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Sirharryflashman wrote:

As for the "adaptation" fallacy, comic books and fantastic films each require different levels of suspension of disbelief.

Strange, I seem to remember having the same level of suspension of disbelief while watching sci-fi and horror movies with "primitive" special effects as I did reading comics. George Reeves never looked like he was actually flying, but as a kid I bought it. Hell, I can still buy it now!

To have a comic book make the transition to live-action film means the story/characters/dialogue have to be adjusted/adapted to accommodate that different level. Comic books require a level of willful and imaginative participation on the part of the reader. The reader chooses to believe the reality of what appears on the limited static page of a four color comic. A film delivers a more passive experience based around creating an illusion that the mind perceives as real. If you translate a comic to film it has to support the passive illusion expected by film viewers.

That's all well and fine, but what does it have to do with being faithful to the comics? I'll offer you the same challenge I offered Joe. Go back, read my post about the changes I said I would have made to the Spiderman movie in order to make it very faithful, and tell me in all honesty whether you believe those changes would have damaged the suspension of disbelief and hurt the box office. I probably shouldn't even be making that challenge, because it's a trick of sorts. Nobody in their right mind can claim that those changes I suggested would have hurt the movie. It's more an honesty test than anything, a way of asking whether someone can admit to something they may not want to. I think it's so obvious that it doesn't even need saying.

Spoiler II wrote:

Its becoming like an above average political debate climate in here and its certainly not boring at all.Interesting points of view all around and its safe to say the biggest sticking point for superhero films seems to be what era you came from and alot seems to stem also from an inevitability that comes with growing older where anything new and young is unmitigated garbage and everything you grew up on was beyond reproach.

I don't think I'd go that far. Sure, there's always going to be a certain degree of nostalgia involved. But I'd never even hint that what I grew up on was beyond reproach. I rip on the DC Comics I grew up with all the time. I admit to weaknesses and failings of tv shows from my day. I freely admit that most of the music I enjoyed as a kid came from one-hit wonders, bands who couldn't sustain more than one big hit. And my childhood movies had primitive special effects, and we saw the matting and the wires and what not. I think it's more a matter of spirit over substance. And even when it comes to substance, I think the 60's and 70's still outshine all the rest.

Its kind of sad that i know i waited years and years for all the superheros i grew up on to hit theaters because the technology needed to play catchup. It equally sad they fail to really hit the mark with them as much as i would hope but i don't wish to be the creepy shut in down the street,cursing the world through his dust covered blinds while clutching a dog eared copy of KAMANDI in my sweaty paws.

I'd say there's a level in between that. The old quote (by whom I forget) of "Be in the world but not of it" comes to mind. I'm in the world, I'm out there, but I'm not part of all the insanity I see. In some ways I am a dinosaur, but that doesn't make me dysfunctional in today's society.

The comics are still there. Jack Kirby imagined a world that no film will ever hope to match so we can always return to it. As much as remakes get under my skin, the horrendous HALLOWEENS and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRES haven't erased the originals from the earth.

Good point! Someone I used to debate this with would love to tell me how he felt sorry for me because I was "missing out" on all that enjoyment. I never could understand that. Missing what? I'm being neglected because I don't enjoy modern superhero movies? I always got the impression that this guy forced himself to like modern superhero movies because he would start out hating all the changes then slowly hypnotize himself into being an apologist for every flaw, every needless change, everything he didn't like about it, until he got himself believing he liked it. Me, I can grab a Kirby Thor or a Ditko or Romito Spiderman any time I want, and really, truly enjoy it without having to spend $8 plus parking to be aggravated and disappointed. I think that puts me ahead of the game. I don't have to like the new superhero movies. I have that freedom. I've known a lot of fans who literally force themselves to like those movies, as if their lives depended on it. I'm simply not enslaved like they are.

*The Flash hair color change shouldn't bother any comic purist as much as Osbourn not having those crazed Ditko cornrows! No outcry about that!?

I really was going to complain about that, but after the reaming I always get about Flash's hair, I figured I'm just asking for double punishment!

*The TV HULK i loved as a kid. As an adult,i've had no real interest in buying those DVD sets. If BATMAN comes out,i will have no real interest in those either. BATMAN was my favorite growing up and i watched the show everyday in afternoon reruns. My mom says i would run around with a blue towel around my neck and sing the theme. I had the Mego Batman and Robin toys and countless Batman merchandise. The character was a HUGE part of my childhood. As an adult,i don't enjoy seeing that overly bright,garish cartoon version of Batman. I read the comics of the 70s while watching the old show,so i was exposed to Neal Adams darker version while watching the show.

