"Brief" note about comic movies
Fantastic Four made me sad. Oh, the SFX were rad, which is why I continued to watch after ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
georgygirl told me to turn it off if it made me complain so much. But the story was like a paraphrasing by an ad executive who doesn't really know what the big deal is about comic books. Same for X-Men, which was like when you dream about something and it's not really the same as the original - not all the players are there, etc.
Batman Begins was pretty good, though. Maybe that means that X-Men Part 5 will be decent, but V for Vendetta will probably be the complete antithesis of the tenor and aims of the original comic. I hate Hollywood so hard.
Back to FF4, though, I wonder if I'm not just being a baby about it. I don't usually have a problem with comic books "re-imagining" old characters, like Shade the Changing Man for example. Recreating the hero from modern roots, I guess. I've seen it happen in print and have not really balked. But there's something about the movie being a singular and therefore representational work that I think requires it to be faithful to the source. I'm pretty much thinking like a fan, expecting that if Hollywood is going to spend 200 billion to bring this comic to life, that they are going to bring the comic to life, and not just reanimate the dead skin that only holds a trace of original spark. But Hollywood is business, and if they're going to make all the money they can possibly squeeze out of a movie, they are going to try and make it palatable to more than just the fans of the original. Hell, if the public were wild about snuff films, you can bet that Sue Storm would be gruesomely dismembered by film's end.
But actually having Reed find a way to change The Thing back at all was revisionist and sloppy, even if the method was later lost.
georgygirl told me to turn it off if it made me complain so much. But the story was like a paraphrasing by an ad executive who doesn't really know what the big deal is about comic books. Same for X-Men, which was like when you dream about something and it's not really the same as the original - not all the players are there, etc.Batman Begins was pretty good, though. Maybe that means that X-Men Part 5 will be decent, but V for Vendetta will probably be the complete antithesis of the tenor and aims of the original comic. I hate Hollywood so hard.
Back to FF4, though, I wonder if I'm not just being a baby about it. I don't usually have a problem with comic books "re-imagining" old characters, like Shade the Changing Man for example. Recreating the hero from modern roots, I guess. I've seen it happen in print and have not really balked. But there's something about the movie being a singular and therefore representational work that I think requires it to be faithful to the source. I'm pretty much thinking like a fan, expecting that if Hollywood is going to spend 200 billion to bring this comic to life, that they are going to bring the comic to life, and not just reanimate the dead skin that only holds a trace of original spark. But Hollywood is business, and if they're going to make all the money they can possibly squeeze out of a movie, they are going to try and make it palatable to more than just the fans of the original. Hell, if the public were wild about snuff films, you can bet that Sue Storm would be gruesomely dismembered by film's end.
But actually having Reed find a way to change The Thing back at all was revisionist and sloppy, even if the method was later lost.