The dilemma of making comic book movies.

[Cypocalypse]

I watch Ghost Rider on Valentine's day and that's probably one of the first Marvel movies I've watched with absolutely no initial expectations prior to watching it. It's like I couldn't place GR anywhere in the scheme of things. Should I treat it as a Marvel Max type of movie, should I treat it as a Marvel Knights movie or should I treat it as any of those mega goofy Marvel comic books of the 60s up to the 70s? GR has always been a B-rated character anyway, so I don't know how I should view him. He just comes out every now and then. The last comic book series in which he came out was done so beautifully (in a digital art kind of way), that it made me think that Marvel is targeting this book for the fans of Udon, although I think that since we're dealing with demons here, I think Marvel should have "Vertigo-ed" the series or something.

So I decided to leave my smart@ss mode for a moment prior to watching the movie. It thought that it would be a waste of time to initially categorize this movie. I'll just leave my brain for 2 hours, and see if I'll be entertained with this movie.

Well, as it turned out, I actually enjoyed this movie. Leaving all my preemptive ideas behind was a good decision. I got entertained. No smart@ss side of me got disappointed. The effects were cool, the dialogue was funny, and Ghost Rider was bad@ss. It's like I was possessed by the child in me for that 2 hours.

Well, I thought the director probably doesn't know what to do with this movie, but later he thought, "Well, I might as well have fun doing this if I'm not so sure of what I'll do with this." Hence, the result was a GR movie which was more goofy than what most of us expected. Basically a movie waiting to be axed by "intellectual" critics. But the bottom line is, I got entertained.

I thought that maybe most comic book movies suffer the same problem. That is, the director doesn't know what to do with it and the diverse comic book fans (with their different levels of maturity) don't know how they should be seeing it, or at least have a consensus on the basic principles on how the film should be seen.

You turn a known goofy character (from his creation up to the present time) into a modernized version of him just for the heck of being contemporary and being cool, you get Ang Lee's Hulk. Now they realized that Hulk needs to remain old school to work, so now, they're making The Incredible Hulk.

You turn a comic book character that honestly needs a contemporary sensibility for it to work, and you get Batman Begins - which indeed turned out to be a good film.

You leave an iconic character for what it is and just make a faithful adaptation from its comic book incarnation, and you get Spider-Man. Again, this worked.

You expect a film to be noir, probably like Frank Miller's run on Batman (e.g., DKR), but then you see a showcase of pop bands like Evanescence, you get Daredevil.

You watch a movie that you don't know whether it'll be very faithful to Cristopher Reeves stint or whether it'll be a new approach on the character, you get Superman Returns. Heck, I bet Brian Singer had this dilemma too.

You turn a geeky comic book series into something that can be understood by the masses (e.g., no space travel, cloning, and all of that stuff), you get X-Men 1 and X-men 2. You try to be pseudo intellectual and add more "depth" to the movie by putting emphasis on issues like human prejudice, but at the expense of losing the faithfulness to the comic books, you get X-Men 3.

Based on what I've listed, only Batman Begins and Spider-Man worked. That's because, we have a consensus on how we should see the film and the directors know about it.

Other comic book titles don't have that privilege.

In your case, though, do you have pre-conceived ideas on how you'll see a comic book movie that's about to come out?

 

[KenK]

I thought that maybe most comic book movies suffer the same problem. That is, the director doesn't know what to do with it and the diverse comic book fans (with their different levels of maturity) don't know how they should be seeing it, or at least have a consensus on the basic principles on how the film should be seen.

You turn a known goofy character (from his creation up to the present time) into a modernized version of him just for the heck of being contemporary and being cool, you get Ang Lee's Hulk. Now they realized that Hulk needs to remain old school to work, so now, they're making The Incredible Hulk.

Hulk was about being contemporary for the sake of being contemporary. Lee and the screenwriters simply overthought the character. Conceptually, The Hulk was already an immensely complex character, and the focus had always been on the pyschological aspect. The problem with Hulk was they pushed beyond that, venturing into a lot of existentialist themes that didn't need to be there.

You turn a comic book character that honestly needs a contemporary sensibility for it to work, and you get Batman Begins - which indeed turned out to be a good film.

Batman Begins would have worked just as well without a contemporary sensibility. What made Batman Begins work was the care and attention paid to building the character from the ground up. And much of that came from the comics anyway. Being a contemporary film and being a character-driven film are two different things.

You expect a film to be noir, probably like Frank Miller's run on Batman (e.g., DKR), but then you see a showcase of pop bands like Evanescence, you get Daredevil.

I think people would be expecting Frank Miller's run on Daredevil more than something inspired by his Batman stories. And many have said the film tried to pack too much of Frank Miller's Daredevil into one film.

You watch a movie that you don't know whether it'll be very faithful to Cristopher Reeves stint or whether it'll be a new approach on the character, you get Superman Returns. Heck, I bet Brian Singer had this dilemma too.

This, I can somewhat agree with.

You turn a geeky comic book series into something that can be understood by the masses (e.g., no space travel, cloning, and all of that stuff), you get X-Men 1 and X-men 2. You try to be pseudo intellectual and add more "depth" to the movie by putting emphasis on issues like human prejudice, but at the expense of losing the faithfulness to the comic books, you get X-Men 3.

X3 was no less faithful to the comics than X-Men 1 and 2 had already been. Several character relationships had been created and omitted exclusively for the first two films, before X3 even came along.

In your case, though, do you have pre-conceived ideas on how you'll see a comic book movie that's about to come out?

If changes are made, it better serve the story. Beyond that, good acting, good effects (if needed), a good script, and good directing. That's what any more should have. Do I have my exceptions where some of these aspects aren't that great, of course. But for the most part, make a competent film, first and foremost.

 

[The Kid]

Tis truly a matter of expectations, I think. And I think you're right in that MSJ probably didn't know how to approach Ghost rider simply because he's a b-grade hero. All Sam Raimi had to do was follow the comic (still didn't do that good a job though) All Nolan had to do was follow year one (did better than raimi.) They're safer doing that since they know that's what the audience wants.

Msj must have known most audiences will have never read a ghost rider comic but probably do know of the name.

So ghost rider's definitely admirable for overcoming that lack of a built in audience and having to draw audiences in based on its own quality as a film more than nostalgic value from decades of comics. It was the same with blade... you have to give those two credit for that.

Another thing is that GR refreshing since it isn't a sequel but a fresh start for a new franchise. And I say this because last year was basically nothing but sequels, or requels if you're talking about superman. It's nice to have something fresh out there in comic land.

 

[The Question]

Hulk was about being contemporary for the sake of being contemporary. Lee and the screenwriters simply overthought the character. Conceptually, The Hulk was already an immensely complex character, and the focus had always been on the pyschological aspect. The problem with Hulk was they pushed beyond that, venturing into a lot of existentialist themes that didn't need to be there.

There wasn't anything existenial about the Hulk film. The philisophical themes in it were mainly Freudian, and one could make an arguement for some Nietzschean themes, although those exist more in the Hulk comics than in the film.

 

[Mr. Socko]

If you've no expectations, you'll enjoy alot of things.