I catch the Batman show on MeTV when I can, and I still love it. To me it still feels like a well done superhero show. And I can now also understand more of the jokes and camp stuff, so it's even more enjoyable! Hulk still depresses me. I just gotta turn it off before that funeral dirge that plays at the end. Arghh!

The older i get,the more i don't want all superheroes to be smiling,uniform automatons who walk in line and respond to every threat with predictable results

I can't say I saw that at all in the 60's and 70's.

I like that BATMAN thinks of all the possibilities,even the unpleasant ones. The fact that he works within his means rounding up street criminals with limited powers on dangerous streets as a mortal man means ,to me,that he SHOULDN'T behave exactly like SUPERMAN,who is basically a god on earth and can solve huge problems with ease and with minimal harm to himself.

I agree that he should consider all the possibilities. But not plotting to kill Superman and the JLA. That's like Mother Theresa keeping notes on the Pope "just in case he gets out of hand". It's sick and demented. Superman is a paragon of goodness and virtue. For Batman to believe that he may one day need to kill his best friend, thereby believing that Superman will turn evil, kills the essential good nature of the superhero concept itself, the character even moreso.

* Oddly,i've never seen BATMAN as having the several mental illnesses being attributed to him in the majority of stuff i have read. Seeing as how he seems to be the only comic hero that routinely places his villains in an actual MENTAL INSTITUTION ,i wouldn't begrudge him for it either way. Nobody ever labels SPIDERMAN or the FLASH's enemies as "criminally insane". Seeing as how many people involved in policework and the military often suffer from stress and mental fatigue from the rigors of their duties,maybe BATMAN is no different. (seeing his parents gorily dispatched in front of his eyes notwithstanding)

All that stuff about how he identifies with the Joker, how he's really Batman and Bruce Wayne is just a cover, how he cannot have love, how he distrusts his best friend, this is all part of the dementia they've inflicted on him.

*The web shooters debate made me laugh when it was the talk of the internet. Still can't believe it got that much attention. The ones on the TV show of the seventies looked like he had dental floss samplers wrapped around his wrists. No complaints here about the organic webbing.

Believe it or not, I'd prefer the gaudy bracelets to the organics.

*Kirsten Dunst..what did this poor girl ever do to anyone on here? Good grief. last time i checked,the leading actress of a story is designed to be attractive to the character she is in a relationship,not every Joe Ticketbuyer. I say she is a good choice, because i never bought the LAME turn in the comics where nebbish dork Peter Parker finally made good and would up with a national supermodel. That deserves a serious suspension of disbelief and i think goes against his character more so than anything else.

I buy it (in the comics) because I always see beautiful women hanging with utter losers who look like street trash thugs. But she was just so depressing and creepy in the movie, that I swear to God if the Goblin had killed her ass in the movie, I would have stood up and cheered at the top of my lungs. Oh lord, how I wanted her to die in that movie! So icky and depressing and creepy and whiney. That was definitely not the MJ from the comics!

*As for adhering to the letter of the source material, i don't see people really getting bent out of shape at the horrible,criminal liberties that were taken by such film atrocities as FRANKENSTEIN, WIZARD OF OZ, THE THING, WAR OF THE WORLDS, JAWS etc who dared deviate from the originals. Just because comics have sequential pictures doesn't mean a film has to use those as storyboards.

But I don't think anyone's asking to use the comics as storyboards, only to be faithful to the source material and not make arbitrary changes when there is no compelling need to do so. I can't say I cared about changes made in Frankenstein or War of the Worlds, etc because I saw the films long before I ever read the books.

*Peter yelling at Uncle Ben. If comic readers really want a comic to not be naive and condescending, then allow the characters to behave like people. People get mad and people yell at loved ones. I am sure everyone on here has done it. Peter never getting angry would make him seem like more of a volatile misanthrope who is destined to seek out the nearest belltower with a busy intersection. A hero who slumps around all day and keeps all of his emotions in is more mentally unstable than BATMAN could ever be.

The scene was just ugly, and did not feel right. Plus...and this is the more serious problem...it watered down his guilt over not using his powers. In the comics, all his guilt comes from the fact that he did not use his great power to fulfill his great responsibility, which is the very core of the character. In the movie, it felt like he was more upset over his last words being an argument than he was over failing to fulfill the responsibilities that come with his power. This weakens the story and the lesson.

*Heroes getting their identities revealed. I actually think you would be more hard pressed to find a superhero who didn't have at least one story where he was outed or someone discovered their identity. The point in SPIDERMAN was that this towering public hero was just some run of the mill kid who nobody even recognized ,anonymous with the mask AND without it. In a nutshell,it summed the character up completely.

