8 replies to this topic

[Roger Moore's Bad Facelift]

Hey guys,
I am doing a research paper on the artistic liberties filmmakers take with comic book adaptations and the resulting ramifications those deviations can have on the ongoing already-in-print comic title. For example, Bryan Singer

Edited by Roger_Moore's_Bad_Facelift, 27 January 2005 - 06:00 AM.

[Gabe Vieira]

[quote name='Roger_Moore's_Bad_Facelift' date='27 January 2005 - 00:55']Did recent comic2film adaptions such as Spiderman, The Punisher, Electra, Daredevil, Hulk etc. in any way have any discernible qualitative effect on the already in-progress monthly comic series? For example, did they dumb down the series by divesting itself from any continuing, overlapping plot lines that would possibly be too inaccessible to the influx of newbie fans who

[JackChase007]

Well, it isn't exactly movie, but I know that in the TV show Smallville, about a teen-aged Clark Kent learning to control his powers, introduced a few new characters during Clark's high school years - one of them is a female friend named Chloe (I think). Now, that character was never previously in the comics, but I had read on the internet that sometime during the show's run in the last few years or so, DC Comics announced that they were going to introduce Chloe into the Superman comics. Hope that helps!

[Roebuck]

My wife reads the Elektra comic and when Marvel recently relaunched it as part of their Ultimates stand she presumed the intention would be to bring the series in line with Jennifer Garner portrayal. Instead they've produced a book that's geared for the Smallville audience. This new Elektra is a college student who practices martial arts in the back of her fathers dry-cleaning store. Her costume has a more practical urban street wear look than anything we've previously seen her in. In this instance the publishers seem to be consciously distancing the comic book from it's big screen adaptation. I've heard it suggested that the new direction for the comic was an attempt by Marvel to entice teenage girls into reading comics: the demographic who reacted most negatively in focus groups to the image of Jennifer Garner leaping around in a red leather basque.

[MI-6 Director]

Two films that I like which are based on comic books are From Hell and Road To Perdition. It might be interesting to check out the graphic novels for these films as most people aren't aware of that fact. I don't have any other information than the above.

Good luck to you on your research paper!

[Tarl_Cabot]

I was a huge Daredevil fan back in the 80's so here's my two cents:

Daredevil:

The film had no "Stick", his blind mentor/martial arts instructor; and in the comic he knew Elektra from chilhood because she was also trained by stick and they were childhood sweetharts. "Stick" is in the Elektra film apparently....

Anyway, the drama and tension of Daredevil's relationship with Elektra is that he used his training to fight the criminals the justice system allowed to slip through the cracks...while she took a radically different path and became an Assassin(I don't know all the details as I started reading the comic in the middle of that storyline run). He is a straight arrow do gooder and she's a hired killer...and he loves her but their values are totally incompatible and that's what makes their love so facsinating and operatic(for a comic book anyway! ). The director of Daredevil was supoosed to be a huge geek but dropped the ball completely on this front...it really could have been a great film but he tried to consolidate three years of storylines into one movie while also juggling an origin story. The result was for me a hugely dissapointing mess with some things that were well done such as the radar sense.I didn't mind Affleck as Matt Murdock but he looked ridiculous as "Dardevil". The leather costume was atrocious!

The film's romance had no history, tension or sense of fatality. It wasted both characters.On a more superficial note, Kinpin is not black in the comics but that didn't affect the film at all for me.

Also, Daredevil in the film was a vigilante. In the comic he does not kill the bad guys unless it's in self defense and totally neccessary. In the film he was totally out of character.

[TheSaint]

Supposedly, Spider-Man now shoots webbing from his wrists without the use of mechanical web shooters. He never had natural webbing prior to the movies.

For a while, Batman's outfit looked more like the monochromatic rubber suit he sports in the movies, with the dark blue & grey parts becoming black & extremely dark grey.

[Tarl_Cabot]

Yes, that's a major point about Spiderman. In the comics he invented his webbing and the shooters. So, often he'd run out of webbing during a fight and be in greater danger...etc adding more tension to the always in crisis ethos of Spiderman comics. I think Sam Raimi decided that a Peter Parker who invents his own webbing is perhaps a little too super genuis to be convincing as a troubled teenager.I think it works better in the films since he did infact adopt the physical properties of a spider it's logical he could produce his own webbing, despite the crack pot science of that conclusion, of course.

Also, the Green Goblin killed his first love, Gwen Stacy. Mary Jane becomes his girlfriend and wife eventually. I'm dissapointed so much focus is on that relationship but i think SM2 is a fantastic film and I own a copy. He also dated Betty Brant, the secretary at the Daily Bugle(who's in both films).Btw, if anyone thinks Aunt may is annoying that's okay because she's supposed to be a pain in the butt, always saddling Peter with guilt and stress(I read a post somewhere who thought "she ruined the film" but if they read the comic they'd know she wasn't supposed to be the most lovable realitive but more so a burden).

[Catspaw]

I would say the success of Spider-Man is because Sam Raimi chose to respect the source material. Yes, there were some changes (the organic web shooters, the integration of Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson), but the spirit of the character and his world shone through.

I think other films have failed for the comics community because in trying to put their own spin on it, the filmmakers changed things that were dealbreakers for the fans.

IMO, From Hell should have been a 12-hour BBC mini-series shot in black & white. It was Alan Moore's intricately-woven story we lost, and that was unforgivable. Similarly, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was reduced to an American action film.

Daredevil lost Frank Miller's mystique. Batman was overstylised and we saw nothing of the inner dialogue Bruce goes through, and that damn costume didn't allow him to move fluidly. If you can find a short faux-trailer called the World's Finest, you can see how filmmakers might pull the fans back into wanting to see these films.

The Hulk was just lame. A completely cg character was too hard to relate to given the limits of the technology used to create it.

Christopher Reeve's first two Superman films still stand as a good interpretation of the character. Of course, I ignore the Marlon Brando bit.

As someone who has created comics and spent most of my life inside their world, I have become used to less-than-perfect results, but I always hope for more.

Edited by Catspaw, 13 February 2005 - 03:27 AM.