Bloody hell. What a minefield! I'm surprised anyone makes it to university at all! I haven't even finished year 12 yet and I'm submerged in prospectuses.
Bah. Anyway, how have you all been, sweeties? I've been painfully busy and have a backlog of stuff and rubbish kicking about. One school week left, and I'll have a proper bash at it all.
Let's see, what have I been meaning to talk about...
Comic book adaptations. It ain't a love-hate situation, as some are done well and some should have their directors crucified *ahem League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ahem*. But what's with this surge over the last few years?
Some of these films aren't directly from comic books, I know, but they're in the comic book style. And don't talk about graphic novels to me, it's a bloody comic!
We can trace it all back to the fifties, I think. On a wave of superheroistic feeling in America, paper comics thrived. There was an optimism that we could save the world and make everything better (unless you were reading Batman). Criminals would be caught and we would all be alright.
What a load of bollocks that was! Roll on the B-movie, and all that geekish angst was released on a Saturday morning. Dodgy costumes, plasticine models, wobbly sets and unconvincing monsters. It was the bastard child that Hollywood couldn't bring itself to love wholeheartedly. But there was all sorts of stuff straight from the pages of DC and Marvel - they flew, they had X-ray vision, and they fought for the good cause. They were often the nerdy boys in school as well, giving us losers hope!
There was the Batman TV series, radio shows of various superhero stories, the Superman films, a trend in wearing your pants on the outside, it was even reflected in contempory art. Roy Lichenstein drew pictures of the crying girl and the square-jawed hunk with those shading dots, and several other artists produced pieces with a similar basis.
KAPOW! SOCK! POW!
Ahh, you gotta love that non-violent violence.
I'll have to skip a decade or two, because I can't think of much that happened. But to my point!
The first one I was really aware of was X-Men. I read some X-Men a long time ago, but it wasn't one of my regular reads. It had been a cartoon series for yonks, but aired at some disgusting hour in the morning, between Smurfs and Teletubbies on BBC2. But the general consensus was that the film was pretty good. I thought it was, just the right amount of freaky-magnetic-balding-comic book charm.
Unfortunately, someone noticed.
I don't know what order they came in, but others soon followed.
Spiderman - not too bad.
The Hulk - not too good. And why isn't he incredible anymore? He's still green, isn't he?
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - crimes against humanity!
Van Helsing - cheese with extra cheese on the side. Burn it now.
X-Men 2 - still good.
Spiderman 2 - seeing it tomorrow night.
Garfield - not the same kind of comic, but I doubt I'll be seeing it.
Daredevil - dear God.
Catwoman - after seeing Gothika, I don't think I could bring myself to see another Halle Berry movie.
Even going back a few years, there are ones like Judge Dredd, Batman in various incarnations, The Phantom and The Shadow. All vaguely recently, but not so close together as the most recent spate that started about what, 5 years ago?
Looking at a few in detail, let's take Spiderman. I only saw it for the first time the other day, and was quite impressed. Just enough naffness but the right sentiment with the good-vs-evil thing and the moral crises that you need. Cheesy lines, a scientist who goes crazy, and a spider. Voila!
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. If Alan Moore was dead, he'd be turning in his grave. People who hadn't read the comic thought it was alright, but those of us who had, were horrified. The characters were destroyed, the plot was over-simplified and everything was diivinely convenient. No more! Atrocity!
They seem to be very hit and miss. Watchmen, probably my favourite Alan Moore comic (at the moment at least, it changes regularly) is going to be made into a film, allegedly with the kind of love it needs. X-Men 3 is in some stage of production, and Neil Gaiman's Sandman is in talks as far as I know. It alarms me. Surely some things should be left as they are?
Comic book adaptations, like so many things, need to be done by people who genuinely care. Lord of the Rings was great, and one of the reasons was that Peter Jackson was so in love with the story. Marvel play a heavy role in their adaptations, which may explain why X-Men was so much better than George Clooney's rubber nips. It needs to be out of love, not because the film industry is running out of ideas, which may be one of the motives behind this all.
