News has come out about a Tetris movie adaptation. A joint Sino-American production, the budget is reported as $80 million, far less than the typical blockbuster. Yet, the question remains.
Tetris? Really?
For those unfamiliar with Tetris, the goal is to rotate falling blocks of varying shapes into position to clear lines, with the best scores coming from clearing four lines at once. The game combines hand-eye coordination with spatial recognition. There is no cast of characters, no plot, just falling blocks. Yet, according to the report, the Tetris movie will be an “epic sci-fi thriller”. Does this mean the characters in the movie have to discover the source of falling blocks that cause city blocks to completely disappear?
It has been said that video game movies suck. This sentiment can be traced to movies such as Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter: The Movie. Both of those movies were based of games that had actual characters and, at the minimum, a background to explain the reason for the action. The video game Super Mario Bros. III has a plot, albeit the simple scour a world to rescue the princess. Tetris doesn’t have that, just falling tetrominos that need to be fit into empty spaces that won’t cause the wall of bricks to get too high.
What the proposed Tetris movie does have in its favour is Larry Kasanoff, the producer of the Mortal Kombat movie, a film that showed that it is possible to have a video game movie that was enjoyable. The Tetris movie will also have a cast mixing Western and Chinese actors. Right now, though, it looks like associating the movie with the video game is more to get people to notice the work instead of being a faithful adaptation.
In contrast, here is what Kevin Smith said about helming a Buckaroo Banzai TV series:
“I’ve been tapped to adapt BUCKAROO BANZAI into a series, which is something of a dream come true: I’ve loved the 1984 movie since I was a kid. My well-read copy of the film’s novelization by screenwriter Earl Mac Rauch is my Bible. But I’m not gonna be directing this alone: it is my intent to assemble a dream team of cult movie directors for the 10 episodes of this #BuckarooBanzai series – folks like #DonnieDarko director Richard Kelly, #ShaunOfTheDead director @edgar_wright and of course, the #Banzai director himself – WD Richter. Same with the writing: I want to bring in the creator Rauch himself to write the flashback episode detailing the night the red Lectroids came to Earth (with the help of #OrsonWelles and his War of the Worlds broadcast.) The other scripts will be penned by other #BlueBlazeIrregulars who worship this flick like I do. Cast-wise, I’m hoping to get the great Peter Weller to play Team Banzai’s greatest enemy, Hanoi Xan! And any cast member from the original who wants to play is gonna be welcomed like returning conquering heroes. Long story short? Don’t worry: I’m not gonna #KevinSmith this Banzai series at all. It’s gonna be 100% true Buckaroo. Which means the watermelon will NEVER be explained. #MGM #yoyodyne #buckaroobanzaiagainsttheworldcrimeleague”
Smith is making the effort to keep the elements he enjoyed about the original film. The Tetris movie, with the announcement, isn’t making that same effort. It feels much like Hasbro’s accouncements for movies based on their properties, Battleship, Candyland, and Monopoly. The movie is being made to cash in on the name, and Battleship showed why that’s not always a good idea.
However, it is still early, with just the announcement of a Tetris movie. Threshold Global Studios, the partnership behind the movie, wants to create films that bring the East and West together, which isn’t a bad idea. Here’s hoping that the Tetris movie does well enough to keep the partnership going.
Most adaptations come with a price tag. The owner of the original usually licenses the work to the people making the adaptation. The more popular the original, the higher the licensing fees, usually because of bidding. But not all works are owned. Public domain allows anyone to publish or adapt the work, but the risk is that the general audience hasn’t heard of the story. Myth and legends bypass the problem. Myths transcend time and details fade from the general audience. Names and deeds are recognized, but specifics fall by the wayside.
Out from the mists of time comes Heracles, Born from one of the many trysts between Zeus and a mortal woman, Heracles is best known for his Twelve Labours and the enmity Hera, Zeus’s wife, had for the demigod. Hera hated Zeus’s infidelities and the offspring produced by them, and Heracles was no exception. The goddess sent two snakes to kill the infant Heracles, but the boy, already showing hints of the strength he’d have when he’d grow up, strangled the serpents with his bare hands. The Twelve Labours came about as Heracles atoned for killing his wife, Maegara, and his children in a fit of madness caused by Hera. The Oracle of Delphi sent the hero to serve King Eurystheus. The king, though, was a worshipper of Hera and set quests that were meant to kill Heracles. From defeating the Nemean Lion and slaying the Hydra to cleaning the Augeus stables and stealing Queen Hyppolita’s belt, Heracles completed each task.
The myths of Heracles have been adapted as movies, cartoons, and TV series; a version of him appears in Marvel Comics as Hercules. His adventures are of one man against the classic monsters, making for an easy pitch. And without license fees, a syndicated series can easily use the character for no added cost. Thus, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys was born.
With the expansion of cable in the Nineties, stations found that there was more air time than programming. While reruns could fill time, first run syndication, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation, could bring in viewers. Universal Television created its Action Pack set of movies, which included the Bandit movies, TekWar, spin-off Midnight Run movies, and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. Hercules started with five movies, the first airing in January of 1995 – Hercules and the Amazon Women, Hercules and the Lost Kingdom, Hercules and the Circle of Fire, Hercules in the Underworld, and Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur. The latter turned out to be a clip show, featuring scenes from the previous movies as the studio prepared to turn the movies into a regular TV series. In the pilot movies, Kevin Sorbo starred as Hercules, half man and half god with Michael Hurst as Iolaus and Anthony Quinn as Zeus, father of Hercules.
The movies showed Hercules after his Twelve Labours, settling down with a wife and family. His main nemesis* for the pilots was Hera, the wife of Zeus, who despised Hercules because of the attention he received from his father. Zeus, though, was starting to realize that he had made mistakes, though he cared for Hercules, again, setting off Hera. Once the TV series began, though, having Hercules settled down meant limiting the wandering. Just as in the myths, though, his family died, though directly by Hera’s hand.
While Hera and Zeus were the main gods who appeared in the movies, others began appearing in the TV series. Ares, god of war, was the first, though Kevin Smith would take on the role after appearing in the spin-off, Xena: Warrior Princess**. Other gods appeared, some as antagonists, such as Hades and Deimos, others as Herc’s friends, like Aphrodite and Nemesis. The show put a new twist on the characters; Aphrodite, as portrayed by Alexandra Tydings, came across more as a Valley Girl than a goddess, but her vanity was still in force.
Over the course of the series’ six seasons, the show took liberties with its format. Mirror universes, time shifts, and, over in the spin-off, Xena, musical episodes were toyed with. In the setting, Hercules would live until the modern day, becoming Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules on a TV series. To say that the show took liberties with myth, history, and reality would be understating things. Hercules became its own entity, borrowing from myth and legend but going its own direction.
