Pajiba

Oh, Prisco. You're so adorable when you're ragey.

well, you are entitled to your opinion.

Whatever they do, could we please have Spidey crack-wise a bit in the movies? His schtick was always his banter in the face of certain doom (DOOM!). Spidey's the funny guy. Not a mope.

Ooooooooooo Admin! I like it. And make it a sing-a-long with 70's hits. It wouldn't matter if Ashlee forgets the words because we'd all be singing at the top of our lungs to drown her out anyway.

Also, Jon Peters tried to refuckingdo Superman. It is not something to be encouraged.

You wrote: "That’s right. You heard me. Fuck them. Fuck the fucking comics."

Such vim.

When Marvel filed bankruptcy back in the 90's (comic book fans will remember this), they were purchased by Toy Biz owner, Ike Perlmutter. He stated that the comic books weren't a profitable part of the business. The intellectual property was the money maker. Owning Spider-Man was how you turn profit. You market him. You put his face on TV, lunchboxes, children's bed-sheets and in movies (Avi Arad, his partner, spearheaded Marvel's movie production and licensed the characters out to Sony and Fox, before eventually spearheading Marvel's own production company).

At that time, the comic book production changed identities. It became a forum for R&D. Marvel publicly stated they intended to use the comic books as R&D. They intended to try new things to see what would work. They have kept a close eye on the different story-lines that have come out to see which of these stories could be marketable in other forums. This is why they've changed the look and feel of several characters -- for example, Kevin Smith's run on Daredevil was so well received they made the Daredevil movie (not-so-much). It's how we've ended up with two animated Avengers movies (based nearly frame for frame on the comics), a motion comic book based on Joss Whedon's astonishing run on the X-Men, and most recently a video game which closely follows the story-lines of one 08's most popular storylines -- The Civil War.

This is also why they're sending Spider-Man back to high-school. The most popular Spider-Man book for the last decade has been "Ultimate Spider-Man" in which Peter Parker is still 16 years old (This is also why they will NEVER out his secret identity to the public in a film or TV show -- because the fans hated it).

Is a re-boot necessary or wanted? No. Do they need to re-tell the origin story? *sigh* Absolutely not. Does it make sense from a business perspective to try and harvest some of the good will and popularity of the books and funnel it into the theater? Yes, sir.

This trend of treating the comics like R&D is how Warner Bros. approaches their characters as well. The Batman books have been dark since the 80's -- so they ditch the campy nonsense that preceded it and now they have the most successful superhero franchise there is. Green Lantern has been one of the top rated and top selling comic characters for the last 5 years or so -- it's only natural that they would recognize this trend and respond accordingly.

I don't think the comics are irrelevant. Maybe you don't need to follow them to the letter, obviously -- but if something is popular in print, following closely to the story on the big screen can't be a bad idea.

Dr. Lizardo (hee) I agree JGL has the chops to play spiderman, but given that it would be a reboot of a not even old franchise, I'd hate to see him cheapen himself that way. (Personally I'm hoping Keanu realizes he's too old to play Spike and JGL nabs that job.)

"Fuck the fucking comics"
"I'm already sick of hearing about this."

It's unfortunate that people marginalize comic books. Especially with what dc vertigo is coming out with, comic books are not what people tend to think of them as - as what they used to be. The cliche doesn't apply anymore. Grant Morrison is especially tearing shit up and, again, it sucks that people are unable to recognize what the medium is capable of. They'd rather not explore comic books because they think it's all 1950s superman and shit. Yeah, well, fuck what you know. Fuck what you think. Try something new... I know that might be hard for a pajiban though.

You know, as a long-time comics geek, I actually AGREE with this. As much as I may be a fan of comics, I recognize that movies are a different medium, and that to properly adapt comics to the big screen, you always have to trim and readjust. The best comic book films(in fact, any adaptation to film from another medium) are those that work on their own as a good film, not as an adaptation of a good comic. The Hellboy films, Wanted(which differed QUITE a lot from the comics), The Dark Knight, Iron Man... All great comic book movies, but because they worked on their own merits, and all of them basically created their own continuity independent from the comics. And the absolute BEST example of a comic being adapted succesfully to another medium is Batman: The Animated series, and that series was practically completely independent from the comic storylines, and even creating new characters which were SO good that the comics adopted THEM(Harley Quinn, anyone?).

