Some Filmmakers Just Don’t Get It

As I’ve talked about a lot (see here and here) Hollywood can’t seem to stop making film adaptations of comic books. What a lot of people don’t understand is how much effort goes into trying to adapt these properties and how many filmmakers have had their hands on a particular property. And when I see the results of some of these adaptations I have come to the conclusion that some filmmakers just do not understand the characters they are trying to adapt.

Before Christopher Nolan got his hands on Batman and created the brilliant Dark Knight trilogy you may not be aware but another more interesting director was going to reboot the Bat franchise. After Joel Schumacher’s disastrous two attempts at Batman films (which are themselves examples of a filmmaker not getting it) the character of Batman needed a complete makeover. And so Batman was being offered to some filmmakers who have very unique film styles in an effort to give the character a new lease on life. One such director was Darren Aronofsky.

Darren Aronofsky is a filmmaker famous for doing films like Black Swan, The Fountain, The Wrestler, films that are deep examinations about people’s minds and spirit. Not typical super hero fair. Which is why I am sure the producers of the Batman franchise thought he would be perfect for the job.  That is until you here his pitch for the project. Aronofsky envisioned a Batman without his millions of dollars of gadgets and was instead a poor orphan raised by a mechanic (Big Al instead of Alfred). While this seems like it could be an entertaining comic, it is not what should be developed for a big screen adaptation of the Batman property. Batman is the story of Billionaire Bruce Wayne devoting his life AND fortune towards fighting crime. That is the core of the character.

Speaking of Batman, let’s look at Tim Burton. Tim Burton was responsible for the excellent 1989 Batman film and its less than stellar follow up, Batman Returns. Now after the huge success Burton had with Batman Warner Bros wanted to offer the director a chance to direct another popular DC Comics property. In fact they wanted to offer Burton THE DC Comics property. They wanted him to direct Superman. The story of Tim Burton’s Superman Lives has become a great source of entertainment among fan boys. Despite the fact that the film was never made. Beloved geek director Kevin Smith did a draft of the script that initially was meant to retell the Death and Return of Superman storyline from the comics and ended up resembling nothing remotely similar to that story.

Producer John Peters wanted a version of Superman that did not wear the familiar blue and red costume, did not fly, and at some point needed to fight a giant spider (those were the actual notes Mr. Peters gave to writer Kevin Smith when the director/writer first pitched his take on Superman to the famous producer). Despite those initial notes, which completely destroy the property of Superman, the script just got more and more bizarre with fighting polar bears and gay robotic dogs. Preproduction artwork showed versions of the Superman outfit that had cybernetic parts attached to it, an S shield that could become fighting blades, and even a version of Superman that more resembled Frankenstein’s monster than the Man of Steel. The final blow to the project that just cemented the lunacy of project was the casting of Nicolas Cage who when photographed in the costume just looked ridiculous.

 

While part of me is happy neither of those two projects ever made it to the screen, sometimes we’re just not that lucky and a comic book adaptation makes it into theatres that is less than desirable. By that I mean, Jonah Hex. Jonah Hex is a DC Comics property about a bounty hunter living in the old west, the titular Jonah Hex. While the film adaptation of the character kept this aspect, they added another aspect to the character. Jonah Hex could talk to the dead. No version of the character in the comics ever had this ability and it was solely an invention of the film. An invention that was not well executed.

 

Similarly the film adaptation of Catwoman (which I explored in this entry) suffered from straying far from the source material. Instead of sticking closely to what everyone loved about the character, Warner Bros decided to invent a completely new character that had no relation to the comic book character. At least Jonah Hex was still NAMED Jonah Hex. In Catwoman they changed the character’s name from Selina Kyle to Patience Phillips. The story is not set in Gotham City. The character is NOT a cat burglar. And finally the character received their “cat powers” through supernatural means (which granted they did that same thing in Batman Returns), instead of just being a woman who likes cats.

"And sometimes there are no explanations."

As a filmmaker, I understand that sometimes when adapting a property from one medium to another, changes need to be made. But those changes should be in order to get as much of the character’s basics on screen while trimming away the fat. Making changes for the sake of change only waters down what made the character likeable to begin with. The reason why film studios adapt comic book properties is because these properties already have a built in audience. But if the film does not resemble the comic then the built in audience doesn’t matter.

Weird for the sake of Weird

(Warning: SPOILERS)

Started watching the new Netflix exclusive series Hemlock Grove. The advertisements portrayed the show as having a supernatural slant to it so I figured it would be right up my alley. While it does indeed have supernatural elements, they are not presented to us in a straightforward manner. To be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no idea what this show is about at all.

