Space opera has long been a staple in science fiction. Sprawling epics, from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars through Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers to Star Trek and Star Wars and the original Battlestar Galactica, where good and evil are easily determined and the stakes are high. Even if the heroes run into obstacles too much to overcome, they triumph in the end.
The past two decades have seen deconstruction of many forms of entertainment, taking the original works and applying a grim, gritty, realistic or semi-realistic filter and showing the results. The remade Battlestar Galactica is an excellent example of deconstruction. The original Galactica, despite the last survivors of the Colonies being on a ragtag fleet being hunted to extinction, left the viewer with optimism that humanity would survive. The remade Galactica, there was the question of who would finish off the fleet first, the Cylons or the humans.
With desconstruction comes reconstruction, the rebuilding of the tropes associated with the genre. In this case, Bioware’s Mass Effect series of video games. In 2007, Mass Effect introduced video gamers to a galaxy where humanity joins a large number of species already capable of faster than light travel. Planets and locations range from the high tech and political centre Citadel Station to frontier colonies like Eden Prime and hell holes like Omega. Into this, eldritch abominations return from beyond the galaxy, intent on destroying all life as part of a cycle of destruction.
Players took on the role of Commander Shepard, a special forces member of the human Systems Alliance Navy, as he or she* investigated an attack on the human colony of Eden Prime. As the investigation progressed, Shepard picks up an eclectic band of supporting characters, including a rogue Citadel Security officer, a homeless pilgrim, and a naive archaeologist, and learned about the threat to the galaxy being spearheaded by a rogue Citadel Council special operative.
The follow up games, Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 continue the investigation and fight against the abominations, even while Council doesn’t believe that there is a danger. Throughout the series, despite the threat, despite the inevitability of the abominations returning and succeeding, the hope exists that Shepard will prevail and unite the galaxy against the threat.
In 2012, Funimation**, in conjuction with T.O. Entertainment*** and Production I.G.**** released the animated feature Mass Effect: Paragon Lost. Part of the goal of the feature was to introduce a new playable character for Mass Effect 3 in case Shepard died during the gameplay of Mass Effect 2 while still succeeding with the mission. Another goal was to introduce the game to new players.
Paragon Lost follows Lieutenant James Vega, a marine in the Systems Alliance Navy, as he and his squad race in to protect Felh Prime from an attack by krogan mercenaries. Vega and his teammates show off the different classes available in the game without calling them out by name. Instead, the movie shows what each class does, and the abilities shown are possible in-game, even by Shepard with the right choice of class. The movie starts shortly after the beginning of Mass Effect 2 after the apparently loss of Commander Shepard, and takes place before the start of the real plot of the game. Through the course of the movie, Vega discovers the abominations and what the race known as the Collectors are doing and works to prevent a tragedy.
As an adaptation of a video game, Paragon Lost needs to be able to tell a good story within the framework of both the plot and the gameplay of the Mass Effect series. As seen with Battleship, getting how a game works into the visuals can be problematic. Working in the Paragon Lost‘s favour is having a common ground with the video game – both are visual. The special moves available to Shepard and his or her team are already shown on screen. Paragon Lost shows the viewer each class and what it can do easily enough, from the flashy to the subtle. The movie also shows the setting, giving a taste of the Mass Effect galaxy despite staying primarily on Fehl Prime.
The other major factor in the Mass Effect games is the effect of player choice. A decision made in the first game will return to haunt the player in the second and third. Movies, with the exception of Clue, tend to have just one ending. Interactive DVDs do exist, but are marketed more as games than movies. Paragon Lost, though, still manages to introduce the idea, giving Vega a critical decision and showing the viewer the ramifications of his choice, in a way that drives home the seriousness not only of the immediate results but the long term war to survive.
Next week, the legacy of early computer animation.
[Note: This is not the column I hinted at last week. That review is still coming.]
Nineteen forty-four was not a kind year to British citizens. World War II was still going on, and people living within airstrike distance of Germany had to deal with lengthy air raid drills. To help pass the time spent underground and take minds off the worry about what was happening on the surface, Anthony Pratt created a board game based on a murder mystery. After the war, he presented the game to Waddington’s, a British game publisher. Once the wartime shortages were dealt with, the game Cluedo*, known as Clue in North America on its release by Parker Brothers, was released.
