Comic to Movie - best/worst/general chat

[mushroomyakuza]

You guys liked Watchmen? Crooked Warden, save me!

I absolutely loved the book, but thought Zack Snyder totally screwed up several elements of the translation from page to screen. It's a shame, because visually, it's a beautiful movie, but some elements just didn't work the same way. Ozymandias was completely wrong, in every possible way, beginning with the casting. He was a straight-up villain with no charisma or charm, whereas in the book he was the most clean-cut, all-American hero among the group, which is what made his turn as the villain so effective.

The end fight scene felt horribly cartoonish. I really felt like I was watching Power Rangers.

It wasn't all bad - I loved Rorscache and Dr Manhatten, but they didn't compensate for the rest of the movie. The trailer promised greater things than the end result, as was the case with so many movies this year.

And while on the subject, The Dark Knight is one of my favorite movies of all time. I think it's a filmmaking achievement.

 

[Duchessprozac]

I liked Watchmen for actually managing to make it quite successfully to the screen, but I agree it wasn't perfect. The woman playing Silk Spectre II was terribly wooden. Ozymandias lacked any kind of power on the screen which made his character much weaker than it did in the book. Not a good think when the ending relies on him so much.

I found the movie was overly gorey in places, namely in the fight sequences. There really was no need to have gore in them at all. I did like the exploding Vietcong effect, though.

And then there was the ending ::SPOLIERS::




It didn't bother me that the squid had been replaced as much as I thought, and I found the new ending worked well enough, but what did bother me was, given the directors use of un-needed gore earlier in the movie, is why did he not show the aftermath of the disaster? Afterall, the book shows this in detail and to me it really set it home the enormity of what Ozymandias had done. When I first read the book the pictures of the streets lined with corpses repulsed me and it made damn sure I was drawn in to the moral dillema along with the others. By not showing these effects, I felt the movie distances the audience at this point instead of drawing them in and I feel the movie is weaker for it.




::END SPOILER::

Even with these gripes, though I still enjoyed the movie. It looked outstanding and it deserves commendation for not totally raping the source material in trying to fit such a complex and mature narrative on screen.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

I loved Watchmen. I think the opening montage to Bob Dylan is the best film montage ever. I also think that where the film couldn't do many of the clever visual connections that were in the book, it made up for this with a great soundtrack (which is obviously something that the book didn't have).

And I also loved The Dark Knight. The Joker = best villain ever. Only gripe is with Batman's stupid voice.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Superman II is a fantastic film - superb storyline , great acting and subtle humour. Fine film , but I'm not sure how true it is to comic-book Superman?

For me though , the Spiderman films are the best. Tobey McGuire makes Spiderman into a believable figure , with all of the weaknesses and insecurities of an adolescent combined with the powers of a super-hero. the storylines are gripping , and the bad guys are far from the usual 2-dimensional Hollywood villians - just like in the comic book. Love the cameos by Bruce Campbell also!

 

[Contrary Mary]

My personal favorites are the first two Superman movies; Iron Man and the first Spiderman movie.

I thought all of them captured the essential flavor of the comics I read when younger, even if every single detail did not match.

 

[Rodders]

I've heard a lot about the Punisher movies, but haven't seen them yet. I believe that there's a third one out now? Why do they keep making them. Cat Woman i'm led to believe is also pretty bad. For some reason, when Dark Man came out, i thought that was a bit lame to. Nothing i can pin my fingure on though.

As for the others, i enjoyed them all. Of course some were better than others (Spiderman, Iron man and X-Men were superb), but the others also had qualities. A lot of people slate the new Superman, but i actually though that they did a pretty decent job considering the size of shoes that had to be filled.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

Yeah I think the Spiderman trilogy was terrific.

 

[kevdragon]

The best comic to movie for me has to be 'The crow'. Fantastic graphic novel followed by an equally good film. Shame the same cannot be said about the sequals.

Kev

 

[TheBean]

I'm looking forward to the new Spiderman adaptations. Batman revamp was awesome.

 

[TheBean]

The best comic to movie for me has to be 'The crow'. Fantastic graphic novel followed by an equally good film. Shame the same cannot be said about the sequals.

Kev

I'm REALLY looking forward to the re-make of The Crow...especially since Nick Cave (of the bad seeds) is supposed to be writing the script.

 

[Steve Jordan]

My personal favorites are the first two Superman movies; Iron Man and the first Spiderman movie.

I thought all of them captured the essential flavor of the comics I read when younger, even if every single detail did not match.

This mirrors my opinions of these movies, though I would remove Superman II (the effects just weren't up to the super-battles, and it made me ill to watch them).

I'd also add the Christian Bale Batman movies to this... I hated the earlier movies, Burton's vision was just all wrong, but the recent treatment feels right for the first time in decades. (Don't have a problem with Bale's chin, either.)

 

[nixie]

I'm not big into comics but have to add Sly Stallones version of Judge Dread was shocking, the man should have been shot for ruining such a great character!
The thing with Dread was you don't see his face, also he just didn't come across a tough/hard enough for Dread.

Couldn't agree more, I shudder every time I think of that film. Stallone was probably the worse person to cast as Dredd. Don't know why but I always picture a Clint Eastwood look alike under that helmet.Another thing that really annoyed me was Rico smoking in the street, did no one tell the film makers it was illegal in Mega City.

 

[Steve Jordan]

Absolute worst (with what they had to work with): The Spirit. The insanely bad premise and script, and those serious actors chewing up the scenery, couldn't have been worse if they'd brought Buckwheat back from the dead to play Ebony.

Second: Flash Gordon. Again, an inane story and scenes that would have to be improved 500% to rate being called campy.

