Something that came to mind while working on the last entry for the history of adaptations is how publishing and, indeed, writing, has changed over time. While series have been around for some time in several genres, from mysteries to westerns to science fiction and fantasy*, Over time, though, the length of novels has been growing, not just in page count but in story.
A few examples before continuing. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë and released in 1847, has anywhere between 350 to 500 pages, depending on edition, and covers the title character’s life from childhood to adulthood in detail. Eyre was also originally published in three novels, not one. A Study in Scarlet, the first novel-length Sherlock Holmes novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is slightly over 100 pages. A Princess of Mars, the first of the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is 186 pages. Daybreakers, part of the Sackett family saga by Louis L’Amour, is 240 pages. Casino Royale, the first 007 novel by Ian Fleming, clocks in at over 210 pages. Jumping ahead, Firefox, by Craig Thomas, is over 380 pages and A Game of Thrones, the first of the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin, is over 835 pages.
If the above paragraph made your eyes glaze over, longer novels gave way to shorter ones which then were muscled away with longer novels once again. Casino Royale was fully adapted as a movie. Firefox was adapted in full, but details were lost along the way to keep to the core of the book. Comparing the two original novels, there was far more happening at different levels in Firefox, from Gant’s infiltration of the Soviet Union to the monitoring of the mission by the head of MI-6. Casino Royale kept the focus on Bond and his investigations. The two stories fall into the Cold War-era espionage genre, but Firefox gets into greater detail.
In the fantasy genre, doorstoppers are de rigeur today. Earlier works, like Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian series and Burrough’s John Carter and Tarzan series, were of a length that allowed entire books to be fully adapted. A Game of Thrones, however, required a TV series to do the novel justice. Martin has a large cast, with each character having his or her own plotline. There is no way that a movie could hope to encompass everything happening. The game changer in the fantasy genre was JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. When it gained in popularity in the Sixties, a number of future writers became inspired by the scale of the story.
What does the expansion mean for adaptations? First, the best format for the adaptation may no longer be a feature film. While movies still have the cachet of being the premier form of entertainment, they have a time limit. Few movies lasst longer than three hours, and most are two hours or shorter. Casts of characters have also grown, which leads to either having a large number of actors or rolling several characters into one. Both have pitfalls. A large cast means that a favourite character might get only a few minutes on screen. Combining several minor characters into one conglomerate means a new character appears.
Adding to the complexity is that, while series seem to be on the wane in science fiction and fantasy**, multi-book epics are the norm. Stories like JK Rowling’s Harry Potter, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy, and Martin’s unfinished A Song of Ice and Fire all provide a challenge to complete. The Harry Potter movies dropped several elements just to get as much in as possible. This task had added difficult as the successive books in the series got longer and more detailed and intricate. Both Harry Potter and The Hunger Games needed to split the last novel into two movies to wrap up the story properly.
The expansion of stories may be one of the reasons why comic books are a popular source today. Comics have had ongoing plots mixed in with one-issue stories in the past, and today’s focus on writing for the trades still allows for an arc to be easily adapted. Even if a story needs to be compressed, it is still possible to get a popular story filmed with minimal loss of detail.
Peter Jackson’s recent film treatment of The Hobbit may be the vanguard of a new approach to adapting novels. Provided that the book is popular, adaptations may no longer be kept to just one movie but as many as needed. Again, there is a risk. If the first movie doesn’t perform to expectations, the rest of the film series may never be made. The Mortal Instruments fell to this fate, with just one movie, City of Bones released to a lukewarm reception.
In short, adapting novels to movie form, a tough task of balancing audience expectations with practical and budgetary demands to begin with, now has added problems in terms of including the full story. There is no simple solution. The best that can be done is to see what works and what doesn’t.
* Including planetary romance, which includes the John Carter of Mars novels.
** Excluding tie-in novels and urban fantasy. Tie-in novels exist to take advantage of an existing property, acting as an extension. Urban fantasy appears to be taking its cue from both fantasy and from mysteries, where there are single plot arc series leading to a pre-planned ending and series that return to see how characters are faring.
The History of Adaptations
Twenties
Thirties
Forties
Fifties
Sixties
Seventies
Welcome to the history of adaptations. I’ve been looking at the top movies of each decade, analysing them to see which ones were original and which ones were adaptations, and of the adaptations, what the source material was. I’m using the compiled list at Filmsite.org as a base. So far, the number of popular adaptations has outnumbered the original films in each decade, with the Fifties having just three original works, two of those being demos. The Seventies, however, had a drastic shift; not quite parity, but the number of popular original works grew compared to the number of adaptations.
The Eighties saw the introduction of Reaganomics, Thatcher, and the escalation of the War on Drugs. The Vietnam War stopped being a taboo subject in the US, leading to characters who were veterans trying to deal with what happened, characters such as John Rambo and Sonny Crockett. The economy was in flux, with a recession in the mid- to late-80s that was followed by a jobless recovery. The video cassette recorder, or VCR, became affordable for home use, leading to dire predictions from studios about the death of the movie industry*.
With the Sixties and Seventies, soundtracks came into their own, with unique sounds for different movies. The Eighties saw a new twist become popular – the music video. MTV first broadcast** on August 1, 1981, with The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” gave artists an outlet to have their music played on television. Michael Jackson’s 1983 video for his hit, “Thriller“, showed how the music video could be used for story telling. The popularity of music videos led to the creation of Miami Vice in 1984, with popular music being used to set the tone, much as soundtracks were used for in the previous decades. The music video became a way for studios to advertise movies, much like soundtracks were in the Seventies, and helped many a film at the box office.
Related to the music video is the emergence of a performer who has his thumb on the pulse of pop culture, “Weird Al” Yankovic. While his earlier work was more focused on just music parodies, in the Eighties, he included movies in his works. Making the music scene with “Eat It“, a parody of Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”, Weird Al had fun with the decade’s “sequelitis” with 1982’s “Theme from Rocky XIII“, a parody of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” from Rocky III. “Nature Trail to Hell (in 3D)“, one of Weird Al’s original works, parodied the nature of the slasher flick. In 1985, Weird Al released “Yoda”, a parody of both “Lola” by the Kinks and the character introduced in The Empire Strikes Back. He hasn’t reached being the barometer of what’s popular yet, but the groundwork is there.
The popular films of the decade, by year:
1980
Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back – the sequel to the 1977 blockbuster, Star Wars.
1981
Raiders of the Lost Ark – original, but inspired by pulp stories of the Forties.
1982
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial – original.
