21Six.net

Whenever it comes to comic book movies, I have two slightly contradictory thoughts that I always maintain whenever I consider if a movie is worth my viewing and just how pissed off I, as a comic book fan, and supposed to be. Generally speaking the two main thoughts are:

Does this movie, in being created, portray the characters and events as accurately as possible with regards to the arc(s) the characters and events were involved in?
and
If the movie is a sequel in a continuing franchise: Does this new movie maintain characteristics that are within the realm of the established franchise’s universe?

What does that mean? It means that, I, like a lot of fans, want to see a comic book movie. But at the same time I’m willing to accept something that is less than a page-by-page recreation of the movie–though I would be more than happy to watch such a thing. I understand that there are some ideas that producers and other people believe will not work in modern movies due to whatever reasons they may happen to state. These are usually costumes, or various aspects of technology.

It also means that my willingness to be bound by my first statement declines with the establishment of a franchise of movies. Standalone movies such as V for Vendetta are, for this, a completely different animal than Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman, which I’ll actually be mentioning later on, too.

But let’s get down to business and I’ll elaborate more.

Stand-Alone Movies

A case could be made for the following statement, paraphrased from the forum:

The less material there is to work with, the less deviation from said source.

Stand-Alones are, obviously, those movies that either cannot or will not become part of a franchise of films. These include V for Vendetta, From Hell¹, 300, and many others.

The upcoming Watchmen movie is a good example.

These movies, in my ideal world, would be as close to the source comics as they could be. In some instances there is little reason why they actually NEED to deviate, but not all deviation is a bad thing.

For this, I’ll use V for Vendetta.

There are a few primary differences between the comic and the movie that stick out. One of which is the absence of Fate, the central aspect of England’s government in that time. Fate controlled every aspect of the country, it seemed. There was also “The Voice of the Fate”, who was a type of radio personality.

Another major aspect that was different was V’s use of knives in battle as opposed to using his fingers/hands as in the comics.

Now, in the movie, Fate was replaced by a type of government body composed of various people who served as appendages, with the leader working as the head, I suppose. “The Voice of the Fate” was changed to “The Voice of England” or “London” and was changed from being on the radio to being a television personality.

This difference can easily be chalked up to simply an advancement in technology that Alan Moore may not have considered when writing this piece, but I can’t know. As I recall, the comic takes place in the late 90s, while the movie takes place in an obviously unpleasant future, so things like advancements in technology are bound to occur and are represented by the various elaborations.

The use of knives instead of the hands can be attributed to it looking better on camera, really. It’s hard to watch the intricate movements of someone’s hands whenever they are wearing black gloves and are fighting in the dark.

It should be noted that I actually do LIKE this movie, this is merely an example because was on my mind.

There’s also being cut for time. Like all of Moore’s work, V is a very intricate piece of writing, something that cannot really be comfortably fit into the time that the average movie is. Yes, it could be made lengthier, but that runs the risk of losing people because of time. Also, I feel some of the things removed where not, generally speaking, that important to the overall plot.

I’m also aware that there are several other points from the movie that have been changed, however I don’t have the movie and comic right here and I’m not about to go through and pick out every contrasting detail. That is not only ridiculously tedious, it robs me of actually enjoying the products, turning this from me having fun writing a bunch of nerdy shit, to it being work that I’m not even being paid for.

Perfect translations are rather difficult to come by, with the BEST movements from comic to movie that I’ve seen belonging to Frank Miller’s work.

Franchise

Franchise is a completely different animal. A franchise usually comes about when a character is of a large series, such a Superman or Batman, and the films are used to express several key arcs in the character’s life. Obvious examples include the original Superman movies and the more recent Spider-Man movies. It seems, generally speaking, that franchise films do not adapt directly, but rather take artistic license with the material.

For this we’ll use Christopher Nolan’s Batman, because it’s perfect.

Batman Begins

Since this is the beginning, it was safe to assume that there would be more than one of these movies, thus it isn’t a stand-alone movie and subjected to these different rules. While I would, in fact, prefer a story that followed closer to Batman: Year One or other origin stories, this was still an enjoyable movie.

Begins is perfect because it embodies the idea that I’m trying to express. This movie does not directly tell the story of Year One or The Long Halloween or any other Batman comic. It draws on various aspects of them, and develops them into something that becomes its own universe, while maintaining various aspects of the material it draws from.

Yes, there are very obvious discrepancies: Ra’s Al Ghul never directly trained Batman as part of his group, the suit doesn’t look a thing like that, neither does the Batmobile². But these aspects become part of what establishes Nolan’s Batman as a separate Batman from Tim Burton, or even Schumacher³ and their ideas of what Batman should be.

It should be noticed that this is still Batman’s first year in fighting, and he has yet to establish himself as a real force in Gotham. As such his abilities are not quite as they are in the later comics.

With the establishment of Batman in this grittier, more “realistic” approach to Gotham, as opposed to Burton’s take and Schumacher’s campy bastardization, we see how aspects of other characters MUST adapt so that they can, in turn, be accepted into the series of movies.

The Scarecrow, yes, just wore a mask. However, it should be noted that Batman only developed the costume as a result of various pieces of equipment coming together that just happened like that. “Happened”. It would not be fitting with this universe for a man who is still a functioning psychologist to actively dress up as a scarecrow and go commit various petty crimes. Were he already disgraced, that would make sense. The mask, as I said, assists in establishing the universe.

The Dark Knight

Not out in theaters as of this writing, The Dark Knight is the sequel to Begins and features the introduction of The Joker and Harvey Dent.

Based upon pictures and concepts given, The Joker, while not the same character he is in the comics, appears to be developed in a manner consistent with the atmosphere of the universe.

Time will tell, however, if it’s all actually comparable to the first.

Franchise Fixing

Making a franchise identical to the material given is a problem as you have to deal with possibly contradictory aspects, as well as determining just which history you’re going to have to write. There is also the problem of technology, especially with Batman. Batman, in general, is supposed to be one of the most technologically advanced people in DC, so it would stand to reason that, once established, he would have a type of computer lab.

But the computer lab has changed with every advancement in technology.

Franchises also have the problem of killing the villain off at the end of the movie. This is seems to be so that as many villains as possible can be introduced to the audience, for whatever reason. The problem this is that Batman, specially, does not kill his villains. In fact, most of the heroes do not approve of killing “evil doers” under any circumstances. Begins fixed this problem by not having Batman be an active part of the death of the characters. Ra’s was not directly killed by Batman, and The Scarecrow actually lived.

As I’ve said, the franchises begin with the establishment of the universe they’re going to use. They could, in all actuality, use something far more resembling to the “base”–that is to say, instead of Nolan’s grittier, “real” take on Batman, he could have simply determined (based on what he used) to ideal combination of materials and let that become his backdrop.

This, however, runs into the problem of determining just what aspects would override another and what takes priority. What one fan may consider to be the “true” aspects, another fan may not.

It is not like we’re making a movie of The Killing Joke. We’re taking multiple aspects of Batman to tell a story, and need an environment to do so in a reasonable time and with enough suspension of disbelief that it becomes slightly plausible.

Of course, all of this is essentially rambling.

1. Yes, From Hell is a comic book movie. [↩]
2. The “Tumbler” as it’s called, bears more of a resemblance to the beast that Batman drives in Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns [↩]
3. Who is, in fact, Satan. [↩]