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The key to enjoying comic book movies.

  
 
TroyJ15
06:40 / 30.06.04
So...it's 3 in the morning, I have to get up early and go to work tommorow but I just came from a midnight showing of Spider-Man 2 and it made me think. Made me think about alot of things, actually, never has a superhero movie made me feel so evaluative and reflective. But enough about that. One thing it made me think of though is how we, as fanboys, can enjoy these comic adaptaions more.

Keep in mind that crap is crap. And should be treated as such. There is no excusing BatMan and Robin, but we as fanboys do have a tendecy to nickpick at a movie until there is nothing left. We compare notes to comic book history and we get peeved when this doesn't happen the way it is supposed to. But I realized something that, I think I relaized in X2, the filmmakers are telling a story and these film's are more enjoyable when you let them do that. So what if Mary Jane gets tossed off a bridge instead of Gwen Stacy. They are telling a story, and it's more enjoyable to let it unwind and let it surprise you. It's a rant but I couldn't help it.

No the question is, when is it okay to nickpick. I find it's usually when the original concept is better than or makes less sense than the one used in a film. (In Hulk did his dad have to be a mad scientist, wasn't the fact that he was abusive in the comic enough motivation or was Howard Saint a necessary character to add when Jigsaw or Ma Gunnuci done better). Any thoughts?
 
 
osymandus
07:21 / 30.06.04
Have to agree there. Ive been watching preview shows for SP2 and instead of enjoying the fight sequences (the clock tower for one and teh train fight) , im finding myself going "oh no way can doc do that " or "Spidys too fast " etc etc.

Sadly we fan boys have to put aside our "superior knowledge " (LOL ) and just enjoy .

(Though i never did figure out how Doc ock could survive being punched by spidey !)
 
 
_Boboss
08:23 / 30.06.04
well, i'd always thought that the arms are like a second (and metallic) nervous system on top of his own - you need to pile on a shock big enough to put both the doctor and the octopus out at once, else the arms'll keep soaking up the damage.

shit, sorry about that.
 
 
osymandus
09:50 / 30.06.04
So even if you caved docs head in they arms would still twich...


Aggh no not again , why cant I just enjoy Kirsten Dunce sob !
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
09:53 / 30.06.04
The key to enjoying good comic book movies?

Three words. The last one is "life".
 
 
_Boboss
10:44 / 30.06.04
not talking about enjoying good comic book movies. wouldn't need a key for that would you? god i wish some people would read the thread before posting.

heh heh
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:55 / 30.06.04
That was a deliberate addition.

You don't need a key to enjoy bad comic book movies either, do you? You just don't bother enjoying them.

Therefore you don't need a key for either. AHA!
 
 
osymandus
11:15 / 30.06.04
Well you would if their being shown in front of a locked door and you required a key to get through this door.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
11:29 / 30.06.04
You mean behind a locked door. If they were being shown in front of a locked door you woudl need a key to get out afterwards.
 
 
Sax
11:31 / 30.06.04
No, because in Amazing Spiderman #187 Peter Parker, when locked in a room by Doc Ock and getting weaker and weaker because it's rapidly filling with gas, fashions a key from webbing and uses it to unlock the door.

And if they don't put that in the movie I'm going to kill Avi Arad. I mean it.
 
 
The Falcon
12:13 / 30.06.04
But the key would be made of organic webs!

NO ORGANIC WEBSHOOTERS!
NO ORGANIC WEBSHOOTERS!
NO ORGANIC WEBSHOOTERS!

I'm pretty hardline about this.
 
 
TroyJ15
12:28 / 30.06.04
I say again crap is crap. A Bad movie is a bad movie, but I always try to meet any movie, adapted or otherwise, on it's own terms. Only when it can't even execute things on it's own terms (which is pretty pathetic if you think about it) is when it has become a bad movie in my eyes. Thoughts?

NOTE: I can't help but find irony in someone taking time to go onto an online forum and going to specific thread to tell other people to "get a life." Ironic.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:17 / 30.06.04
It doesn't take me any time to come to this forum! I'm here all the time!
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
14:31 / 30.06.04
I posted this next door where, strangely enough, the exact same thread was.

