Organization of Paper

The way I will be organizing my paper is by dividing it into sections based on the three movies I am talking about, The Dark Knight, Hellboy 2, and Watchmen. I feel like organizing my paper in this fashion will make it easier to follow, because the reader will only have to focus on one movie at a time instead of having analysis and comparison of all three taking place at the same exact time. The way I would like to implement this style of organization is by dividing the paper into sections using titles. The title of each section will relate to the movie being discussed and provide an easy and entertaining way to find specific information within the essay.

Possible Introduction

I'll be the first to admit that comic book movies don't have the greatest reputation, especially with fans of the source material such as myself. Silver screen adaptations in this genre have been notoriously less than satisfying, however over the past few years, things have seemed to turned around some. The comic book movie genre is coming into its own; its matured over the years and is now finally willing to tackle some of the weightier themes that comics have been dealing with for quite some time. That's not to say that these films are perfect; the major problem that these movies run into is balancing their reverence to the source material with their attempts to appeal to a more mainstream audience who hasn't poured over the pages of the comic it's based on. Three recent films, The Dark Knight, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and Watchmen, stand out in my mind as being perfect examples of superhero movies done right as well as how things can go terribly wrong. By examining the relative merits of these pictures, one can begin to distinguish the balance that must be struck between fan appeasement and audience appeal when adapting comics for the big screen.

The Actor Factor

A comic book lives and dies based on how easily one can identify with its main characters. Comics are generally even named after their main characters; that alone should tell you how important they are. When you read a comic book, you want to feel as if the character who's life you are following is making logical decisions based on the situations they are put in within the worlds that the authors create. Most comics are essentially character driven pieces of fiction, so it stands to reason that a filmic adaptation of a comic book should strive to create characters that are equally as endearing and three dimensional as their literary counterparts. However, the world of film relies on actors to provide the main drive of a performance, and sometimes the director's decisions in casting end up hurting the believability of a character.

On the one hand, you can look at the near perfect casting of Ron Perlman as Hellboy. Perlman essentially IS Hellboy, most of the time it doesn't feel like he's even acting. He's gruff, hard to get along with, funny and charming all at once. Perlman's acting chops give this inhuman character a real spark of humanity, making you believe in every scene hes in. Sure, there's alot of makeup involved, but Perlman can make you forget its there and believe in the character he's playing.

On the other hand, one doen't have to look any further than the character of Laurie in Watchmen to see an example of bad casting. Sure, she looks the part, but that seems to be just about the only reason she was chosen. Every line actress Malin Akerman delivers as this character falls flat; you see through her costume and feel as if this is really just a person reading their lines. For me, this ruins any scene she's in; I simply can't believe in the world that's being created onscreen when someone so patently fake is being paraded in front of me. Just like the works they seek to adapt, comic book movies really do live and die based on the believability of their characters.

In Disagreement

In Liam Lacey's review of Watchmen for The Globe and Mail, she calls Zack Snyder's film a combination of the satirical wit of Dr. Strangelove and the CGI spectacle of the summer blockbuster. She goes as far as to call it "a provocative head trip", explaining that Snyder's translation of the themes and beats of Moore's original work is both accurate and faithful.

I have to disagree with Lacey's review of this film, and question if she has ever even read the graphic novel. Yes, Snyder's film rips images straight from of the pages of the book, bringing them to life on screen with expensive and flashy specail effects. Overarching themes such as the psychological disposition of superheroes, the futility of war and the concept of authority are all tackled in the film, but never as eloquently or in the same way as Moore's source material. I can't agree with any of the arguments, that Lacey makes in support of this being a thought-provoking film, simply because the thoughts this film provoke don't match up with the graphic novel.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/article7572.ece

Creating the World

One of the most important things comic book movie has to do is create a believable world. Obviously, superheroes don't exist with in the real world, so the ones that are created on the big screen have to be recognizable while still offering a sense of augmented reality that allows one to believe in the unreal.

The Dark Knight is the film that creates the most believable world, simply because there's not much in that movie that requires one to suspend their disbelief. Batman is a powerless superhero, and the Joker is just a criminal mastermind. Neither have super powers or abilities, and the world they inhabit seems to be grounded very much in reality.

Hellboy II accomplishes something that, in my mind, is even harder. It creates a believable world, complete with characters who are not entirely human, and who possess abilities that are not within the bounds of reality. Perhaps the believability of this can be attributed to the very fact that these characters are not exactly human. However, I think that the history and culture that is fabricated in this film really helps to sell these characters. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when the heroes journey to the troll market. It's this vibrant, lived in space, filled with odd creatures and the relics of their respective cultures. It all seems very odd, but at the same time you can begin to understand the reasoning behind some of it. In my mind, that's what really begins to make this world something that you can believe in, at least until the credits role.

Straight from the Page

There's a misconception among a fair amount of directors of comic book movie adaptations that they can simply use the source material as a story board. In my opinion, this is a big mistake and couldn't be further from the truth. Yes, it's great fan service when nerds such as myself see these scenes in the trailer and procede to 'ooh' and 'aah'. But, all too often, that's all these types of scenes really accomplish. They're there to appease the fans of the source material; the die-hards who are looking for something that reminds them of one of their favorite comics. It's an easy way of making a film look as if its reverent to its source material, and most of the time this reverence is purely superficial.