Hercules: The Legendary Journey paid lip service to being a proper adaptation. The series started with the myth of Heracles, taking the character but putting him on a new course separate from the legends. Goes to show that an accurate adaptation isn’t always the best choice.
* As opposed to Nemesis, the bearer of divine retribution, who also showed up in the series.
** Xena began airing September 1995, though the character was first introduced in Hercules.
Any work with a large geek following is fodder for being adapted as a tabletop role-playing game. If that work has a setting that allows for other groups to live in without being affected by the events of the work, it becomes prime, whether fan-created or licensed. Star Trek is such a work; popular with a setting that spans the galaxy. It shouldn’t be a surprise that there have been three Trek RPGs published over the decades.
Star Trek introduced Star Fleet with its main mission being exploration. Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise boldly went where no man had gone before, finding new life and new civilizations. The series showed a number of first contacts, some more dangerous than others, and introduced Klingons and Romulans to the audience. The original Trek lasted three seasons, but remained in syndicated reruns since leaving the air in 1969. The popularity of the show in syndication led to two season of an animated adaptation in 1973, featuring most of the original cast*. The animated series led to an aborted second TV series that turned into the 1979 movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and the film franchise that followed.
Trek returned to television in 1987 with Star Trek: The Next Generation. The new series introduced a new crew and a new Enterprise, helmed by Captain Jean-Luc Picard. The Next Generation ran seven seasons, then went into its own movie series. Meanwhile, a third Trek TV series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, began in 1993, showing a different aspect of the Federation. Instead of exploration, Deep Space Nine focused on life on a space station as the Federation helped the Bajorans recover from being occupied by the Cardassians. When The Next Generation wrapped up, a fourth TV series, Star Trek: Voyager, began. Voyager chronicled the story of a lost Star Fleet vessel, the USS Voyager under the command of Captain Kathryn Janeway as the ship tried to return to the Federation. When Voyager came to a close with the ship returning home, another series was ready to go. Star Trek: Enterprise looked at the history of the setting, from Earth’s first steps into space to the birth of the Federation. Fatigue and story quality, though, meant that Enterprise was the first Trek series since the original to not last seven seasons. No new Trek production would be made until the 2009 film, Star Trek.
Even working from the original Trek, the germ of a roleplaying game already existed. Players could be Star Fleet officers, commanding a starship and exploring the galaxy. This was the basis of the first Trek RPG, FASA’s Star Trek: The Role Playing Game, released in 1983. FASATrek had only the original series, the animated adaptation, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture to work from, with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan coming out during the game’s production. Character creation in FASATrek assumes that players will be Star Fleet officers, though later supplements allowed players to play merchants, Star Fleet intelligence agents, Klingons, and Romulans. The core rules, though, took characters through Star Fleet Academy, their cadet cruise, and their previous experience before embarking on their new mission. The core mechanic was a percentile, or d100, roll, with players trying to roll underneath their skill rating used. The skills reflected what was seen on the TV series. Available races included Vulcans, Andorians, and Tellerites, all from the TV series, plus Caitians and Edoans, both from the animated series**.
While the original Trek emphasized a peaceful approach, there were starship battles, most notably in the episode, “The Balance of Terror”. The developers of FASATrek wanted to keep to what was shown in the series, avoiding turning starship battles into a board- or wargame. FASATrek broke down responsibilities by position. The captain gave the orders, the helmsman piloted the ship and fired the weapons, the navigator managed the shields, the engineer tried to balance the power available to the needs of each station, the science officer ran sensors, and communications maintained damage control. Security officers were the only ones without a duty during a starship battle, provided shields didn’t fail allowing boarding parties. A second edition came out before Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, with an update after the movie was released to take into account the events shown. The new edition cleared up problems found in the first and took into account the film franchise. The core mechanic was kept, with some clarifications, and starship battles still used a console for each position on the bridge. The end result was a game system that kept the flavour of both the TV series and existing movies.
FASATrek was published through to the first season of The Next Generation, with two supplements released for the new series. Paramount, however, wasn’t pleased with what FASA was doing with the license and pulled it after the first season of The Next Generation was complete in 1989. FASA, though, had other game lines to fall back on – BattleTech, the miniatures wargame involving giant mecha, and Shadowrun, a role-playing game crossing cyberpunk with Tolkein-esque fantasy.
FASATrek worked to maintain the Trek flavour as seen in the original series, then expanded the setting based on what was known. As will be seen below, the game established a feel that would be repeated by later publishers. FASATrek managed to replicate the feel of both the TV series and, with the second edition, the movies.
The Trek RPG license lay fallow for a decade, In 1999, Last Unicorn Games obtained the license and released Star Trek: The Next Generation Role-playing Game. The Next Generation had wrapped up in 1994, with Deep Space Nine wrapping up its seventh season and Voyager still boldly going. The new RPG used LUG’s Icon system, using six-sided dice and target numbers instead of FASA’s percentile system. Character creation, though, still followed the same lifepath, going from youth to Star Fleet Academy to prior experience before the new mission. Starship battles also ensured that all the characters on the bridge had something to do. By focusing on The Next Generation at first, the game was able to feel current, especially with Trek available on TV and in theatres. LUG released several supplements, covering the Andorians, the Vulcans, the Klingons, and the Romulans, as well as core books for the original Star Trek and Deep Space Nine. A Voyager core book was planned but never released. The license was transferred to Decipher before the book could be created.
LUGTrek had a different feel from FASATrek, thanks to the change in mechanics. However, the change in mechanics helped reflect the change in tone from the original series to The Next Generation. The tone of the each series was reflected in the writing; but each core book was still Star Trek.
Decipher wasn’t a new game company, but had focused on collectible card games, including one based on Star Trek. However, when it received the license, the design team from LUG moved over to Decipher. A new mechanic was devised, called CODA, which would also be used in Decipher’s Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game. The Star Trek Roleplaying Game used the CODA mechanics, two six-sided dice instead of LUGTrek‘s dice based on the attribute. Decipher also split the rules between the Player’s Guide and the Narrator’s Guide. This did allow DECTrek to incorporate all the existing series, including Enterprise, into the core rules, instead of splitting them over several books as LUGTrek had. DECTrek also used a lifepath for character creation, but characters weren’t restricted to being Star Fleet officers unlike both FASATrek and LUG’s Next Generation core rules, The end result is a character with a backstory as detailed as the player wants.
Aside from some layout issues, DECTrek still aimed to achieve the feel of Star Trek, with the added difficulty of trying to be all eras of Trek. For the most part, the game succeeded. Decipher ended publication of RPGs by 2007, leaving material for both the Trek and the LotR games unpublished.
