One of the big stress factors of movie geeks like us at TMB is that sometimes we get books or comics that we love and care about and watch as they are translated into a movie. Usually we have our reservations about this because so often this offends our minds. You see, only we can come up with the RIGHT way to do a film and therefore whatever vision the directors and producers have for a movie is just outright wrong.
They get it wrong a lot. I will give a few examples of this.
The Book was Better This is a sore spot for a lot of Harry Potter fans out there. If you were a fan of the book, then you were no doubt excited to see the movie. The first movie was so dead on with the book that many raved how wonderful a translation this movie was. As sequel after sequel takes place, the fans of the novels began to get more sensitive to the butchery of the books that the movies had become. “The first movie was spot on, why are the rest sucking??” Firstly the first book, Philosopher’s Stone was what… 223 pages? The script had no trouble keeping up with this. As the books carried on, the story became more involved and therefore longer. Some stuff had to be left out. Most books have more information, backstory, environment, subplots and full out story to ever be captured in 90 minutes of screen time. Much like Jurassic Park, Lord of the Rings, and any movie based on a book.
They didn’t tell the story Movies based on a true story, or worse, movies based on video games. I will group all of these into this paragraph as many of them become victims of the Hollywood machine. Churning out movies to make money. That is the point right? Recently I wrote about a new movie called 21 and how it really didn’t grab my attention despite my love for movies of its type. The comments section had little to do with the movie except to say it was based on a documentary and how they were changing too much to make a movie of it. Well kiddies, its BASED on a true story. They are giving credit to the inspiration, not an accurate retelling.
Video game movies are no better as the quarter sucking or time killing console game is likely the inspiration of a movie and they choose to make it “better”. Often there is little story to a game or it doesn’t translate well to a movie. So they “fix” it.
They didn’t stick to the source material This is somewhat different than my take on the “Book was Better” problem. I am talking about movies where they change something SO critical to the character or story that it ruins the charm of seeing your favourite fandom converted to a visual masterpiece. Like Catwoman. This movie was supposedly based on the Batman villian, but really not at all. The only comparison was that she gained her powers in a similar manner. The story was nothing like anything Catwoman ever experienced. Some of the treatments for a Wonder Woman movie being set in the 40s sounded way off as well (despite her original origin story taking place then)
Or Transformers. John and I had good discussions about Transformers being made into a live action movie. I was arguing that it was dumb to make Prime into a Conventional truck instead of a Cabover Rig. And that was just a little thing. I ended up liking the film despite my misgivings but it strayed so far from the cartoon that I loved as a kid that I was sure I would hate it.
Some of the treatments for the Superman movie would make most people who disliked Superman Returns thank their lucky stars. If you don’t know what I am talking about, see An Evening with Kevin Smith. Giant fucking spider.
It became something it wasn’t Movies that face multiple sequels often degenerate into something far from what they started as. Highlander was a self fulfilling prophecy when McCleod says “There can only be one”. The follow up movies had to trip over themselves just to make the story work, and that made the story NOT work. But making sequels is what Hollywood is about. People love a movie, they want more. Hollywood makes more. Rarely do they surpass the original, but this is a story for another post.
Take the Spiderman movies. The first Spiderman was awesome. I loved it. Great effects, great action, perfect adaptation of the characters and who they were (though he didn’t meet MJ till much later in the comics – we didn’t care) Then the sequel. I also liked it a lot. Still wasn’t the same as the first movie, but still a LOT of fun. And then came the third movie. So many of the above reasons why movies don’t stack up all came to a head with Spiderman 3. Bad use of characters, too many characters, too far off the source material, just wasn’t right, whatever reason you didn’t like it. It just wasn’t something that fit with what the character was.
And with that I will leave you with some clip of some Japanese TV or Movie show featuring Spiderman…. and a Mariachi who shoots bullets from his guitar, a Samurai, a Giant, and a Transforming Robot. I couldn’t make this up. Spiderman 3 could have been worse.
We have so much fun bashing movies we dislike, but what movies do you think DID stack up to your expectations?