Tootsie – original. The core of the movie came from a screenplay called Would I Lie to You by Don McGuire, but underwent changes during the production of the film. What makes the movie original is that the screenplay was shopped around instead of being produced elsewhere.
1983
Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi – sequel. The (then) end of the Star Wars saga, though numerous tie-ins would go on to expand the Galaxy Far Far Away before the 1999 prequel film was released.
1984
Ghostbusters – original. Ghostbusters had a slow start in theatres, but the release of the music video for the main theme song turned the movie into a success.
Beverly Hills Cop – original. Again, the music video for “Axel F“, named for Eddie Murphy’s character, helped at the box office.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – sequel. Temple of Doom was one of the major factors into splitting the existing PG (Parental Guidance recommended) rating into PG and PG-13, which had barred admittance of children under 13 years old without a parent.
1985
Back to the Future – original. Another movie that had a music video, “The Power of Love” released.
1986
Top Gun – original. The movie was inspired by the article, “Top Guns”, by Ehud Yonay in the May 1983 issue of California magazine. The film also had a music video, “Danger Zone” released.
Crocodile Dundee – original but inspired by the life of Rodney Ansell, an Australian bushman. Crocodile Dundee is unusual in that it is the first foreign film, being from Australia, on the popular lists since 1966’s The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
1987
Three Men and a Baby – adapted from the French movie, Trois hommes et un couffin (Three Men and a Cradle).
Fatal Attraction – adaptation, based on the short film Diversion. airing on British television.
1988
Rain Man – original.
1989
Batman – adapted from the various titles from DC Comics, including Detective Comics. This is the second movie based on a comic book character to appear on the lists.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – sequel.
The Eighties were known for sequelitis for a very good reason. Just from the above, there are five sequels. Ghostbusters would have a sequel in 1989, as would Back to the Future, which would have a third movie in 1990. Beverly Hills Cop had a sequel in 1987. Crocodile Dundee had one in 1988. The sequels, though, all continued the stories of the characters, much like a murder mystery book series continues with the same detective or detectives through its run.
Counting the sequels as original works, as done in previous decades, there are thirteen original movies and three adaptations. That makes the Eighties the first decade where popular original movies outnumbered adaptations. Separating out the sequels still leaves eight original works, still more than the adaptations. The trend started in the Seventies, but the complete flipping of numbers happened here. The Eighties are why I’m looking at just the popular works. These are the movies everyone remembers, since the films pulled in a large audience. Few people will remember **Batteries Not Included; but Ghostbusters? “Who you gonna call?” With older works, the popular films are more likely to be remembered by name. There are exceptions. Ingagi, from 1930, is unheard of today, mainly because of what happened to the film, as detailed in the Thirties.
The three adaptations, Batman, Three Men and a Baby, and Fatal Attraction, come from different source works. Batman comes from comics, the second comic book movie in the popular lists. Three Men and a Baby was translated from the French film and adapted for an American audience and setting. Fatal Attraction came from a British TV movie. This is the first decade to not have an movie adapted from a written work, such as a novel or stage play, in the popular list.
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were busy in the Eighties. Lucas had the Star Wars sequels while Spielberg had E.T., but they worked together on the three Indiana Jones movies. All told, they are responsible for six of the movies listed above, all original works. Science fiction is still going strong, continuing from the success of their movies in the Seventies, Lucas’ Star Wars and Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
The Eighties reversed the ratio of original movies to adaptations seen in the Fifties, where only three films weren’t based on another work, but the sequel movie was in full force. Audiences enjoyed seeing further works with beloved characters, though the success of sequels varied. It is this remembrance of the Eighties that is behind the complaints of the number of adaptations being made today.
* Same death of the industry was predicted with the advent of television and with the introduction of the DVD. The music industry had similar predictions of death with the creation of radio, the audio cassette, the Sony Walkman, the compact disc, and MP3s. So far, the success rate on these predictions has been 0%.
** Not quite the word for a cable channel, but it’s the best around.
Welcome to Lost in Translation. If you’ve followed along over at MuseHack, what follows will be familiar. If Lost in Translation is brand new to you, again, welcome.
Adaptations, reboots, remakes, and spin-offs, all of them are fraught with risk. The more popular an original work, the greater the risk in adapting. Yet, these risks are often not apparent at first glance. Many a movie adaptation has stumbled because the hidden risks weren’t taken into account.
Lost in Translation looks at these works, comparing them to the originals, and works out what went wrong and what went right. It is said that you can learn from your mistakes, but you can also learn from someone else’s. And even the worst adaptation can get something right. Not every entry is a review; there are also analyses and essays that takes the lessons the reviews discover and applies them.
Please join me on Saturdays for Lost in Translation. Steve has brought the entire series over from MuseHack, so they’re in the archives here at Seventh Sanctum, This Saturday, I continue the History of Adaptations with the Eighties.
CG Peanuts movie to use classic comics for thought bubbles.
The CGI animated Peanuts feature will pay homage to the original comic strip through the use of the classic comics in thought bubbles.
Dan Aykroyd excited as Ghostbusters reboot starts filming.
Aykroyd, who was the co-creator of the original movie and is the executive producer of the remake, is happy with how the new movie is turning out. While that may not be persuasive, the photos of the costume and the new Ecto are promising.
The Rock’s going to be busy.
Not only is he working on a remake of Big Trouble in Little China, as reported last month, he’s also looking at an adaptation of the classic arcade video game, Rampage. The video game allowed players to take the role of kaiju and destroy a city while fending off the puny defenders.
New Spider-Man film, new Spider-Man actor.
Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios have announced the casting of Tom Holland in the title role. Holland will play Peter Parker in the new movie.
The Rocky franchise continues with Creed.
Rocky Balboa turns coach this November. Michael B. Jordan plays Adonis Creed, son of Apollo Creed, played by Carl Weathers, from the first four Rocky films.
Classic Canadian animated series, The Raccoons, may be returning.
Kevin Gillis, the creator of the original cartoon, is working out how to bring back the the show, featuring raccoons Bert, Melissa, and Ralph. The Raccoons aired on the CBC with TV movies in the early 80s and a regular series starting in 1985. The series also aired on the Disney Channel.
Farscape movie has been confirmed.
Rockne S. O’Bannon has confirmed that a Farscape movie is in the works. The film doesn’t have a script yet, but one is being drafted by Justin Monjo, who wrote for the series.
Dynamite Entertainment to bring Atari classics to comics.
Dynamite will produce comics based on classic Atari video games, including Asteroids, Centipede, and Missile Command. The same company will also be producing James Bond comics helmed by Warren Ellis.
Lost in Translation to take a hiatus.