The game millions have played since then involves trying to determine who killed Mr. Boddy with what and where by examining evidence at his mansion by going room to room. The murderer, location, and weapon are determined by dealing one of each type of card and setting them aside unseen. Players then move through the mansion, making suggestions in each room. Once a player is sure of who the murderer is, an accusation can be made. Murder weapons include a revolver, a candlestick, a lead pipe, a length of rope, a knife, or a wrench.
In 1985, Paramount released the movie Clue, based on the board game. The movie took the game play, then expanded it to provide motives for each of the characters. Each character was given the name of a token from the board game as well, explicitly called out as pseudonyms. With the movie set in 1954, Communism was a possible motive for several of the characters. Once the murder occurs, both the characters and the audience set off to figure out who killed Mr. Boddy. The clues are there, but the audience needs to pay attention and not get distracted by the double entendres, single entendres and puns. The cast worked well together, with comedic actors Martin Mull (Col. Mustard), Eileen Brennan (Mrs. Peacock), Madeleine Kahn (Mrs. White), Christopher Lloyd (Prof. Plum), and Michael McKean (Mr. Green), and other greats Lesley Ann Warren (Miss Scarlet) and Tim Curry (Wadsworth, the butler**). The movie was released with a gimmick – three endings were filmed, each to be sent to different theatres in the same city. The release didn’t help in the box office, with the movie underperforming and not making up the initial budget.
The movie did go to lengths to adapt the Clue‘s board as the setting. The rooms were laid out just like the board game, with the secret passages still available. The murder weapons, for the most part, resembled their counterparts in the game. The exception was the revolver, which was played by a modern era weapon instead of the pepperbox design in the game. As mentioned, all the suspects took on the names of the token in the game. One of the endings included the traditional line used when suggesting and accusing in game***.
As an adaptation, it works. The mansion has the right layout. The tokens are all there and now given personalities and motives for killing Mr. Boddy. Wadsworth keeps the “game play” moving, suggesting the characters split into pairs to investigate the mansion. Each of the murder weapons are used. Unfortunately, the gimmick may have led people to avoid the movie. Audiences tend to prefer a definite ending instead of a random one.
The movie is worth watching, especially since it did portray the game well. The writing is tight, with a cinematic nod to Edward Bulwer-Lytton****. Tim Curry is on top of his game, and the rest of the cast keeps up with him. Pay attention to the scenes and the lines. Just remember, like in two of the endings, that Communism is just a Red herring.
Next week, adaptation as a way to expand a setting.
* A play on words of the Latin “ludo”, meaning “I play”.
** He buttles.
*** To avoid spoilers, the form is “[Mr.|Miss|Mrs.] X, in the [room], with the [weapon].”
**** It was, indeed, a dark and stormy night.
The Avangers Adaptation continues! Previous entries are:
Iron Man
Thor
Captain America
This week, everyone’s favourite hero with anger management issues, the Incredible Hulk.
The Hulk first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1 back in 1962. As with many of Marvel’s early original heroes*, the Hulk was created by Stan Lee, with Jack Kirby. The origin had Dr. Bruce Banner, physicist, being at ground zero of a gamma bomb. Instead of dying, Banner absorbed the gamma rays, turning him into the Hulk. From that point on, whenever Banner was upset or angry, the Hulk would be released. Stan Lee has said that he invoked Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde along with Frankenstein with the character, noting that the Hulk, despite being the monster, was the hero. Although not an immediate hit**, the character guest starred in other Marvel titles and became a founding member of the Avengers, staying in The Avengers for the first two issues before leaving.
In 1978, CBS aired a television series, also called The Incredible Hulk based on the comic. Changes were made; Bill Bixby played Dr. David Bruce Banner, a name change required by executives. The gamma bomb accident because a lab accident that infused Banner with gamma radiation. The Hulk, played by Lou Ferrigno, had reporter Jack McGee chasing him, trying to find out the truth about the accident. The series ran five seasons, with three made-for-TV movies following.
Wait, you may be thinking, why mention the TV series when I haven’t done anything like this before? Isn’t this about the 2008 movie, The Incredible Hulk? Indeed it is, I say as I somehow read your mind. However, I continue, the TV series is important to keep in mind for the rest of the review.