The show takes place in the titular Hemlock Grove, a small Pennsylvania town that seems to mostly consist of backwoods and a giant mansion. Within the first five minutes we’re presented with scenes of sex in a car, a lesbian flirtation between a teacher and student, and finally to show the program is bizarre and violent the girl involved in both the scenes above is horrible murdered by an unseen monster in a playground. So sex and violence have immediately dragged the audience into the world of the show. Who or what is the murderer? Why was that girl killed? Will we see more nudity as the show goes on? Etc.

As I’m watching I hope to have some answers given to me in the next scene.  Unfortunately no. Instead we are introduced to Peter and his mother who are Romani and are taking up residence in Peter’s deceased uncle’s trailer on the outskirts of town. A trailer that hap
pens to be on the borders of the previous mentioned Mansion. Peter and his mom are gypsies and are treated rather disrespectfully by any townsfolk they encounter. Oh and Peter may be a werewolf. Wait, I’m sorry. Peter IS a werewolf and he rather openly presents this fact to the only kid he has managed to befriend, Roman. Roman is the rich kid who lives in the mansion and was having sex with the dead girl in the previously mentioned scene.

It is with Roman and his family that most of the weirdness of the show takes place. As bizarre as Peter may be as a werewolf, Roman’s family has them beat. Apparently Roman’s mother (played by the still sexy though she’s almost fifty Famke Janssen) is an Upir, something the show hasn’t defined yet, and her son may be one as well, though he doesn’t know it.  And Roman’s sister is a complete oddity. She’s over six feet tall, has a bizarre fish eye, is mute, and her skin glows blue to the touch. Apparently her deformity is what caused the children’s father to commit suicide. Roman’s cousin, whose father is having an affair with his mom, might have been impregnated by an angel.

Here’s the problem with all this weirdness. None of it deals with human problems. And that is the key to truly good supernatural stories. Shows like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, even Teen Wolf, are all full of bizarre creatures and situations, but at the core of the series are people with real identifiable problems. There is nothing about the characters and creatures on Hemlock Grove that I can identify with. I know what it’s like to be a High School student with a crush. I do not know what it is like to be a rich asshole who gets whatever he wants nor do I know what it is like to be a gypsy on the run with my mom. The supernatural elements don’t even enter into it.

Even the most fantastical tale has a human element to it. There is something identifiable and universal in all tales regardless of planet or realm they take place. Some themes are so a part of the human experience that they transcend the circumstances of our individual life experiences. We look for ourselves in the stories we read and if we cannot find ourselves then it is hard for any story to keep our attention.

Why Don’t The Villains Just Switch?

I’ve been playing a lot of the new video game Injustice: Gods Among Us (see some of my thoughts about the game here) and it’s a fun game. You get to see a bunch of beloved DC Comics heroes and villains fight each other and really slug it out. Unfortunately though as I was playing the game I realized that while for the game the characters are fairly well matched, they are no where near their power set as they are in the comics. I was playing as Nightwing and was delivering a thorough beatdown to Doomsday. Doomsday is the monster that killed Superman and Nightwing is a former Robin and sidekick to Batman. This is a very one-sided fight.

And it has me thinking about the various villains that inhabit the rogues’ gallery of any particular super hero. The villains a hero faces tend to be within that hero’s capabilities. So it seems to me that the best way for the villains to win is to just switch. Doomsday would kill Batman with relative ease. As much as I enjoy talking about Batman as this hero with contingency plans and scenarios to deal with any possible situation, Doomsday fought Superman to a standstill and the only way he was able to be defeated was for the Man of Steel to fight until both of them died. There is no contingency plan for something like that.

Similarly, I think that one of Batman’s villains could probably take out Superman. While physically Superman is near indestructible, he still has the mind of a man. And that’s where Batman’s rogue’s gallery excels. Getting into a person’s mind. If you haven’t play the story mode of Injustice, I’ll spoil it by saying the entire premise actually revolves around The Joker messing with Superman leading to the Man of Steel creating a totalitarian dictatorship with him in charge. The Joker drove Superman towards committing atrocities. In essence he broke him.

This is why trading places would work so well. These villains are equipped to dealing with such a specific set of powers and abilities. And they are very good at it. And likewise the heroes have worked hard to resist such attacks. Batman is for the most part immune to any psychological games that could be played on him by the Joker. Superman is forced to hold back his full power constantly so he does not hurt ordinary humans so he is more than ready to unleash his full fury on a character like Doomsday. But neither hero is ready for the opposites.

