On converting comic books to film.
//
Theory:
When converting comic books into film, filmmakers are incapable of doing a good job for the last half or last third of the film.
Disclaimer:
At this moment, I would like to stymie the inevitable criticism that certain changes must be made when converting from one medium to another. Yes, duh, of course. This does not excuse a given movie from being bad because some director/producer/screenwriter decided that something needed to be changed. It does not excuse claiming that the narrative was maintained if it wasn't. Most importantly, it does not excuse pointless and/or unnecessary changes because of "director prerogative." Any theatre director that's not a complete twit will tell you that it is beyond the purview of the director to alter the work of the playwright (as then it is not the work of the playwright, but of the director), so for what reason is film excused?
Exhibits:
A) Bulletproof Monk
B) Tank Girl
C) X-Men Trilogy
D) Spiderman Trilogy
E) The Watchmen
et cetera ...
Body:
In the case of A, this was a simple matter of the director arbitrarily deciding to rewrite a good ending with a crappy, family-friendly ending. In the case of B, the creative minds behind the comic book have stated in interviews that the people making the film, after a certain point, decided to drastically alter the story and ignore their creative consultation. The poor quality of both cases can be attributed to some (or perhaps many) higher-ups in the film process making a terrible judgment call and, thus, tainting the whole project with their stupidity.
With regards to cases C and D, both movie trilogies were based on comic books with such a brobdingnagian amount of previous material to draw from that it would be both unrealistic and, frankly, boring to retell such a long narrative (not to mention deciding which relaunch of each respective title to focus the story on). Each film project, therefore, must reinvent the title while still remaining true enough to the essence of the books so as not to alienate existing fans. Initially, these projects were successful, each faltered a bit on the second film (particularly Spiderman), and, by the third movie of each project, had almost completely dropped the ball (with a notable few exceptions; Kelsey Grammar as Beast, for instance).
Now to exhibit E which, if you've been paying any attention to movie trailers or release dates, you've probably surmised is the reason this entry is being written. For awhile, the editing to the story-elements of narrative were reasonable - do things faster and simpler, push the plot along, make the action a bit more action-y (it is film, after all), et cetera - until a very long sex scene. If so much is being edited out for time constraints, why is a two-panel sex scene suddenly explicitly occupying several minutes of film time? From this point on, deviations from the comic book became less and less reasonable, even to the point of corniness.
Aside:
It actually was a pretty decent movie, I'm just bitching about this aspect. I could bitch about the actress that played Silk Spectre, but the rest of the casting was pretty damned good, so I'm willing to let that slide.
Conclusion:
Thus, my confusion stems from why filmmakers make these changes. The story is already designed, the plot is laid out, the settings conceptualized, and, really, the dialogue is already written. If anything, not changing anything is just plain more efficient. This leads me to conclude that when filmmakers make pointless changes, they are intentionally trying to make the movie bad. So, to the filmmakers, why do you hate people that watch your movies?
Notice:
Somewhere in this entry, there are spoilers. Thus: spoiler alert.
Counterargument:
There are some comic book movies that are much more difficult to bitch about, so I'm taking a moment to acknowledge some of them.
Counter Exhibits:
F) Iron Man
G) The Dark Knight
H) V for Vendetta
et cetera ...
Easter Egg:
After sitting through over two and a half hours of The Watchmen and then the subsequent credits, it turns out that there was no easter egg for the film. Don't get me wrong, I think easter eggs are yet another horrible prank played on movie-watchers by filmmakers. That being said, though, whenever a movie is of a certain budget, easter eggs have come to be expected. Since The Watchmen didn't provide one, I'm going to make one up here and we can all pretend that it happened in the movie.
Bubastis got zapped by the same kind of field that turned Doctor Manhattan into Doctor Manhattan (I'm not sure why, I must have skipped past that panel when I was reading the comic). Thus, the easter egg is Bubastis reforming herself the same way Doctor Manhattan did and, presumably, having the same powers that Doctor Manhattan did. All fear Kitty Manhattan.
