Books/Comics to Films (or how I make everyone hate me)
Right then, to piss everyone off at the start and not suck people in only to do it:
I don’t care how much you like the books and how much the films miss. Things have to be removed/changed/replaced to make a film of such a wide and all-encompassing universe work AT ALL. YOUR fandom for the book/comic/newspaper strip doesn’t factor into it as much as you’d like, but that is the way film works.
Now then…
I love comic books. I love comic books that have been turned into films. I don’t see the disconnect here at all. Yes I know people love both the films and books for lots of things, but in my experience I seem to be alone in being able to distance myself with each.
For example, Watchmen. As a geek I’d heard about Watchmen and heard how good it was waaaay before the film as even greenlit. So, when the trailer came around, it peaked my interest enough to read the comic. I knew full well reading it before I saw the film that I might end up seeing and hating the film because I’d read the book first. But, I wanted to read what everyone called a seminal piece of both comic book history and written history in general.
It was brilliant. Well written and complex plot. Like the Alan Moore work I’d read, it was great (check out ‘The Killing Joke’, best Batman/Joker comic ever made) but the thing with Watchmen is, it’s huge.
Now the film came along and I was very excited. But also, worried. Would they leave out too much and ruin it? Would they change things I loved? Would I recognize it that much?
The answer to all was no. The film was amazing. And it sealed my thinking on this subject forever. So…
Before this, we had the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Even more widely loved than Watchmen as a book series and dare I say it, the Harry Potter series. These books are both brilliant and worshipped. But, these books are HUGE and if they were ever going to be made into films that were at all watchable, for fans or non-fans, stuff would have to be changed/left out/replaced.
And you know what, every change they made, and that Snyder made with Watchmen, was for the better.
Yes, the better. Because it is not about your favourite scene or character being included. It is not about every single line of the book being on screen. It is not about a scene for scene, word for word, character for character transfer of the books.
It is about making a film/series of films that conveys the world created in the other medium. Characters and key plots and scenes being brought to life by actors and sets and locations and effects. And, brought to life in a way that is watchable. Key word here is watchable (despite it not being a word, bear with me). If you make a 100% accurate Harry Potter or Scott Pilgrim or LOTR film/film series, NOBODY COULD WATCH IT!
The films would be bloated, long, slow, badly paced, overwhelming and just unviewable in any situation. The mediums of books/comic and films are so different most of the time that any transfer that close just does not work.
Sometimes it does, but those comics (rarely books) are ones that end up being the more filmicly structured and visual-based then the others. 300 for example. Huge sections of that comic are just visuals and no dialogue. These are easy to just transpose to film without many changes, if any. Whereas something like Potter or Watchmen (or even Scott Pilgrim) have huge sections that if you put straight to film would take 15 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe even an hour to get through for one or two scenes.
This would leave the audience, even the book fans, sitting there having to work through a scene for that long leaving no time for anything else. Even in the extended LOTR films SO MUCH is missing.
If you like the books/comics, that’s awesome. But remember how different a medium film is. If everything you went ‘OMGWTF THEY REMOVED THAT?!?!?! NOOO FUCK YOU!’ about was included the films would alienate people from not only the film/s but the fandom in general. Would you rather people loved these films and maybe picked up the books or saw the films, hated how long, drawn out and boring they were and never bothered with the books?
I know I’d rather the films inspired people to find out more than overloaded them with it all over hours and hours and put them off the story, films and books completely.
Think of these films as gateway drugs to the books/comics you love so much J And then maybe 59 second scenes that would give a film audience a ‘WTF?!’ moment are best left in the books where they will be explained fully and be given the breathing space and time and attention a film cant give them. I know I prefer things like that, if they are indeed that important, not to be rushed.
And scene.
I don’t care how much you like the books and how much the films miss. Things have to be removed/changed/replaced to make a film of such a wide and all-encompassing universe work AT ALL. YOUR fandom for the book/comic/newspaper strip doesn’t factor into it as much as you’d like, but that is the way film works.
Now then…
I love comic books. I love comic books that have been turned into films. I don’t see the disconnect here at all. Yes I know people love both the films and books for lots of things, but in my experience I seem to be alone in being able to distance myself with each.
For example, Watchmen. As a geek I’d heard about Watchmen and heard how good it was waaaay before the film as even greenlit. So, when the trailer came around, it peaked my interest enough to read the comic. I knew full well reading it before I saw the film that I might end up seeing and hating the film because I’d read the book first. But, I wanted to read what everyone called a seminal piece of both comic book history and written history in general.
It was brilliant. Well written and complex plot. Like the Alan Moore work I’d read, it was great (check out ‘The Killing Joke’, best Batman/Joker comic ever made) but the thing with Watchmen is, it’s huge.
Now the film came along and I was very excited. But also, worried. Would they leave out too much and ruin it? Would they change things I loved? Would I recognize it that much?
The answer to all was no. The film was amazing. And it sealed my thinking on this subject forever. So…
Before this, we had the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Even more widely loved than Watchmen as a book series and dare I say it, the Harry Potter series. These books are both brilliant and worshipped. But, these books are HUGE and if they were ever going to be made into films that were at all watchable, for fans or non-fans, stuff would have to be changed/left out/replaced.
And you know what, every change they made, and that Snyder made with Watchmen, was for the better.
Yes, the better. Because it is not about your favourite scene or character being included. It is not about every single line of the book being on screen. It is not about a scene for scene, word for word, character for character transfer of the books.
It is about making a film/series of films that conveys the world created in the other medium. Characters and key plots and scenes being brought to life by actors and sets and locations and effects. And, brought to life in a way that is watchable. Key word here is watchable (despite it not being a word, bear with me). If you make a 100% accurate Harry Potter or Scott Pilgrim or LOTR film/film series, NOBODY COULD WATCH IT!
The films would be bloated, long, slow, badly paced, overwhelming and just unviewable in any situation. The mediums of books/comic and films are so different most of the time that any transfer that close just does not work.
Sometimes it does, but those comics (rarely books) are ones that end up being the more filmicly structured and visual-based then the others. 300 for example. Huge sections of that comic are just visuals and no dialogue. These are easy to just transpose to film without many changes, if any. Whereas something like Potter or Watchmen (or even Scott Pilgrim) have huge sections that if you put straight to film would take 15 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe even an hour to get through for one or two scenes.
This would leave the audience, even the book fans, sitting there having to work through a scene for that long leaving no time for anything else. Even in the extended LOTR films SO MUCH is missing.
If you like the books/comics, that’s awesome. But remember how different a medium film is. If everything you went ‘OMGWTF THEY REMOVED THAT?!?!?! NOOO FUCK YOU!’ about was included the films would alienate people from not only the film/s but the fandom in general. Would you rather people loved these films and maybe picked up the books or saw the films, hated how long, drawn out and boring they were and never bothered with the books?
I know I’d rather the films inspired people to find out more than overloaded them with it all over hours and hours and put them off the story, films and books completely.
Think of these films as gateway drugs to the books/comics you love so much J And then maybe 59 second scenes that would give a film audience a ‘WTF?!’ moment are best left in the books where they will be explained fully and be given the breathing space and time and attention a film cant give them. I know I prefer things like that, if they are indeed that important, not to be rushed.
And scene.