There’s a shake up coming here at MuseHack. Steve will have the full details, but Lost in Translation will be on hiatus during this time. The reviews will return, as will the history of adaptations.
The History of Adaptations
Twenties
Thirties
Forties
Fifties
Sixties
Welcome to the history of adaptations. I’ve been looking at the top movies of each decade, analyzing them to see which ones were original and which ones were adaptations, and of the adaptations, what the source material was. I’m using the compiled list at Filmsite.org as a base. So far, the number of popular adaptations has outnumbered the original films in each decade, with the Fifties having just three original works, two of those being demos.
The Seventies was the New Hollywood era of the auteur director. Studios gave the directors a greater leeway in creativity, thanks to the success of the early films of the era in the previous decade like The Graduate. The results often outweighed the risks, though studios did get nervous at times. Elsewhere, American troops were pulled from Vietnam by President Richard Nixon in 1973. The Watergate scandal broke in 1974, showing the dirty tricks Nixon used against opponents culminating in the break-in at the Watergate Hotel. The scandal led to the impeachment of and the resignation of Nixon from the presidency and the arrest and conviction of several highly placed government officials. Adding to the misery, a series of energy crises struck as oil prices spiked, notably in 1973 and in 1979. In 1973, OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, limited oil sales to the US due to the country’s support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. In 1979, revolutionaries overthrew the Shah of Iran, leading to a lower oil production in the country and causing a panic in oil prices.
A few genres of movies became popular during the Seventies. The disaster film featured an all-star cast trapped in a dangerous situation, such as a plane crash or a burning building. The car chase movie evolved, with the muscle cars of the decade almost built for the roles. While movies like 1968’s Bulitt and James Bond movies after Goldfinger integrated a car chase into the story, films like Smokey and the Bandit elevated the chase as the main plot. Soundtracks are still important, just as the previous decade, providing another means of conveying the mood of the film. The Hong Kong action movie, long a staple in Asia, gained in popularity in North America, with stars like Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung becoming known to a new audience. Blaxploitation took the Hong Kong action flick and Americanized it, with a black cast and music to groove on while mowing down mooks; Shaft may be the quitessential example and Pam Grier the genre’s kickass leading lady.
The popular movies of the decade:
1970
Love Story – original. Erich Sagal would adapt the screenplay into a novel released before the movieès debut.
Airport – adapted from the 1968 novel of the same name written by Arthur Hailey. Airport would have three sequels in the Seventies; Airport 1975, Airport ’77, and The Concorde … Airport ’79. Hailey also wrote the script for the 1956 CBC TV movie, Flight into Danger*, which was remade in 1957 by Paramount as Zero Hour!**, which would then be used as the base of the 1980 parody, Airplane!. Hailey essentially sowed the seeds that would kill the airplane disaster film as a genre.
1971
Billy Jack – sequel. The first film of the series of four was the 1967 movie, The Born Losers. Distribution was a problem for the film in 1971; Warner Bros. picked up the film and re-released it in 1973, where it had a far better run in theatres.
Diamonds Are Forever – a loose adaptation of the Ian Fleming 007 novel of the same name. Sean Connery returned to play Bond one more time after George Lazenby took the role in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
1972
The Godfather – adapted from the 1969 novel, also titled The Godfather, by Mario Puzo.
1973
The Exorcist – adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty, who was also the movie’s scriptwriter. The book was based on a case of demonic possession and subsequent exorcism in 1949.
The Sting – original. The plot was inspired by an actual grift known as “The Wire“, which has also appeared in the Leverage episode, “The Bottle Job”. The movie used the ragtime music of Scott Joplin.
American Grafitti – original, based on the events of George Lucas’ youth.
1974
Blazing Saddles – original. Mel Brooks parodied Westerns and their tropes while making statements about racism. Mel Brooks co-wrote the script along with Andrew Bergman, Norman Steinberg, Al Uger, and Richard Pryor. Pryor was Brooks’ choice as Bart, but Warner Bros. overrode him, leading to Cleavon Little in the lead role.
The Towering Inferno – adaptation of two novels, The Tower by Richard Martin Stern and The Glass Inferno by Thomas N. Scortia and Frank M. Robinson. Irwin Allen produced the star-studded movie.
1975
Jaws – adapted from the 1974 novel by Peter Bentley. Steven Spielberg used what he learned filming the TV movie Duel and applied it here. The movie is celebrating its fortieth anniversary with re-releases to repertory theatres and was the reason many people stayed out of the water at the beach. Jaws briefly enjoyed holding the record for highest grossing film in history.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show – adaptation of the stage musical, The Rocky Horror Show. The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been in a limited first run since its release and can still play to packed theatres. The movie is a textbook case of a cult film, with fans participating as they watch.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – adapted from the 1962 Ken Kesey novel of the same name,
1976
Rocky – original. Sylvester Stallone wrote and starred in the movie.
1977
Star Wars – original, inspired by pulp films and serials of the Fifties as well as The Dam Busters and the Akira Kurosawa film, The Hidden Fortress. The top grossing movie of the decade, grossing more than the next three movies below combined, and why Jaws held the record briefly.
Saturday Night Fever – adapted from “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night”, an article in New York Magazine in 1976. The movie popularized both disco and John Travolta, previously known from the TV series, Welcome Back, Kotter.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind – original. Steven Spielberg explored the idea of first contact with aliens through music.
Smokey and the Bandit. The movie was based on events and laws in existence at the time, including the legality, or lack there of, of shipping Coors beer from Texas to Georgia. The would be two sequels and a short-lived TV series.
1978
Grease – adaptation of the 1971 Broadway musical, Grease. The movie’s soundtrack finished the year second only to Saturday Night Fever‘s in sales.
National Lampoon’s Animal House – adapted from stories written by Chris Miller in National Lampoon magazine. Miller’s stories were about his experiences at college. Harold Ramis, one of the movie’s scriptwriters, and Ivan Reitman, the producer, added their own experiences to the film.
Superman – adapted from the titles published by DC comics. Superman is the first comic book movie to appear in the list of popular movies and still stands as the movie about the character. Star Christopher Reeve showed how removing a pair of glasses could change Clark Kent into Superman.
1979
Kramer vs. Kramer – adapted from the 1977 novel of the same name by Avery Corman.
Links on the titles in the above list lead to key songs in the movie’s soundtrack. I’ve left out the two musicals on purpose; the soundtrack is the draw, at least initially. American Grafitti used songs popular in the Fifties for its soundtrack. Kramer vs Kramer used music from the Baroque period.