Yes, to one person here or there, not to all of New York City!

*Raimi's pull on the film,i am sure is MUCH less than we think,especially if he was not even in the first 10 directors offered the gig. Its not his 100 million to play with as he sees fit. As for why he took the assignment, well he is a director by trade and he was offered the opportunity to direct a HUGE summer film of a character he grew up reading. Do you think he would turn that down to direct Xena episodes instead? Would anybody on here turn down a high profile,high paying job doing a film of a favorite childhood comic character?

If I had Raimi's income? Yes. If I had as much money as Raimi, and they asked me to massacre the Thor movie, I'd tell them where to stick it, what angle to stick it in at, and which way to twist it once it was in. No matter how much money they offered.

The BATMAN show was close but West didn't look like a trained hand to hand combatant in that suit.

That's certainly true. But look at Batman in the comics at the time. He wasn't exactly Kirby superheroic proportioned. He looked more like Joe Average. Still, they got Batman's, Robin's, and most of the villains' costumes much more faithfully than the modern Batman, Robin, Dr. Doom, Galactus, Elektra, Green Goblin, etc.

The 70s HULK was way off the mark,with that frightwig and glue on brow.

I think the 70's Hulk is due some slack though. They did the best they could. It was a time when FX were still pretty basic and simple. Hulk is a very hard character to get onscreen.

TVs SHAZAM was decent suitwise but terrible as an adaption.(A winnebago? A teenage Batson?). You would have to have seen the opening titles to know the 70s DR STRANGE TV pilot had anything to do with the comic character. The 70s CAPTAIN AMERICA was horrendous also,with that huge winged helmet,see through shield and unnecessary cycle. The SPIDERMAN show on CBS had those godawful wristbands, utility belt and silver foil eyeballs. Worst of all, these adaptions always had our powerful heros fighting...are you ready for this..the awe inspiring villainy of MEN IN TWEED SPORTCOATS! They never fought any of the comic book villains at all and that was absurd.

True, those shows missed the mark in many ways. But again, they did not have multi-million dollar budgets. They did not have modern CGI or other special effects, etc. But they certainly still managed to capture the essential goodness of the characters, without warping them into homicidal maniacs or demented paranoid schizophrenics who live in perpetual depression and become sociopaths. They were still superheroes then, not crazy people in costumes.

I would rather see a JUGGERNAUT or DOCTOR OCTOPUS who isn't 100% perfect than the same old guys that Street Hawk of Hardcastle and McCormick also beat up every week.

Me too, but then again I'd prefer the latter with actual superheroes to the former with demented superheroes.

Doesn't make our superheroes look so super does it? I won't even bring up the SUPER HERO ROAST....Green Goblin looked incredibly lame but so did the three villains in SUPERMAN II with their Studio 54 SM gear.

I think the Superhero Roast did a far better costuming job than just about any modern movie.

*Comic book box office. If X MEN fans account for $4,000,000 of the tickets sold by going multiple times the film still made $157,299,171 domestically. Thats a lot of unaccounted for cash. Add to that the worldwide gross from countries where the film made money but nobody even cares they are a comic adaption. Trust me,i have been to Japan and if you think people there care more for US comics than their own,you are sadly mistaken.

All I was saying with that was that Xmen sold over 100,000 comics a month, so if we assume most people buy just one issue, and from my experience most of the fans I know went to see it multiple times, that accounts for that amount. I know plenty of fans who went to see it 6, 7, a dozen times in the theater. And again, how many people went to see it merely because they used to read the comic as a kid? My point being that if you take out of the equation all those people who went to see Xmen because they read or at some point in their lives enjoyed reading the Xmen, then John Q. Public who does not read comics would not account for anywhere near the majority of the box office.

Ted Newsome wrote:

Talk about anal-retentive. Jeeze Louise. {snip} And actually, Young Mr. Poopy-Pants

Are you related to Killer Meteor? Because the insults are coming from you just as fast as they usually do from him. This was a nice discussion so far, for 7 pages. How about you try not ruining it for everyone else just because you disagree?

And y'know what? There were differences in the script and the comics. You're really very reactionary and close-minded; astonishingly so.

If you believe that, then you clearly have not been reading my posts, or if you have they've certainly gone far over your head. Close-minded is probably the last thing people who know me would say. I'm open to change. You probably missed my earlier vegetarian conversion post.