 

And it’s not just Batman and Superman. Aquaman probably has no defense against a Flash villain like Mirror Master, who could literally turn the entire reflective surface of the ocean into a weapon. Similarly the Flash would probably not do well against a character like Sinestro, a Green Lantern villain, whose ring allows him faster than light travel, easily keeping up with the Scarlet Speedster. Essentially for every hero there is a villain who could beat that hero if he would stop fighting his particular regular nemesis.

 

It’s not just DC either. While this blog entry was inspired by a DC comics video game, this applies just as much to the heroes of Marvel. Spider-Man can hold his own against Doctor Octopus but would probably not fair well against an army of Skrulls. Captain America can defeat an entire battalion of Hydra Agents but would probably not fair well against The Abomination. The same reasons apply. They just aren’t used to handling those types of threats.

In all reality, these types of arguments are moot. Writers are going to write the stories that work and that usually involves characters fighting the types of villains they usually fight. Maybe a story will be written depicting a scenario like I wrote above, such as Superman fighting the Joker but that’s mostly to break up the monotony of the comic and not a serious battle. For the most part, such matches between two completely incompatible characters shall exactly solely in the minds of fanboys.

How Far Are We From Star Trek?

I wonder if Gene Roddenberry realized that when he created a little science fiction TV show, described as “A wagon train to the stars”, he had any idea that he would be setting a technological bar for humanity for decades. There are many in the scientific community who openly claim that Star Trek is what influenced them to go into their specific field. So the question that should be posed to all scientists is, how far are we from Star Trek?

Now for the sake of argument, let’s not hold to the specific timeline portrayed by the series. According to the various series we’ll get Warp drive long before we get replicators or holodecks and if that order is reversed in reality, I’m okay with it. When I ask how far we are from Star Trek, let’s assume I mean all the technology depicted in the series, regardless of what series it is from. All scientific development should be celebrated.

To make things easy, let’s knockout a few technologies from Star Trek that we do have. We have Pads like in Next Generation, such as iPads and most handheld tablets. We have vocal computer interfaces, like Siri and GPS. Most flip-phones were modeled on the handheld communicators from the original series. Those are all commonly used technologies that were originally only in existence in the world of Trek. Small achievements, but definitely steps in the right direction towards creating a world like that of the Federation.

But what are some technologies that are close to Trek but haven’t quite gotten there yet? Space exploration is the obvious one. While we do not have access to anything like Warp drive, we have made attempts to make it off the planet. It’s been almost forty years since we landed on the moon. Just last year we landed an unmanned exploratory vessel on Mars and there is a strong effort to make a serious attempt at a manned mission to Mars some time in the next few decades.  There are even companies that are attempting to commercialize the concept of space flight. Once space flight has become commonplace, much like airline travel is now, it will not be long until we figure out a way to master faster than light flight (Einstein’s rules of relativity be damned).

The technology that seems like it has the most potential towards being like it is in Star Trek is the replicator. In recent months there has been a bit of a news controversy over a individual who was able to use a 3D printer to make a functioning fire arm. While the idea of access to easy firearms slightly terrifies me, I cannot deny the technological ingenuity. While 3D printers are only capable of reproducing things in plastic, it only requires more tinkering and technological advancements before we could conceivably have a Federation style replicator. Every Nerds’ dream of ordering “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” and having a teacup materialize in front of them could soon be real.

Even such impossible to conceive of technology like transporters could be a reality. Scientists have experimented with transporting microscopic particles across great distances with varying levels of success. Much like with the replicator it is mostly a question of scale and information. At our current level of technology we do not have a computer capable of keeping all the information required to reproduce a human being. But just twenty years ago we didn’t have computers that could store a full Hollywood film. And now such streaming technology is commonplace.  So again it seems like a question of time.

The one area where we seem farthest from Star Trek is culturally. In the world of Star Trek, Earth is a utopia that has eliminated poverty and disease. All citizens of the federation are taken care of. There are no more corporate or governmental interests and technological developments are done for the benefit of all. Sadly, as we see in our society, people are not ready or willing to join together to help each other. Our society places too much emphasis on the individual.

At the end of the day we all must face the fact that Star Trek is a work of fiction. It is a brilliant source of entertainment and a optimistic vision of the future. But just because it is a vision of the future that many people enjoy, does not in anyway guarantee the future will be anything like that. That being said though, I think Star Trek set a good goal for humanity to strive towards and if we can just get a little close towards replicating life in the Federation, I think humanity will be okay.