 

[Graves]

The first half of 'Spiderman' was pretty good, but the other two films were miss-able- 3 was too long. Now I hear Hollywood is allowing a remake?! Not being a fan of the character I can't argue whether the casting was appropriate. One issue I have with the films is the repetitive theme of 'Split Personality'. Explored only enough to be worthwhile, I hope that not all the villains are like this in the Comics.

I didn't mind 'V for Vendetta' the film. It wasn't particularly great, or accurate to the brilliant GN, but I disagree with a lot of the stick it has. (I saw it before reading it, established how I felt about the film which actually encouraged me to read it anyway, and it's one of my favourites.)
The reason I like 'The Dark Knight' is that it was put together with bits and pieces of the GNs, including certain lines and scenes, as well as offering a wholly original story. Heath Ledger was good too, but I disagree with the notion that his character was the perfect rendition, he was violently psychotic but the part wasn't written with the 'Insane, Camp, Master of Chemistry that the GNs offer' People who prefer the film character may find they prefer Azzarello's 'Joker'. Will Nolan's Batman films start to include the science-fiction elements such a monster villains and scientific geniuses?
Tom Hardy is playing Clayface, what will it look like?

 

[Graves]

Oh and 'The Spirit' seemed like a massive rush job, might have passed better if not for the hype it received (in the UK.) I guess it was a personal project for Frank Miller, who shouldn't have been given a creative role (it being film and him being writer/artist.) The bad guy is given a face where in the stories he is anonymous and the face they give is Samuel Jackson, although his part was pretty hilarious. The major plot issue, the bad guy experiments his 'immortality potion' on a policeman... duh (and I never say 'duh',) of course he was going to become troublesome for you... Also, Spirit's "big plan" at the end? - use as many guns and explosives to kill the bad guy...
the 'sexy femme fatales' did their job as 'distracters' of Spirit (a strong theme in the 60s comics,) but ultimately I didn't care about any of the characters or what happened to them. Another tragedy of money wasted on poorly conceived Comic to Films.

 

[Magnus85]

Though I was extremely skeptical, I did think Watchmen came out pretty decent. MUCH better than the From Hell adaptation, and more memorable than V for Vendetta. Really ashame that Moore himself is against it, but I totally understand him. Anyway, his stories are really powerful and the more who can experience them, the better. The book sold like hell when the movie was announced and screen. (Or so I heard, and I hope that's true.)

The introduction in the movie is excellent.

I'm also a sucker for Sin City. Simply too cool, and it does work on all layers, I think. Just like the comic. Can't wait for the second one.

Haven't seen A History of Violence, but I'll get to that in a while.

I really enjoyed the movie Ghost in the Shell, and my gf's coming down to London with the comic next week, so I hope to be blow away by that, as well.

 

[Graves]

The makers of Watchmen tried to approach the film frame by frame from the comic, which was a mistake. I really liked the film but understand if people don't. Sin City on the other hand did seem to work very well, not only in frames but with exact composition, as if they took and used the books for their story board. The come-back for Mickey Roarke (some think it's The Wrestler,) and a huge list of very cool actors for very cool characters- except for Clive Owen as Dwight, that was a little strange.
I read an interview with Warren Ellis about the film RED and he didn't seem to mind the changes they made. Having not read or seen either comic or film I can't fairly comment but he was very relaxed about the way they made it more entertaining and changed the tone. He seemed quite understanding of the roles of film from Graphic Novels. But Alan Moore must have got really frustrated, as you say, he pays a lot of attention to detail and is obviously precious about the work. He had no part in the making of 'The Watchmen' film having turned his back on hollywood for 'From Hell', 'V for Vendetta' and 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'- which is REALLY bad, but I heard the novels were quite good. Sadly for Moore, 'The Watchmen' had been bought by the major film studios back in the 80's and had been on various shelves bouncing around under different ownerships (Paramount eventually made it but Fox had 15% I believe)

 

[Magnus85]

Moore is a strange figure. But the way he and his work has been treated by the people with money is pretty appalling.

If you haven't read From Hell, The League of Extraordinary or V for Vendetta, Graves, then you have something to look forward to!

 

[Graves]

Haven't yet read 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' but heard it was pretty cool. Another Writer I think is rising to the near heights on Moore's pedestal is Warren Ellis, who, currently looks like Actor Ray Winston, has contributed greatly to the world of Comics and GNs. As mentioned, his 'RED' has just been made into a film. I didn't see it, but he didn't seem to mind the choices made. Films that have really amazed people in terms of the conversion to film (which we should really say, characters, stories or even as tenuous as a mere passing theme from comics- apart from the fact that there are so many, 'Judge Dredd'! what the hell was that? What the hell WAS that? I'm not even a fan of Dredd, but I want to believe that the film was even a representation. I don't like the Conan graphics, but at least the film is hilarious, for instance, a Camel made the monumental mistake of scaring a drunk Conan, played by Schwarzenegger, and he responds by knocking the camel out... brilliant. MIB was a comic, 'Road to Perdition' as well, haven't read it- don't mind the film. 'Battle Royale' isn't a bad film, but I once glanced at the Japanese translation of issue 73. or something and the scenes are quite strange- also, the film has Takeshi 'Beat' Kitano who is a ledge!

 

[woodsman]

I'm not an X-Men fan by any means and haven't read any of the comics so can't comment on a translation, but, I really enjoyed the first two films and the others to a lesser extent. Any dialogue between McKellen and Stewart is a win IMO two great actors with such incredible vocal delivery.

I've tried to erase Watchmen from my mind, Hated it with a passion.

Sin City worked really well, stayed true to the material and some great performances, especially from Mr Rourke.

I think Batman Begins and The Dark Night were both enjoyable films, well made, but Batman as a character holds little interest for me personally.