Faithfulness in comics books and movies

[comicsmetal]

Should comic book movies be faithful and accurate to the source material ?Here is a discussion on this topic from batman on film.

http://www.batman-on-film.com/podcasts_menu.html

[vcassel]

Should comic book movies be faithful and accurate to the source material ?Here is a discussion on this topic from batman on film.

http://www.batman-on-film.com/podcasts_menu.html

depends on the source material. many comic book characters have long and convoluted histories that would be impossible to summarize in 90 to 120 minutes. no, comic book movies should remain faithful and accurate to themselves as long as a strong story capturing the essence of the character is achieved.

[Superbeast]

If the story doesn't suffer for the changes made, no. Different mediums require different approaches by those best experienced and successful in that medium. A Playwright might make a terrible film director when translating their work to the silver screen in the same way a novelist might be terrible at writing the same story to fit in serialised periodicals. Different constraints, different freedoms, different approaches required.

[bigbluntz]

it seems like movies based closely on their comic book counter parts fail epically. Sad but true

[Ilash]

In theory, comic book movies really need not bother with trying to be faithful to their source. In practice however, the closer a superhero film sticks to its comic book origins the better.

Though apparently, this doesn't hold true of non-superhero comic book films. Ghost World and History of Violence are apparently very different from their sources and both are fine films. Even V for Vendetta - while they could have dumbed down the politics a bit less, I think it was smart on the Wachowski's part - and I say this as someone who is not generally a fan of their films - to streamline to comic's convoluted plot into something that is far more filmable.

[kalorama]

There's no inherent relationship between the quality of the film and fidelity to the source material. Moreover, when dealing with films based on superhero comics that have been around for decades, strict fidelity isn't even a realistic option, because most comic book superheros of any vintage have gone through a multitude of often contradictory reboots, retcons, revisions and re-tellings that make any attempt to adapt a "definitive" version impossible, simply because there isn't one.

[Captain_Video]

it seems like movies based closely on their comic book counter parts fail epically. Sad but true

For example ?

Sin City did pretty well and was about as close as is possible.

Closeness to the source material is seldom attempted not because of some film-making logic of "oh that won't work in a movie" ( or else Watchmen would never have been made ) but because the marketing department is much more important than the creative department.

An example of this would be the Spider-man franchise, specifically the first movie, I love all the Spider-man movies, but one thing everyone would agree on about the first is that the Green Goblin suit leaves a lot to be desired, that suit is a direct result of the marketing department, all the previous production work had been a much darker, more comic book faithful goblin, the "power ranger" Goblin suit was a compromise, to appease a department worried about how Kids would take to the movie.

We do not know how a faithful comic book movie would fare in box office or in quality, because it is never done, the project is second guessed along the production path way before it is released, so essentially we will never know.

I am not saying changes to source material are inherently a negative thing it sometimes works very well, but I would like a bit of honesty from the film-makers when promoting the film, if it is a personal or studio led choice, say so.

I don't like it when it is said as fact "that wouldn't work in a film" because it probably would, film is a very flexible medium that suffers from huge lack of imagination due to it being the current top of the entertainment food chain.

Pretty much any comic book concept could be made to work in a film, accept for something like Watchmen which is designed only to be a narrative for comics.

I also feel like the fans of comics sometimes have a degree of embarassment about the sillier aspects of the books and will welcome anything that makes the concepts more "serious", which sometimes can take some of the fun of a character away.

Sin City is the current yard stick for faithfullness and it did very well, critically and at the box office.

By faithfullness I mean, it retained the look of the comics, the characters looked right, acted right, it was udeniably Sin City and the comics had a sales spike as a result.

A lot of comic book characters have a degree of freedom anyway, for instance Gotham City does not have a clear defined look, Batman does not have an absolute set look, but they do have over the years a sort of established set of things, that must be there, the ears, the cape, etc.

A lot of comic books give a lot of great thematic and conceptual reasons for the characters to be how they are, which makes it hard to accept changes, as usually the comic narrative had a good or interesting reason for this to be in place.

Its a wide and interesting topic.

[Beni]

I think the movies should be mostly faithful to the comics where it originates from..

But if there is opportunity to improve the story, or to make it easier for new fans to become fans.. that opportunity should be taken.

[king mob]

Though apparently, this doesn't hold true of non-superhero comic book films. Ghost World and History of Violence are apparently very different from their sources and both are fine films.

