Get Serious

As much as I love to hem and haw about the missteps of comic book movies from the past few years, I do have to admit that things could be much worse. Things could be like the 90s, when comic book adaptations seemed to be filmed with the sole purpose of selling toys to the little ones. The straw that broke the camel's back was 1997's atrocious Batman & Robin; a film seemingly designed to be as campy and stupid as possible, and not in a good way. It was a two hour long commercial for plastic toys and rampant product placement. If I could point to one movie that triggered the glut of more mature, darker, more serious superhero movies of today, Batman & Robin would be that movie.

Thank god that Hollywood got smart, realized that comic readership is skewed towards an older demographic, and started making comic book movies that finally targeted a logical demographic. And just look at the success they've had. I can complain all I want about some of these movies, but the truth is, they're no longer absolute garbage, and that's got to be worth something. Comic movies got serious, and not a moment too soon.

Adaptation = Transformation

Every story is tied to the medium its being told in, whether its apparent or not. So naturally, the types of storytelling devices and techniques used in the pages of a comic book aren't going to translate to the big screen. In fact, adaptations that hew to closely to their source material are almost guaranteed to fail. The Watchmen movie is a perfect example of this; it sought to emulate the way the comic was drawn and paced, a type of storytelling that just does not transfer to film. Comics are designed to read in installments, dragged out over the course of several months. Films are consumed on the spot in comparison, usually only lasting 2 or 3 hours. In order for a story to work on film, it has to be modified in some ways, while still retaining the essence of what made its source material unique and special.

Hellboy II and The Dark Knight were both movies that strayed from their source material, telling stories that made sense on film and not relying on strict adaptation. Hellboy II was based on an original story by the film's director, not ripped from the pages of a comic. However, it was a story that made complete sense for a Hellboy movie, and it was reverent to the characters and tone of the comic books. The same can be said about The Dark Knight, which wasn't based on any particular Batman comic. The writers crafted a story that was exciting to tell in the medium of film, while still staying true to the established characters and mood. When directors do this, it gives fanboys such as myself less grounds to question faithfulness. The stories are original fabrications, they work within their medium, and they respect the characters they're based on. What could a comic book fan such as myself find to complain about?