But I realized something that, I think I relaized in X2, the filmmakers are telling a story and these film's are more enjoyable when you let them do that. So what if Mary Jane gets tossed off a bridge instead of Gwen Stacy. They are telling a story, and it's more enjoyable to let it unwind and let it surprise you. It's a rant but I couldn't help it.

My main beef with X2 wasn't some kind of slavish fanboy devotion to the source material, but rather that the film had stretched itself way too thin, covering way too many characters and was directed by a total hack. To this day it astonishes me that people rate it so high on the Super-Hero Film spectrum. I only wish that Singer et al were telling a story that as it unwound would surprise me, as opposed to the poorly thrown together ass-reek that was the final film. Spider-Man (1) not only distilled the essence of the comic effectively, but it was propelled by a director who has his own energy and sense of style. Compare the relentlessly enjoyable Prisoner Of Azkaban to the lifeless and hollow Chamber of Secrets and Sorcerers Stone and you'll see what I mean.

Give the X-Men to someone who can breathe his or her own life into the franchise, not some unispiring director who spends nearly the entirety of a commentary track to his most original and effective movie talking about how his gardener was in this shot and his accountant was in that one. Singer's got no style. Total paint by numbers direction. I only wish that I would've been left with only nitpicking to compalin about when it comes to X2. I only wish that the film was bloated with visual bombast and action sequences that were thrilling and kinetic but served little purpose to the story or directly contravened the source material. I truly wish that was the case, and that X2 wasn't simply a total waste of time.

I'm seeing Spider-Man 2 tonight and could care less who's falling from what bridge or what Spider-Man is doing running around with his mask off. I could care less. Just knock me on my ass, Messrs. Raimi, Maguire, et al. That's all I ask.
 
 
eddie thirteen
06:49 / 01.07.04
I think that what makes me squirmy and uncomfortable about the kind of fanboys who just get full-on obsessed with comic book movies (or comics, or science fiction in general or whatever...) is the great void that seems to be present in their lives. That space that might be filled by a rewarding career, a caring significant other, a family, a...I don't know, a dog, it seems to be empty. Because really, if you have time to write 500 pages about why organic webshooters go against the grain of the whole Spider-Man concept, something's missing. Because, I mean, my life sucks and is mostly empty, but even I don't have THAT kind of time.

That said, I think that type of fanboy is a pretty tiny fraction of the overall audience at this point. As some critic or other observed, with fantasy films raking in the biggest bucks AND taking home the top Oscars, we stand witness to the dorkification of mainstream America. And, by extension, the world. I still haven't decided if this is positive -- it would have seemed a lot cooler back when I was in junior high -- but it is what it is. It means that the reflexive self-consciousness one might expect an adult (one unaccompanied by a child) watching a movie about Spider-Man to experience/display is kinda passe. If you sit quietly in the theater and don't show up wearing, say, a Spider-Man t-shirt (AND baseball cap), you can probably move freely among the masses.

I guess what bums me out about comic book movies has nothing to do with the "fanboys," per se, but rather the apparently universal interest in basically shitty movies. I mean, Spider-Man 2 looks like something I'll actually enjoy; I don't have an objection to ALL superhero movies. But does every fucking comic book EVER need to be turned into a 100 million-dollar feature film? It's one thing to look at the graphic novels rack at any bookstore and experience existential dread at the soundalike padded-out crapfests that the major publishers seem to churn out to the exclusion of all else anymore, but to clutter up every multiplex in town with this bullshit, too? Thankfully, it seems like a lot of these movies flop instantaneously, but all it takes is the payday for...sigh...Spider-Man 2, which I will also go see, goddammit, for ten more Daredevils to get made. What a nightmare!

...Man, soul-searching sucks. Bah!
 
 
TroyJ15
13:51 / 01.07.04
"I think that what makes me squirmy and uncomfortable about the kind of fanboys who just get full-on obsessed with comic book movies (or comics, or science fiction in general or whatever...) is the great void that seems to be present in their lives. That space that might be filled by a rewarding career, a caring significant other, a family, a...I don't know, a dog, it seems to be empty."

That's a dangerous generalization I think. And while I agree that that's only small percentile of the population, it's not for us to tell them they are sad. I mean there are worst things they could be doing in life than bithcing about comics, and let's point out that they are content about it.

