For years I have worked at a retail store that provided me the opportunity to speak with comic book fans on a regular basis. I seem to be the minority in most of my opinions on comic book movies (or re-made movies). I would like to know what some of my fellow CBM regulars think about my opinions, and see how many of you agree. I'll explore some reasonings from CBM's and reboots/re-makes that I feel are integral.
Many people I speak to on a regular basis feel that a lot of comic book movies stray too far from the source material. But I truly believe that changing and re-imagining the source material is an integral part of creating a great comic book movie. I equate it to someone seeing a movie about a novel that they love (i.e. Interview With a Vampire, Twilight, Jaws ect.), and saying, "it was ok, but the book was WAY better". This statement in itself is almost mind-numbing in its stupidity. Of COURSE the book will be better because you thought up all the spectacular images and every glorious detail in your imagination. Your imagination is the end all of what could possibly be comprehended by the human mind. If someone liked the movie better than the book, then that person's mind is incapable of any imaginative thought whatsoever. We, as comic book lovers will always love the books more than anything a director could put on film. It's a fact proven by its own theory. Any director even compromises his OWN vision of the source in order to please producers, actors, and the movie going public. So the books will always be special, and they will always be superior in our minds and hearts. That being said, IF a movie was produced strictly following source material, it would be a disaster on many of levels.
I'll start with a list of changes that were made to some of the most popular CBM's that proved to be far superior than filming a frame by frame of the comic book.
*Organic web shooters in Spider-Man - My favorite change of all time. Mechanical web shooters are just lame and prove to be Spidey's most stupid weakness in several situations in the books. Running out of web fluid is such a cop-out stupid way to throw a weakness on Spidey (matter of fact I'm willing to bet that this will happen in the re-boot, and it will be totally stupid and predictable).
*Bringing mutants from all different time periods into X-Men - Great choice. It was totally thrilling and mind blowing to me to see mutants from all different time periods in one movie. Seeing Wolverine, Juggernaut, Nightcrawler, Storm, Rogue, and Mistique all together was a way better decision than making a movie that would have been closer to source material (*cough First Class *cough).
* Thor not having a human alter-ego - The best route they could have taken. It would have been utterly stupid and embarrassing to see Thor as a puny doctor. The interaction between him and the human race after landing on earth was spectacularly done, and I wouldn't not have wanted to see it any other way.
*Captain America's suit - Couldn't be more pleased. The movie isn't out yet so I don't wanna overstep without actually seeing it in action, but seeing him in the comic book outfit would be hysterical.
*The Joker being a "ghost" in TDK - This added immensely to his character. Although I am a fan of Jack Nicholson over Heath Ledger (just in general. I know full well it would have been stupid to see that cartoony funny joker in Christopher Nolan's TDK), The addition of the masked background of the character was genius. It made him feel more like a force of nature, rather than a mob hit man who could be defeated. It made him seem almost invincible.
I could go on, because there are many other changes that are superior to sticking to the source material. But I'll digress to point out some fact on the other side of that coin.
This is where many of you will argue. IF the Watchmen had been changed up a little to make it more accessible and easier to swallow, it would have been legendary. Staying that close to the source material made a lot of nerds happy (myself included), but it pushed the general public away. We have to remember that these movies are not made just for us. They are made for everyone and they need to please everyone. Even I wanted to see a more trimmed down, to the point Watchmen movie. I honestly didn't even like it until about the 3rd time I saw it. Even now its not even on my list of top 5 CBM's.
I think that a few reboots that are in production right now are already destined to fall short of their originals. Spider-Man especially. To bring him back to high school is idiotic on many levels. The CBM fan base is a lot older than people in Hollywood think. I'm 22 years old and I already acknowledge that the stress and problems I went through in high school were meaningless. Girls, bullies, homework, acne: they mean nothing in the long run. Pete graduating high school towards the beginning of the first movie was a perfect timeline. We got to see some of his teenage angst, but also see him becoming an adult. I don't relate to high school kids, and I'm sure most of you don't either. Everyone can relate to their college years. As a young adult, you have the best of both worlds. As a whiney teenager, this movie has great potential to irritate the hell out of a huge part of the audience. I don't care if he was in high school in the comics, it's a stupid route to take for a movie.
I honestly hope that The Amazing Spider-Man, and X-Men: First Class don't do nearly as well as the originals. The formula was too close to perfect for these movies. Sure, they were still being refined, and could always get better. But this giant step backwards for both franchises is very disappointing to me. I hope when these characters get reverted back to the ownership of Marvel/Disney we will see them flourish and be "amazing", "first class" movies once again (get it?)
I love seeing comic book movies, and I love when they are changed. If I want to see the story played out exactly like it is in the comics, I WILL READ THE COMICS. Because no movie ever will touch what our brains can think up and how we can imagine these stories playing out. There is no point in making a movie if you are setting out to tell the exact same story that was already laid out 40 years prior on paper. I want to see these stories changed and I want to see new peoples point of view. To me, a CBM is just the equivalent of a new artist and writer taking over a character for a while. The comics are just as permanent and pertinent as the movies. They are just a different outlet for artists to tell the story, and I respect and enjoy them all.
-Jon Simmons