Of the twenty-two movies listed above, thirteen are adaptations. The rest are eight original films and one sequel, which continues the story about the character. About 3/5 of the popular movies of the Seventies are adaptations, a huge shift over the previous decades. Two of the adaptations are from musicals, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Grease. Two more came from magazine articles, Saturday Night Fever and National Lampoon’s Animal House. The first comic book character appears with Superman. The remainder of the adaptations came from novels.
Superman was the oldest work adapted, with the character appearing in Action Comics #1 in 1938. The next oldest was Diamonds Are Forever, published in 1956. The rest were made in a few years of the publication of the novels or articles and a few years after the stage productions. In the prior decades, it wasn’t unusual to see a work dating from the 19th Century or earlier. Here, though, there is nothing from before the 20th Century, nothing over fifty years old. Biblical epics, popular in the Fifties, faded in the Sixties and are non-existent in the Seventies.
Star Wars deserves some extra mention. The film did far better than the studio, 20th Century-Fox, expected and remained in theatres for over a year. The price of a ticket, especially a matinee, was such that a weekly allowance could be spent seeing the movie a couple of times in a week, three times while foregoing the popcorn and drink. The success of the movie paved the way for more A-list science fiction, including Star Trek: The Motion Picture and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. Science fiction was no longer relegated to B-movies and television. Star Wars also represented a huge leap in special effects, especially done on a tight budget.
The soundtrack became a key part of promoting Saturday Night Fever. The movie and the soundtrack promoted each other, allowing the Bee Gees to become a popular band in the Disco Era. Grease took the lessons offered; the movie’s soundtrack was second only to Saturday Night Fever‘s, leading to more cross-promotion. The result of the cross-promotion will appear in the Eighties.
The number of popular adaptations in the Seventies still outnumbers the popular original films, but the ratio has shifted towards parity. The choice of work adapted comes from works popular in the decade; Superman was celebrating his fortieth anniversary and Diamonds Are Forever had a popular actor returning to the role of Bond, while the remainder used popular works. The exception, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, stands out because of its cult status. Overall, the Seventies had the best showing for original films so far and is a great improvement from the Fifties, but adaptations are still popular.
* Starring James Doohan as the shell-shocked Spitfire pilot who has to land a commercial airliner after the pilot and co-pilot suffer from food poisoning.
** Starring Dana Andrews as Ted Stryker, taking on the Doohan role.
As the decades progress with the History of Adaptations, the type of movie that is popular is changing. Biblical epics gave way to musicals, then biblical remakes, then modern thrillers. Not seen in the most popular list are Westerns*, despite them being a quarter of Hollywood’s output , from feature films to serials to television, plus radio series. The Western is a very American genre, celebrating the expansion of the US into an unknown frontier. The original Star Trek was marketed as “Wagon Train to the stars” to get the concept of the show through to executives. In the 1966-67 television season, when Star Trek first aired, there were eighteen Westerns aired on the three TV networks. Gunsmoke still holds the record for the longest running television drama, beating Law & Order in number of episodes, and has its roots in radio before airing on TV in 1955.
Westerns lost popularity in the Seventies. The Vietnam War had American questioning their country and its myths. Blazing Saddles, released in 1974, took the tropes of Westerns and skewered them with parody, much like how Airplane killed the airplane disaster film popular in the Seventies. Heaven’s Gate, released in 1980 and based loosely on the Johnson County War of 1889-1893, may have been the final nail in the coffin along with ending the New Hollywood era of the auteur director. Since then, Westerns have been made, but not in the same numbers as before.
Police procedurals took over the niche Westerns had. There is a similarity between the two genres. A lawman protecting the community against the black hats that threaten it is a common plot in Westerns. That same plot is the bread-and-butter of the police procedural. Dragnet, first appearing on radio in 1949 and television in 1951, set the tropes for the genre. Jack Webb, the creator of Dragnet, used the same approach with Emergency, a fire department procedural focused on paramedics in Los Angeles. The police procedural took over the Western’s place on television schedules, with series like Hawaii Five-0 in the Seventies, Miami Vice in the Eighties, and the Law & Order franchise through the Nineties to the new millennium.
Today, though, a new mythos has emerged, building on ideas in both Westerns and police procedurals. The superhero, while around since the age of the pulps and mystery men, has become a dominant force. Superman has appeared on radio, in live-action television and movies, and in animated series. Batman has almost kept pace, with no radio show featuring the character but appearing in the Superman radio series. Between June 2015 and 2020, there are fifty-one planned superhero movies, plus several TV series. While nowhere near the number of Westerns during that genre’s peak, the amount of money being put into developing these fifty-one movies is far beyond what Hollywood invested in oaters.
Superheroes, like Westerns, are uniquely American**. Unlike Westerns, superheroes aren’t based on historical figures, allowing the characters to remain bigger than life without the worry of an indiscretion being discovered by historians. However, like some Westerns, superheroes are vigilantes keeping communities safe from villains who would otherwise be untouchable. Batman touches on both the Western and the police procedural, touching on ideas in The Lone Ranger as someone outside the law working to enforce it and being an investigator, as seen in numerous police procedurals and detective stories. Marvel’s The Avengers can be seen as similar to movies like The Seven Samurai and its Hollywood version, The Magnificent Seven, with a number of heroes being brought together to fight off a threat.
While people may believe that the superhero bubble will pop, what needs to be kept in mind is that Westerns, as a genre, lasted decades with higher levels of saturation. Police procedurals are still around. While NBC cancelled Law & Order through an ill-advised move, its spin-off, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, first appearing in 1999, is still on the air. CBS has its own police procedural franchise in CSI: Crime Scene Investiation, starting in 2000, and still going with CSI: Cyber. Superhero media outside comics may continue for some time.
The issue that is occurring, as the History of Adaptations project will examine in greater detail, is that superheroes started in a medium considered to be for children. Comics, despite the strides made in appealing to adults, are still seen as being for kids. Westerns, while at times family fare, still could be seen by the entire family, again with exceptions. Police procedurals are definitely aimed at adults, with series aimed at a younger audience tweaked to avoid adult situations. Supers, though, still have the public image as being something aimed at children and teenagers and, thus, not to be taken seriously. The same issue exists for Young Adult novels; superheroes, though, are a visual medium and aren’t seen as being as literary.
That said, superheroes present a new American mythology, one that is still being created while building on the myths and legends of history. There is potential within the genre. Marvel Studios, through its Avengers Initiative series of movies, is showing that supers can be added to any number of genres, from technothriller to space opera, to create something new. There may be a bubble, but it’s not ready to deflate yet.
