It’s a brand new year.  Studios are announcing blockbusters.  Both Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. have a slate of superhero adaptation coming up, theatrical and televised.  Sequels and adaptations are going to dominate the multiplexes.  But people have been predicting a collapse for the past few years, people like Steven Spielberg.  Collapses have happened before.  In 1980, Heaven’s Gate was, if not the catalyst, the nail in the coffin of unfettered directors, free from studio control.  The high budget coupled with poor performance in theatres killed United Artists, leading to its sale to MGM.  While the film has redeemed itself over time, allowing the audience to see the movie without the raw knowledge of the behind the scenes history, the four hour epic originally fared poorly.

Studios have not been known for being risk takers.  They exist to make money through movies.  A film that doesn’t recoup its budget at the box office is considered a failure, though the advent of merchandising and, later, the purchase of personal copies on first video tape and later DVD can help offset that loss.  As the cost of making movies have gone up, studios have gone from risk-adverse to risk-phobic.  Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace had, in 1999, a budget of $115 million.  In comparison, the 2013 film, The Hangover Part III had a budget of $103 million, with far less of its budget allocated for special effects than The Phantom Menace did.  Blockbusters are now regularly reaching $200 million budgets.  While one flop won’t destroy a studio, a string of failures will.

There are two ways for a studio to control risk.  The first is adapting a popular work.  Lost in Translation has been reviewing movie adaptations for over two and a half years.  It’s not a new approach, as an upcoming series here will show.  The difference now is that the original works aren’t the high-brow sources as in the past.  From the 20s through to the 60s, adaptations were taken from literature, from the Bible, from theatrical plays.  Adaptations of family fare came from children’s books or fairy tales.  The adaptations of today are more low-brow, coming from popular works – book series, comics, cartoons, video games, and toys, all the purview of the masses.  This difference leads to the perception that studios are in the middle of an adaptation boom, where original works fall aside.  However, Alfred Hitchcock adapted several works into movies, including To Catch a Thief, from the novel of the same name by David F. Dodge, and Psycho, from the novel by Robert Bloch.  The upcoming series will go into more details, but the perception that all that studios produce comes from two decades where original works were the norm in popularity lists.

The second way studios use to control risk is the Save the Cat formula.  Save the Cat, by Blake Snyder, goes through the steps of screenwriting, placing the story beats, fifteen key events in a movie, down page by page.  Snyder called his work a structure, but studios latched on to the method as a formula after the book’s publication in 2005, leading to movies feeling the same, no matter who starred, who directed, what genre the film was, or even the budget.  With all films following the formula, one variable is nailed down if a film fails.  It can’t be from the script; it followed the structure.  Sometimes, though, that structure harms the movie.  Battleship was blatant about the check boxes.  With studios risk-phobic, though, don’t expect a change in how a script is written.

Studios are relying more on blockbusters.  With the success of Marvel’s The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, studios will stay on the blockbuster bandwagon.  With the auteur period, massive box office flops, like the aforementioned Heaven’s Gate, sent studios into minimizing risks.  With studios managing risk, it is unlikely that a number of blockbusters will fail.  The failures of The Lone Ranger and R.I.P.D., both adaptations*, provided different lessons.  With The Lone Ranger, the lesson was that an older property that hasn’t been seen in at least a generation may not have the best way to attract an audience.  The failure of R.I.P.D. showed that studios can’t adapt just any comic.

With franchises becoming the core of studio income, can studios survive an implosion?  Universal Studios’ 2014 lineup had no blockbusters, yet the studio had a record profit.  The linked article goes into greater detail, but the vast majority of Universal’s releases were made for under $40 million.  Universal’s franchise films, Fast and Furious 7, Minions, and Jurassic World should appear in 2015.  There were only two adaptations, Ouija, a horror movie based around the Ouija board, and Dracula Unbound, featruring Bram Stoker’s vampire.  The result – Universal didn’t lose as much money on failures and made amazing profit on unexpected hits, all from keeping budgets down.  It is possible for a studio to thrive without a tentpole blockbuster.

The year ahead won’t see a collapse, not right away.  Individual big-budget blockbusters might fail, which will get insiders talking about an impending collapse, but no one studio will see a string of failures.  Universal’s lesson won’t be learned right away, but will be around.  An underperforming franchise may be an indication that it’s time to let the franchise lay fallow for a few years, giving fans time to miss the series and demand a new film.  Studios will make excuses for the failure of a tentpole blockbuster, blaming factors beyond just yet another formulaic movie.  It will only be when a number of big-budget films underperform that studios will panic.

* The Lone Ranger was originally a radio series before being adapted for television and film.  R.I.P.D. was based on the comic, Rest in Peace Department.

The one thing that 2016 is guaranteed to have is more adaptations.  The current cycle may be reaching a peak, but there are a number of adaptations in the pipelines still to be released.  But if the peak is near, the two things that will mark getting past the apex is quality and audience reception.

Quality is tough to quantify, but, overall, adaptations today are far more faithful now than ever before.  Studios have learned that the in-name-only adaptation is doomed to failure from the outset.  Word of mouth is far faster today thanks to social media.  Audiences can warn others about a movie’s flaws during a screening.  At the same time, a movie that hits the heart of a work will also get audiences telling others about it.  Social media is a double-edged sword for studios.