Theory:
When converting comic books into film, filmmakers are incapable of doing a good job for the last half or last third of the film.
Disclaimer:
At this moment, I would like to stymie the inevitable criticism that certain changes must be made when converting from one medium to another. Yes, duh, of course. This does not excuse a given movie from being bad because some director/producer/screenwriter decided that something needed to be changed. It does not excuse claiming that the narrative was maintained if it wasn't. Most importantly, it does not excuse pointless and/or unnecessary changes because of "director prerogative." Any theatre director that's not a complete twit will tell you that it is beyond the purview of the director to alter the work of the playwright (as then it is not the work of the playwright, but of the director), so for what reason is film excused?
Exhibits:
A) Bulletproof Monk
B) Tank Girl
C) X-Men Trilogy
D) Spiderman Trilogy
E) The Watchmen
et cetera ...
Body:
In the case of A, this was a simple matter of the director arbitrarily deciding to rewrite a good ending with a crappy, family-friendly ending. In the case of B, the creative minds behind the comic book have stated in interviews that the people making the film, after a certain point, decided to drastically alter the story and ignore their creative consultation. The poor quality of both cases can be attributed to some (or perhaps many) higher-ups in the film process making a terrible judgment call and, thus, tainting the whole project with their stupidity.
With regards to cases C and D, both movie trilogies were based on comic books with such a brobdingnagian amount of previous material to draw from that it would be both unrealistic and, frankly, boring to retell such a long narrative (not to mention deciding which relaunch of each respective title to focus the story on). Each film project, therefore, must reinvent the title while still remaining true enough to the essence of the books so as not to alienate existing fans. Initially, these projects were successful, each faltered a bit on the second film (particularly Spiderman), and, by the third movie of each project, had almost completely dropped the ball (with a notable few exceptions; Kelsey Grammar as Beast, for instance).
Now to exhibit E which, if you've been paying any attention to movie trailers or release dates, you've probably surmised is the reason this entry is being written. For awhile, the editing to the story-elements of narrative were reasonable - do things faster and simpler, push the plot along, make the action a bit more action-y (it is film, after all), et cetera - until a very long sex scene. If so much is being edited out for time constraints, why is a two-panel sex scene suddenly explicitly occupying several minutes of film time? From this point on, deviations from the comic book became less and less reasonable, even to the point of corniness.
Aside:
It actually was a pretty decent movie, I'm just bitching about this aspect. I could bitch about the actress that played Silk Spectre, but the rest of the casting was pretty damned good, so I'm willing to let that slide.
Conclusion:
Thus, my confusion stems from why filmmakers make these changes. The story is already designed, the plot is laid out, the settings conceptualized, and, really, the dialogue is already written. If anything, not changing anything is just plain more efficient. This leads me to conclude that when filmmakers make pointless changes, they are intentionally trying to make the movie bad. So, to the filmmakers, why do you hate people that watch your movies?
Notice:
Somewhere in this entry, there are spoilers. Thus: spoiler alert.
Counterargument:
There are some comic book movies that are much more difficult to bitch about, so I'm taking a moment to acknowledge some of them.
Counter Exhibits:
F) Iron Man
G) The Dark Knight
H) V for Vendetta
et cetera ...
Easter Egg:
After sitting through over two and a half hours of The Watchmen and then the subsequent credits, it turns out that there was no easter egg for the film. Don't get me wrong, I think easter eggs are yet another horrible prank played on movie-watchers by filmmakers. That being said, though, whenever a movie is of a certain budget, easter eggs have come to be expected. Since The Watchmen didn't provide one, I'm going to make one up here and we can all pretend that it happened in the movie.
Bubastis got zapped by the same kind of field that turned Doctor Manhattan into Doctor Manhattan (I'm not sure why, I must have skipped past that panel when I was reading the comic). Thus, the easter egg is Bubastis reforming herself the same way Doctor Manhattan did and, presumably, having the same powers that Doctor Manhattan did. All fear Kitty Manhattan.