Adaptation Rant
I realize I have been starting a trend lately with not doing the blog I promised to do the week I said I would, but I will get to “Why Today’s Cartoons Suck” next week. Today I need to rant.
I recently posted the blog “Comic Book Movie Adaptations FTW” in preparation for Kick-Ass, The Losers, and Scott Pilgrim vs the World. I admitted not having read Kick-Ass or The Losers at the time, but before seeing Kick-Ass in theatres I finally got the chance to read its comic.
And I hated it.
Don’t misunderstand, I adored the movie. It was everything I wanted it to be. But the comic almost had me backing out of seeing the film at all.
I would like to avoid spoilers for those of you who have not read the comic or seen the film yet, so I will try to generalize as I explain why the comic upset me so much.
Admittedly, the film is kinder to the protagonist, Kick-Ass, in many ways. I could accept that in the comic Kick-Ass didn’t get the usual hero ending. That wasn’t the problem. It doesn’t have to be a 100% happy ending to be a good ending. Just look at Donnie Darko (and if you haven’t seen that film, you should).
No, I had issue with the fact that the comic didn’t offer me any feeling of change, accomplishment, or satisfaction at the end. Kick-Ass basically ended up right where he had begun without any true growth in his character. Storytelling 101 tells us that that just isn’t good writing.
The film did things differently, allowing for something that made me, as an audience member, feel invigorated, making this one of the rare examples of an adaptation that really one-uped its source material.
Some fans might disagree with me, and I would love to hear their reasoning.
In fact, a good friend of mine commented on my previous blog about his feelings comparing the movie to the comic, and I think he summed it all up perfectly:
I found that I, too, didn’t like the comic as much as the movie, and I think I’ve figured out why: Mark Millar gets too bogged down by cynicism.In Kick Ass, Millar has given us some really nice deconstruction about super heroes and why they do the thing they do and why no one tries to do such things in the real world, but then he sort of loses it at the end. This happened a bit with Wanted, too; he just kept ramping up the cynicism and the violence until the entire thing becomes a parody of itself.
Whereas [Kick-Ass] the MOVIE, by contrast, not only lightened up on cynical tone, but took the deconstruction one step further, giving Dave a genuine character arc and catharsis. The movie also (and quite wisely in my opinion) changed the character of Big Daddy a little so that a) he was more interesting to watch, and b) could contribute to the ‘Why No Superheroes’ theme. And it added some much needed levity to the story and the setting that made the whole thing more palatable.
~Sean
Well written, my friend.
Usually, I take issue when too much is changed in a story, while at the same time I appreciate new ways of telling it, or details that add without taking anything away from the original message.
I’ll often take more issue with a character not being physically accurate because it is such an easy thing to do right.
Take “Interview with the Vampire” (1994). Tom Cruise was chosen to play Lestat, the blond haired, blue-eyed vampire. Many fans were up in arms since Cruise is a brunette with green eyes.
But low and behold, he was Lestat through and through in the film because they gave him a wig and contacts, and his acting was better than it had ever been before or since.
Why can’t they always do that?
To return to Kick-Ass, the main character should have straight blonde hair. Okay, I could forgive the straight being curly, but why have him be brunette? I’ve seen a recent interview with the actor where he has shorter blonde hair, much more like the actual Kick-Ass in the comic. What could possibly have kept them from doing that to his hair for the film?
I realize that appearance in this case does not directly affect any other aspect of the story. Of course they got the characters mostly right in the X-Men movies. Their appearance is often a visual representation of their powers. But why is it any less important to have correct appearance with other fictional characters?
Okay, maybe Daniel Radcliffe was a little young in the beginning to force green contacts into his eyes for the first Harry Potter movies, but he is all grown up now and I find his natural blue eyes distracting.
Don’t even get me started on David Thewlis as Remis Lupin. I can get violent.
As a writer and creator of characters myself, what my characters look like is very important to me. It would truly destroy me to see the wrong representation presented to the world in a film version of one of my works, because it is not hard to slap on a wig or contacts. I understand that choosing the right actor for the role should always come first, but mold them to the right image afterwards then.