* With the exception of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in the Sixties.
** As uniquely American as possible when half the creators of the first superhero, Superman, was Canadian. Joe Shuster hailed from Toronto, Ontario, and elements of that city can be seen in Metropolis.
The History of Adaptations
Twenties
Thirties
Forties
Fifties
Welcome to the history of adaptations. I’ve been looking at the top movies of each decade, analyzing them to see which ones were original and which ones were adaptations, and of the adaptations, what the source material was. I’m using the compiled list at Filmsite.org as a base. Last time, there was an unexpected twist. Turned out, the Fifties had the worst adaptation-to-original ratio so far, with just three movies being original and two of those being Cinerama demos. Prior, the ratio was about 2:1, remaining roughly constant from the dawn of the film industry.
The Sixties were a time of change and upheaval. The Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, anti-war protests, Beatlemania, John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the growing role of television, and that’s the short list. New Hollywood got its start during this decade; young filmmakers made their mark on the industry, affecting how studios produced movies. Colour was the default film process unless the director chose black-and-white for artistic purposes.
The popular movies of the era:
1960
Swiss Family Robinson – a Disney live-action adaptation of the 1812 novel, Der Schweizerische Robinson by Johann David Wyss.
1961
One Hundred and One Dalmatians – a Disney animated film adapting the book, The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith.
1962
Dr. No – adapted from the James Bond novel of the same name by Ian Fleming.
The Longest Day – adapted from the book of the same name by Cornelius Ryan about the D-Day landings in 1944.
1963
Cleopatra – adapted from the book, The Life and Times of Cleopatra by CM Franzero. Running over four hours, Cleopatra almost bankrupted 20 Century-Fox due to cost overruns and signalled the end of sprawling epics.
1964
Mary Poppins – adapted from the novel of the same name by PL Travers, Disney used a mix of live action and animation in the production.
My Fair Lady – musical adapted from the play, Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw
Goldfinger – the third James Bond novel to be adapted and the one to set the standard for all other 007 movies to follow. The second novel adapted, From Russia With Love was released in 1963.
1965
The Sound of Music – adaptation based on the play of the same name, which itself was adapted from a 1956 film from Germany, Die Trapp-Familie and the autobiography, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp.
Doctor Zhivago – adapted from the novel of the same name by Boris Pasternak.
Thunderball – the fourth James Bond movie, though not an adaptation. Fleming worked with producer Kevin McClory prior to Dr. No to create Thunderball, which would lead to legal issues that would see elements from the movie be unavailable to United Artists and, later, MGM, including SPECTRE. McClory would remake Never Say Never Again with Sean Connery as Bond in 1983. SPECTRE returned to the main film franchise in 2015 in SPECTRE with Daniel Craig.
1966
The Bible: In the Beginning – adapted from The Book of Genesis in The Bible.
Hawaii – adapted from the novel of the same name by James A. Michener.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – original. The epic spaghetti Western by Sergio Leone with music by Ennio Morricone and considered the third movie in the Dollars trilogy, following A Fist Full of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More.
1967
The Jungle Book – adapted from the book by Rudyard Kipling. This will be the last Disney animated movie to appear until the Nineties.
The Graduate – based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Webb.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner – original. The movie’s release came six months after the Loving v. Virgina ruling that struck down restrictions on mixed-race marriage in the United States.
1968
Funny Girl – based on the 1964 stage musical of the same name, which itself was based on the life of actor, singer, and comedian Fanny Brice. Barbra Streisand starred in both the musical and the movie as Brice.
2001: A Space Odyssey – original. Arthur C. Clarke worked with Stanley Kubrick on the story for the movie before writing the book. Clarke’s follow-up novel, 2010: Odyssey Two took into account changes made in the movie after Clarke had finished writing his novel.
1969
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – original but based loosely on outlaws Robert LeRoy Parker and Harry Longabaugh, aka the title characters.
Soundtracks became notable in films, and not just for musicals. While music did play a role in films prior to the Sixties, the advent of rock-and-roll meant that a memorable, popular song could be played on the radio as part of the Top 40. 2001: A Space Odyssey married science fiction and classical music, including The Blue Danube Waltz in synchronization with the docking of a Pan-Am space place to an orbital station. Cross-pollination is just beginning in this era, with the fruits to be seen in later decades. Links in the list of popular films above go to songs best remembered from the work.
Of the twenty movies listed above, fifteen are adaptations. It is not until 1965, though, that an original work appears, and even that film, Thunderball, is part of a franchise. Also of note, two movies were made in conjunction with a novelist; Thunderball and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Of the adaptations, three – My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Funny Girl – were based on stage works with the remaining dozen adapting literature. Movies have taken over the niche that theatre once held. Broadway is still key, but film and television have filled the gap that was once vaudeville.
The ratio of adaptation-to-original is now 3:1, worse than the early decades but an improvement over the previous. Stage plays are still being adapted, but not to the degree as in the early years. Adaptations remain popular, though, even over fifty years after the film industry began. The rise of the auteur director could change things into the Seventies.
Short round up this month. Just a few of note.
Absolutely Fabulous movie coming.
AbFab is returning. Jennifer Saunders, creator and star of the original show, has confirmed that a movie will be filmed this summer, once a budget has been set. Saunders has said that the movie will bring back the main characters, including Joanna Lumley’s Patsy.
Steven Spielberg and SyFy Channel to bring Brave New World to the small screen.
Aldous Huxley’s dystopia Brave New World is being adapted by Spielberg for SyFy as a miniseries. Huxley’s novel looked at a future Earth where consumerism won the day, leading to a sterile world except for areas that refused to conform.
The Rock to play Jack Burton.
John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China will be remade with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the Kurt Russell role. Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz, who wrote X-Men: First Class, will write the script. Johnson wants to bring in John Carpenter, the director of the original, on the film.
Alphanumeric! ReBoot reboot confirmed.
Corus Entertainment is set to reboot the 90s CG-animated cartoon, ReBoot, with a full twenty-six episodes. The original series, the first one to use CG, lasted four seasons, with the last being comprised of two made-for-TV movies. The series ended on a cliffhanger, with the virus Megabyte having taken over Mainframe. The new series, ReBoot: The Guardian Core, is set to pick up with four sprites defending their system with the help of the VERA, the last of the original Guardians.
Speaking of the 90s, The Powerpuff Girls are returning, too.
Once again, the day will be saved! The Powerpuff Girls are returning to Cartoon Network, with new voices and new producers. The reboot will be prodiuced by Nick Jennings, of Adventure Time, and Bob Boyle, of Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! Tom Kenny will return as the Narrator and the Mayor.
