In this issue: The Major Spoilers crew talk about comic book movie adaptations; what works, what doesn’t, and does it even matter?
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Well my top two favorite comic to movie adaptations are “The Rocketeer”(from my childhood), and “Oldboy”(from my adulthood). Most people don’t realize that Oldboy was a comic first, it may be foreign, but it was a comic. Also worst comic to movie jump for me was “Elektra”, I wanted to walk out, but didn’t want to feel that I wasted my money, but I was already too late. At least Batman and Robin had the Adam West Batman camp factor going for it, and the Ahhhnold one liners, “What killed the dinosaurs?! The iceage!!!”
Still gives me chills to this day, baaah!
Tried downloading this, keeps giving me an error, source file could not be read.
Weird… it’s working now.
I think it’s hard to come to the conclusion Matthew is trying to make.
I think it would be possible for Marvel to start making movies based on specific stories and not specific characters anymore. Once Avengers comes out, we’ll see how they take it further.
Once they move away from the idea of “This movie is about ‘x person(s)’ “, and instead go to the idea of “this movie is about ‘x story’ and will feature ‘y characters’ “.
Then i think it’ll be possible to make a series of in continuity movies.
Once they move away from the idea of “This movie is about ‘x person(s)’ “, and instead go to the idea of “this movie is about ‘x story’ and will feature ‘y characters’ “.
And I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. No matter how hard they TRY to simulate the Marvel Universe, we’re still going to have a movie that follows the standard conventions of MOVIE-MAKING rather than storybuilding. And for me, just throwing in an easter egg that says “Our next movie is about Captain America!” is NOT the same as building stories slowly over time.
Certainly I haven’t made the entirety of my point clear (mostly because I’m still examining what I meant when I said it) but nothing that Steve or ‘Rigo had to offer has completely disassembled my thoughts on the matter. Looks like I may have another column to write. :)
I mean, I kinda feel like Pirates of the Caribbean is kinda heading that way, sure Captain Jack is still front and centre, but the movies are really based more around stories featuring the characters, rather than just the characters themselves.
I feel like another good example, although not d=completely direct, some of Tarantino’s older movies have nice nods to each other.
I guess my point is, I don’t want to see several movies telling one story. I wouldn’t mind seeing a different story each time, but just in the same world, and I feel there are several examples of things that work like that.
Firefly/Serenity, although it didn’t go any further, had the possibility of telling a lot of separate stories. Sure, you can build the larger story during them, but each episode on its own is still a separate story.
I don’t need continuity, like point-to-point, but just in the same world building a little bit on each of them would be fine for me.
Oh, and of course Cowboy Bebop does that.
Actually, IIRC, they did say that Daniel Craig WAS starting the Bond series anew.
However, going from Sean Connery to George Lazenby, back to Connery, to Roger Moore was the same character. I’d equate it to a different writer and artist taking over a given book.
At least someone got where I was coming from… for that you get a star…
Also, FWIW, I don’t recall Timothy Dalton being considered a full-on reboot, just that there was talk about Bond being changed to fit the times. In this cae he wasn’t gonna be sleeping around so much. And I don’t recall any reboot talk for Pierce Brosnan either. Not saying they were meant to be or considered reboots, just that I don’t recall them being considered restarting the franchaise.
Though I could very easily have missed talk about it.
And “Never Say Never Again” (Connery) was a legal loophole. Kinda like all those companies that published THUNDER Agents books in the 80s.
The easiest example of new person playing the same character and life just goes on as if nothing’s changed would be the soap opera world where this happens a couple times a month. :)
Basically, I don’t see changing out actors being a default reboot of the franchaise unless the people making the movie are calling it a reboot. Look at the Val Kilmer and George Clooney Batfilms that were in continuity with the two Michael Keaton films.
Even in comics when you have an artist who draws that character to look very different and a writer who is going in a “bold new direction” it’s not a reboot.
Didn’t a certain website, let’s call it Not Minor Spoilers, have an article saying the next Daniel Craig James Bond movie would be a remake of Dr No?
P.S. To Matthew, the short form of Rodrigo in Spanish is Roro, not Rigo,
A remake is not necessarily a reboot. And as stated in the show, I’ll accept that Craig’s Bond is a reboot to the franchise, but not the others…
You’re right, the others were not reboots since they all follow the same continuity. Except the old Casino Royal and Never Say Never Again, those are stand alone movies.
No one mentioned the horror movie franchises, oddly enough they have the most universe building of all movie types since a large amount of sequels/prequels all exist in the same “continuity”. They are the comic books of movies, all changed to fit the authors intent and retconned as needed.
How is a remake not a reboot of a franchise? I’m not been snarky here, I seriously don’t see how it’s different.
Psycho was not a reboot of the franchise, simply a shot for shot remake of the original. As far as I know, no additional movies were made…
P.S. To Matthew, the short form of Rodrigo in Spanish is Roro, not Rigo.
Two reasons why I can’t adopt that:
I have a slight speech impediment which annoys me to no end.
“Roro” sounds like “Ororo”, real name of the X-Man Storm, which will make me imagine Rodrigo with a big blonde mohawk and leather vest. This is wrong on many, many levels.
LOL, just wanted to point it out, nothing more. Now that I think about it I don’t know how good it would sound if said by an Anglophone, Roro is supposed to be a lot more softer sounding then it sounds in English.
No, it’s certainly not.
I am only 13 minutes in, and this is already my favorite Major Spoliers podcast of all time.
Why, you ask?
Because I am Sarah Starr: Tomb Raider! :D
I had to rewind it to make sure I didn’t just hallucinate you saying my name, Stephen! :D So awesome!
No problem, Sarah Starr: Tomb Raider! We look forward to an exclusive invite to the next movie…
Rodrigo is so super right about 2 things in this episode:
1: Push really, really, really needs some sort of printed version. When I saw the movie I was like: “What a cool univers! But clearly some parts of the book didn’t make it to the film.” I searched all over for the book and was absolutely stunned when I found out that there wasn’t any.
2: Samurai Jack as a comic! Huge Samurai Jack fan and would follow that book to the end of the world and back. However Usagi (an excellent comic that I have followed for more than 10 years) have a really cool Samurai Jack feel to it. I hope you will review a Usagi book some day.
Pretty pleace.
I’d read both those comics too. My roommate and I saw Push and he was convinced they were trying to set up potential sequels, but I argued that the story they set out to tell was done. But maybe what he was picking up on was the unusually complete world-building that was done in that movie. It would be a great world to play around with in a comic series.