If Tom Cruise can do it, anyone can.
So I guess this is more or less a two-part rant that gets at the core of what really bugs me about story telling in general and in regards to adaptations.
Some things need to be spot-on when translating from book to film. Sometimes certain things need to be changed to retell the story in a better way for the film medium, but big changes can ruin the original message.
Of course, I say all that, and then admit that the film version of Kick-Ass was better because it did pretty much change the message, and therefore changed the whole final feeling when you’re finished watching compared to finished reading.
Maybe I’m a hypocrite, and deep down I just want to be pleased, regardless of whether that means the original work is honored. I’m okay with that.
See Kick-Ass, and if you love it, please, read the comic so you can see the differences for yourself. I just hope you aren’t as disappointed as I was.
~G³
Next week I will be taking a look at cartoons of old and comparing them to some of the newer ones out these days to figure out why “Today’s Cartoons Suck”.
Thanks for tuning in.
Images taken from:
http://daily-math.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/kickass_musthave_cover.jpg
http://image.blog.bitcomet.com/cb/2007_11/30/2007_11_30_03_39_07_85612_1_0.jpg
http://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/still/harry_potter_hbp31.jpg
http://screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/kick-ass-movie-comic-book.jpg
Aw, you used my quote in your blog! I’m all a-blushing. I’m internet famous! :bashful:
But yes, as I said before, this seems to be a thing with mark Millar. He has some really good ideas, his plotting is competant, and Lord forgive me, he has some really good (if unspeakably dirty) quotes, but he just spirals off into ludicrousness that completely invalidates every characters growth through his pieces. Let’s really bring the thunder down on my head and examine one of his well known pieces, Civil War. Now, don’t get me wrong (and don’t hurt me!), I loved Civil war as much as anybody. But at the beginning, we were told that it would be an event where the Marvel heroes would be split down the middle of an issue (the Registration Act), but that both sides would be defensible, and that we would have some good arguments For and Against the Act. You know, kind of like the REAL Civil War. And in the beginning, and for my most favorite issues, that was what it was. But as time wore on, the more off its tits the plot became, and the more imbalanced the argument became as one side committed atrocity after atrocity until only one person on that side was in any way reasonable (and even she eventually turned on her side. Sorta.) And then the entire thing ended with the Pro side building a freakin CONCENTRATION CAMP in SPACE, and Captain America got shot with a time bullet for not having a Myspace page. And then I sorta put the comic down, extended my pointer finger, put it to my lips and went BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB!
But to return to my point, good storytelling requires a connection between the characters and what happens to them, because this is how both character and story develop. Let me simplify: In a story, you typically have a character and a problem. To fix the problem, the character does things (or doesn’t) to solve the problem. Through the things done, the problem either diminishes, grows, or a new problem entirely is created. So the character either notes the changes to the problem and learns from it and adjusts his actions accordingly, or, for some reason, he doesn’t, and continues doing the same things. And when the story ends, something should have happened: the character beats the problem(s) (comedy), the problem beats the character (tragedy), the character neither beats nor is beaten by the problem but a truce of some kind is reached (tragicomedy), or maybe something else entirely happens. The point is, nothing should happen to the character or the problem that does not affect the other. Good old Isaac Newton said it best: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and even though he was talking about physics, the same holds true for literature. And when something happens to the character, or the problem, that is no part of either, then that isn’t story telling. It’s an accident, and you don’t have to create those; they already happen.
For instance, one does not introduce a character, give him a problem, spend several episodes building up the character and the problem, and the suddenly and without warning completely end the character in a way that has nothing to do with the character, or his actions, or the actions of another character, or the problem. Seriously, Joss Whedon, I like you, but go fuck your-smarmy-self for that.
@Sean R.: Oh, how I vehemently agree with the Whedon comment. Why does he have to do it so often too?
Yes, that is just what I was trying to explain to John when we left the theater that day, only it came out more as “I get enough of real life in real life; why would I want it in fiction”.
And but of course I used those quotes, because you summed it all up so well!