The 2008 movie The Incredible Hulk was filmed by Marvel Studios as part of its Avengers Initiative, a series of movies leading up to the release of The Avengers. The Hulk, as mentioned above, was a founding member of the team, despite leaving after the second issue. Might be easy enough to gloss over; Avengers #1 is older than the target audience. Except, as seen with the other entries, the filmmakers are well aware of the history of the comics. The Hulk is, now, one of Marvel’s iconic characters, inspiring phrases such as “hulking out” and the source of, “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”***
The movie quickly shows the Hulk’s origin during the opening credtis, combining the one comic and the one from the TV series to have a super solider serum test go wrong. Banner was led to believe the serum was to help resist gamma radiation. General Ross, an old foe of the Hulk from the comic, had other ideas. The movie opens in Brazil, with Banner working at a factory while trying to research a cure. An industrial accident that leads to a Stan Lee cameo lets Ross know where Banner is hiding. Ross sends a special forces team, led Emil Blonski, to retrieve the hiding scientist. Suffice to say, they got Banner upset, and that never ends well for anyone.
While Banner returns to the US to get the original data from the project that turned him into the Hulk, Blonsky and Ross work together to create a weapon capable of going toe-to-toe with the green monster. Blonski volunteers to under go the super soldier treatment, foreshadowing the events of Captain America. The first fight between Blonski and the Hulk, at a college campus, leads to Blonski recuperating in the hospital with every bone broken, but healing fast. The fight was also recorded by a jounalism student with the last name McGee.
The movie continues, using Blonski as a mirror to Banner. As Banner works to get rid of the Hulk, Blonski works to embrace the monster within, eventually becoming the Abomination. The difference between the two gamma radiated monsters is that Blonski kept his intelligence. Where the Hulk is raw, brute strength and fury, Blonski keeps his skills, losing a little in raw power.
The movie itself draws from the Hulk’s forty year comic history and the television series, blending the two. Edward Norton, who played Banner, looked a lot like the late Bill Bixby, even down to mannerisms as Bruce. Lou Ferrigno not only has a cameo as a security guard, but is also the voice of the Hulk. The journalism student mentioned is a shout out to Jack McGee of the TV series. Audience members who know the hulk solely through the TV series would not be lost. The influence of the TV series brought me to a question that I hadn’t considered before; that is, “Is there such a thing as an adaptation that is more influential than the original work?”
The Incredible Hulk also had to deal with history progressing since 1962. Originally, Blonski was a KGB agent. With the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the de-Sovietization of Russia, having a KGB agent would stick out. Turning Blonski into the English-born son of Russian immigrants on loan from the UK to the US brings the character into the 21st century. Likewise, the gamma bomb became a lab accident; the push to out-arm the Soviets also disappeared with the end of the Cold War. While the US does maintain a stockpile, the need to increase the number of warheads has dropped greatly. The movie updates the Hulk mythos nicely, telling an archetypical Hulk story with a current setting.
Next week, expanding a setting through an adaptation.
* As in, not the ones originally created my Marvel’s predecessor, Timely
** The Incredible Hulk, volume 1 lasted six issues.
*** Originally from the TV series, in the opening credits.
Apologies for the disappearance. Lost in Translation will return next week with a look at The Incredible Hulk. I’m also taking the time to watch a few more movies to prime the pump after The Avengers Adaptation.
While getting prepped for the The Avengers review*, a small detail kept drawing my attention. It came up in Iron Man, and continued through each entry of the Avengers Initiative. It’s the setting. Not just Tony Stark’s lab or SHIELD’s headquarters, but the entire universe.
Let me backtrack a bit to explain. Most major comic publisher has its own universe where their heroes live, work, and fight crime. DC’s universe includes fictional cities like Metropolis and Gotham City and fictional countries like Qurac. Marvel doesn’t go for the fictional city, but does have its own fictional countries, like Doom’s Latveria and Silver Sable’s Symkaria. This allows the various characters and titles to crossover and guest star as needed, and leads to team books like Justice League of America (bringing together DC’s iconic characters into one book), Teen Titans (for DC’s sidekicks), and The Avengers (Marvel’s Justice League equivalent.) Image, even though each book is its own universe, does allow its published characters to appear in other characters’ titles, in a form of metaverse**. Over time, as storylines grow and wrap up, as characters are introduced and interact, as villains come and go, each title’s history starts getting complex. Add in the various guest appearances by characters from other titles, and the complexity starts looking like the family tree of European Royalty***. It makes for difficulties to jump in on a title. It also makes for difficulties when adapting.