A perfect example of this is the Watchmen film, which packed in a ton of shots ripped straight from the pages of the comic. The problem is, a comic doesn't work like a movie story board. In the comic book medium, the reader is completely in control of time. As a reader, you decide how long your eyes dwell on each panel, you can look ahead, and you skip backwards. A movie can't replicate this experience, no matter how hard it tries, and simply ripping an image from a panel, no matter how iconic, isn't a worthy substitute. Zach Snyder would have better served the source material if he'd shot the Watchmen film in a way that made more filmic sense, instead of being a slave to the visual content of the graphic novel. While, this certainly wasn't the hugest problem that movie had in terms of faithfulness to the source, it's one thing that could have made a huge difference in my ultimate opinion of the film.

Why So Enthusiastic?

It still seems a little strange to me that the general public latched onto The Dark Knight in such a big way. Yes, it's arguably the best of the Batman movies and, for that matter, one of the better superhero movies ever to grace the big screen. But how did an extremely dark and brooding film about a guy who dresses up as a bat and fights a guy in clown makeup become such a big box office success? Was it buoyed purely by a posthumous performance, or is it just a finely crafted piece of mainstream film? The answer lies in how accessible director Chris Nolan made his source material.

In my opinion, The Dark Knight was a compelling crime movie that just happened to have a superhero in it. It has all the suspense and thrills of a movie like The Departed or Inside Man, providing a compelling villain and a plot full of surprises. What makes The Dark Knight so accessible is that it doesn't hit you in the face with the fact that its based on a comic book character. The characters of Batman and the Joker are merely recognizable figures that draw you into the film, they're treated as part of the story, not as the main reason for the film to exist in the first place. All too often, superhero films are built around showcasing superpowers and special effects, not the stories that these characters should be taking part it. The Dark Knight struck a chord with the masses because of its deft narrative as well as its intelligent use of a cast of easily identifiable characters.

Ruminations on Being a Hellboy Fan

I get alot of weird looks whenever I reveal to someone that I'm a fan of a character named Hellboy. I suppose its understandable, the name Hellboy has a sort of a juvenile ring to it. The two movies that Guilermo del Toro did based on the property have made people associate Ron Perlman with the name, and given them an idea of what Hellboy is all about. Those familiar with the comics often chide me about how the art in Hellboy is dark and blocky, the plots are vague and confusing, and the overall tone tends to be campy. Well, believe it or not, those exact things are what draw me to Hellboy. He's an anomaly among comic book characters, a creator-owned property who's not immediately recognizable as a good guy.

I actually have Guilermo del Toro to thank for turning me on to Hellboy. When I heard he was making a movie based on the property, I immediately located a copy of the first Hellboy book and got myself hooked. Now, I'm a monthly reader of not only the main Hellboy series, but the off-shoot B.P.R.D. which follows the adventures of a government organization that fends off the supernatural. Readers of the comics know that the Hellboy movies exist in a separate universe from those depicted in the books. Creator Mike Mignola gave del Toro the go-ahead to make Hellboy his own, modifying the characters so that they came to life more vividly on the screen. It's a decision that I would usually have some problems with, but del Toro captured the essence of Hellboy in a way that no other director could have. The second Hellboy film was the on-screen equivalent of an exceptional Hellboy comic, it was at once visually and intellectually stimulating while still maintaining the campy charm of its source material. Thanks to the success of Pan Labyrinth, alot of people noticed the film this time around. I'm happy, because it's lonely when you're the only Hellboy fan on your block.

Out Goes the Squid

I think any fan of the source material can agree that the thing that made the disappointment that was the Watchmen movie sting the most was the changing of the ending. It's a real shame because the ending of the Watchmen graphic novel was arguably one of the most meaningful parts of the story. In the comic, Adrian Veidt creates an interdimentional being (the squid) and drops it on New York city, killing thousands. Immediately, the powers of the world throw aside their differences and unite against a threat that they don't fully understand. Cold War tensions dissolve as the world realizes that humanity has bigger things to worry about than squabbling between nations. Needless to say, its hard to decide whether Veidt is in the right for his actions. On the one hand, he killed thousands of people, but in doing so he stopped the countdown to doomsday and nuclear aggression. This ambiguous tone sets forth a moral quandary for the reader; are the lives of thousands worth sacrificing for the survival of millions?

In the filmic adaptation of Watchmen, director Zack Snyder removes the squid and instead depicts Veidt building a machine that replicates the energy created by the god-like being known as Dr. Manhattan. Veidt releases this energy in cities all over the world, killing millions, and making it look as if it is the work of Dr. Manhattan. Whereas the graphic novel stressed the threat of the unknown, Snyder leans more on the threat of Old Testament wrath. Snyder's ending essentially says: "As long as everyone thinks Doc is watching, no one will try to blow anyone else up". This totally misses the point of the original ending; actually uniting humanity against something they don't understand so that the thought of hurting one another doesn't even cross their minds. Snyder's ending doesn't unite anyone, it's just another glorified Iron Curtain stand-off. Worst of all, the characters' reactions make this seem as if it was the right thing to do, completely missing the morally ambiguous tone that made the graphic novel so thought provoking. In my mind, even a liberal adaptation should at least embody the same overarching themes and questions raised by the original work. The Watchmen movie's failure to do so makes it hard for fans of the source material to embrace as a true realization of the story on the big screen.