The Adaptation Fix-It Shop is open again. The Shop looks at adaptations that have major problems and tries to rebuild the concept. Previously, the Fix-It Shop rejiggered the 1998 Godzilla as a action/comedy monster hunting flick and separated the two movies trying to get out from Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.
Today, I delve back into Dungeons & Dragons.
The first inclination is to drop a meteor swarm* on it and call it a day.
The first inclination, while satisfying, is wrong. While Dungeons & Dragons had many problems. Its 2005 direct-to-video sequel, Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God, was a far better movie and a far better adaptation, just lacking the effects budget the first movie had. The sequel works as a template on how to fix the the original. There’s also the issue of the original movie having decent set pieces that just didn’t work with all the others.
Let’s get some of the problems out of the way. Role-playing games add an extra twist to adapting that most media doesn’t, as mentioned before. While most novels, comics, TV series, and even video games have a plot, RPGs leave that up to the players. Characters are the same; in an RPG, the players create them. Settings may or may not be included, depending on the game. Dungeons & Dragons, in most editions, has The World of Greyhawk as a default setting, but with little information beyond names like Drawmij, Mordenkainen, and Zagyg. Other settings were produced and sold, and Dungeon Masters (DMs) were given world-building tips, much like Way with Worlds, to help create their own. That leaves game mechanics, which did appear in the movie.
Wrath of the Dragon God showed that it is possible to do a D&D movie. Wrath had a lower budget, but made up for it with more attention to game elements and easing those elements into the narrative. The sequel created its own setting and characters, using ideas presented in the Third Edition core rulebooks, and building on them for the plot. Wrath is proof of concept; a D&D movie can be made that isn’t bad.
With the above in mind, what can be done to repair the Dungeons & Dragons movie? The core plot is about five adventurers who band together to stop an evil wizard from overthrowing the queen. It’s a good plot, one not used too much lately in movies. The devil’s in the details, though. In a D&D game, evil wizards capable of succeeding in overthrowing a monarch tend to be capable of tossing fireballs without breaking a sweat. While a group of adventurers can defeat a much higher level opponent if they team up and work together, an evil wizard should be portrayed as smart enough to have lieutenants, henchmen, and minions in between him and any resistance. In the movie, the villain was powerful enough to command dragons and beholders, one of either can be a difficult foe for a group of adventurers.
It could be that the plot needs far more time to resolve properly than a movie can provide. Stopping anyone from taking over a kingdom can be a full campaign spread over several months of play. The same thing happened with the Dragonlance animated film; a ninety minute animated movie wasn’t enough to cover a novel. Even with the expanded DVDs of the Lord of the Rings movies, a lot had to be left out just to get the story told. Epic fantasy just doesn’t fit in a tidy 90-120 minute time slot. Three ways around the problem; the first, look at going to television. TV allows for 13-20 45-minute chunks of time, providing far more time to properly tell a story. The anime Record of Lodoss War lasted thirteen episodes, each one being 25 minutes long, and it was based on an RPG campaign.
Second method involves multiple movies. There’s a risk inherent to the approach; if the first movie isn’t a draw, the story ends incomplete. This seems to be the fate** of The Mortal Instruments. The City of Bones underperformed at the box office. leading to the sequel to be first pushed back and then cancelled, leaving the story unfinished. The goal for the repaired Dungeons & Dragons, under this workaround, is to keep the production costs down without looking cheap to maximize the box office returns. It will be a balancing act to keep the effects looking good while still not breaking the budget.
The third approach is to cut through the backstory and start in media res. The evil wizard is making his move and the adventurers have to act and act now! Details can be filled in as flashbacks and the Seven Samurai-like gathering of the heroes avoided or truncated. The key events are the discovery of the plot, the investigation into how the plot will be enacted, and the stopping of the plot and the wizard. The heroes have a time limit.
While a TV series may be the best approach, to properly fix the movie would be to keep the format***. Multiple movies aren’t a guarantee; unlike Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, Dungeons & Dragons isn’t based on a series of bestselling books. Even Star Wars was filmed to be a stand-alone work if it didn’t do well. That leaves option three, cutting out or cutting down unnecessary events and trimming the gathering of the heroes. The goal, now, is to get something that feels both epic in nature and still personal. To elevated, and the audience doesn’t have a character to follow. Too close, and the saving of the kingdom becomes overwhelming.
The wizard’s plot to take over the kingdom needs a bit of work. Summoning a flight of evil dragons is epic, but one dragon could turn the heroes into cinders without effort. Controlling one is enough and keeps the menace of both the dragon and the wizard intact. A quest to retrieve a means to call a good dragon to counter the wizard’s will allow the dungeon half of the title to appear. The wizard’s motive is power and riches, something the kingdom has in plenty.
Now that the villain’s plot is more or less set, a way to stop or at least neutralize him is in place, it’s time to get the heroes going. Two rogues, a mage apprentice, a dwarf fighter, and an elf ranger discover the scheme and work together to recover the MacGuffin of Good Dragon Summoning before the evil wizard can overthrow the queen. Let’s use a plot point from the original movie, the apprentice discovers that her mentor is part of the evil scheme. Instead of discovering this after stopping two half-competent thieves, she does this and then discovers them looting the lab. This gives her leverage; help her stop the evil wizard or be turned over to her mentor. The rogues, being greedy but decent people, help because while the kingdom, a magocracy, benefits only wizards with non-magical types on the edge of society, having an evil wizard in charge is a change for the worse.
A mage and two rogues aren’t an effective combat force. Earlier editions of D&D saw magic-users who could die if their cat familiar played too rough. Rogues do their best fighting when their opponents can’t see them. The group takes stock and heads to the best place to find someone who is good in a fight, a seedy tavern. “You all meet in a tavern” is a cliché, but works to get players together fast. By choosing a dive where brawls are known to occur nightly, the group can invoke the cliché without engaging it. They’re looking for the last man standing, who turns out to be the dwarf fighter. They explain what’s happening, tell the dwarf there will be lots of fighting, and work out the next step, which is to somehow summon a good dragon. The dwarf knows someone, a ranger, and leads the group to the elf. At this point, the group is as connected as it can get, and time’s wasting.
The dungeon is the location where each character can show off their abilities, though this needs to be subtle. It’s also a chance to bring in some classic monsters that wouldn’t necessarily fit into the plot, though the choices need to be careful. As tempting as it is to toss in a rust monster to scare the dwarf fighter, the creature can look a little silly. The rust monster was based off a toy that Gary Gygax used as a miniature. But, if the rust monster can be brought in and made fearsome, it is iconic to the game and easier to avoid or defeat than a beholder.