The Spider-Man films suffered, IMHO, from trying to be TOO close to the comics. Not only is Peter a wishy-washy emo git(my MAIN complaint with comic book Peter), but trying to tack on more villains and more storylines from the comics just continues to ruin it. How about you have the old, Stan Lee-era Spider-Man, a wisecracking loveable loser hero who actually ENJOYED being the hero once in a while? How about using a villain that's ACTUALLY a bad guy instead of a tortured soul who went insane because of an accident? Use lesser villains to add more variety, like Electro or Mysterio(AWESOME chance to use cool effects with him!). Use a villain that can fight him in more even terms, like Kraven. Create new villains.

Any comic book fan worth his salt will tell you: as long as the story is good, we don't really give a shit about continuity. After all, continuity in the comics medium itself is a FUCKING JOKE. Just make it fun, make it flashy and we'll enjoy it. Anyone who nitpicks if those two factors are covered has probably not seen a vagina since he came out of one, so fuck it.

JimiDaHooch, no one's taking a dig at comic books. It's pretty much universal here that comics are awesome, I'm a long time comic book nerd myself. But Prisco has a point: trying to constantly please the fanbase by incorporating stories from the comics and winking while saying "See?? See?? we DO read them!" without actually making them WORK as a movie just causes one huge clusterfuck that ends up not pleasing ANYBODY, movie OR comic book fan.

The fact is that the best comic book movies work because they work as MOVIES, just like adaptations from any other media work because they work as movies. This can be seen in videogames and cartoons, which are mediums that have a sort of symbiotic relationship with comics. In fact, I'm surprised that many of the creative teams behind comic book movies don't look at other media to see what works and what doesn't and emulate. For example, say you want to make a Batman movie. Yes, you have oodles of comics to read for research and ideas... SEVENTY YEARS WORTH to be exact. But why not study other adaptations of the Dark Knight that have worked in the past(and those that HAVE NOT as well) to see what made them work so well? If I were gonna make a Batman movie, I sure as hell would use The Animated Series and the videogame Arkham Asylum as good starting points: both are distilled versions of the entire Batman mythos which are both faithful to the spirit and themes of the comics, yet also take the characters in their own direction, being inspired but not limited by its comic book origins.

Making a good comics movie does not mean having craploads of obscure characters that appear for all of 4 seconds in the movie and not amount to anything(like X-Men 3 did). It is not trying to make "kids" movies(like Craptastic Four did). It is not trying to be RELIGIOUSLY faithful to the original work to the detriment of the film working as, well, a film(like Watchmen ATTEMPTED, by god they tried...). It is to faithfully adapt the spirit and themes of the comics without sacrificing what makes it work as a movie: a solid script which is consistent within itself, a well-chosen and well-acting cast that understands the source material and a competent director to bring it all together. Everything else is nice, but ultimately extraneous. A long-running comic like Spider-Man or Batman has had SO MANY incarnations and different continuities that you have a lot of freedom to do things your way, as long as you keep faithful to the spirit of it, and it amazes me they've had so much TROUBLE in the past trying to adapt them. A mini-series, by its shorter length, is easier to adapt faithfully since it translates easier to a movie's length, and they SHOULD be attempted as faithfully as possible because of this, but if there have to be changes to make it work as a movie so be it.

And most important of all, in my opinion: NOT EVERY GOOD COMIC BOOK MAKES A GOOD MOVIE. Sometimes a character works because it interacts with the comics medium in a way that's untranslatable into the big screen. For example, as much of a fan of the character as I might be, I do NOT have high hopes for the Deadpool movie. It's pretty much guaranteed that they'd try to make it PG-13, and that right there kills a lot of the incredibly black humor and gore the character's known for. Also, one of Deadpool's defining characteristics is how he breaks the fourth wall, let's see how they make THAT work in a movie: I'd see people getting up and walking away in disgust from feeling they're being mocked by the movie.

Okay, I've been ranting a lot, sorry guys, but I just wanted to put in a little on my opinion, see if I'm not so big a schmuck that maybe someone shares it as well.