[Laughlyn]

Watchmen would work as a 12 part HBO miniseries...you could never translate it truly to a movie, even if they made it to a trilogy.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think they did try to compress it into a movie, the dusty parts of my brain remember an article in Empire years back about the script, which was dumped by the studio because it was going to cost an estimated 1 million dollars a page. Shame.

This post has been edited by Laughlyn: 28 January 2005 - 08:01 AM

[civilian_number_two]

Well, I read the script, and it was bloody awful, so 120 Million well saved I figure.

I know I'm a big movie fan, and i like a lot of comic books, but I will say it again: the best thing you can do for something that is successfulin one genre is NOT always to "make a movie out of it." There are loads of cases in point, but I think Avril Lavigne won the laughing-to-the-bank jackpot when she sold the FILM RIGHTS to her song "Sk8rboy."

[rock_dash]

Speaking of comic book based movies, I guess they're making Battle Angel into a live action movie, which sucks. Read here if you feel like you've been a little too happy today and you need a punch in the face to even the universe out.

http://www.comingsoo...ews.php?id=7877

My biggest issue with this is that they're making Galley/Alita CG, but everyone else in the movie is live action. Why? Try as I might, I can't think of a good reason for it, aside from "Gorsh, Ah likes the compooter pretties! Ima add me a whole messloada dem!" Sort of a Lucas-eque way of filmmaking, I guess.

[civilian_number_two]

On the other hand, check out Sin City! It looks just like the comic book, and here and there that's a bad thing, but MOSTLY it is damned good!

Too bad about Brittany Murphy, of course.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

[quote=civilian_number_two,Aug 15 2004, 10:51 AM]
Jordan, I loved BATMAN. I like SPIDERMAN and X-MEN.

What I didn't like about BATMAN was the way everyone was going around saying that BATMAN redefined the hero, updated and darkened him from the 1966 movie and tv series and campy high-gadget comics "everyone remembered." It's like the entire critical community was in its late fifties, and hadn't read a Batman comic book 1971. Certainly they hadn't read "The Dark Knight Returns,' Frank Miller's groundbreaking graphic novel, nor his "Batman: Year One" series, both of which preceded the film by about five years and both of which were the sources (More "Dark Knight" than anything) of everything good in the movie.

Hey, civ. Nice to hear from you

Frank Millers work & the 60s camp are IMO, two extremes of the BATMAN character.

Frank Miller is as dark as it gets with the character {maybe too dark, IMO}, while the 60s camp was as light as you can get.

I think what a lot of people forget is the original character that was Batman that Bob Kane developed, which was NEITHER like Frank Millers Batman nor Adam West's potrayal.

I think what the BATMAN movie does so excellently is that it is the perfect "middle ground" of all the various styles of the character.

Before the movie, BATMAN become synonymous world-wide with the Adam Wests character {something which hurt DC comics for a long time!!}

The Batman movie helped remove that stigma and open the rest of the world to the actual character that is BATMAN.

BTW, my favorite Batman comics have always been the 70s DC BOLD and the BRAVE comics. Though I hated it when they would have teamups with lame characters like Supergirl and the Unknown soldier.

I never really took to Miller's Batman work. He seemed to be almost gratuitously dark. Almost like he was trying to get as far away from the 60s camp character as humanly possible.

I much rather liked his run on Marvel comics Daredevil. Great stuff !!! I think he had a run on punisher.

I dunno, maybe I'm just too much of a Marvel comics guy.

[Mike Mac from NYU]

Comic to movies?

Well are we talking about superhero comics or comics in general?

Non-Superhero Comics like Watchmen,Cerebus, Sin City, Too Much Coffee Man... etc are kind of ideas unto their own. Best left as comics.

Super hero comics tend to be vastly character driven can be placed into any form. Book, novelization, video game, etc.

The key to making a good superhero film is that you have to present the world of the superhero in real life.

In other words you have to make the audience believe that Batman, X-Men, & Spiderman CAN exist in our world and are not restricted to a drawing.

I think what is more of a concern is that these movies being made into comics are being processed at warp speed rate these days and being made with absolutely terrible quality.

\It;s not the concept that;s bad, but the execution of the concept

[Supes]

I tend to believe that comics can translate to film if handled properly. The biggest problem comic fans have in getting their beloved characters to the screen is that invariably they will be handled by people who are not in the comic industry and are answering to the studios and financial backers. They change things becuase the $$$$ tell them that certain inclusions will rate better at the Box Office.

Given a good script writer who nows and understand the subject matter (or has taken the time to research it) great stories can be translated to film in believable formats.

Or maybe that's just my dream. Still I will rmain optimistic on this point as there are comic book films I want to see yet. I will rage against them if they fail to deliver, but at the moment, I'm happy to see them trying.

[Lord Aquaman]

Well said, Supes.