Ghost World was made with the close participation of Dan Clowes, it's for all intent and purposes a Dan Clowes comic on the big screen. A History of Violence is different from John Wagner's story, but Wagner couldn't have cared less about the changes as the story retains the spirit of the comic, while improving upon it.

Even V for Vendetta - while they could have dumbed down the politics a bit less, I think it was smart on the Wachowski's part - and I say this as someone who is not generally a fan of their films - to streamline to comic's convoluted plot into something that is far more filmable.

V For Vendetta is an example where had the filmmakers had an ounce of sense they'd have tried to keep it closer to the original text, while trying to make it more palatable for a mainstream audience. The problem was their bottle went and they took the easy option of turning it into a dumb, Americanised action film, rather than trying to make a film for the same audience as Ghost World or A History of Violence.

[kalorama]

V For Vendetta is an example where had the filmmakers had an ounce of sense they'd have tried to keep it closer to the original text, while trying to make it more palatable for a mainstream audience. The problem was their bottle went and they took the easy option of turning it into a dumb, Americanised action film, rather than trying to make a film for the same audience as Ghost World or A History of Violence.

They didn't try to make a film for the same audience as Ghost World or History of Violence because as a film V for Vendetta was not a story aimed at the same audience as Ghost World or History of Violence. The film was generally well reviewed and did fairly well at the box office.

[The Black Guardian]

No work of fiction should be faithful to any other work of fiction... ever.

[Superbeast]

We do not know how a faithful comic book movie would fare in box office or in quality, because it is never done, the project is second guessed along the production path way before it is released, so essentially we will never know.

We do, actually. See 30 Days Of Night, Watchmen and Ghost World. However as they had varying degress of financial success, I'll reiterate my previous point: the source material, if respected, can be altered to better fit the time, financial and artistic constraints of a feature film with good results assuming the people adapting the material are highly skilled. A good director and screenwriter are needed to convert the material into something a film audience can buy into that they might not if you put the same comic book material in front of them.

As for things that "can't" work in movies that can work in comics, Wanted is a good example. The whole "supervillains beat the Silver Age heroes and now travel to other dimensions to kill other superheroes" thing wouldn't have worked as well on the silver screen because quite frankly those archetypes work great in comics but there are no real comparable screen archetypes that function within the medium like Superman or Batman in comics. Also the mainsteam movie audience want to watch heroes beating villains, not villains killing heroes, normal human beings and everything else they set their eyes on. So the material was altered from "evil league of supervillains recruit boring, lame guy for life of hedonistic crime and eventual patricide" to "league of assassins hired boring, lame dude for life of heroism 'doing what has to be done' and trick him into patricide before his mentor goes martyr upon learing she has been used the same way". It's Wanted only in name but I understand why the changes were made given the different rules, expectations and limitations of the medium.

[king mob]

They didn't try to make a film for the same audience as Ghost World or History of Violence because as a film V for Vendetta was not a story aimed at the same audience as Ghost World or History of Violence.

Which is a flaw in the decision making process of the filmmakers, as they took a great cast, great source material and completely ballsed it up by aiming it at the mass mainstream audience.
Though it is possible to make smart multiplex fare, it's incredibly difficult when the film has little idea of how to translate concepts from the source material to the cinema screen.

The film was generally well reviewed and did fairly well at the box office.

It's still shite, even if it did make a decent amount of money and had a few decent reviews.

[kalorama]

Which is a flaw in the decision making process of the filmmakers, as they took a great cast, great source material and completely ballsed it up by aiming it at the mass mainstream audience.

No, they really didn't. V for Vendetta being aimed at a different audience than History of Violence and Ghost World as films is simply an offshoot of the fact that the three were aimed at different audiences as comic books. If you want to blame someone for that, try Alan Moore, Dan Clowes, and John Wagner.

Though it is possible to make smart multiplex fare, it's incredibly difficult when the film has little idea of how to translate concepts from the source material to the cinema screen.

Well, that's a matter of opinion and one that really didn't seem to be shared by most of the people who actually saw the movie.

It's still shite, even if it did make a decent amount of money and had a few decent reviews.

Also a matter of opinion, and one that really doesn't seem to be shared by anyone who isn't an angry, myopic comic book fan.

[jesse_custer]

There is nothing wrong with being faithful or straying from the source. I begin to have problems when the direction, acting, and writing don't work.

Also a matter of opinion, and one that really doesn't seem to be shared by anyone who isn't an angry, myopic comic book fan.

I thought V For Vendetta was lackluster. They managed to make a movie about a terrorist protagonist feel safe.