"But does every fucking comic book EVER need to be turned into a 100 million-dollar feature film?"

We'll considering how long we've gone without them and how all the movies in the previous 3 decades were made from DC properties, I say let's bring it on. It gives more reasons than normal to unwind at the theatre for me personally. I mean, you really could remove "comic book ever" in your sentence and replace it with any other genre and it would describe the summer movie season. The only difference is not superheroes but some other silliness.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:08 / 01.07.04

We'll considering how long we've gone without them and how all the movies in the previous 3 decades were made from DC properties

Now don't be silly. The Punisher with Dolph Lundgren, The Roger Corman Fantastic Four, J.D. Salinger's son as Captain America, John Mills grimly earning his way through Doctor Strange... Marvel Properties all.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
15:37 / 01.07.04
Coincidentally, you just named all my favourite movies!
 
 
Jacen
19:04 / 01.07.04
Seriously, if your fanboy gene kicks in and starts making you twitch when the movie strays from the source material the easiest way to just get back into the film and enjoy yourself is to remember this isn't the source material. Think of all comic films as some sort of Elseworld or Ultimate re-interpretations. If someone ever did try to make a truly faithful adaptation of a superhero comic it would probably turn out horrible. Different mediums work in different ways and the geeks need to realize this and let it go. Just imagine how goofy looking, long winded and soap opera-y a Claremont/Byrne X-men movie would have been if it was faithful to the source material. We're just lucky to have had 4 or 5 comic movies in the last few years that haven't completely embarrassed the industry all over again.
 
 
TroyJ15
20:01 / 01.07.04
"Seriously, if your fanboy gene kicks in and starts making you twitch when the movie strays from the source material the easiest way to just get back into the film and enjoy yourself is to remember this isn't the source material. Think of all comic films as some sort of Elseworld or Ultimate re-interpretations. If someone ever did try to make a truly faithful adaptation of a superhero comic it would probably turn out horrible. Different mediums work in different ways and the geeks need to realize this and let it go. Just imagine how goofy looking, long winded and soap opera-y a Claremont/Byrne X-men movie would have been if it was faithful to the source material. We're just lucky to have had 4 or 5 comic movies in the last few years that haven't completely embarrassed the industry all over again. "

Ha! Excellent point. And basically what I was trying to say. It's not the source material and certain things don't work in other formats. It's fine to bitch when the character isn't identifiable to you anymore (LXG) or if the movie even on it's own merits is pretty lame (Hulk).
 
 
eddie thirteen
20:30 / 01.07.04
Reffing stuff up six or seven posts:

First of all, I'm not calling the kind of fanboys who write about organic webshooters, launch into extensive dissertations on the scientific roots of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (the One Ring is actually composed of anti-matter...don't ask, but I'm sure you can Google for it), etc., "sad" because I think I am in some way superior to them. I am sad on their behalf, for theirs (I imagine) is a lonely lot indeed. And I cannot believe that they are contented people. Just can't do it. By the same token, I'm guessing the average guy who is obsessed with baseball stats is probably not the happiest person in the world, even if he does perk up when discussing baseball. It's all trainspotting by any other name, and it only occurs in people whose lives have sucked in such a way that what would otherwise be a healthy interest has become a means of total escape from reality...which they might like a whole lot more were they to take a chance and reacquaint themselves with it.

Mind you, though, I'm talking about a VERY small percentage of the overall population here. But it is the hardcore obsessives who are conjured in my mind's eye when the term "fanboy" is brought into play. Everybody else I just kinda think of as normal people who, you know, like superheroes.

As to the whole "bring it on" (where have I heard this before? ) stance on comic book movies, I do agree that there's little difference between, say, the prospect of the impending FF movie and the prospect of any other cheesy Hollywood blockbuster that will be released all summer -- but that's not really a good thing! I kinda bemoan the lack of films made for grown-ups, period. I LIKE fantasy films, but I don't see why every other film made needs to be one, and I certainly don't understand the boundless enthusiasm for the ones based on comics, when the actual films tend to be kind of...lame. Not lame because they deviate from the source material; just lame because they aren't very good films. The reason why I don't get wood over every new comics project that's announced for a film treatment is not because some comic that's near and dear to my heart is certain to be butchered, but rather because I know the movie will probably just be a waste of time.
 