What I am against are arbitrary, unnecessary changes that are made with no compelling reason. Do you even realize what I'm saying? Go back to my post about the changes I'd make to Spiderman and tell me if you honestly think that would have hurt the film. Oh, and I am still waiting for you or anyone else to explain to me why audiences would howl with laughter at the Xmen costumes when they did not do so for Spiderman, FF, Hulk, DD, Ghost Rider, Spawn, Superman, Batman, etc, etc. Why is Xmen the sole exception?

I doubt you'll even bother to provide a reply to that, because we both know I'm right.

You could not possibly have been around during the first season of BATMAN-- I was, and I was exactly the right age to loath what they were doing to my comic book hero; see above.

You're clearly living in denial of reality. I already explained how the silliness was already there in the comics before the tv show came along. I provided (in an older post I can't find as yet) the newsstand dates for those comics, and they predate the tv show by years. Some of the episodes of the show were lifted directly from the comics. The rest were inspired by research done by Dozier. He created the show to mirror the comics. All factual and beyond dispute. Maybe your memory is rusty or something. The tv show did not "do" anything to your comic book hero other than bring to the screen what was already going on for the longest time in the comics.

You know, I don't mind debating opinions and facts, but when people start to just ignore historical facts and refuse to engage in discussing those points brought up, that's when I get tempted to start typing the word "delusional" over and over again.

And-- like Bill said above-- I watched it religiously, hoping against hope that next week they'll actually make a GOOD show. It never happened.

While I'm waiting for the reply from Bill that hasn't come yet, I'll ask you the same question. Since it is demonstrably true and a matter of historical fact that:

1. The silliness in Batman (in the comics) predated the tv show and the movie by years
2. Some episodes were lifted directly from the comics themselves
3. The tv show and movie were designed based on Dozier's reading of Batman comics
4. DC Comics approved the show
5. Bill Finger approved the show
6. Bob Kane approved the show
7. Kane and Finger both wrote for the show

...how can you, with a straight face, make the incredible claim that the tv show ruined the character? How can you claim that the tv show disrespected the character and derided and ridiculed comics when the show was not only based on, but also used stories from the comics? How can you say that the show made fun of the comics and had no respect for them without also having to admit that Finger, Kane, and everyone at DC Comics also disrespected and made fun of their own creations and properties? I'd really like to hear the answer to this, from you, from Bill and from anyone else who makes that claim.

In the real world -- the adult world-- there is something unsettling and psychopathic about a guy who dresses up in a leather suit and cowl at night to go beat up & kill bad guys.

Bingo. You just said the magic words. Adult world. Comics are a child's medium. They may have been turned into "adult entertainment" (and I mean that how it sounds) today, but traditionally they were aimed at kids. You, and everyone else who makes this claim, are looking at a child's world through adult eyes. And you wonder why it doesn't make sense? You have to look at it as a child would. In comic book reality, in a child's eyes, there is nothing unsettling and psychopathic about a guy dressed up in a leather suit beating up bad guys. It's when people look at it through the sheer arrogance of adult sensibilities that they lose the ability to enjoy those simple pleasures. Thank god I never lost that ability!

Watch Magnum Force. Death Wish.

Exactly. If you want grim, dirty, offensive reality, watch Death Wish and Magnum Force. If I want to watch something "dark" and grimy and realistic, that's designed for adult sensibilities, that is exactly what I'd watch. Thats' not what Batman and Spiderman are about. I guess if you just don't get it, you just don't get it...and no amount of explanation will suffice to enlighten you.

Every adaptation from comics-- for that matter, any medium-- alters things. You didn't like Spider-Man? Good for you. Fact is, it was IMHO the best adaptation of a comic book after the first Superman

Good lord, I have a hard time deciding which was worse! Again, I refer you back to my post about changes I'd make to Spiderman. Tell me in all honesty that those changes would have ruined the movie. You can't, because you'd have to be insane to say so. Common sense tells us that those changes would not have hurt the movie. You're simply being an apologist for changes that are being made with no compelling reason. The altered Green Goblin costume I posted awhile back is indeed an alteration. Spidey's costume was an alteration. The genetically modified spider was an alteration. I'm not complaining about that (and in the case of Green Goblin's costume I would not have complained). But why change so much when so little needed to be changed? Why not have our cake and eat it too, when that's totally possible?

As for Thor... sheesh. I could never keep all those costumed pseudo-gods straight anyway. And they all had those awful Jack Kirby teeth, which always looked like a prize-fighter's mouthpiece. (Mr. Miracle? Har. Aporkalips? Jeeze.) Just relax and watch the movie.

Pay good money to see crap on-screen that destroys the character I grew up with? No thanks. I can spend that money on a few great old Kirby Thor issues I'm missing and not have to worry about parking, kids yelling, or being disappointed and aggravated.