The MacGuffin of Good Dragon Summoning now in their hands, the heroes rush back to the capital, but dark clouds loom overhead. The wizard finishes controlling his dragon and sends it out to wreak havoc on the city. The heroes must now use the MacGuffin to call a good dragon while fighting off the wizard’s lieutenants and minions. It’s close, but the good dragon arrives and attacks the evil one. The heroes slip into the city as the wizard closes in on the queen, leading to the final fight. Pyrotechnics go off as the heroes battle the villain while the dragons fight in the background, reflecting the fortune of the heroes. Ultimately, the heroes win, the kingdom is saved, and triumphant music plays.
Plot aside, that leaves the effects, another point of failure. By reducing the number of dragons, that should give the effects team both the time and money to focus on just two instead of two flocks. The dungeon can be built on a set instead of on location, unless a decent catacomb can be found for less. Some set pieces from the original are lost, including the Thieves’ Guild maze, which was a high point of the film. That maze, though, just duplicates the dungeon, and can be let go. The final battle needs to reflect spells that are in the game, and the mage apprentice should run out of spells or be down to utility types like light or mage hand.
Will the above work? It depends on the cast, crew, and budget. Wrath of the Dragon God did show that a D&D movie is possible, provided that the plot can handle the effects budget available. A less ambitious plot could help, as could reducing the time spent on subplots that lead nowhere.
Next week, the June news round up.
* Ninth level magic-user spell that summons a meteor shower on an area that used to have opponents in it.
** A TV series, Shadowhunters, is in the works, however.
*** Besides, D&D has already had a TV series, albeit animated.
Five friends take a vacation in an abandoned, isolated cabin in the woods, only to find themselves at the mercy of the supernatural. A simple premise, but loaded with potential. Sam Raimi’s 1981 film, The Evil Dead, began there, then grew with two sequels, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, plus comics and video games, and kicked off careers for not just him but Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert.
The Evil Dead has five Michigan State students, Ash Williams, his girlfriend Linda, his sister Cheryl, their friend Scotty, and Scotty’s girlfriend Shelly, on spring break. They decide on an isolated cabin in the hills of Tennessee*, but the journey there isn’t uneventful. After a near-collision with another motorist in the downpour, the group barely gets across a bridge before it collapses.
At the cabin, things keep getting odd. Cheryl, while trying to draw a clock, draws a demonic face, her hand and arm possessed at the time. She dismisses what she did as just her imagination playing tricks after the long drive and near death encounters on the road. In the main room, though, a trapdoor flies open. Ash and Scotty go down to investigate and find a book, the Book of the Dead, with unusual bindings and a tape recording. The recording is gibberish to them, but is an incantation to summon evil spirits. Upstairs, a tree crashes through a window, causing Cheryl to become hysterical and leave to her room.
Cheryl, though, hears voices from outside. She goes out to look, only to be attacked, held, and assaulted by trees. Cheryl escapes, but no one believes her story. Trees don’t move like that. Ash, though, does agree to take her back to town. The only bridge connecting the cabin to the rest of the world is gone, trapping everyone.
The demons go to work. They first possess Cheryl, making her warn the others that they’re doomed, then having her stab Linda with a pencil. Cheryl gets locked up, but Shelly is the next to be possessed. Shelly attacks Scotty, who defends himself with an axe. He buries Shelly’s dismembered body, then, still shaken, goes out to find another way to escape the cabin.
When Scotty returns, Linda has been possessed, though she never tried to attack Ash. Scotty has found another way out, but falls unconscious before he could say what it is. Linda and Cheryl convince Ash they’re not posessed, but he doesn’t fall for the trick. Cheryl remains locked up in the cellar and Ash locks Linda out of the cabin. As he tends to Scotty’s injuries, Linda gets back in the cabin and attacks with a ceremonial dagger. Ash turns the tables and stabs Linda. He buries Linda, but isn’t able to dismember her as Scotty did to Shelly. The demon possessing Linda takes advantage and bursts out of the grave. Ash decapitates the possessed Linda with a shovel.
Back at the cabin, Cheryl has escaped the cellar and Scotty is now possessed. Ash finds a shotgun and wounds Cheryl, but needs to reload afterwards. He locks himself in the cellar to look for more shotgun shells. The walls seep blood and voices call to Ash. Cheryl and Scotty break through the door. Ash spies the Book of the Dead and throws it into the flames. Cheryl and Scotty fall apart. Ash returns upstairs as dawn breaks. The final shot is a from the view of an unseen evil being rushing through the woods and leaping at Ash.
The Evil Dead was a low budget horror movie by a first-time feature film director. Raimi kept the production at the isolated cabin, adding more problems as shooting went on. All the effects are practical, with workarounds made to make up for the lack of expensive equipment. Dolly zooms**, the shots where the focus pulls in on an actor while pulling the camera away, were done using a long piece of wood covered with Vaseline because proper dolly cameras weren’t available. The movie became a cult hit despite getting an initial X rating from the amount of violence and gore and, as mentioned above, spawned sequels and a musical.
Raimi and Campbell had wanted to remake the movie over the years, but the idea was on hold in 2009. In 2011, though, Campbell revealed during a Reddit AskMeAnything that there was a script for a remake, one that blew him away. While not directed by Raimi, he chose Fede Alvarez to direct the 2013 Evil Dead, making the movie his feature film debut. Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues co-wrote the script, which was then cleaned up by Diablo Cody to fix the dialogue.
Evil Dead starts with a young woman being kidnapped by two men in the woods and taken to a cabin. She recovers to find herself chained to a post and held in place by barbed wire. Along with the men who kidnapped her is her father, who is trying to tell her its for her own good, and an old witch who is ordering the father to pour gasoline on the woman. The woman pleads to be let go, but as her begging falls on deaf ears, the demon possessing her starts berating her father. He sets his daughter on fire, then shoots her.
Years later, five college-aged friends arrive at the cabin. David and his girlfriend Natalie, along with their friends Eric and Olivia, who is a nurse, have gathered to make sure that David’s sister Mia kicks her heroin habit cold turkey. The isolated nature of the cabin should ensure that Mia isn’t able to obtain more drugs or run off. As the group settles in, Mia smells something off, like something died. Olivia dismisses it as withdrawal symptoms, but Grandpa, David and Mia’s dog, also smells something coming from under a throw rug. The group removes the rug to find a trapdoor and bloodstains leading to it.
