean Grey. The Blob was supposed to appear in the movie as well, but that character was also abandoned. Me, I was more upset by there being no Danger Room!
According to Harry Knowles over at Aint It Cool News, he has seen a screenplay for X-Men 2 dated April 2002, and it contains both Beast and Nightcrawler.
Bob Kane’s original Batman sure as shit killed. A lot. That was what was so great about him–he wasn’t out for justice, like Superman, he was out for revenge.
The first day or two of voting had fanboys calling 1-900-SNUF-ROB to kill Jason Todd II* who O’Neil and Co. had set up to be as obnoxious as possible. The Snuff Robin crowd was leading by about a 10% margin (which wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as they’d hoped) Then the newsmedia heard “DC COMICS IS GOING TO KILL ROBIN!!!” and assumed that DC was going to kill “Dick Grayson, boy wonder” and the shit hit the fan as people started calling 1-900-SAVE-ROB**
DC panicked as (per…um…Starlin, I believe) they hadn’t even drawn the pages for the Robin lives outcome…there were only thumbnails.
The night before the deadline, according to several pros, O’Neil had DC staffers calling the 1-900-SNUF-ROB line to make up the 1000 (or so) vote difference, so he could go ahead and snuff th’ kid, since the art was drawn (and maybe at the printer’s…).
It all works out though as O’Neil got his ass spanked by the marketing boys who said “Um…Robin is our number four most known character, behind Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Bring him back. Or else.”
And O’Neil was forced to, and hated it all the way. Heh-heh-heh.
Chronos: Nope, same era, but the Spider-Man live action show was prime-time and network, not PBS. The PBS “Spidey” was better. LOTS better.
And I knew that Superman wuz supposed to be speeding back through time, but the stupid “Earth and Film Turn Backwards effect” didn’t convey that to me. (and my mom was completely lost).
Fenris
*Yes, Jason Todd II. The first Jason Todd was pre-Crisis and was a totally different character. If I went into more detail, your head would explode.
**Phone numbers made up 'cause I’m too damned lazy to go look.
PLD, I disagree. Between Detective #27 and Detective #38 (intro Robin), Batman did occasionally kill (but more often let people die (usually by letting them fall to their deaths), if you see the difference) but after Detective #38, he never (IIRC) killed and usually tried to save his foes. That’s just barely more than a year of published stories. I’d be surprised if, in those 12 issues Batman actually killed more than twice (and remember that there were four or five stories per issue, so that’s not as much as it sounds like).
Batman, IMO has always been about protecting the innocent at all costs (except under Denny “SNUF-ROB” O’Neil). Even the earliest Batman, if given the choice of getting revenge or saving a life would always save the life without hesitation or regret. My feeling is that every time he sees a crime, he “relives” his own tragedy and wants to prevent it. If he can kick the sh*t out of some criminals in the process, so much the better. But preventing the tragedy is the key, not revenge.
This is assuming that Rogue has to be in the film at all. There are many X-Men to choose from. Even if it is a must that Rogue star as a good guy in the first movie of what I’m sure the studio hopes to be a franchise, her past relationships with Magneto and Mystique could be a part of the story: the X-Men not trusting her at first or whatever.
And how about Wolverine? I don’t recall saying anything negative about the Wolverine character or how he was handled. As I said, keep it as faithful as possible. They kept Wolvie’s character true in that he doesn’t even know his own origins. They completely altered Rogue by taking away the background stroy that shapes her personality and makes her who she is in the comics.
And, like I said, the hardcore fanboys will have to learn to suck some stuff up. It is possible to tweak some things so Eddie still hates Spidey without going into the whole Sin-Eater story and show the symbiote costume without delving into the whole Secret Wars bit. My problem isn’t so much with getting every little detail of the comics onto film, as much as altering the character from what fans like about it in the first place.
With the X-Men, someone bit off more than they could chew and then didn’t handle it properly character-wise.
First, a little nitpick that the X-Men are only 40 years old, and the Chris Claremont X-Men (the X-Men most people are fans of today) are only about 30 years old.
Second, and maybe I don’t understand what you’re getting at, why do you need 50 or however many years of backstory? If you start with the characters’ beginnings, you need no backstory. If you start after they’d been a team for 3 years, you need only 3 years worth of backstory. I’m not expecting a film that picks up with the X-Men having been through Pheonix and the death of Jean Gray, Cyclops’s marriage to Madeline Pryor, the original 5 X-Men forming X-Factor, etc before we finally see them on film.
With any adaptation to film, you’ll need to change and adapt things, I already said that was expected. I loved Spider-Man and didn’t mind at all that Gewn Stacy was replaced by MJ. For simplicity’s sake, why not start Peter off with the girl he ends up with? As long as they keep the MJ character true, which they did. My problem is when they change the characters. Ra Cha’ar already named two X-Men that Rogue could have (and indeed with that script, should have) been replaced with. This means the writers got the character completely wrong. I don’t care about the simplifications or tweaks to storylines to adapt a work for the screen, but this was a complete change of one character’s personality.
Again, my problem is not with changes to the story, but changes to the characters. And as far as the X-Men go, they got Wolvie right, and I think they did a good job with Jean Gray, Prof X and Magneto, but Rogue was way wrong and the others- including villians - just showed up to demonstrate their powers and leave. It was not a well-written film.
And Chronos, I would have preferred the yellow spandex also. I didn’t see why Cyclops couldn’t wear the blue he wore in the comic, or Ororo’s white outfit. I didn’t see the need for the costume changes, except the people in charge thought black is cooler looking than the comic outfits.
I wonder if they’d have had the balls to change Superman’s costume to make him look cooler too if given the chance.