There is no licensed Trek RPG currently in production. However, there is Prime Directive, a role-playing game derived from the universe created in Amarillo Design Bureau’s wargame Star Fleet Battles. The wargame, originally published by Task Force Games, was licensed, not from Paramount but from Franz Joseph, who had created blueprints of various Trek ships and had written The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual. As such, the wargame, and thus Prime Directive, does diverge from canon. There have been four verstions of the Prime Directive RPG. one from Amarillo using its own mechanics, one published by Amarillo that uses Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS rules, and two D20*** editions. A Mongoose Traveller version was announced in 2011, but it appears that the development of the base game’s second edition has delayed production on Amarillo’s end. Prime Directive is centered on “Prime Teams”, Star Fleet officers who are specifically trained for landing party duty so that senior officers would not be endangered by beaming down to new worlds. The system allowed players to create connections to events as needed, reflecting how in the various Trek series that a character would know someone in an episode, from Kirk’s rivalry with Finnigan to Dax’s many lives. Prime Directive, though, wasn’t as reflective of Star Trek as the other games, in part because of limitations in the licensing.
It is possible to adapt an existing role-playing game for Star Trek. Licensed games remove the work of adapting from the GM, having already made the effort to get the details down. Each of the games mentioned above has done the hard work, setting down in mechanics a work where writers will create new solutions without having to worry about the ramifications in a game. With this work done, the GM just has to create situations to send players through, without worrying about what damage a phaser can do.
* Budget considerations meant that Walter Koenig didn’t return as Chekov, but he did write the episode, “The Infinite Vulcan”.
** The Paramount-mandated requirement that licensees not work together hadn’t come in yet. This can be seen with the 1983 supplement, The Klingons, which was in part written by John M. Ford, who also wrote the tie-in novel, The Final Reflection, about the Klingons around the same time. The two works build on each other.
*** The D20 system was Wizards of the Coast’s core mechanic for the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Wizards released an Open Gaming License version of the rules to allow other companies to focus more on setting than on mechanics.
A few years ago, Lost in Translation looked at the movie, Real Steel, which was loosely based on the 1956 Richard Matheson short story, “Steel”. Real Steel used some of the ideas from the original, but took on its own direction as the story became one of a father and son bonding. The movie wasn’t the first adaptation of “Steel”. Matheson was a frequent contributor to The Twilight Zone, writing both original screenplays and adapting from his own work. “Steel” was one of the stories he adapted; the episode, the same name as the short story, was the second aired in the show’s fifth season in 1963.
The episode starts in the distant future of August 1974* as two men wheel a large human form covered by a glossy blanket and hood. A piece falls off the form’s boot, but is quickly reattached. The two men, “Steel” Kelly (played by Lee Marvin) and Pole (Joe Mantell), find a restaurant to sit down and have a beer in. The two are the owners of Battling Maxo (Tipp McClure), a worn out B2 boxing robot that is the figure being hauled around. The B2-series is an older model; parts are hard to find as a result. Unfortunately for Steel and Pole, the part to have Maxo in the night’s fight isn’t available in town.
However, before regular boxing was outlawed, Steel was a boxer himself. The prize money for appearing would be enough to get Maxo repaired, so Steel suggests that he takes the robot’s place. He figures that, since there aren’t any parts for a B2 in town, no one really knows what one should look like. The night of the fight, instead of Maxo under the hood, it’s Steel. He faces the Maynard Flash (Chuck Hicks), a modern B7 model robot. The ruse works, though Steel’s absense is questioned. Pole just says that Steel is in the seats, watching the bout.
The fight between man and machine begins. Steel gets a few good hits in, but the expression on the B7’s face never changes. The Maynard Flash doesn’t even slow down, not even after a cheap shot Steel gets in on the back of the B7’s head. Steel, however, does after taking a beating. He drops after not even two and a half minutes into the first round. Pole wheels him out on Maxo’s carrier, out of the arena and to the locker room. Steel collapses once Pole closes the door. Barely conscious, Steel tells Pole to get the fight money owed to them. The promoter only provides half, claiming that he wanted the fight to last more than one round.
The episode follows the original story closely, which shouldn’t be a surprise. Matheson adapted his own work to the screenplay, so there wasn’t a layer of separation, unlike Real Steel. As seen with “Casting the Runes” Part 1 and Part 2, the format of the adaptation can play a part in its success. With the exception of the fourth season**, each episode of The Twilight Zone ran thirty minutes, including breaks for advertising and station identification. Matheson, having written episodes for the series already, was well aware of the time available to him.
Scriptwriters, though, aren’t the only members of the crew of a television series. There are directors, producers, camera operators, casting agents, network executives, and advertisers, among others, who affect the final result shown. The Twilight Zone had directors who understood what Rod Serling laid out for the series. Network executives and advertisers are a far more nervous lot, risk adverse, and more concerned about the bottom line than creativity. A popular show can push the limits. An anthology series, such as The Twilight Zone, can tailor an episode to deal with concerns from above to mollify them long enough to get another episode past the radar. The original story was about a man desperate to keep his robot working to the point where he’d willingly step into a boxing ring against a machine. The episode showed that same desperation, with only Serling’s closing monologue adding a new dimension, the human spirit. The monologue, though, is a valid interpretation of the story. Steel knew what would happen in the ring and still went in to fight.
The adaptation is faithful. Having the original writer adapt his own work into a format he’s familiar with on a series that was known for the type of work being adapted helped immensely, preventing the adaptation from wandering away from its roots.
* Again, the air date was 1963, placing the episode ten years into the future. Matheson was only off by 13 years; Critter Crunch debuted at the MileHiCon in Denver in 1987, with Robot Wars airing on the BBC in 1998.
** The fourth season saw The Twilight Zone expand to fill an hour slot, filling in for a series that had been there prior.
Apologies, but Lost in Translation will be absent this week but will return next week.
Lost in Translation doesn’t normally touch upon anime and manga. Ganriki covers that field far better. In recent years, though, anime and manga have penetrated mainstream pop culture, leading to Western adaptations of works that have crossed the Pacific Ocean. Today, Lost in Translation looks at the 2008 film, Speed Racer.
Mach GoGoGo was created in 1966 by Tatsuo Yoshida and followed the exploits of Go Mifune, a young race car driver who helps his family keep his father’s designs from rivals. Go was inspired by Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas; his car, the Mach 5, was inspired by 007’s Aston Martin in Goldfinger. In 1967, Tatsunoko Productions adapted the manga as an anime series of the same name; a typical path for many manga titles. The anime was then picked up by Trans-Lux for airing as Speed Racer in the US.