The group investigates, finding corpses of animals, a shotgun, and a book wrapped in plastic and bound with barbed wire. They take the book and shotgun back upstairs. Eric, either through curiosity or because the book called to him, removes the barbed wire to start reading. The book, Naturom Demonto or Book of the Dead, is filled with writing and illustrations, along with warnings to not read further. The illustrations are of either demons or their human victims. One page has been heavily scribbled out, but Eric makes an impression to get the original words, which he reads aloud.
Mia senses the awakening of an ancient evil. She tries to get the group to leave, but, again, Olivia dismisses it all as withdrawal symptoms. Mia grabs her car keys and leaves anyway. On the road, she sees a girl in ragged clothes too late to brake. Mia swerves instead, sending her car off the road and into the swamp. The girl reappears, following Mia. Mia runs off into the woods, but is caught on a thorn bush. While it first appears that Mia was just unlucky, the vines grab on to her, holding her in place for the girl. The girl shoots black ooze from her mouth. The ooze writhes along the ground and up Mia’s legs.
David and Olivia have followed Mia, finding her car off the road. They search for her and do find her in shock with a number scratches and thorns. Back at the cabin, Mia tries to warn the group, who, once again, passes off her babblings as withdrawal symptoms. Mia withdraws. David, working outside, finds a trail of blood that leads to his now mortally wounded dog. He storms back in, looking for his sister, who is off taking a shower. In the shower, Mia is fully clothed and turns up the heat. David breaks through the door as second degree burns appear on Mia. Eric recognizes the scene from the Book and finally speaks up about it. David takes Mia with him in his Jeep to get his sister medical attention, but the only way in and out has been washed away, forcing him to return to the cabin.
Back with the others, Mia’s possession goes full-demon as she picks up the shotgun and shoots her brother. David dodges enough so that only his arm is hit. Mia then tells the group, in a voice that isn’t hers, that all five will die, then passes out. Olivia tries to retrieve the shotgun, but Mia recovers and overpowers the nurse, covering her in a vomit of blood. The group manages to push Mia into the cellar and lock her away. Olivia heads to the bathroom to clean up. She sees a distorted view of herself in the mirror just before it explodes. Outside the bathroom, Eric hears an unsettling sound. He heads into the room to see Olivia, now also possessed, cutting her cheek with one of the mirror shards. She sees him and attacks with everything she has, mirror shard and hypodermic needle. Eric fends her off long enough to pick up a heavy piece of porcelain to bludgeon her.
As David tends to Eric’s wounds, Eric explains that everything that has happened is in the Book. The extra notes tell of how to cleanse the evil from the possessed, including dismemberment, live burial, or burning. The Book also tells of how the Taker of Souls needs five souls in order to release the Abomination. Mia and Olivia were just the first two.
The possessed Mia is working on the third. Natalie hears Mia crying in the cellar, confused about what happened to her. She opens the cellar to talk, and discovers that Mia is still possessed. Mia bites Natalie’s hand, but Natalie escapes. In the kitchen, Natalie discovers that her hand is moving of its own accord. Scared that she’s getting possessed and hearing Mia’s maniacal laughter, Natalie does the one thing she can think of to stop the infection – she severs her arm with an electric knife.
David and Eric arrive as Natalie’s arm falls to the floor. They wrap up the stump, then try to work out how to stop Mia. David is unwilling to just kill his sister. During the debate, Natalie picks up the nail gun and attacks the two men. Eric takes most of the nails, and distracts Natalie long enough for David to get the shotgun. David shoots his girlfriend’s remaining arm off.
David pulls Eric outside, along with the gasoline can. The plan is to burn the cabin with Mia inside, but she begins singing a lullaby that their mother sang to them. David’s Plan B is to bury his sister alive. He returns inside and into the cellar, but is surprised by Mia. Mia is surprised by Eric, who knocks her out but is fatally wounded by her box cutter. David carries Mia out to the shallow grave. He gives her a sedative, then buries her. Mia wakes up and taunts him with every shovelful of dirt he adds. With Mia completely buried, he waits several moments, then digs her back up. Mia is dead, but David has built a makeshift defibrillator using items in the cabin. It works, and Mia is herself again.
David returns to the cabin to get the keys for his Jeep. He’s attacked by Eric, who is possessed. David realizes that he can’t survive his neck wound, so gives Mia the keys and pushes her out of the cabin. With just him and Eric inside, David grabs the shotgun and takes aim at the gas can. The fireball kills both him and and the re-animated Eric.
Outside, Mia stares in horror at what happened. As she stands watching the flames, a rain of blood starts. Five have died, and Mia’s clinical death counts. The Abomination awakens. Mia tries to run, but the Abomination keeps up, calling her name in a harsh whisper. Mia realizes she can’t keep running and looks for a way to fight back. Her eyes fall on the chainsaw. It takes a number of attempts to get it started, all while keeping away from the Abomination. It is only while hiding under the Jeep that Mia gets the chainsaw started. She cuts the Abomination’s legs out from under it. Mia can’t get away from the Jeep fast enough, though. The Abomination topples the vehicle on its side, trapping one of Mia’s arms under it.
Horror movies are difficult to remake. Fans of the original have certain expectations, but a shot-for-shot remake means all the twists and scares are known. With an cult classic like The Evil Dead, there are elements that are needed in a remake to keep the feel. Evil Dead managed to keep those elements while still being fresh. The original used camera tricks like dolly zooms and long, low, fast shots through the woods while still being in a cramped environment. Those same tricks return, adding to the oddness of the cabin. Changing the names of the victims also helps. Ash Williams would be expected to survive in a remake. No Ash, no foreknowledge of who, if anyone, survives.
Some things, though, shouldn’t be changed. The trap door, the Book, the chainsaw, the rape-trees, all were key in the original and all return in some form. For an added bonus, Sam Raimi’s 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88*** returns, as an abandoned car at the cabin. Everything that made The Evil Dead the horror classic it is returns in Evil Dead. Helping to keep that feel are the producers, Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert Tapert, all resposible for the original. Raimi may not be at the helm, but he chose Fede Alvarez. Alvarez delivered a movie that uses the techniques of the original to deliver the chills of the original while still being its own film.
The end result is that Evil Dead is The Evil Dead with a better budget but a tighter film.
* Production filmed in an isolated cabin near Morrison, Tennesee, adding a touch of cinéma verité to the movie. Raimi was known to be happy when his actors bled.
** Also known as Vertigo shots, after the Alfred Hitchcock movie.
*** The Delta 88 has appeared in every movie and series that Sam Raimi has worked on, including Spider-Man as the car Peter’s uncle drove and even in an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess.
