Part I: The Age of the Comic Book Film
**WARNING:Here there be SPOILERS**
For a child living in a time when there are films about Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, Spider-Man, X-Men, Superman, and Batman on the big screen within just as short period of time, this must be a golden age for them. However younger audiences couldn't possibly comprehend just how difficult and what a long road it took to get this point. The trail blazers for this movement such as Superman, Batman, X-Men and Spider-Man are trying to regain a new sensibility in a world that is under the dominion of MARVEL MOVIES. Just as a quick note, for those who don't know, Marvel Film Studios does not own the X-Men or Spider-Man properties due to selling them to other studios back in a time when making comic book movies was a risk.
These days comic book movies are sure fire hit...well most of the time. This is the age where bringing super powers to life on the big screen is no longer a thing of the imagination. With technology the way it is and audiences slowly being convinced that there is something worth seeing for the past few decades, it really is the right time to unleash these properties beyond their core audience.
But within that core audience comes a fine line of BIASED loving devotion and BIASED hatred. The Age of the Comic Book Film has spoiled geek culture. For the better or for the worse, it is spoiled. No longer are the days where people would just be happy with a new comic book adaptation. Now it is the pleasing of the fans that (at least to them) takes priority over the general mass audience. There are some properties who do this fairly well such as Marvel. Then there are properties who try to craft films first then comic book fan priority second such as Fox handling the X-Men property. Then there are those who are leaning more towards the real world precautions of having deities fly above us at Warner Bros. with the Justice League property. And while all of these identities are being shaped, other comics whether they be unknown but beloved superhero properties (Watchmen) or non-superhero properties (Sin City and 300) also find life on the big screen.
But this article is not really a long history of where did it all begin and where we are now. This will be the first in a series of articles about the Criticism of the Fans towards their beloved properties and the general lack of understanding that is encased inside a closed minded head. How do I know this? There was a time when I was one of them.
A shifting opinion - My views on Comic Book adaptations
As a child watching my first comic book film, Batman Forever, I did not care about how inaccurate the film was. I was an ignorant admirer of the story and the characters. I had no idea the Riddler was suppose to be a serious, cold hearted, calculating mastermind that was actually responsible for improving Batman's detective skills. I didn't know that Two-Face was a serious character with a very serious mental condition and not some cackling villain that Tommy Lee Jones was directed to portray him as. I didn't even know Nicole Kidman's character Chase Meridian was not from the comics. But I didn't care. Because a child just wants to see something cool. Of course it would lead me to watching the Bruce Timm Batman: The Animated Series along with the Tim Burton films (that frightened me as a child) but that was just scratching the surface.
When Bryan Singer's first X-Men film was released back in 2000, I knew I was in for something different. I had seen some of the X-Men cartoons in the 90s, mainly because I wanted to see that awesome intro, but was never an avid fan of it. That all changed after viewing the live action outing. I thought Hugh Jackman was the coolest man on the planet as Wolverine and Magneto was the greatest supervillain I've seen. My mentality shifted from casual fan to wanting to actually know more about them! The first comic book I picked up was an X-Men comic, and the experience was...was...not interesting. I had no idea what was going on because I thought what I saw in the movie or on the TV show would be exactly the same in the comic. I didn't know what I was reading, I didn't know who some of the characters were, or why some of the characters I knew were not on the same team. I was not willing to find out why. From that point on I decided not to pick up another comic book because I thought to myself, "Why waste my time and non-existent money (I was 12 at the time) on a product that I don't even know where it begins or currently ends." That was the day I decided to just let the movies tell me the story and not bother with all the lore. What it also did for me was gave me this mentality of "comic book costumes would be stupid in real life." I loved that they used stylized black leather outfits because I just thought that was cooler. I even remember drawing Superman in similar outfits because at the time I thought to make a "lame" superhero cool, just change their costume. My perception changed quickly immediately when Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movie came out because it had a really cool costume that looked exactly like the one in the comics. But my perception of not wanting to know the comic book lore was still in tact.
Then Robert Rodriguez had to make me change my perception again with a little film called Sin City. I was amazed by the visuals and the beautiful use of hard monochromatic contrasts. The violence, the sex, the noir, everything that I could've possibly wanted for a teenager who was going through puberty. But as a person who was fascinated by how films are made, come my surprise when I see online videos that delve into how the movie was shot "panel to panel" straight from the comic book! I was amazed. My perception changes once again. Can such a thing be possible? I had to see for myself by actually BUYING one of the Sin City graphic novels and read it while watching the movie. I was floored! I went out and bought more stuff by Sin City author Frank Miller hoping to discover what else could be turned into a movie. I felt like I reached an epiphany! Why make inaccurate adaptations of the comics when one can easily just do what Sin City did, copy the exact same thing and put it on the screen! The following years didn't stop this mentality from growing due to Zack Snyder. His faithful adaptations to 300 and Watchmen were my way of championing that it can be done and that is the way it should be done! It was a mentality that was short lived but the idea of "it should be like the comics" stayed with me. It should be noted that during this time was when my apprehension of not wanting to read comic books and understand the lore ended with me buying Sin City, 300, The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and The Dark Knight Returns.
So by the time I was in college I was pretty much a fully realized comic book head geek within the span of my last two years in High School. I knew anything and everything about DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, and Image. I was the comic book guru among my friends and whenever a film came out they would ask for my opinion on it. I'd rave about what they did right and then bash them for doing things completely wrong. They wouldn't understand my new found hatred for the X-Men films because they were inaccurate. I was asked one time to list off all the problems with it, to which I learned I had many. But then I was asked if by itself is it a good movie? To which I said it was an incredible film if you don't care about comics... Then it dawned on me. Only 5-10% of the people who watch comic book films are the ones who READ and KNOW comics.
Just 5-10% know what is right and what is wrong with the adaptation. The other 90-95% majority? They could care less. That is when it really hit me on the head. And this is a good thing that it did in college when my goal is to become a filmmaker. The priority of a filmmaker is not to please the fans, but to make a GOOD MOVIE.
In my next PANEL TO PANEL article I'll be discussing movies that are incredible films but horrible adaptations of the source material. You can check that out here.
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