Whether the name is Mach GoGoGo or Speed Racer, the characters remained consistent. Go/Speed is a young driver with a love of both racing and his family. His father, Daisuke/Pops, who built the Mach 5, went indie after being forced out of a corporation, keeping the designs for the car’s revolutionary engine for himself. Kurio/Spritle is Speed’s younger brother who, along with his pet chimp, Sanpei/Chim-Chim, gets into trouble by tagging along. Speed’s older brother, Kenichi/Rex, is estranged from Pops after a falling out, but reappears as The Masked Racer/Racer X to help Speed against his opponents. Speed’s girlfriend, Michi/Trixie, is also there to help, and bails him out as much as he does for her.
The series focused on action, especially racing, with gangsters and crooked corporate execs scheming to fix races, steal Pops’ designs, including the Mach 5, or just eliminate Speed himself. The anime lasted for 52 episodes, ending in 1968. The boom in specialty cable channels in the 90s saw the return of Speed Racer, with MTV, Cartoon Network, and the Speed Channel all airing the show. Fred Wolf, of Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, helmed a new series in 1993, lasting thirteen episodes. The original also became the basis of the Dexter’s Laboratory episode, “Mock 5”, and had the theme song sleepily sung by Tom Servo during a dull chase in the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode, “Danger!! Death Ray“.
As with any series that has been influential and is permeating the pop culture subconcious, studios wanted to turn Speed Racer into a feature film. Warner Bros. optioned the rights to Speed Racer in 1992. It wasn’t until 2006, when the Wachowski siblings took the helm, did production start. The movie, also called Speed Racer, begins with Speed (played by Emile Hirsch) preparing for a race, then heading into a flashback of his much younger self in grade school losing focus from the Scantron test in favour of his brother Rex’s upcoming race. The young Speed (Nicholas Elia) then dashes out of class at the bell to meet Rex and convinces him to take him to the track.
The race itself, the Thunderbird, showcases Speed’s abilities. While all the other drivers try to catch up to him, Speed is keeping up with his brother’s track time, slowing off just enough to ensure that the time Rex, now deceased, put up remains the record. In the stands, Speed’s family – Pops (John Goodman), Mom (Susan Sarandon), Spritle (Paulie Litt) with Chim-Chim (“Kenzie” and Willie”) – watch with Speed’s girlfriend, Trixie (Christina Ricci) and Racer Motors’s mechanic and Speed’s friend, Sparky (Kick Gurry). Speed and the Mach 5 come to the attention of E.P. Arnold Royalton (Roger Allam), owner of Royalton Industries. Royalton wants Speed to race for him. After some thought, Speed turns down the offer, wanting to remain with Pops. Angered by the refusal, Royalton threatens to destroy Racer Motors through having his drivers target Speed on the race course and through legal filings of intellectual property infringement against Pops.
Royalton’s threats come through, leaving Speed out of the Grand Prix. At the darkest moment, two people arrive at the Racer home, Inspector Detector (Benno Fürmann) and Racer X (Matthew Fox), the Harbinger of Boom. Inspector Detector is part of the Criminal Investigation Bureua, investigating corporate crime, and needs Speed’s help to reveal the race fixing Royalton and other firms are behind. To that end, the Inspector wants Speed to race in the Casa Cristo 5000, a two continent rallye race, the one that claimed the life of Rex. The Casa Cristo 5000 is also the only way Speed has to enter the Grand Prix; the winner of the rallye gets an automatic invitation. Pops is against it, but Trixie helps Speed by taking him “skiing”. Speed and Racer X join Taejo Togokahn (Rain), teaming up to race.
Pops has other reasons to not want Speed in the Casa Cristo 5000 beyond the loss of Rex. Rallye racing is a far nastier form of the sport, with teams fielding illegal modifications on their cars. One team, featuring Snake Oiler as their top driver, bribes three other teams, the Flying Foxes, Semper Fi-ber, and Thor-Axine, to take out Team Togokahn. Speed and Racer X manage to avoid the dirty play, thanks to defensive modifications to the Mach 5, but Snake Oiler wins the first leg of the race.
Back at the Racer household, Spritle has caught wind of the deception and is watching the Casa Cristo 5000. Pops forces him to shut it off and go out to get some sun and exercise. When Pops has to leave on an errand, Spritle sneaks back inside. He’s caught when Pops returns almost immediately having forgotten something. To deflect punishment, Spritle points at Speed and the Mach 5 on TV. Pops and the Racer family catch up to Speed during the downtime between race legs. Speed explains what he’s doing and, while not happy, Pops calms down enough to go rebalance the Mach 5.
That night, ninja stalk Team Togokahn. Taejo is given a dose of a drug meant to dull his reflexes. A second ninja tries the same thing with Racer X, who is ready for such treachery. A third tries to inject Speed with the drug and is stopped when Spritle wakes up after falling out of bed. Speed tries to fight off the ninja, but the commotion wakes up the rest of the family. The worst thing anyone could do is try to hurt a member of the Racer family; Pops is a champion Greco-Roman wrestler and proceeds to show the ninja the error of his ways.
The second leg of the Casa Cristo 5000 has Team Togokahn trying to catch up to Snake Oiler. With Taejo still under the drug’s effects, a switch has been made. Trixie, wearing Taejo’s jumpsuit, has taken his place. The plan is to make a switch in a section not covered by cameras. However, Oiler’s boss, Cruncher Block, is also heading there to make sure that Team Togokahn fails to finish the race. Block gets the drop on the team, but Racer X manages to disarm the goon guarding him, starting a massive brawl. When the dust settles, Taejo is back in his car but Snake Oiler has once again taken the lead. With effort, Speed forces Oiler off the mountain road and Team Togokahn wins the race.
Taejo, though, renegs on his end of the bargain. He uses the increase in his father’s company to get a better price for selling his firm to Royalton. Speed is dejected and, once home, tries to burn out his anger on the Thunderbird track. Racer X arrives to speak with him and after a racing duel, resparks Speed’s love for the sport, despite the problems it has. Speed notices that Racer X’s driving style is familiar and asks if the masker racer is his brother. Racer X takes off his mask; Speed doesn’t recognize the face and the Harbinger of Boom says that Rex did die in the accident at Casa Cristo.
While trying to figure out what to do next, Taejo’s sister Horuko (Yu Nan) arrives to speak with Speed. She gives him Taejo’s invitation to the Grand Prix; the chit is a guarenteed place in the race for the bearer. With the invitation in hand, Speed and his family get the Mach 6 prepared in record time.
Speed starts in the last position at the starting line. Royalton places a bounty on Speed’s head; any driver who can remove him from the race will get one million dollars. Drivers try, but Speed is the better racer. He goes head to head with Royalton’s driver, Cannonball Taylor. Taylor uses an illegal spear hook to latch on to the Mach 6. Speed can’t detach his car from Taylor’s, but manages to angle both cars so that cameras can see the illegal device. Once the cars land again, the speed hook breaks away from Taylor’s car as it disintegrates. The Mach 6, though, stalls out. Speed listens to the car and works out how to get the engine to restart. He winds up back in last place, but he finds his zone and wins. Inspector Detector arrests Royalton. Speed finally gets to kiss Trixie under the flashing of thousands of cameras. And Racer X is revealed to be, indeed, Speed’s brother, having undergone plastic surgery to change his looks.
The Wachowskis’ film tried to recreate an animated series, and the movie shows it. In a Full Frontal Nerdity strip, Aaron Williams describes the trailer for Speed Racer as, “Like playing Gran Turismo 3 while wearing glasses made out of LSD-laced Gummi Bears.” Even the studio titles before the movie starts are in a 60s-style kaleidoscope of colour. The movie is far more animated than the original Mach GoGoGo. Speed Racer has been called a live-action anime, and for good reason.
Beyond just the visual style, the Wachowskis put effort into recreating the look and feel of the anime. The cast reflects the original appearance of the characters. Emile Hirsch has Speed’s pompador. John Goodman looks like Pops Racer, and Christina Ricci looks like trixie. The Mach 5 is exactly the way it is shown in the anime. Of special note, Paulie Litt as Spritle not only looks the part, but manages to take a potentially annoying role and make the character fun to watch while acting next to a chimpanzee. The costumes also reflect what the characters wore in the original series, with the exception of Racer X. The Harbinger of Boom’s costume is black instead of white, reflecting Racer X’s work from the shadows of the racing world. Adding to the look of the film is the soundtrack, which uses the original theme as a motif throughout the movie. Added touches include Speed posing in front of the Mach 5 just like in the original opening credits and the use of the original sounds effects of the Mach 5’s jacks.
The above is just surface, though. The Wachowskis also pulled ideas from the anime. The Casa Cristo 5000 race can be found in the first epsiode of the anime, not by name but by setting. Snake Oiler also appeared in the series as the second head of the Car Acrobats, a team that clashed with Speed. Pops’ wrestling also appeared in the anime. The Racer X background is much like it is in the original, with the difference being that Rex is presumed dead instead of missing. The plot would fit in with the series and takes its cues from the original.
The only problem the movie may have is that it goes a little over the top at times. Beyond that, the Speed Racer movie works hard to reflect its origins in both style and substance. Once the audience gets past the wall of bright colour, the movie has substance to match and brings in the themes of the original work – family, honour, and the love of sport despite its problems.
Last week, Lost in Translation looked at the live-action Jem and the Holograms movie. The film lasted all of two weeks in theatres before being pulled because of poor attendance. Despite reviews, including the postmortem done here, the movie wasn’t the problem. If Jem hadn’t been tied to a popular cartoon*, the movie may have had a fighting chance, or may have become a cable channel’s movie of the week. With the Adaptation Fix-It series, Lost in Translation tries to figure out what went wrong and suggest corrections. The only correction that the Jem movie needs requires time travel.
Audience expectations are a risk with adaptations, more so than original movies. With original works, marketing can give potential audiences a sense of what to expect. When the marketing campaign backfires, it’s either because the advertising spoils the film for audiences** or misrepresents what the film is. When it comes to an adaptation, especially one based on non-traditional media like toys and theme park rides, the potential audience may already have preconceived notions of what the final work should look like. Deviation, especially when social media lets negative word of mouth to travel fast, could mean a quick end to the adaptation’s shelf life.
The best way to meet expectations is to be slavishly faithful to the original or to the definitive version. As seen many times here at Lost in Translation, sometimes that level of detail just isn’t possible. Technical issues and running time can prevent a full adaptation. There are works where there isn’t a definitive version. What the adaptation makers need to do is manage the audience’s expectations. This can be done through casting or through advertising.
Michael Bay’s Transformers took advantage of casting. Word of mouth was hesitant at best about a live action version of the Hasbro toy line. There have been a number of Transformers cartoons over the past thirty years, resulting in a number of continuities. Yet, when Optimus Prime spoke with the voice of Peter Cullen, the actor who first played the Autobot leader, fans were mollified. Bay’s casting reassured fans that the director was making the effort. Likewise, casting Alan Rickman as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films kept to the vision of JK Rowling, who had pictured the actor in the role as she wrote the books.
Beware stunt casting, though. Studios will do what they can to pull an audience into a theatre, including stunt casting, or the hiring of a popular actor to draw in that person’s fans, whether or not that person fits the role. It can work, provided the actor in question has the chops. When the actor isn’t as capable, the stunt casting falls flat. Two examples reviewed by Lost in Translation are Battleship and The Dukes of Hazzard. Both films cast popular singers, Rhianna and Jessica Simpson, respectively. Rhianna’s role felt like it was expanded because she was cast in it, to give her more screen time. Simpson was placed in a major role and was not a good fit as Daisy.
If a proper adaptation isn’t possible and casting may be difficult for a any number of reasons***, the next best method is to provide an advertising campaign to show the new direction the adaptation is heading. Advertising is meant to entice an audience, give it a taste of the spectacle offered. The risk here is that the potential audience will see the new direction and be turned off from it. The Miami Vice movie wound up with this problem. Audiences wanted something similar to the 80s TV series and not the update for the the New Aughts. Same thing occurred with the 2014 Robocop; the original movie’s broad satire was missed despite the new film’s nastier, much closer to home, bite.
Adaptations come with a built-in audience. That is the main reason why adaptations have dominated popular film lists, with two decades the exception. In an industry as risk adverse as movie making, having a near-guaranteed draw is an easy decision to make. What some studios haven’t realized is that a shallow adaptation, one that uses the name of a work without getting into the substance, tends to leave audiences cold. The above ideas don’t replace making the effort to capture the core of a work, but can offset audience fears of the treatment.
* The animated Jem and the Holograms was the top rated syndicated cartoon when it was on, according to Nielsen ratings, more popular than Transformers, G.I. Joe, and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, all on during Jem‘s run.
** At least one romantic comedy has had its entire plot shown in a trailer, with the decision of who the heroine chooses left unrevealed. Given the nature of the film, audiences could guess who the lucky guy would be with better accuracy than flipping a coin.
*** These reasons include the death of a key actor, budget considerations, and even age.
The 1980s saw the regulations about children’s programming relaxed, allowing toylines to have shows. These shows, mostly cartoons, were meant as advertising for the toys. Hasbro took advantage of the situation and had several animated series based on their toylines, with Transformers airing in 1984 followed by G.I. Joe and Jem and the Holograms in 1985*. However, no one informed Marvel Productions and Sunbow Productions, the companies behind the series, that the shows were meant to be just advertising. Each series left an impact on its viewers.
With Jem, Hasbro entered a doll market dominated by Mattel. To try to gain an edge, The Jem dolls took their cues from MTV and singers like Cyndi Lauper. The first of the dolls, featuring Jem/Jerrica, her sister Kimber, her foster sisters Aja and Shana, the rival Misfits, and Jerrica’s love interest Rio. Most of the dolls came with audio cassettes featuring four songs, two by Jem and the Holograms, two by the Misfits. The Jem cartoon came out in 1985, leading the way for the dolls in 1986. Mattel, though, released the “Barbie and the Rockers” line the same year, also taking advantage of the popularity of MTV. Rocker Barbie also came with audio cassettes, though with far fewer songs.
For Jem, Marvel and Sunbow recruited Christy Marx, who was already working for them on the G.I. Joe cartoon. Marx took the ideas that the doll designer had – two rival all-girl bands, the boyfriend, and Synergy, the holographic avatar of a supercomputer – and brought the concepts together to create Jem, the Holograms, Rio, and the Misfits. The series begins with Jerrica Benton inheriting half of her father’s company, the Starlight Music label. The other half, though, went to Eric Raymond, a scheming corrupt businessman out to control all of Starlight. The music label also supports Starlight Foundation, a charity funding a foster home for girls. Naturally, Eric wants to shut down the Foundation. Jerrica’s father, though, knew what sort of person Eric was and built a supercomputer, Synergy, to help Jerrica. With Synergy’s help, through the “Jemstar” earrings and the phrase, “Showtime, Synergy,” Jerrica becomes Jem.
Eric has his own girl band to counter Jem and the Holograms. The Misfits consist of Pizazz, Roxy, and Stormer, who all work to beat out the Holograms, by hook or by crook. While the Misfits are the Holograms main antagonists, it is Eric who is the villain. That said, the views of Eric and Pizazz don’t necessarily reflect the view of the rest of the Misfits. Stormer and Kimber, in one episode, become friends, bonding over a feeling of neglect by their respective bandmates. The friendship continues beyond that episode. Eric also has a henchman, Zipper, to do the heavy lifting and dirty work that the businessman wouldn’t sully his hands with.
Naturally, there is a love interest, Rio. The stage manager for the Holograms, Jerrica and Rio have a complex relationship. The course of true love never did run smooth, and the course of the love between Jerrica and Rio takes an added twist when Rio develops a crush on Jem. Jerrica is hesitant to tell Rio the truth, that she is Jem, because Rio has an odd aversion to secrecy. While love triangles involving superheroes and secret IDs is known, Jem gender-flipped the concept. Adding to the love triangle is Pizazz, who has a crush on Rio.
Jem and the Holograms became the top rated syndicated cartoon in the US. Over 150 songs were written and performed on the show, a third making it on to the cassettes sold with the dolls. In comparison, Barbie and the Rockers had four songs, total. Jem aired for three seasons and ended only because the doll line was discontinued. The Jem dolls, while popular, couldn’t compete with the Barbie behemoth, and the line was discontinued in 1987. Twenty-seven dolls were released over the short run. As a doll, Jem couldn’t overcome the name recognition Barbie had. Thanks to the cartoon, though, the name Jem permeated pop culture, leading to a DVD release and a re-airing of the series in 2011. In 2012, Integrity Toys licensed Jem for a collector’s edition line of dolls, with over twenty-five dolls now released. IDW picked up the comic license in 2015 for a modern take on the characters.
With the resurgence of Jem as a property, Hasbro, through its fill studio, Allspark Productions, and Universal brought the doll to the big screen as a live-action movie. The movie remained in theatres for two weeks before being pulled from distribution, grossing just $2 million on a $5 million budget. Reviews were expecting a different movie than what was released. What happened?
The Jem and the Holograms film opens with Jerrica Benton (played by Aubrey Peeples) narrating into a vlog about the nature of secret identities and public personae and giving a few details about her background. After her father (Barnaby Carpenter) died, Jerrica and her sister Kimber (Stefanie Scott) were sent to live with their Aunt Bailey (Molly Ringwald), who had already taken in two other fosters, Aja (Hayley Kiyoko) and Shana (Aurora Perrineau). Jerrica was close to her father, helping him in the garage as he tinkered with various things and learning out to play guitar from him. Kimber is the more outgoing of the two, and is constantly vlogging to YouTube. Jerrica, though, is more reclusive. When she discovers that her aunt only has thirty days to to pay the mortgage on her house, Jerrica tries to record a song about her feelings, but finds that she has to use a persona and pseudonym, Jem, to do so. Even after recording the video, she tries to delete it but has problems. Jerrica hands the camera to Kimber, who, instead of deleting the video, listens to it then uploads it publically.
The video goes viral, becoming even more popular than the waterskiing squirrel. Considering the number of musicians who have careers thanks to viral videos, it’s not unbelievable. The video’s popularity gets the attention of Erica Raymond (Juliette Lewis), the owner and CEO of Starlight Productions. Erica sends an email to the mysterious Jem, offering a contract deal. Jerrica pushes to have her sisters included on the deal, and Erica relents. Erica arrives at home to pick up her new stars and whisk them to Los Angeles. Jerrica, in her packing, brings along the last items her father gave her, a pair of pink star earrings and a half-finished robot, 51N3RG-Y, or Synergy. As the girls arrive in LA, Synergy, which has never worked, begins to power up.
The girls go through a process to get them ready for stardom, including hair, make-up, and wardrobe. Erica takes the star earrings from Jerrica, calling them a holdover from the 80s. Jerrica finds a way to hide herself as Jem for performances. Erica starts her marketing campaign as the girls settle in at Starlight’s manor. Jerrica meets Rio, the band’s manager and chief cat wrangler, and some sparks fly as Rio lays down the rules. That night, Synergy is up to full power, glowing under a discard sheet. The girls, unsure what is happening, uncover the robot, which then displays a map with coordinates as a hologram. Despite their midnight curfew, the girls leave the house, “borrowing” Rio’s truck to go to the coordinates. Jerrica recognizes where they are; she and her father had gone to the pier many times before he passed away. She finds one of the pieces missing from Synergy, who then displays another map coordinate, one for a nightclub that showcases hot acts.
Before the girls can leave, a flashlight shines on them. A male voice starts telling them about the laws they have broken, including breaking and entering and being out after their midnight curfew. Rio steps forward so they can see him and explains just how he followed them and that they tripped a silent alarm. He helps the girls escape. Jerrica explains why they were on the pier and wonders how they’ll ever get to the nightclub. She also discovers that Rio is Erica’s son.
In the morning, Erica Raymond announces that the mysterious Jem will make an appearance at that nightclub for her the first live performance. Jerrica and her sisters prepare for the night. The concert goes well until a blackout hits the club mid-song. Thinking fast, Jerrica, as Jem, gets the club goers to light the stage using their smartphone flashlights. She spots a familiar guitar and, as Aja and Shana get the club goers to clap and stomp a beat, she continues the song acoustically. After the concert, Jerrica inspects the guitar and confirms it is her father’s. Inside, there is another part for Synergy.
The day after, Bailey gets in touch with Jerrica to tell her that the house will be going up for auction in several days. Jerrica goes to Erica to ask for an advance. Erica agrees, with one condition – Jem performs alone, not with a band. In a tough spot, Jerrica agrees. Her sisters overhear the last part and are understandably upset. Jerrica tries to explain but the girls won’t listen. Jem’s next appearance is as a solo artist, but Jerrica isn’t happy about what happened. Upset, she wanders through LA and winds up at her old home. Through a window, she sees a young family enjoying each other’s company, further accentuating Jerrica’s feeling of being alone. To her surprise, Kimber arrives, followed by Aja and Shana. They’re still upset about what Jerrica did, but understand why. Rio also arrives, since he had to drive the girls there, and helps Jerrica make the connection to what the last pieces of Synergy are, the earrings. The earrings that are locked up by Erica.
Jerrica and Rio head to Starlight after first getting his mother’s car from Brad the valet, who only provides the keys if Rio can get his mother to listen to his demo CD. Rio, using the darkness of the night and one of Erica’s hats, gets by security in the car with Jerrica in the trunk. Kimber, Aja, and Shana distract the guards by pretending to be Jem fangirls and getting the guards to take their photos so that Jerrica and Rio can get into the building. In Erica’s office, Rio tries guessing the code for her safe. When Jerrica suggests entering what is most important to her, Rio types in Erica’s full name. The safe opens. Jerrica retrieves her earrings and Rio retrieves a legal notice addressed to him.
Erica discovers that Jerrica is up to something when she tries to get her car from Brad. With some encouragement from Zipper, Brad confesses to what happened. Erica and Zipper rush back to Starlight and review the security footage. She orders security to seal the exits and detain Jerrica and Rio. Rio delays Erica by playing Brad’s demo CD**, piping it to a conference room. On the ground floor, Jerrica puts on her wig to become Jem. Security, unaware of her dual identity, happily let her leave.
Safe, Jerrica places the earrings together. They start glowing with a purple light before she adds them to Synergy. The robot reacts, leaning back to project a hologram of her father. He explains why he created Synergy and why he had her go on a scavenger hunt.
The big concert arrives. Jerrica is determined that she goes out on stage with her sisters. All of them are ready, and Bailey arrives to watch the show now that the house is safe. Erica arrives backstage. She demands that only Jem go out, not the others. Rio, though, exercises the clause in his father’s will that states that he takes over Starlight when he is ready, and he is ready. Zipper escorts Erica out of the building and the girls take the stage. During the concert, an editor from Rolling Stone (Christy Marx) asks Rio about the band’s name so she can feature them on the front cover. He calls them “Jem and the Holograms”.
As the credits roll, a sequel hook comes up. Erica, thoroughly disgraced and humiliated, has tracked down one of her former acts. The group, understandably, isn’t interested, having been used and tossed away by Erica once before. Erica, though, mentions that Rio is in love with Jem, perking the interest of the band’s leader. Pizazz (Kesha) comes out and declares, “Our music is better. We’re gonna get her,” then leads Erica into the Misfits’ trailer.
The Jem cartoon was a product of the Eighties, with all the sensibilities of the time. The Jem movie is a product of the Teens, and also reflects the era. The movie integrates social media into the narrative. The film’s website allowed fans to upload audition videos, some of which got into the movie. The film also delves into the impact a star can have on the lives of fans. Jem’s music calls out to people to be themselves, even if Jem is just Jerrica’s public persona.
The main problem the movie has is not being the cartoon. The expectations were badly handled. Older fans saw that it wasn’t going to be the cartoon and stayed away, and since the older fans are the ones to bring the target audience to the movie, the film just didn’t perform at the box office. There is too much in the movie that ties into what has been established for Jem for the film to be generic. Producer John M. Chu made the decision to go a different route than the cartoon, acknowledging its existance and not wanting comparisons. Problem there is that comparisons would still be made. Looking at just the dolls, ignoring for the moment the classic cartoon series, the movies does work as an adaptation. Audiences were expecting the cartoon, though. As Lost in Translation has seen before, an adapation became the definitive work. The animated Jem joins the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series and the 1978 Christopher Reeve Superman. In Jem‘s case, this was caused by the marketing of the dolls using the cartoon.
The Jem movie isn’t a bad one. It is far better than its budget would suggest. The girls have an onscreen chemistry that helps sell the characters as sisters. Juliette Lewis as Erica Raymond brings in a veneer of respectability over the character’s greed and sleeze. The lack of Misfits isn’t a problem; in the cartoon, Eric was the mastermind, using the band for his ends. The best way to view the film is as an alternate universe Jem.
* My Little Pony had specials in 1984 and 1985, but wasn’t a series until 1986.
** Brad’s music is essentially death metal on cello and is decent enough, though not something Erica would bother with.
No review this weekend. Enjoy the holiday. Lost in Translation will return next week.
For the last survivor of a doomed world, Superman has a large family. Many Golden and Silver Age superheroes had a “family” – characters who share in the main hero’s adventures as, if not an equal, as a sidekick. Batman had the various Robins, the various Batgirls, Ace the Bat-hound, Batwoman, and, at times, Catwoman. Captain Marvel, of Shazam! fame, had Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel, Jr., and Uncle Marvel. Superman had Superboy*, Krypto, Beppo, and Supergirl. not to mention the various Kryptonian criminals in the Phantom Zone. Supergirl, Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-El, was first introduced in 1959, though DC had floated the idea in 1958 with Jimmy Olsen wishing a “Super-Girl” into existence. Kara has the same powers as her cousin, thanks to being under Earth’s yellow sun. She arrived on Earth in a different manner, though.
In her first appearance, Kara wasn’t sent off from the dying world of Krypton on a rocket. Instead, she lived in Argo City, which had survived the planet’s explosion only to have the ground it sat on turn into Kryptonite. Kara was sent off to follow her cousin, but arrived in Midvale instead. She took on the the secret identity of Linda Lee, an orphan at the Midvale Orphanage.
Being the comics, nothing stays simple. Kara, as Linda, gets adopted, graduates high school and college, and moves to the West Coast to work as a TV camera operator. A second Kara, from the alternate dimension of Earth-Two and becomes Power Girl. However, after Crisis on Infinite Earths, a 1985 crossover event to try to clean up the DC Universe’s massive convolutions, not is Kara killed off, the universe is rebooted, removing both Supergirl and Power Girl from continuity. A third Supergirl, Matrix, is a shape changer, appeared in 1988, and a fourth, Linda Danvers, is an Earth-born angel**. Also, being the comics, no character stays dead for long. Kara began reappearing through the late 80s and is reintroduced in 2004 by Jeph Loeb, first in Superman/Batman and then in a new Supergirl title.
Rewinding back to 1984, Alexander and Ilya Salkind still had the movie rights to not just Superman but related characters, including Supergirl. Superman was in the top ten grossing movies of the 70s and is the movie that people associate with the character. Superman III, with Christopher Reeve and Richard Pryor, came out in 1983 to poor reviews. Supergirl was a chance for the Salkinds to rebound. There were several cuts, including a domestic cut for the US and a longer international cut for the rest This review uses the 2006 DVD release, which was the international version of the movie.
Supergirl begins in Argo City, the home of the last survivors of Krypton, tucked away in an alternate dimension. Kara, played by Helen Slater in her first role, watches Zaltar, played by Peter O’Toole, use the Omegahedron, a powerful power source that uses imagination for creation. Such a powerful device needs to be used carefully, lest it falls into the wrong hands. Zaltar hands the Omegahedron to Kara to let her explore her own imagination. Kara’s creation, though, gets away from her and pierces the wall surrounding Argo City. The power source is blown out through the hole; its loss means Argo City’s time is limited. Zaltar, because he “borrowed” the device without permission, will be sent to the Phantom Zone. Kara chases after the Omegahedron to make up for its escape.
On Earth, Selena, a vain, impatient sorceress out for world domination (Faye Dunaway) and Nigel, her mentor and long suffering lover (Peter Cook***) are having a picnic while discussing invisibility spells. The Omegahedron falls into the potato salad and is picked up by Selena. The sorceress senses the power within and claims the power source as her own. She returns to her home, an abandoned amusement park she shares with Bianca (Brenda Vaccaro) and experiments with the Omegahedron.
Kara arrives not far behind. Now under Earth’s yellow sun, she discovers her new powers, including flight. She heads to the nearby town, Midvale, where she finds the girls of Midvale High. Kara changes into a similar uniform and becomes the new student, Linda Lee. She name drops Clark Kent when she arrives, and, when the headmaster, Mr. Danvers, is distracted, types up a letter from her cousin to make sure that she’s accepted. Danvers shows her to her new room and her new roommate, Lucy Lane (Maureen Teefy), the younger sister of the Daily Planet’s star reporter, Lois Lane. Lucy, while not thrilled about having a roommate, perks up when she discovers who Linda’s cousin is. Linda also sees the school’s buff groundskeeper, Ethan (Hart Bochner), and is impressed.
Ethan also impresses Selena, who comes up with a plot to force the groundskeeper to love her as part of her plot to rule the world. Selena drugs him with a love potion, which will make Ethan fall in love with the first person he sees when he regains consciousness. Unfortunately for the sorceress, Nigel interrupts. While he’s not allowed in, Nigel is enough of a distraction to let Ethan stumble to an escape. The groundskeeper, walking drunkenly down Midvale’s main street, avoids being hit. Selena uses the Omegahedron to locate him and enspells a backhoe to retrieve him. Lucy and Linda, along with Lucy’s boyfriend from Metropolis, Jimmy Olsen (Marc McClure, the only actor from Superman to appear in Supergirl), see Ethan in trouble. As vehicles avoid both Ethan and the backhoe, chaos ensues, leading to spilled gasoline, downed electrical lines, and a tire fire. Kara disappears to the bathroom and appears as Supergirl on top of the diner. Supergirl saves the day, cutting the electrical lines with her heat-ray vision, blowing out the fire with her superbreath, and rescuing Ethan from the animated construction vehicle. Ethan recovers, and, to Selena’s chagrin, sees Linda first.
Selena escalates against Linda and Supergirl, never realizing they are the same person. The sorceress lures Supergirl into a trap by kidnapping Ethan. Selena twists the knife; she kisses the groundskeeper before sending Kara into the Phantom Zone. Kara, lost in the darkness of the Zone, loses her powers and, as she wanders, falls into an oily bog. Zaltar, in self-imposed exile, rescues her and helps her return to Earth through a small rift.
On Earth, Selena has succeeded in taking over Midvale through her dark sorcery and has plans for the rest of the continent. Lucy and Jimmy try to lead a resistance, but are arrested by Selena’s ensorcelled police. However, Selena and Bianca are watching what is happening in the Phantom Zone and are amazed when Supergirl returns. In the final battle, Selena summons a shadow demon to tear Supergirl apart. Kara turns things around on the sorceress, who is pulled into a whirlwind and trapped inside a mirror. With Midvale returned to normal, Kara retrieves the Omegahedron and leaves to return home.
Supergirl was not well received and failed to recoup its $35 million budget. Dunaway and O’Toole each received a Razzie for the film. Slater, though, was nominated for a Saturn for Best Actress. The problems may stem from having an almost twenty minute difference in running time between domestic and international. The longer version gives the movie time to set itself up, showing the rift between Selena and Nigel and showing Kara getting used to being on Earth. The chemistry between Dunaway and Vaccaro as Selena and Bianca is worth seeing. The main problem is that the movie went for camp at a time when camp wasn’t appreciated. If the movie had been made in 1979 instead of 1984, Dunaway’s over-the-top performance wouldn’t have seen out of place, following in the footsteps of Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor.
As an adaptation, Supergirl took the character and presented her on the big screen. Her powers were influenced by Superman’s from his 1978 movie, though without the time travel. In the comics, Supergirl helped people at a personal level, and this does come through in the movie. The plot itself would fit earlier Superman comics, though not as much in the 80s. Kara’s origins, while meddled with, still reflect her background in her comics debut. The film does look like it came from a comic without being a cartoon.
Supergirl, while meant to be a stand-alone film, still leans heavily on Superman. Other than the villains, each character has a connection to the Superman cast, with Jimmy Olsen being brought over. However, as a character, Supergirl wouldn’t exist without Superman, so the links are expected. There were plans for a Christopher Reeve cameo, but that fell through; the lack of Superman is explained in a radio broadcast early in the movie, one ignored by Selena she’s taking Nigel’s car to return home.
Overall, some changes were made, more to take advantage of the medium than anything else. Despite the movie’s issues, it made an attempt to be faithful to the character, making this a successful adaptation despite the lack of theatrical success.
* Sort of. Superboy was originally the young Superman in Smallville, but later the name got attached to a different character believed to be a clone.
** Soap operas don’t get this complex.
*** Cook portrays a Snape-like character long before Snape was created.