 
TroyJ15
20:50 / 01.07.04
Your statements are rampant with broad generalizations. I honestly don't believe that we should pity anyone based on genralizations...

a) We don't know them
b) we are clumping them all into one category which is silly

Pity them? C'mon, man, we are assuming things about people we don't know. Assuming things about their personal life that we have no insight into. I think that's very wrong, because we are pretending we know what's good for them, like they're pets that need to be shown the correct way to live because we don't abide by that same way of life. That is not the case.

You're also generalizing about the fantasy movies that are being made. I really don't think the goal of New Line or Columbia, to name a few, is to have their movie appeal to just children and not the grown up market. Alot of these movies would make the amount of money they've made on children alone (now merchandising and blatant kid's movies is a whole other issue). These film's are made to appeal on a broad scale. Grown-ups, men, women, children, all of them. The entire mid-section of spider-Man 2 is comprised mostly of character interaction. That's not there for children. Even the Hulk movie last year is more psycho-babble than big monster action. My point is these movies are made for the general public to enjoy, good or bad, not everyone wants to see Farenheit 9/11 when they go to the theatre. Bringing it back to the previous statement and the last, people need to different forms of escape and we should not feel insulted when they are provided to us, however if we don't like it we can choose not to partake of it.

I get that you like fantasy and that you, at best, are guessing that these people are unhappy with their lives, and that you don't get the enthusiasm for comic movies. But I just felt I needed to point that out to you and to anybody else who may feel the same as you. I'm not attacking you but these are just my thoughts based some of the things you mentioned earlier and the retracted.
 
 
eddie thirteen
21:44 / 01.07.04
Right, right, but it's the inherent sameness of these films that's the problem, because it reaches a point where choosing "not to partake of it" becomes a matter of choosing not to partake in seeing movies. The long-standing bitch about mainstream comics ("What if you went to the movies and the only things showing were all westerns?") is beginning to apply entirely too much to American cinema, and while this is apparently very cool in your eyes, I find the homogeneity very boring, personally. It has less to do with an objection to a particular type of film that it does an objection to any one type of film being made over and over and over again.

When Blade and X-Men and Spider-Man came out, I was excited, because it was a fresh take on comics films -- very talented people involved in movies that didn't turn the material into lame camp (anyway, it was a take on comics-to-film that hadn't been seen since the first two Batman movies) -- and it worked. But even if every comics film since had maintained the same standards, I'm pretty sure my sense of wonder would have been long since exhausted by now. Honestly, I'm just tired of this shit, and while a Spider-Man 2 stirs my interest, it's less because of an abiding love for all things Spider-Man than it is because of the people involved. Which is to say, I would go see ANY Sam Raimi movie. I am truly baffled by the apparently bottomless appetite on the part of comics fans for the same thing over and over. Doesn't it ever get old?

And I have to stand by my sweeping generalizations of the most rabid fanboys. I may not know them personally, but I sure as hell know people LIKE them...comics fans or otherwise. Personally, I think it's better to have pity for such people -- who tend to be intelligent and who, y'know, share many of my own interests -- than it is to mock them, which is what most people do.
 
 
TroyJ15
23:47 / 01.07.04
Point taken. But it doesn't get old, because each film can have something new to offer. Some are more different then others (Spider-Man, Hulk, Hellboy, and X-Men are all pretty different movies and honestly if all of 'em weren't based on a comic book maybe your opinion would be different) some are not so (Spider-Man and Daredevil are pretty interchangable in terms of visual effects and origin but they go different routes). You say that you would see any Sam Raimi film regardless. So I'm assuming that you've returned for the 2 Evil Dead sequels after the original. Why? Cause you like their style, their characters. Samething here, once you get past the exposition all these characters can be dynamic and different. It's why we come back for them. Something has to be said for familiarity. Did we need an LXG movie or Daredevil or Punisher movie. No. The way i see comics are now what make movie out of a TV show was a few years ago or making a movie with aliens was in the early 80s. It'll pass, when something else comes along. Just gloss over the ones you don't need, like you said you would. Me, personally, I'll try anything Marvel puts out at least to see it because I've been reading them on and off since I was ten. I won't see Catwoman though. I guess I'm saying. Don't let it get to you...that's hollywood for you.
 
  
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