Audience reception is easier to measure.  Box office returns, while not the best method, is still what studios look at as a measure of a film’s success.  The dollar amount isn’t the only part looked at; the amount brought in compared to a film’s budget is key.  An expensive film that brings in over a billion dollars, such as Jurassic World and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, isn’t the only success; a lower budget movie that still brings in ten times what it was made is also successful.  As long as audiences keep going to adaptations, they will be made.  One flop isn’t going to kill the current trend.  It will take a number of failures over a short period to convince a studio to try something different.  Thus, Universal’s failure with Jem and the Holograms isn’t going to dissuade the studio from continuing with the Fifty Shades of Grey series*.

Adaptations have always been a part of Hollywood.  The coming year is will be no different.  A backlash against the number of adaptations may be beginning, but it’ll take a few years before it gets felt.  Studios have adaptations in various stages of production; cancelling will cost money, and there’s no indication now that audiences will stay away in droves in the hope for something original.  Even then, the superhero movie is becoming a mainstay.  Where the Western and the rogue cop films have far too much baggage to them to be regular features, the superhero can take the appeal of the other two genres without their drawbacks.

Even television isn’t immune to adaptations.  Many series, including The Librarians, The Expanse, Dark Matter, and The Last Ship, are all adapted from other works.  Expect more works to be adapted as television series; the format allows for a greater depth at the expense of the fickleness of ratings.  Even the fickleness can be avoided; the 500-channel universe means that a work will find its audience.  A Game of Thrones has proven to be a hit for HBO, bringing in subscribers tuning in for that one series.

As mentioned above, quality is the key.  If the adaptation makes an effort to be faithful to the original work, audiences will watch.  Studios are learning this; the failure of Jem and the Holograms is noteworthy because it failed to meet fan expectations.  Fifty Shades of Grey met fan expectations, despite the casting choices.  The lesson is there to be learned.

* Issues between director and author might cause delays, though.

Lost in Translation is taking time off for the holidays but will return next week with a look forward to 2015.

Happy holidays!

A few tidbits for the month.  The big news involves the Doctor Strange movie.

Jem and the Holograms comic due in March.
The new design for the characters has been released.  The art is updated while still keeping to the original looks of the dolls and TV series.  The hair is outrageous, as to be expected, but either hair spray or holographic display can explain it.

Benedict Cumberbatch to start as Doctor Strange.
Marvel has confirmed that Benedict Cumberbatch will play the title role in Doctor Strange, the first of the Phase 3 movies.  All Marvel needs to do now is get Loki in the movie.

JK Rowling releasing new Harry Potter.
The releases started on December 12.  Among the works are stories about the Malfoy family, Prof. McGonigle before Hogwarts, and how Floo Powder is made.

TOHO announces first Godzilla movie since hiatus.
TOHO will be ending the fallowing of Godzilla movies in 2016.  The success of the 2014 American Godzilla has encouraged TOHO in bringing back the iconic kaiju.

Archie Comics restarting at #1.
Mark Waid and Fiona Stevens will helm the title after the reboot.  Archie Comics, the publisher, has been on a rejuvenation spree of late, adding darker elements while still being family friendly.

SyFy picks up Krypton.
Air date is still unknown, but SyFy will air the Superman prequel series, Krypton, which will follow Jor-El, father of Kal-El, aka Clark Kent, aka Superman.  As with the other DC properties airing on television, there is no connection to the cinematic releases.

Titans pilot to shoot in 2015.
Geoff Johns confirmed that Titans, the live-action version of the follow-up to /Teen Titans/, will have a pilot filmed in 2015.  Nightwing, aka Dick Greyson, has been confirmed as one of the characters and rumours have added Starfire and Raven.  The show will draw influence from Marv Wolfman and George Pérez’s New Teen Titans.

Over the course of writing Lost in Translation, I’ve seen movies that caught the core of works perfectly and I’ve seen movies that missed the target to the degree of not even being in the same ballpark.  It’s easy enough in the latter case to point out just what went so horribly wrong.  Is it possible to redeem those movies, to take what went wrong and put it right?  With some movies, it is, and the Fix-It Shop will explore those possibilities.  With this inaugural entry, I will go back to the 1998 Godzilla.

The 1998 Godzilla had many problems, but only really went off the rails when Zilla reached New York City.  Prior to that point, the movie played out as the original Gojira had, with the monster being hinted at instead of shown.  When Zilla appears, then problems start.  The obvious fixes were done in the 2014 Godzilla, keeping the focus on Godzilla.  Even with the human element being front and centre, Godzilla’s battle with the MUTOs were still the central conflict.  With that fixed, what can be done with the rest of the 1998 film?

The core problem with the latter half of the ’98 Godzilla was the shift in tone and genre.  The first half was a kaiju movie.  The second half added action and comedy, taking focus away from Zilla.  Yet, that element could work in its own movie, away from Godzilla.  Having the most famous kaiju off the poster frees up expectations.  The entire subplot involving the Direction génèral de la sécurité extérieure* is now available on its own.  Jean Reno is too good to waste.