So which do you think will do better, "Batman Begins" or the "Fantastic Four"?

[civilian_number_two]

I'd like FF to be good since I know some folks in the Art Department, but there's no question BB will be much better. Again, and I guess Mike Mac might disagree, BB is based on some of the best work of Frank Miller and Sam Hamm, while FF will be based on the classic characters at the height of Silver Age camp. I mean, I may be wrong, and I reserve judgement, and all that, but isn't that Jessica Alba as Sue Richards? When is it going to happen? When are we going to get over that exact look and body type? For my money, Sue Richards should have been played by Laura Linney.

Mitigating factor, and theory on comic book movies in general:

Something that always worked in the comic books was that the hero would go around in costume and interact with people. In costume. Batman would hang out in a room with cops and reporters and talk about what he thought was going on with a case. In the movies, no one has ever thought that would work, what with secret identities and all. So the hero is always around just for kicking ass and running away. The alter ego, then, has to carry the story in a way that was never important in the comics. Whole years of Batman books might go by with less than a single issue's worth of images of Bruce Wayne at some fancy dress ball or even talking to Alfred. In the movies, of course, since they made such a big deal out of the alter ego and his interaction with, God forbid, the girl, guess where the story had to end? Inevitably, with the hero revealing his identity to the girl. In DAREDEVIL, so much time is spent on Matt Murdoch and his interactions with Wilson Fisk, that he even had to reveal his identity to the VILLAIN. So too in BOTH SPIDERMAN films, and a couple of the BATMAN movies, including the one everyone says is so good (the one where the writers let the Joker die!)

Now, X-Men. No secret identities, so the heroes are in character all the time. No mucking about in secret identity. Happens to be, the stories, silly and comic book as they are, work a lot better than anything else in the genre, apart from the first SUPERMAN movie, which we'll always love no matter how dated it becomes.

So there is the mitigating factor for FF: the FF have no private lives, so there won't be any time wasted on the dumb plot of how the villain learns the secret identity. On the down side, Victor Von Doom is now a fellow astronaut, whose mutations turn him evil. Bah! What always made Doom so cool was that he was an evil villain who was actually living the evil vilain dream: he ruled his own country! Who couldn't love a villain who renamed the cities of Latveria Doomstadt, Doomton, Doomsburg, and Doomwood? Throw in a Doomfield and a New Doom, and we got us a bustling forced monarchy!

but that's just my opinion; I could be wrong.

[Jordan]

(Remember SPAWN? That movie came out way too early. It had terrible effects and even worse acting.)

I never liked the Fantastic Four, I never really liked super hero teams. I found them lame, that was the one thing I did not like about Xmen. Wolverine and Magneto saved that series.

My favorite comic book character has been Namor, the Submariner. (I have a HUGE comic collection. I have some comics that date back to the 60's!)

Namor, the Human torch, and Captin Ameria are classics. They fought the Nazi's and evil Japanese! Namor was always my favorite. Unlike most superheros, he didn't try to live with humans or blend in, he lived under the sea. It was a very easy comic to read. The submariner has so much history ( he and the human torch are the oldest Marverl Heros)

One thing about X-Men the movie, that I hated with the passion, was all that stupid symbolic rasist crap. It came off way too strong. It smacked the audience so many times. Ya we get it, nobody liked them, they're mutants. The thing is, that is not racisim, that is just a race worrying for their life. This movie is telling us we should accept people who can wield uncanny powers that could ruin, invade, and control peoples lives! Yikes, it's just like black and white people disputes. I hated it.

Besides Namor, another comic I enjoyed was the SILVER SURFER. His origin is great. A slave to the most powerful titan in the world, a giant who eats entire galaxies!

I want to see the SILVER SURFER and NAMOR on screen.

--------

You know whats more fun than collecting comics? Collecting failed comics. I got into that for about 2 years (I had a violent comic addiction that lasted 7 years). There are so many great comics out there that did not make it past 2 issues. One of my favorites was the HUMAN FLY. It's from '77, I bought it for 75 cents back in '93. Real steal. It's about some circus dude, I think he was the original Dare Devil. I also bought, in mint from a garage sale, the frist 4 issues of WOLVERINE 1981 series! Wolverine, sans Xmen, is so much better.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 05 February 2005 - 03:09 PM

[Lord Aquaman]

I'd like FF to be good since I know some folks in the Art Department, but there's no question BB will be much better.  Again, and I guess Mike Mac might disagree, BB is based on some of the best work of Frank Miller and Sam Hamm, while FF will be based on the classic characters at the height of Silver Age camp.  I mean, I may be wrong, and I reserve judgement, and all that, but isn't that Jessica Alba as Sue Richards?  When is it going to happen?  When are we going to get over that exact look and body type?  For my money, Sue Richards should have been played by Laura Linney.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Civilian, you'll get no argument from me (Laura Linney would have been a fine Sue Richards).