Originally Published April 28, 2014
I can’t even say that the film industry has run out of ideas that they need to find inspiration elsewhere. The fact is, it’s pretty much been that way since the beginning. Edison literally stole a print of Méliès film, re-branded it and distributed it here in the states with English title cards. Meanwhile, Méliès took inspiration from the writings of Jules Verne. So with that in mind, it’s no surprise that Hollywood has gone to the well many times of late to bring comic book characters to the big screen. Going as far back as the Batman and Superman serials in the 1940s, movie makers have often taken inspiration from the comics.
Yet, with decades of history and very well known origin stories, filmmakers often feel they have to add their own touches to the canon. Yes, we all know Superman is the “Last Son of Krypton,” and Batman saw his parents murdered in an alleyway while he was still a child, Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive/genetically modified spider, etc... But it seems every few years, a new director will take the helm and make sometimes minor, sometimes significant changes to the how and why. Not that it’s entirely unheard of as comic writers have often hit the reset button themselves. But in recent years, it’s appearing to happen more often in films. The last couple of years brought us not only a Spiderman reboot despite the original trilogy being less than a decade old, but Man of Steel hit the big screen and director Zack Snyder brought in a major villain for the new Superman outing. Snyder attempted to create more of a backstory about Krypton’s resources being depleted throughout the centuries and caused the destruction of their own planet. A not so subtle nod to our current climate change debate. Needless to say, it was quite a mess that provided such a flimsy reason as to why General Zod came to earth looking for Kal-El. With a small army of super-human soldiers, you think they would have put up more of a fight when it came down to the final conflict.
Looking at the X-Men franchise of films, they've suffered from a similar fate in terms of background and origins. With Hugh Jackman playing the role of everyone's favorite Canuck, Wolverine has made an appearance in every X-Men film to date, including his own two spin-off films. But in doing so, they've made their own changes to the canon and timeline of the X-men. The ages of certain characters don't line up with the comics. We were introduced to Alex Summers/Havoc in X-Men: First Class and it's implied but not directly mentioned that he's the father of Scott Summers/Cyclops. Yet, in the comics, Alex is Scott's younger brother. In First Class, Charles Xavier losses the use of his legs at the end of the film and parts ways with Magneto. In X-Men 3, in a flashback sequence, he's seen walking alongside Magneto to meet Jean Grey for the first time. As I said, MAJOR timeline issues throughout the series. Word is Bryan Singer is going to attempt to rectify that in the upcoming X-Men movie. We'll see how well that turns out.
Often, the biggest failure of most of these superhero films actually show the weaknesses of the director and the stories themselves and how little they actually know about the source material. Once you save the world, just exactly how big is your next opponent going to be? After all, Batman only saves Gotham in all three (or seven) of his films. Spiderman only saves New York City in his first film… Well, both his first films. Superman defeats an army of other supermen and woman, destroys a “world engine” and levels most of the city of Metropolis. What’s he going to do for an encore? How big and bad can Lex Luthor be after that?
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment