Murder mystery movies have a fine line when it comes to casting.  When a big name is attached to the movie and isn’t the investigator, chances are that the person is the murderer, spoiling the reveal during the opening credits.  There are ways around the problem.  One is to have the big name be the murder victim, but that means spending a large chunk of budget on a role that appears for the first act.  Another approach, the one used by Columbo, is to show the murder.  The dynamic changes.  The drama comes from wanting to see how the detective solves the crime.

The character of Columbo was created by Richard Levinson and William Link, originally for the anthology series, The Chevy Mystery Show, in 1960, adapted from a short story the creators wrote for Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine  Levinson and Link then adapted the episode for stage in 1962.  The Detective Lieutenant Columbo people are familiar with reappeared on television in 1968 with Prescription Murder, based on the stage play.  Peter Falk, who played Detective Lieutenant Columbo in every movie since then, was not the first choice to play the role, but he convinced the creators he could be the character.

Prescription Murder did well enough as a one-off movie that NBC requested a pilot for a potential TV series.  The resulting movie, Ransom for a Dead Man, was also successful.  Columbo became part of the rotating NBC Mystery Movie line up along with McCloud, MacMillan and Wife, and Hec Ramsey  The rotation allowed each part of the line up to spend the time needed without rushing, adding to the quality of each show.  Falk won an Emmy for his portrayal of Columbo in the show’s first season, showing the benefit of the extra time.

Columbo ran until 1979 on NBC, then was revived on ABC as part of the ABC Mystery Movie line up in 1989, running until 2003.  Peter Falk’s health prevented a 2007 Columbo movie from being made.  Over the course of the series, most episodes followed a set format.  The first act showed the murder and the murderer.  Once the body was discovered and the police called in, Columbo would investigate the crime scene, looking at it at different angles, trying to find that one clue.  The rest of the episode followed Columbo’s investigation, including his persistant questioning of his main suspect.  The questioning was always done in a friendly manner, and never was directly about the murder.  Instead, Columbo would ask about details about daily routines, about the victim, about the suspect’s job.  Eventually, Columbo would find that one tidbit that would confirm beyond a doubt that his suspect was the murderer.  The writers also played fair; all the details would be available and shown on screen.  There was never a hidden clue pulled out from nowhere.

The heart of the series was always Peter Falk’s portrayal of Columbo.  Falk provided much of Columbo’s wardrobe and ad libbed many of the detective-lieutenant’s mannerisms, including feeling through his rumpled raincoat for a pencil.  Columbo is a friendly, unassuming man with an eye for detail and a quick mind.  He loves his wife and his adopted Bassett hound and owns a one-of-a-kind car* that is much like him.  At the same time, Columbo has no problem with misleading a subject, though never to the point of creating evidence.  Staging a bicycle accident or using subliminal images to find the last piece of the puzzle, however, are just some of Columbo’s tactics.  Columbo also went against the grain compared to other investigators of the era; with three exceptions, he never carried a gun.  Two of the exceptions, No Time to Die and Undercover, were based on stories by Ed McBain.  The third exception, and the only time Columbo has been seen shooting a gun, was Troubled Waters, where he fired a gun into a mattress for ballistics testing.

As mentioned, the special guest starts were usually the murderer.  The interaction between Falk as Columbo and the guest stars resulted in many memorable scenes.  Among the guest stars were Faye Dunaway, William Shatner (twice), Jack Cassidy (three times), Patrick McGoohan (four appearances and directed five episodes), and Robert Culp (four appearances, three times as the murderer).  Identity Crisis, which not only featured McGoohan’s second guest appearance but also had him directing, was the closest to being a Columbo/The Prisoner cross-over**, with Lt. Columbo and Number Six trying to outwit each other.

In 1979, Fred Silverman was looking for a replacement movie in the Myster Movie line up.  Silverman commissioned the spin-off Mrs. Columbo despite protests coming from Columbo creators Levinson and Link and from Falk.  Silverman wanted to keep the Columbo name, if not the rest of the show.  The opening credits formed the connection to Columbo, showing the Columbo’s distinctive car and distinctive dog along with ashtrays filled with cigar ash.  The episodes, though, never showed Columbo, focusing on Mrs. Columbo, played by Kate Mulgrew, who would go on to play Captain Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager.

Mrs. Columbo lasted one season and went through several name changes over thirteen episode.  The series became Kate Columbo, then Kate the Detective, and, finally, Kate Loves a Mystery.  Along the way, Kate’s last name became Callahan, explained as the character having gone through a divorce.  The series followed the same format as Columbo, having well known guest stars as the murderer and showing the murder at the beginning.  Kate worked at a small weekly newspaper as a columnist, which would lead her to getting involved in several mysteries.  The first regular episode, “Murder is a Parlor Game”, guest starring Donald Pleasence (Blofeld, You Only Live Twice) and Ian Abercrombie (voice of Palpatine, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, among many other roles) had Kate get involved after she met retired Scotland Yard investigator Morly (Pleasence).

Mrs. Columbo, as a series, suffered from being a spin-off, an unpopular one to boot.  While Mrs. Columbo was never seen in any episode of Columbo, the lieutenant spoke often and fondly of her.  Kate Mulgrew was far too young to play Columbo’s wife; other details in Mrs. Columbo contradicted what was revealed by Lieutenant Columbo.  The expectations that were set by being a Columbo spin-off were too high to be met.  Mrs. Columbo was an obvious attempt to cash in on a familiar name and could have thrived without being attached to the earlier series.  However, executive meddling by Fred Silverman set up the connection.  The cast and crew did what they could.  By the time the series found its feet, it was too late.

What Mrs. Columbo did show was that the approach to murder mysteries that Columbo took could work with other characters.  A series that did use the approach would have to ensure that the investigator was his or her own person and not an attempt to mimic Falk’s character.  Mrs. Columbo did have the advantage of flipping the investigator’s gender.  In short, the series was handicapped by the connection and would have been better served by being its own entity instead of a spin-off.

Just one more thing.  Some time back, I mentioned that Columbo would be a series that could never be remade.  Without Peter Falk, it just wouldn’t be Columbo.  He created so much of what endeared the detective to the audience through his ad libs that anyone else would be a pale imitation.  Mrs. Columbo tried to bottle that lightning by riding the rumpled coattails, but there are spiritual successors.  The Mentalist and Monk are both contenders.  With a bit of effort, Mrs. Columbo could have been one, too.

* Columbo’s car is a 1959 Peugeot 403 Cabriolet two-door convertible.  Only five hundred and four were made by that year.  Peter Falk found the car that would become Columbo’s on the Universal back lot and decided it would be ideal.  The car is as much a classic as Columbo.
** Also guest starring was Leslie Nielsen as the murder victim.  Detective Lieutenant Columbo, meet Sergeant Frank Drebin, Detective Lieutenant, Police Squad

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

We’ve been discussing conflict as of late, from psychology to how speed (or lack of it) affects conflict. But conflicts inevitably end, if only because they become something else or because everyone involved ends up sort of dead. So what happens afterwards? What happens when conflict ends?

That’s going to happen in your world. In fact, the end of conflict may define the end of a tale you tell in your world – or be the start of one. It may involve many fine details you need to consider.  Smoking aftermaths tend to be more work than actually causing them, worldbuilding-wise.

So we have to ask – what comes after.

But first, I want to address what Conflict means for worldbuilding – because it has a place. (more…)

A slow round up this time around, but it covers two major reboots/continuations.

More on the Twin Peaks revival.
The return of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks on Showcase is looking more and more like a continuation of the original series.  Kyle MacLachlan is returning as Agent Dale Cooper.  Sheryl Lee and Dana Ashbrook are returning, the former portrayed both Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson, the latter played Bobby Briggs.  With any other creator, I’d just say that the series was coming back.  With David Lynch, I’m expecting loose ends from the original series that were well hidden to be brought back out.

X-Files gets a reboot.
Fox has confirmed that the X-Files will be rebooted.  David Duchovny (Agent Fox Mulder) is interested, provided that Gillian Anderson (Agent Dana Scully) is also on board, but in a limited form.  Anderson is also interested, provided that Duchovny and series creator Chris Carter are involved.  Fox wants Carter involved.  The main snag is finding when all three are available at the same time.  Anderson and Duchovny are both working on other shows at the moment.

X-Men: Apocalypse casting announced.
Sophie Turner, Tye Sheridan, and Alexander Shipp have been announced for the cast of the next X-Men movie.  Turner, who plays Sansa Stark on A Game of Thrones, will play Jean Grey.  Shipp will portray Storm and Sheridan will play Cyclops.

Sometimes, conflicts and social breakdowns are all about speed. In fact I’d argue they’re all too often about speed – fast or slow.

• That sudden change can be too sudden, and society falls apart. An invasion, a plague, a social breakdown can be damaging because they’re so damn fast.
• Or you have a slow change is so slow that people adapt automatically and don’t even know there’s potential conflict brewing. Sure there’s technically a plague, but its spreading so slow (or slowed down by modern technology) no one ever realized they were courting an apocalypse.  Conflict averted and you never knew it.
• That character who jumps to conclusions makes situations work.
• That character who takes things slow doesn’t address problems in time, and conflict is born.

When it comes to conflict in your world, you have to ask how fast and how slow things are happening. In fact, speed – or the lack of it – may be the only reason a conflict exists. Too often people ignore solutions or go outright Leroy Jenkins on a problem and help assist the apocalypse.

So when you’re writing about the conflicts in your world you have to ask just how fast events are happening and how rapidly people are reacting. That determines what happens, or even if there is a conflict. You might even find, once you think about it, that there’s conflicts you never noticed in the societies you made all because of speed . . .

Here’s what to ask when it comes to speed and conflicts. (more…)

1. Magic means that everyone is armed

You may recall that there is something of a debate going on in America about gun control. Imagine that this couldn’t even be a debate. Everybody had laser eyes and a third arm with rocket-propelled knife fingers. You could, conceivably, rip those eyes out and amputate that arm, but a lot of people would complain about that and you’d have a much harder time justifying it. Especially since this wouldn’t be seen as an abnormal state of affairs. (more…)

Last month, I introduced a new feature here at Lost in Translation, the Adaptation Fix-It Shop, where I try to salvage works that so missed the mark that audiences start wondering what was really being adapted.  This month, I bring Battleship into drydock.

Battleship had major problems from the outset.  The movie was a victim of the Save the Cat approach to scripts that the check boxes were visible onscreen.  The director did make some attempts to link the movie to the game with the alien shells given the shape of the pegs used and the grid calling.  The core problem with the movie starts with the script*.  There are several good ideas in the movie that just get pushed aside because studios either can’t or won’t take the risk of a film that doesn’t follow Save the Cat.

In a discussion with other Crossroads Alpha contributors, a couple of ideas came up on how to adapt Battleship, the game.  The first was to go the route of The LEGO Movie.  The movie would look like a dumb version of a war movie, with the ships looking the way they do in the game.  The reveal in the last third of the movie is that everything up to that point was a game between two brothers, older and younger.  The tactics of one side, being blatant and wrong, is just the kid brother not having the experience that the older one has with the game.

The second Battleship idea built on top of the above.  Instead of two brothers playing, it would be a game between a navy vet and his young grandson.  As the vet tells his stories of service, the young boy imagines them in terms of the game and other toys.  The movie would be about how the characters bond over the game and how a young child uses what he knows, in this case, the game and his other toys, to try to understand the grown-up world.

Both of the above ideas make use of the game as the basis of the adaptation.  In the first, the game is in the background, hinted at until the reveal.  The second uses the game first as a narrative frame and then as the action.  Both ideas could still use the pegs as the shells fired by the ships’ guns and as torpedoes.  The resulting movie would be far ahead of what was made and could easily be done using Battleship‘s $200 million budget.

With the concept of adapting the game of Battleship not just possible but capable of thriving, what do we do with what was released?  Tossing away $200 million, even in a hypothetical situation, is never a good idea.  Is there anything in the movie that can be salvaged before we scupper the film and turn it into a coral reef?

There were several great ideas lost in Battleship.  Let’s start with the premise of the film as released – an alien invasion needs to be stopped and the only ship capable of doing so is a World War II era battleship, either due to the older technology or having guns powerful enough to penetrate the alien hulls.  Ignoring that I’ve just described the Battlestar Galactica remake**, the idea of a veteran being brought out of retirement for one last mission is a common theme in fiction.  In this case, it’s possible to keep the designated screw-up, as required by Save the Cat in the story, but the USS Missouri needs to be brought in far sooner than the last quarter of the movie.  The titular ship should not be treated as a Chekhov’s 16″ gun.  There’s enough potential drama having the Missouri‘s crew teaching the young screw-up about naval tactics and a cat-and-mouse hunt in the Pacific that introducing and then killing off the screw-up’s older brother/mentor is unnecessary.  If the new movie is to continue to be an adaptation of the game, have the battleship take command of a small fleet of survivors that include a small patrol or torpedo boat, a destroyer or frigate, a submarine, and an aircraft carrier.  The extra ships don’t need to be that involved, but the aircraft carrier could send out planes for reconnaissance.

The alien invasion in Battleship showed signs of being thought out by scriptwriters.  There seemed to be at least one invader working against his fellows, helping the humans.  There was a colour difference, red instead of purple, and the alien looked directly at scientist Cal Zapata, played by Hamish Linklater, but did nothing to stop him.  This may have been the remnant of a plotline butchered by a Save the Cat rewrite.  The problem is that a movie doesn’t have enough time available to flesh out this subplot.  Battleship spends little time on the aliens, something that kept the invaders as a menace.  Having intra-invader conflict, though, becomes opaque; the audience doesn’t have enough information to go on because of how little time is spent with the aliens.  Rectifying the problem means changing to a format that supports a longer narrative arc, such as television or comics.  Combining this plot arc with the bringing from retirement arc described above does a disservice to both.  The focus of a Battleship adaptation should be on the battleship.  Switching over to the aliens draws attention away from where it should be.  Thus, for the alien invasion with internal conflict, the story should be its own, with humanity fighting and working to make allies with the opposing alien faction.

Finally, the greatest waste in the move Battleship was the subplot featuring Lt. Colonel Mick Canales, played by Colonel Gregory D. Gadson.  Col. Gadson is on active duty with the US Army, having served in several wars, including Operation Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  He lost both legs below the knee in 2007 when a roadside bomb exploded in Baghdad.  Lt. Col. Canales’ character arc involved getting used to having lost his legs.  When the alien invasion begins, Canales takes two civilians with him to obtain needed gear.  The idea of an injured war vet returning to duty despite his injuries deserves its own film.  This time, instead of being a supporting subplot, the wounded vet takes charge of a resistance cell, becoming the focus.  The idea could work both as a movie and as a longer format, again, like television.  If a TV series, the show could combine this element with the alien in-fighting element above without losing focus on either.  The cell could and should discover that the aliens aren’t monolithic and do have a weakness.

From one leaking scrap heap of a movie, five potential great stories can be made.  If there’s a lesson, it’s this:  Even the most disappointing release can have nuggets that can form the core of something great.

* Not necessarily the scriptwriter.  Writers are seeing more and more changes done to their work to the point where the final product is nothing like the original script, but, due to Writers Guild regulations, they can’t have their names removed.
** The movie’s USS Missouri had a few things in common with the Galactica at the beginning of the remake mini-series, including being a museum crewed by her original crew and having technology that wasn’t hackable by modern methods.  If the game had been called Carrier and the movie featured the USS Hornet, Universal could have grounds for a lawsuit against itself.

Hey gang, taking a break for a week on Way With Worlds.  Work’s hammered me (work does pile up over the holidays), other things piled up, and I’m taking a bit of time to tweak the speed on the Sanctum.  NaNo and the holidays brought in a lot of new users (like, 15% to 33% more) and I noticed some periods of slowdown in the morning.  I think the new cacheing worked, but I might try a different server setup.

Thanks for understanding!

 
Respectfully,

– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/.

The adapting of comics to television and motion pictures has more pitfalls than expected.  While all three are visual media, the artwork in comics allows for a greater range of imagery that budget and physical restrictions disallow in movies and on TV.  A laser beam is easily drawn, inked, and coloured on the page; on screen, that same blast takes longer to add, with multiple frames drawn on and edited.  Something along the lines of Jack Kirby’s dots are prohibitive without the advents of modern CGI.

Adding to just the difficulty of adapting the visuals of powers is the sheer mass of continuity, some of it conflicting with itself.  Marvel has fifty years of Spider-Man stories establishing the character and the setting.  DC Comics, the older of the Big Two, has over seventy-five years of Superman* stories, with the added bonus of continuity being an afterthought during the Golden Age.  Adapting a character may mean sifting through the years of issues to find the hero’s essence.

With Wonder Woman, there are other elements that come into play.  Her creator, William Moulton Marston, had ideas he wanted to present in the title.  Working under the penname Charles Moulton, Marston created Wonder Woman to offset the more violent titles featuring male heroes like Superman and Batman.  Instead of pummeling a miscreant into submission, Wonder Woman would use love to put the villain back on the path of good.  To emphasize the different approach, Wonder Woman came from Paradise Island, populated by just women, where they were able to advance technology and philosophy because the the threat of violence was non-existent.  The early run of the title explored bondage and submission; defeated villains would be bound by the golden Lasso of Truth and submit to Wonder Woman, only to be released reformed.  Comics Bulletin has more about Moulton in a review of The Secret History of Wonder Woman.

With the first appearance in late 1941 and the first issue of the title released in 1942, Nazis appeared often as the villain.  Wartime comics were used as propaganda, keeping American morale up while warning of the dangers of the Axis.  The war intruded on Paradise Island when a plane piloted by Steve Trevor, an American intelligence officer, crashed on it.  While the women on the island were not keen on getting involved in the man’s war, Wonder Woman, then just Princess Diana of Paradise Island, fell in love with Trevor.  She earned the right to take him back to the US, competing against other athletes in disguise.  Diana received the Lasso of Truth and magic bracelets that would let her deflect bullets.  In the US, Diana took on two new identities, the first being the superheroine Wonder Woman, the other being Diana Prince, assistant to Steve Trevor.

As time passed, Wonder Woman stopped fighting Nazis and started dealing with criminals and other would-be world conquerors, always using love instead of fists as her weapon of choice.  In the Sixties, the title ran into sagging sales.  To bolster readership, the character lost her powers, becoming secret agent Diana Prince, who used her head and heart to investigate.  By the end of the decade, though, feminists were demanding that Wonder Woman get her powers back.  Wonder Woman had become a feminist icon.

In the Seventies, ABC was looking for a new series.  The network ordered a pilot for Wonder Woman, a ninety minute movie starring Lynda Carter as the heroine and Lyle Waggoner as Major Steve Trevor.  The creators went back to the early years of the comic and set the movie during World War II.  Maj. Trevor was assigned to a mission to stop a new Nazi bomber from destroying a secret base.  Ultimately, Maj. Trevor rammed his fighter into the Nazi craft.  Both pilots bailed out before the collision, leading to a gunfight while parachuting that left Maj. Trevor critically wounded and the Nazi pilot landing amidst sharks.

Maj. Trevor was more fortunate where he landed, an uncharted island in the Bermuda Triangle known by its inhabitants as Paradise Island.  Two women spot the parachute and run to investigate.  One of the women, Princess Diana, picks up the wounded pilot and rushes him to the island’s hospital where he is nursed back to health.  While Maj. Trevor is never allowed to see his surroundings, Diana does what she can to spend time with him.  As the Major heals, the Queen announces a competition to see who accompanies the American back to Washington.  Diana is forbidden to enter the contest, but she does so using a disguise.  The final event, Bullets and Bracelets, is down to two women, one being the disguised princess.  Diana wins after she wounds her opponent without being touched by any of her shots.  She reveals herself to her mother, who reluctantly lets her go.

Diana receives her costumes, her Lasso of Truth, her bracelets, and a belt that allows her to keep her strength and speed in the man’s world away from Paradise Island.  She takes Maj. Trevor back to Washington in her invisible plane, leaving him at a hospital before disappearing.  As she walks around the city, Diana and her costume attracts attention from both men and women.  Diana is unfamiliar with the customs outside Paradise Island but is unfazed.  During her exploration of Washington, she stops a bank robbery, through deflecting bullets, tossing the robbers, then picking up the back of the getaway car, all insight of a promoter, played by Red Buttons.  The promoter makes Diana an offer, she performs on stage and she gets half the ticket sales.  Not knowing better, Diana agrees.