The first problem with a large universe is licensing. Marvel has had this problem more than DC over the past fifteen years. DC has the advantage of being owned by Warner Brothers, with their main universe titles being released by Warner. Since 1998, Marvel has seen their characters and titles licensed out to New Line Cinema (the Blade series), 20th Century Fox (X-Men and related characters, Daredevil, Elektra, the Fantastic Four movies), Columbia (the Spider-Man series including the reboot The Amazing Spider-Man, the Ghost Rider movies), Universal (the 2003 Hulk), Lionsgate (the Punisher series, Man-Thing), and Marvel Studios (all movies leading to The Avengers). Several things stand out. First up, the Punisher. The Punisher first appeared in a Spider-Man book, then guest starred with other Marvel notables such as Captain America (an Avenger) and Nightcrawler (an X-Man), before making regular appearances in Daredevil and then getting his own title. With the licensing, the Punisher isn’t easily available in any movie with the heroes mentioned. Likewise, Daredevil and Spider-Man share a few opponents, notably the Kingpin, and are based in the same city, New York. Fortunately, New York is big enough that it’s feasible to believe they won’t cross paths often. The excuse will work for movies due to the time between releases.
The next problem is the sheer weight of history. Superman has been published continuously since 1938. That’s seventy-five years worth of stories, continuity, characters, situations, and other dross. Batman dates from 1939. Wonder Woman from 1941. Marvel has characters that predate Marvel, coming in from Timely. Even Spider-Man dates from 1962, over forty years. Some characters even have multiple books. While origin stories may get repetitive, they have the benefit of having the audience come in as a blank slate with no prior knowledge of the character. A movie about a team of diverse heroes, like the Justice League or the Avengers, though, doesn’t have the time to show each team member’s origin and still deal with the central plot. Even in a movie where all the characters gained powers through the same source, like X-Men, there’s a good chance of an outlier (in X-Men‘s case, Wolverine) who has something more happening in his backstory. The X-Men franchise also has the anti-mutant hysteria to add in its setup.
What can the adapting studio do? One way is to just focus on the character and ignore everything else in the universe. This approach works best when the character being adapted doesn’t appear in the same circles as the rest of the universe. The approach also works when the character is best known for the type of story being told. Spider-Man is perfect for a story that’s personal, close to home, or deals with problems that are local to New York. Same thing with Daredevil and Batman. At the other end of the scale, dealing with would-be world conquerors is in line with Superman, the Justice League****, and the Avengers.
Another way is to take in everything from the character’s books, then pick and choose what to keep. This is essentially what happened with X-Men and the Avengers Initiative. It doesn’t hurt that Marvel once split the editorial tasks by group, two of which were the X-Titles and the Avenger titles. The areas are, for the most part, self-contained except for the annual all-title crossover events. Need a villain from Thor to menace the Avengers? No problem! Need a classic Wolverine opponent to act as muscle for Magneto? Easy as pie! The adapting studio has access to a broad range of characters and situations and doesn’t have to worry about having to fill in that man-sized spider hole in the cast.
Then there’s branching off from the main universe to create a new one for the medium. The adapting studio gets the details it needs, the characters it needs, and then branches away at some point, creating its own continuity parallel to the main body. There may be events that are shared, events that are similar, but the two continuities are separate entities. The best example is the Dini-verse, also known as the Timm-verse+, which spun off from the main DC comic continuity as cartoons. The Dini-verse is responsible for the creation of a tragic background for the Bat-villain, Mr. Freeze, and the introduction of Renee Montoya and Harley Quinn into the regular continuity. The Avengers Initiative is doing something similar. In the main Marvel continuity, Iron Man is seen as Tony Stark’s employee and bodyguard. In the movie, Stark just came out and said it; his ego wouldn’t let a lie steal the spotlight.
And there’s the reason for this long aside. The Avengers Initiative are wonderfully done movies, getting the feel of the characters right, but getting some minor but critical details (like Iron Man having a secret identity) wrong. I don’t want to deal with the, “Wait, no, that’s not accurate!” moments while watching an amazing scene. There’s enough small details to show that Marvel’s movie continuity is separate from the main comic line’s. I am acknowledging it here so I can properly watch the movies without having to note discrepancies that don’t make a difference to the scene but do when it comes to continuity.
Next time, the penultimate Avengers Adaptation entry.
Correction: Last week’s Lost in Translation was listed as number 52 when it should have been number 53 instead.
* That is, watching the movies and reading the comics.
** The authors maintain control of their books, and discrepancies are written off as how the character perceived the crossover.
*** Not so much a family tree as a family tumbleweed.
**** Especially if people forget that Batman is a member.
***** My argument really breaks down when people remember that Spider-Man is an Avenger, too. But teamwork can let even the weakest heroes combine to defeat the worst villain around.
+ Named after Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, the showrunners for the DC animated universe starting from Batman: The Aninated Series through to Justice League Unlimited.