The show is very much vaudeville.  Diana is billed as Wonder Woman, capable of stopping any bullet.  A number of people line up to take shots, from a revolver to a rifle to an old woman with a Tommy gun.  Diana blocks every shot.  Having earned enough money to get clothes and her own apartment in the one show, Diana leaves showbiz and returns to helping Maj. Trevor.  The Nazi plot to destroy the secret base is still going.  A second bomber has been sent, and there are Nazi agents even at the offices of Air Force intelligence.  Diana also infiltrates the offices, posing as Petty Officer First Class Diana Prince, all the better to keep an eye on Maj. Trevor.

For Steve Trevor, his return to the US was a shock.  He had been declared missing, presumed dead, after the collision in the Bermuda Triangle.  No wreckage of his plane was recovered.  His return meant that the defense of the base was still possible.  The Nazi agent is also surprised by his return, having mourned him with the general.  The Nazis kidnap Maj. Trevor, forcing Wonder Woman to rescue him.  She is unsurprised to see the promoter; Diana had suspected something was out of place when an older woman with a machine gun showed up at the show.  A shoot out starts, but the promoter is well aware of how effective shooting Wonder Woman is.  Diana frees Steve and gets the identity of the Nazi infiltrator after using the Lasso of Truth.  Back at the OSS offices, the Nazi tries fighting Wonder Woman, but loses.  The second bomber is stopped by Maj. Trevor and the secret base is saved.

The pilot did well enough in the ratings for ABC to pick up the series.  Etta Candy, one of the comic’s supporting cast, is introduced as a corporal, subordinate to Diana.  Etta, played by Beatrice Colen, was a contrast to Diana and was a more representative woman of the era.  Wonder Woman still faced Nazis, but also some domestic threats.  The cost of keeping the series in the Forties led ABC to drop the show at the end of the season.  CBS, though, was willing to pick it up, with changes.  The second season brought Wonder Woman to the today of 1977.  The first episode of the season starts with Diana back on Paradise Island after the end of WWII.  Overhead, a private jet with Inter-Agency Defense Command agents has been infiltrated, with the hijacker unable to keep his gas mask on during a fight with Steve Trevor, Jr, played by Lyle Waggoner.  The plane starts to crash in the Bermuda Triangle, but women operating a magnetic field bring the craft down safely.  Diana is again the first to board the craft, where she sees Steve.  After the war, Maj. Trevor found someone else and had a son who grew up to look just like him.  Everyone is healed up, and Diana earns the right to follow the plane in her invisible jet after another Bullets and Bracelets contest.

Diana again must adjust to life in Washington.  Fashion has again changed, as have prices.  This time, though, she’s prepared.  Her mother, the Queen, gave her some vintage, undamaged drachmas, which Diana is able to sell for a good price.  Diana is quick to learn computer programming and adds new data to I.R.A.C., the Information Retrieval Associative Computer, that creates a background for Diana Prince.  Most of the opponents Wonder Woman faces come from Diana’s job at the IADC, though she also has to deal with aliens and telepaths.  Through it, Wonder Woman still tries to turn people around from their wrong-doing ways, but will fight if she must.

Season one of Wonder Woman took its lead from the early comics.  Season two and three took some ideas from when Diana lost her powers and became a spy, but let her keep her powers, with some Seventies-specific ideas, like ESP, added.  At the time, concerns about television violence and repeatable stunts were making the rounds, forcing Wonder Woman to find a way to stop an opponent without throwing a punch.  That requirement worked out well, though.  Wonder Woman went from punching to throwing, using a judo-like maneuver.  Martial arts like judo and aikido are known as soft arts, using the opponent’s energy against him, fitting in with Wonder Woman’s original concept as envisioned by Marston.

Casting was key.  Lynda Carter was ideal to play Wonder Woman.  Beyond just looking like the character, Carter had the poise and confidence in the costume to be Wonder Woman.  She performed feats of strength while looking like she wasn’t making an effort, but when effort was needed, she showed it.  Wonder Woman wasn’t confident because she was sexy; she was sexy because of her confidence, and Carter portrayed that aspect well.  For Maj. Steve Trevor, Lyle Waggoner may not have looked like him, but he was comfortable enough with his masculinity to be the damsel in distress of the series.  Waggoner had been on The Carol Burnett Show and, prior to that, appeared as the first nude centerfold for Playgirl.  Sex appeal and a sense of humour, both needed for the role.

As mentioned above, the key to a good adaptation of a comic is the ability to find the essence of the character or characters and bring them out on screen.  With Wonder Woman, the TV series did that.  Casting, as mentioned above, helped.  Gender-flipping the hero/damsel dynamic emphasized Wonder Woman as the superheroine.  Lynda Carter’s poise and confidence mirrored that of the character in the comic.  The creators went out of their way to make sure that the source was honoured.  Many of Wonder Woman’s opponents in the TV series were also women; if they weren’t in charge, they were the mastermind.  The introduction of Wonder Girl, played by Debra Winger**, in the first season let the series show how well Diana adjusted to living in the man’s world.  Even after the time and network jump, Diana kept her confidence and was allowed to do more investigating in her secret identity, only changing to Wonder Woman when needed.

The TV series became influential on the comic.  Before the show aired, Wonder Woman changed clothes in two different ways.  Originally, she just took off the top layer, revealing the costume underneath, much like Clark Kent changed into Superman in a phone booth.  As the title continued, Diana would twirl her lasso, which would change her clothes for her.  That method, though, would require a level of special effects not available yet in the Seventies.  Instead, the creators came up with the idea of Diana twirling, using a platform.  Carter suggested that she just twirl herself, taking advantage of her dance training.  At first the twirling showed her clothes coming off, but to save time and money, an explosion of light marked the change from Diana to Wonder Woman.  This twirl was then adapted by the comic.

The other influence was on artists such as Phil Jimenez and Alex Ross, who had watched the show when it was ion the air.  Jimenez, in his last issue on the title in 2003, managed to get permission to use Lynda Carter’s likeness as Wonder Woman and as Diana.  DC Comics has also released Wonder Woman 77, a continuation of the TV series.  The Wonder Woman series caught the core essence of the comic and of the character.

Next week, the Adaptation Fix-It Shop looks at Battleship.  Can the movie be salvaged?

* Action Comics #1 was released July 1938.
** The same Debra Winger who would go on to be nominated for an Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman, Terms of Endearment, and Shadowlands, among other awards.  Her version of Wonder Girl was Diana’s younger sister, Druscilla, created by Dru to hide her identity from the Nazis.  The Nazis, though, confused her with Wonder Woman.  In the comics, Wonder Girl was, first, just a teenaged version of Diana, and later a mantle taken up by Donna Troy and Cassie Sandsmark.

(Way With Worlds is a weekly column on the art of worldbuilding published at Seventh Sanctum, Muse Hack, and Ongoing Worlds)

Last column I covered bias and bigotry in the settings you’re developing. Not a pleasant subject, but one that’s important because believable characters have their biases and often their bigotries – just as we do.

To summarize my handy rules-to-remember on the subject:

1. Everyone has Opinions.
2. When opinions “solidify” they become Biases.
3. When Biases become part of our identity they become Bigotries, sort of black holes of ideals that suck other things in.

Now when bigotries seize control of an individual, a group, a nation, or a galactic confederation, that can lead to outright campaigns against various people. Attempts to extermiate, subjugate, control, or drive out an entire identifiable group. In short, persecutions.

Which is the unpleasant subject of today’s column.

Persecution is a common theme in many works, as it is (sadly) part of the human experience and human regrets. However persecution is also a word and an idea thrown around too easily, so we don’t often think about persecutions in detail when worldbuilding. It’s easy to genericize it, to stereotype it, asopposed to dealing with it as what it is – an unpleasant but near-living thing.

Let me note, again, I am discussing the behavior of humans and human-alike creatures. So other races you create may behavie differently – maybe the Dwarves of Lavabarrow* have a semi-hive mind that makes them integrate with any society or something.  That’s up to you.

With that being said, let’s ask just what is persecution in a setting? (more…)

Harry Potter, Night Watch, The Dresden Files… There are more than a few worlds with a society of wizards hiding in the shadows. Throw in masquerades of any supernatural sort, not just wizards, and you have most of the urban fantasy genre. (more…)