In Godzilla, the French Directorate had a division set up for the research and containment of kaiju and was more prepared for Zilla than either the Japanese or the Americans.  The agent in charge, Philippe Roaché, played by Reno, managed to protray himself as an insurance investigator and as an American soldier**.  Let’s take him and his team and change their approach just a little.  After the events in New York, the existance of giant monsters is no longer a secret.  When a major American metropolis with several media headquarters, from television to print, gets trashed and evacuated, it’s news.  Even in 1998, the twenty-four hour news cycle existed, with CNN being the major outlet.  Roaché needs a new way to research while keeping his connections to the Directorate hidden.  Anyone who sees him or his team may remember him from New York.

The solution?  A front company, funded by the Directorate, that investigates kaiju sightings.  The company can’t be Fortune 500; monster hunting has never been portrayed as profitable in TV or movies.  Sam and Dean of Supernatural make money through credit card scams.  The Ghostbusters put all their earnings into maintenance and paying fines.  Roaché’s company, thus, is a small one, using grants for the most part as it develops anti-kaiju weaponry and hunts giant monsters.  Having no official government status means the team must get into sites under attack through subterfuge, allowing Roaché to be an insurance investigator, a military officer, a university researcher, and anything else needed.

Tone will be key.  As mentioned above, the latter half of Godzilla changed genre without a clutch, becoming an action comedy.  The change was dissonant in the ’98 film, but if the new movie – let’s give it the working title Kaiju Hunters – starts as such, with the team in action against a lawyer-friendly version of a known giant monster, then the audience won’t have a problem with the approach.  Ideally, the tone of Kaiju Hunters should be along the lines of Ghostbusters, Arachnophobia, and Tremors; a bit of horror, a bit of comedy, a bit of action, and monsters.

Casting will be important.  Matthew Broderick was an odd choice and looked out of place in the 1998 film.  Broderick is better known for comedies, not action.  Given the change in tone above, he might fit in better, the field researcher brought into the company at the end thanks to the events during Kaiju Hunters.  This will give the audience the outsider viewpoint to follow to learn about the company and its secrets.  The rest of the cast are company employees, either hired on as staff or assigned by the Directorate.

Will Kaiju Hunters be successful?  The ultimate question, with no easy answer.  There’s no real built-in draw, unlike Godzilla of any year.  Reno and Broderick aren’t household names.  It may come down to budget.  Is Kaiju Hunters blockbuster material?  No.  A lower budget may make the movie profitable, though.  It will be a balancing act, finding a way to draw in audiences without needing an Avengers-sized number of people watching.  What do you think?  What would you do to fix the 98 Godzilla?

Next week, the December news round up.

* The French intelligence service, literally, the General Directorate for External Security
** Albeit, based on Elvis Presley.

Fairy tales have served as cautionary stories throughout history, warning children to mind their parents, to not take candy from strangers or their homes, and to not buy anything frivolous.  The stories started with an oral tradition, only being written down when the Brothers Grimm and Franz Xaver von Schönwerth gathered the tales.  Even after being written down, the stories changed, becoming more kid- and parent-friendly.  Disney has been successful with animated adaptations of several fairy tales, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Beauty and the Beast.

Jack is a common name in fairy tales.  On its own, it’s a nickname and variant on John, the most popular name throughout the ages in English.  The commonality of the name lends itself to cautionary tales, speaking directly to the audience.  “Jack and the Beanstalk” is no exception.  In that story, Jack must take a cow to market to get a fair price to help his poor mother get enough food for them both to live on.  A shady merchant, however, convinces Jack to trade the cow for magical beans.  When Jack returns home, he is berated by his mother for letting himself be fooled.  She throws the beans away.  Overnight, the beans sprout and a giant beanstalk grows, reaching for the sky.  Curiosity overcomes Jack and he climbs the beanstalk.

Reaching the top, Jack discovers a new land.  He wanders, searching for food.  In the distance, he spies a castle and makes his way to it.  The castle huge, far larger than Jack expected.  Inside, he hears a beautiful voice singing and a gruff voice.  Jack sneaks in and sees a giant being sung to by a golden harp with a woman’s body carved in it.  The giant smells him, declaring it with a “fee fie fo fum”.  Jack manages to hide, and finds a goose that lays golden eggs.  The harp asks for Jack’s help to escape the giant’s clutches.  Jack steals both the harp and the goose, but the giant discovers the theft.  Jack escapes down the beanstalk, the giant in hot pursuit.  He chops down the beanstalk, causing the giant to fall to his death.  Everyone lives happily ever after, except the giant.

Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures combined to produce and distribute the 2013 movie, Jack the Giant Killer, based on the “Jack and the Beanstalk” fairy tale.  The film begins with two children, one a princess, the other the son of a tenant farmer, being told a tale of King Eric the Great, the king who put an end to the predations of giants in Albion and Cloister through the use of a magic crown.  Both children, Isabelle and Jack, love the story, though they do not meet until Jack, played by Nicholas Houte, is sent by his uncle into town to sell a horse and cart to get thatch to repair the roof of their home.  Jack gets distracted by a wandering minstrel troup putting on the story of King Eric the Great.  As he checks out the show, he finds three drunks accosting a young woman, Eleanor Tomlinson, and steps in to help her.  The three drunks back down, not because of Jack, but because of Elmont, played by Ewan MacGregor, and the rest of the king’s troops.

Elmont escorts the young woman, Princess Isabelle, back to the castle, where her father, King Brahmwell, played by Ian McShane, lectures her about the dangers outside the castle walls.  Lord Roderick, played by Stanley Tucci, listens but has other matters on his mind more important to him than the behaviour of his betrothed.  Roderick and his henchman, Wicke, played by Ewen Bremner, need to track down some magic beans, stolen by a monk.

Back in the city, Jack discovers that his cart has been stolen, leaving him with just the horse.  Without the cart, Jack can only sell the horse.  A monk approaches him with the deal of a lifetime; a handful of magic beans in return for the horse.  The monk warns that Jack should never let the beans get wet*.  Jack takes the beans back home.  His uncle is not pleased; they needed thatch for the roof.  He knocks the beans out of Jack’s hands.  Jack picks up most of them, but some fall through cracks in the floor to land in the soil underneath the house.  Jack’s uncle heads back to town despite how late in the day it is.

Isabelle is not a princess that can be sent to her tower.  Her late mother told her that to rule well, a future queen needs to know how the common people live.  Isabelle disguises herself and leaves the castle and the city.  As it gets late and rain pours down, she spies a light in the distance.  The light is a lantern hung outside by Jack to help his uncle.  Jack lets Isabelle in and soon recognizes her as the princess.

The beans have not been idle during this.  The heavy rain seeps under the house, getting the magic beans wet.  The beans sprout, growing fast, destroying the house and whisking Jack and Isabelle skyward.  Jack discovers he has acrophobia, then slips on a wet leaf and falls.  Several strands of the stalk slow his fall to make the landing painful but not lethal.

The next morning, King Brahmwell, Lord Roderick, and Captain Elmont, along with the king’s royal guard and army, arrive at the remains of the home of Jack’s uncle.  The royal entourage is searching for Isabelle.  Jack answers truthfully and points up.  Brahmwell orders Elmont to get his best men ready to climb.  Jack volunteers to go, feeling responsible for the princess’s disappearance.  Lord Roderick also volunteers to go, to help find his betrothed.  Roderick’s plot is shown.  He has the crown used by Eric the Great to defeat the giants, but he needs the magic beans, and he’s worked out that the monk gave Jack those beans.  Roderick has Wicke cut loose several of Elmont’s men after they slip, sending them plummeting back to Earth.  He threatens Jack, demanding the beans.  Jack gives him what he has left, save one.

At the top of the beanstalk, the expedition discovers a new land, way above the clouds looking down on the Kingdom of Cloister.  They follow a trail left by Isabelle marked into trees.  The last mark, though, was half done, interrupted.  The group looks around, spies sheep, and decides on an impromptu mutton lunch, since the supplies also returned to Earth when Wicke cut the rope.  The chase leads into a trap, with Jack and Crawe, Elmont’s second-in-command, getting caught in a net.  Soon, a giant comes to find out what set the trap off.  Jack and Crawe escape the trap and try to hide.  The giant finds Crawe and Elmont, knocking out both and taking them back to a castle.  Jack follows the giant, sneaking inside.  He hides to escape notice, finding a golden egg and a golden harp.  Pocketing the egg, Jack continues sneaking.

Elmont and Crawe are taken to see the self-appointed leader of the giants, a two-headed monster named Fallon, played by Bill Nighy and John Kassir**.  Fallon threatens Elmont, demanding to know about the beans and crowne, and eats Crawe to emphasize the threats.  Lord Roderick steps up to show who has the crown, forcing the giants to bend their knees to him in allegiance.  Roderick doesn’t want to be the the Prince Consort to future Queen Isabelle.  He wants to rule, not just Cloister, but Albion and the Viking lands beyond.  With the crown to command the giants and the magic beans to give the giants a way back down, Roderick has an unstoppable army.  To celebrate, Roderick orders a feast, featuring Elmont-in-a-poke.

Jack finds the kitchen, where Isabelle is being held captive in a cage.  Elmont is delivered, and the giants’ cook start preparing the feast.  Jack is unable to open the cage, so he slips down to try to cut Elmont out while the cook’s back is turned.  The cook isn’t distracted long enough, though.  Jack gives Elmont his knife, then hides.  The cook puts the pigs-in-a-poke on to cook.  Jack, sneaking on a rafter overhead, drops a knife on to the cook.  It’s not enough to kill the cook, but the flailing around is enough to send the giant into the wall hard enough to finish the job.  Isabelle and Elmont are rescued, and the trio escape the castle.

Roderick may be a would-be world conqueror, but he does know the villain playbook.  He has a giant guarding the beanstalk, to stop both people trying to climb up and people trying to go down.  Roderick doesn’t have much to work from, though.  The guard is fast asleep.  Jack and Elmont retrieve a honeycomb to drop in the giant’s helmet.  It takes some time, but the giant does feel the stings and eventually falls over the cliff.  Jack and Isabelle escape, but Elmont remains behind to gather intelligence and to slow Roderick down.

At the bottom of the beanstalk, the king’s men have set up camp.  They have seen the bodies of Elmont’s men and see the giant land hard.  King Brahmwell makes the hardest decision in his life, to cut down the beanstalk before Isabelle can return.  The army starts hacking away at the stalk while teams of horses are hooked up to pull strands down.  Above, Jack and Isabelle feel the work of the men and prepare for the fall.  Elmont, in the meantime, has seen Roderick’s army and flees, jumping on to the beanstalk just before it falls.

Isabelle is reunited with her father.  Jack declines a reward.  Elmont survives the fall.  Roderick is thwarted.  Wait, Roderick still has one more trick up his sleeve, the magic beans he took from Jack.  He throws them into the river, where they sprout.  The giants climb on to them as the new stalks bend Earthward.  Jack, who stayed at the remains of his uncle’s farm, sees the beanstalks and gets on his horse to warn the king.

As seen above, the movie takes great liberties with the fairy tale, adding elements, such as Eric the Great, Roderick, and Isabelle.  The core of the tale is still there, the selling of a farm animal for magic beans that lets a hero named Jack climb to a realm ruled by a giant.  The movie has an end montage as parents tell the story to children, with each telling changing details, losing Isabelle, changing the horse to a cow, and changing the giant army into just one giant.  The hero remains Jack, though.  The montage serves to remind the audience that fairy tales have been altered through re-tellings.  The core of “Jack and the Beanstalk” is in the movie, with layers built up over it.  Part of it is to expand the movie to fill out the running time of a film.  The layers, though, also work to make the world richer, with backstory for the giants and a villain that knows what happens when the hero is given a chance to escape.

At the box office, the movie barely broke even on its budget.  The core problem was being a PG-13 movie for a story that was aimed at a PG crowd.  The rating kept away parents concerned about violence, but the trailers were targeting the younger crowd.  Coupled with an almost $200 million budget, the movie needed to have an ideal release.

As an adaptation, the darker look at “Jack and the Beanstalk” wasn’t unusual.  Many fairy tales have a dark side, from two children abandoned in the woods by their parents in “Hansel and Gretel” to the cruelty done to Cinderella by her step-mother and step-sisters.  Jack fights the giants using his wits, not with any skill with a sword.  As mentioned, the closing montage shows how oral stories change.  For much of history, literacy wasn’t available to the common man, just to a limited elite.  Oral tradition allowed narrators to add their own embellishments.  Jack the Giant Slayer honours the oral tradition of fairy tales with its own take on “Jack and the Beanstalk”.

Next week, a new feature at Lost in Translation with a look at fixing the 1998 Godzilla.

* No word on whether the beans shouldn’t be fed after midnight.
** Nighy played the smarter head.  Kassir got to be the half-witted head.

Four weeks ago, Lost in Translation looked at the 1998 adaptation of Godzilla.  To summarize the previous review, the 1998 adaptation had a good start, mirroring the original Gojira but fell apart with the monster reached Manhattan.  The other issue the adaptation had was that the titular monster didn’t look like the iconic Godzilla.  The planned reboot/remake trilogy turned into a short-lived animated series.  GINO* wasn’t disavowed, but Toho renamed the monster to “Zilla”.

Time passes, as it is wont to do.  Godzilla is too iconic to leave fallow.  Toho released a Godzilla movie a year from 1999 until 2004, then left the franchise to fallow for a decade.  A second wholly American production was started, becoming the 2014 adaptation, Godzilla.  To demonstrate that lessons were learned with the 1998 adaptation, Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. released a theatrical poster with their Godzilla, looking like an update on the classic instead of a rebuild.

The adaptations starts with a montage of classified files, a mix of actual historical footage from the atomic tests and film from the fictional group, Monarch, implying that the testing at Bikini Atoll was to destroy a giant monster, code named “Godzilla”.  The film then picks up in the Philippines in 1999 as scientists converge on a pit mine collapse.  The bottom of the mine fell into a cavern.  Exploring the cave, the scientists, led by Ishiro Serizawa, played by Ken Watanabe, find fossils and two large spore-like objects.  One is dormant, possibly dead.  The other, though, has broken open.  A trail from the cavern, burrowing to the surface, leads to the ocean.

In Japan, at the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant, seismic sensors start going off, each event larger than the previous.  The plant prepares for a massive earthquake, but Joe Brody thinks the seismic readings are something else.  By the time the order to shut down the reactor is given, it’s too late.  The reactor enters meltdown.  In the depths of the reactor, Joe’s wife, Sandra was leading a team of technicians to try to shut the reactor down gracefully when the reactor core is breached.  Sandra’s team is unable to escape and is trapped when access to the core has to be shut to prevent a new Chernobyl.

Fifteen years later, US Navy Lieutenant Ford Brody, son of Joe and Sandra, returns from the Middle East to his family in San Francisco.  After the joyous reunion, Ford receives a call from the American consulate in Japan, informing him that his father has been arrested for violating the Janjira quarantine zone.  Ford flies to Tokyo to bail his father out.  Since Sandra’s death, Joe has been convinced that the cause of the reactor breech and meltdown was something other than an earthquake.  His proof, in the form of disks and papers, lies in his old home inside the quarentine zone.  Joe convinces Ford to go with him into the zone.

Inside the quarantine zone, nature is well on its way to retaking the abandoned city.  Plants overgrow cars and houses.  Two dogs run past Joe and Ford.  Joe checks his Geiger counter; there’s no appreciable radiation, contrary to official reports.  Joe removes his breathing mask and promptly fails to die an agonizing death.  At their old home, Joe recovers his proof, in time for him and his son to be arrested again.  Instead of going to jail, the Brodies are taken to the power plant.  Monarch scientists, including Serizawa, are on site.  Serizawa compares the seismic readings he’s getting from the plant with the results Joe has, confirming one of the scientist’s suspicions.  With the increased seismic activity, the secret kept within the Janjira facility emerges from the reactor core.  A giant monster, a Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism or MUTO, crawls out, destroying its containment and causing havoc as it releases an electromagnetic pulse.  The MUTO escapes, leaving Ford injured and Joe dying.

In the aftermath, Ford is brought up to speed, including the Monarch information shown at the start of the movie and the existence of a monster, Gojira, codenamed Godzilla, that the atomic bomb testing was meant to destroy.  The MUTO had caused the mine collapse in 1999 and had burrowed its way to the Janjira plant, where it chrysalized and fed off the radiation from the reactor core.  Serizawa postulates that both Gojira and the MUTO were from a previous age where the radiation levels were much higher.  With the use of atomic energy since the middle of the Twentieth Century, the MUTO was awakened and attracted by the Janjira Nuclear Power Plant.  Ford explains his father’s findings, that Joe believed that the odd seismic readings were a form of echolocation, sending a ping of sorts, and receiving an answer.

The US Navy, taking over from Monarch, tracks the MUTO to Hawaii.  The problem the Navy is having stems from the EMP disruption the MUTO puts out.  Too close, and all electronic circuits get fried.  It makes locating the MUTO difficult.  What does help is the loss of a Russian submarine whose beacon is picked up off Hawaii.  Ford is sent off the aircraft carrier to go home when the carrier is fifty kilometres off-shore from Honolulu.  A special forces team is sent to recover the Russian beacon on one of the islands.  The team, instead, finds the sub in the middle of the island’s jungle, along with the MUTO chewing on the sub’s nuclear reactor.

A new object appears on the carrier’s sonar.  Its arrival in Hawaii is preceded by a tsunami, flooding the streets of Honolulu.  The Navy engages the MUTO, but it sends out an EMP burst that not only disables fighter jets but shuts down Hololulu.  The second contact swims into visual range and under of the US fleet.  The alpha predator himself has arrived – Godzilla.  American troops try shooting Godzilla after he makes landfall, doing less damage than a mosquito does to a human.

The fight in Honolulu between Godzilla and the MUTO is short and indecisive, with the MUTO flying away.  The destruction in their wake, though, is on the scale of major earthquakes.  Ford finds an US Army unit to hook up with.  Godzilla returns to swimming after the MUTO, now with the US fleet as escorts.  A third contact is detected in the western US.  A question comes up, why would the MUTO call Godzilla if the latter is a predator.  The answer is, the MUTO wasn’t.  A check of the American nuclear waste storage in the deserts of Nevada discovers that what was once an underground vault is now open to the sky.  A second MUTO, wingless but similar to the first, walks through Las Vegas, leaving more destruction.  The difference in appearance leads Serizawa to hypothesize that the two MUTOs are the same species, just different sexes.  The seismic activity was the mating call and return of the monsters.  Tracking of both MUTOs and Godzilla shows a convergence in San Francisco.

The movie builds up to the battle royale, Godzilla against the two MUTOs.  At the same time, the movie remembers the human element.  Godzilla and the MUTOs are treated as acts of nature, uncontrollable, unpredictable, and destructive.  Through Serizawa, the idea of Godzilla as the defender of the Earth is brought up.  While Godzilla is the defender, humanity isn’t necessarily considered to be part of the balance.  It is human acts that awaken the MUTOs, the use of nuclear energy and the disposal of atomic waste attract the MUTOs.  It is only when Godzilla steps in as a force of nature on his own are the MUTOs defeated.

Viewers who want to see a monster versus monster battle will be disappointed in the movie.  The conflict is built over time, giving the audience glimpses of what the fight will be like at the end.  The filmmakers focus on the human element, the people affected by the destruction wrought.  While Godzilla in the adaptation isn’t a symbol of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he is symbolic of the damage being done to the planet, of the extreme weather causing powerful storms that leave coastal cities and even some inland cities powerless.

As an adaptation, the 2014 Godzilla calls back to the themes of the original Gojira, with the changes mentioned above.  The filmmakers add touches throughout the movie, harkening to other Godzilla movies.  The monster is referred to by Serizawa as Gojira, a TV news broadcast has the label “King of Monsters” below Godzilla as he swims back into the Pacific Ocean.  Godzilla looked like Godzilla, and several scenes had him standing in iconic poses, including when he used his atomic breath.  Just as important, Godzilla sounded like Godzilla; the improvement of sound effects augmented the monster’s voice.  The MUTOs, created for the adaptation, still fit within the Godzilla mythos.

Helping the adaptation is the avoidance of having the story set solely in the US.  The movie acknowledges the Japanese heritage of Godzilla, setting the first portion of the film in Japan.  Both Hawaii and San Francisco have large Japanese populations.  Care was taken to keep Godzilla in a heroic mold, even with the swath of destruction he left behind.  The biggest drawback, if it can be called such, is how long it takes to get a good view of the star attraction.  The movie acts as an origin story, introducing the audience to the director’s vision of Godzilla.

While success of a movie isn’t indicative of the success of adapting**, the age of the character, sixty years old as of 2014, is key in whether the audience accepts or disdains an adaptation.  In the case of the 2014 Godzilla, audiences accepted the character in the movie and, indeed, the movie itself, making the adaptation popular enough to justify a sequel.  The movie wasn’t written with a sequel hook, but Legendary Pictures has licensed several more characters from Toho, including King Ghidorah and Rodan.

Next week, Jack the Giant Slayer.

* GINO – Godzilla In Name Only.
** See also, Scott Pilgrim vs the World.

As seen since the beginning of Lost in Translation, getting an adaptation or a remake right takes a deft hand.  There are many ways to just miss being good, either through deliberately not taking the original work seriously enough or through misreading.  At the same time, what works for one remake might not work for another.  The grim, gritty Battlestar Galactica remake was widely accepted.  Going for a realistic Beverly Hillbillies would miss the point.

One element not in the control of production staff is fan expectations.  They can be managed, but word of mouth can make or break a movie with near-instantaneous reviews.  Pandering to the fans, though, may alienate the general audience.  Individual comics issues have sales in the tens of thousands, not enough to fill seats and make a profit.  Where repeated theatrical viewings were, if not the norm, possible, thanks to films being allowed to remain in theatres as long as they were drawing audiences, today, it’s rare for a movie to remain in theatres for two months.  DVD release dates are being set shortly after a movie opens.

This leaves the question: “What can be done to manage expectations?”  How can a studio ensure that fans don’t leave with a bad taste while still getting a general audience in?  Movie makers need to be aware of the general impression a work has outside fandom.  The 1989 Batman movie was facing such a problem.  Fans of the comic were well aware of the Denny O’Neill run that turned Batman into a noir costumed detective, with a grittier approach.  The general audience, however, was more aware of the Adam West Batman TV series, a camp comedy.  Add in the casting of Michael Keaton, primarily known for comedies, as Bruce Wayne, and disaster was looming.  With Tim Burton combining the aspects of both comic and TV series, Jack Nicholson as the Joker, and marketing that focused on the darker elements, Batman was successful at the box office.

The first means to manage expectations is the trailer.  The trailer is the first view of a movie an audience gets.  Well done trailers get sought out and spread over the Internet, increasing the dollar value of the advertising for no extra effort.  Through the use of music and selected shots from the movie, the trailer can give audiences a good idea of what to expect.  The first trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy showed the main characters being booked into prison, followed by the song, “Hooked on a Feeling”, implying that the heroes weren’t chisel-chinned upholders of the law and that the movie would be fun.  The box office returns show that audiences agreed.

The next means is to figure out what fans of the original work enjoyed about it.  Pandering to the fans is never a good idea.  Neither is flipping fans the bird.  The remake of Land of the Lost left fans with a bitter taste.  The original was a low-budget science-fiction series that managed to weave a coherent story, thanks to having science-fiction writers such as Larry Niven and Ben Bova contribute scripts.  The remake was a Will Farrell comedy vehicle.  The trailers, while they did show Farrell, didn’t quite show the level of humour of the movie.

Ultimately, though, it’s hard to read a potential audience.  Both the original Battlestar Galactica and the remake were about the search for Earth by survivors of the Thirteen Colonies.  The original had a far more optimistic approach, even with it showing problems with food, the dangers of relying on a small number of food-producing vessels, and the logistics of maintaining a fleet of civilians.  At the end of an episode, viewers had the feeling that the ragtag fleet would someday find Earth.  The new Galactica had rumours of main characters getting gender-flipped, which had fans in a minor uproar.  However, the miniseries showed what the remake was aiming for; a grittier, more realistic look at the problems the ragtag fleet would face.  Survival of humanity was never a given, even after the appearance of the Pegasus.  While the new characters weren’t like the originals, they fit better in the remake.  It just goes to show that a read on the fanbase is not the only aspect to look at.  Sometimes, current events plays a role.

With Hollywood studios risk-adverse to the point of needing instant hits with movie releases, especially blockbusters, maximizing the potential audience.  Adaptations come with a built-in audience, but that very same audience may not appreciate drastic changes.  Pandering is inevitable; keeping the existing fanbase happy means a quick, positive word of mouth on opening.  Pandering, though, doesn’t necessarily make for a good movie or a good adaptation.  Studios need to strive for more than just pleasing the fanbase, a fickle entity that may not appreciate even an accurate adaptation.

Next week, back to the reviews.

Thunderbirds are go!  Again!
A new Thunderbirds TV series is set to launch.  The show will forego Supermarionation for a mix of CGI and live-action models.  The debut is on the 50th anniversary of the original airdate of Thunderbirds.

Next Terminator movie a reboot.
According to Jay Courtney, who will play Kyle Reese, Terminator: Genisys is more of a reset than a reboot.  Other than Arnold Schwarzengger, an all-new cast will play the familiar roles.  Two sequels have already been scheduled.

Warner announces DC Comics movie line up.
Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice leads off the ten, but has been moved to avoid competing with Captain America 3 in 2016.  The other movies announced are Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League: Part One, The Flash, Aquaman, Shazam, Justice League: Part Two, Cyborg, and Green Lantern.  All should be released over the next six years.  Warner also announced a trilogy of films based on JK Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a text originally found at Hogwart’s.

Knights of the Dinner Table in post-production.
Knights of the Dinner Table, a comic about tabletop gamers, will have a live-action movie based on the strip.  The adaptation is in post-production and is looking for backers to help get the movie done.

Transporter: The Series started October 18.
Slipped past the radar here, but the new TV series based on the Jason Statham movies has aired on TNT.   François Berléand returns as Inspector Tarconi, while Statham’s character Frank Martin is now played by Chris Vance.  The series hopes to dig into why Frank got into his profession.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic movie confirmed.
Hasbro’s Allspark Pictures has the green light for an animated Friendship Is Magic movie.  Release date is expected to be in 2017.  Allspark is also producing the live-action Jem and the Holograms film, due out in 2015.

Dredd webseries has animated trailer.
Adi Shankar, producer of Dredd, has released a trailer for his “bootleg” animated series continuing where the movie left off.  The series will look at the Dark Judges arc of the comic.

John Carter of Mars rights return to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
The rights, formerly held by Disney, have returned to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.  The Disney film, John Carter, foundered in theatres with most problems traceable back to the studio, from a bland name to poor timing.  The rights are now available to anyone willing to pay.

Fox developing Archie series.
Riverdale will be a drama featuring the Archie Comics characters.  Greg Berlanti, of Arrow and The Flash, is on as producer while Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, the creative mind behind such series as AfterLife with Archie, is writing for the series.  The series will look at the weirdnesses surrounding small towns and may not resemble the Riverdale you grew up with.  However, current readers may be familiar with the setting.  Archie Comics have taken risks in the past decade, including the horror series AfterLife with Archie, having Archie and Valerie becoming a couple, and not only introducing an openly gay character, Kevin Keller, but giving him his own title.

Riverdale may get weirder.
Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, creative director of Archie Comics and writer of the new series, has compared Riverdale to a teen version of Twin Peaks.  He has hinted at an Afterlife with Archie episode as well.  Current continuity will be part of the series, too.  If the series survives the, “But this isn’t *my* Archie!” fallout, it’ll pull an audience just through sheer audacity.

Clerks 3 confirmed.
Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes will be back as Jay and Silent Bob in the sequel.  Shooting for the film will start June 2015.

The Six Million Dollar Man being remade.
To account for inflation, the name is being changed to The Six Billion Dollar Man.  Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg, the pair behind Lone Survivor, are taking on the project for Dimension Films.  The original Six Million Dollar Man was itself an adaptation of the book, Cyborg, by Martin Caidan, and ran from 1973, with several made-for-TV movies before becoming a regular series in 1974, until 1978.

Latest rumour in the Spider-verse has Aunt May getting a movie.
Sony is apparently mining out the Spider-Man license if this rumour is true.  Other rumours include a Venom movie, a Sinister Six movie, and Glass Ceiling, which involves the female characters from the Spider-verse coming together.  Of these, Venom seems more likely to gather an audience.  Then again, I’m not at Sony.

In more solid news, Evil Dead greenlit as a TV series.
Starz will air the Evil Dead TV series starting in 2015.  Sam Raimi will be the executive producer and will also write and direct the first give episodes.  Rob Tapert is on board as well as an executive producer.  Bruce Campbell will return as Ash, older but not necessarily wiser.  Groovy.

Jonathan Nolan adapting Foundation for HBO.
Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series is being adapted as a TV series on HBO.  The epic series covers centuries over the course of the books, with the cast of characters changing over time.

Fifth Tremors movie in production.
The movie, expected out direct-to-video in 2016, will star Michael Gross, recreating his Burt Gummer character.  The original Tremors, starring Kevin Bacon, became a cult hit and has spawned three direct-to-video movies and a short-lived TV series.  The movie in production will see Graboids appearing in South Africa.

Movies cannot contain the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Thanks to the popularity of the film, Marvel will be adding an animated series and a new comic aimed at kids to the announced sequel.  How the animated series fits in with the cinematic Marvel universe is in dispute with the production staff of the sequel, but the series may just go with the team already together.

Back in March, I reviewed Mr. Peabody & Sherman, the big screen animated remake of the old Peabody’s Improbable History shorts.  The movie worked out well as an adaptation of the shorts, building on top of the formula set down by Peabody’s Improbable History of a trip in the WABAC to meet a historical personage and help them to do what history says they did, wrapping up with a pun.  So, why a second look?

Part of preparing for Lost in Translation is finding the work to be reviewed.  Most of the movies reviewed are found on DVD by wandering the aisles of the music and video store, looking for anything that stands out.  A few weeks ago, I found the complete collection of Peabody’s Improbable History, standing out along with Mr. Peabody & Sherman on DVD.  Ninety five-minute short cartoons, featuring fractured history and weaponized puns, well worth watching, leading me to agree with my earlier findings.  The ninety-first short, or, properly, the first short is the reason for the second look.

That first short, entitled “Show Opening” in the collection, set up the entire premise of Peabody’s Improbable History.  The short shows Mr. Peabody adopting Sherman and why he built the WABAC.  The collection was my first time seeing it.  I had been working on memories of reruns of The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show when it was on YTV.  My viewing was hit and miss, so I got the gist of the show without getting full details.  Having access to the first short and, indeed, the entire collection means reassessing the review.

Turns out, the movie was a better adaptation than original review said.  Mr. Peabody & Sherman mined “Show Opening”, using it almost verbatim in the opening minutes.  Mr. Peabody’s apartment in the movie is a larger budget version of his apartment in the shorts.  The puns are as wonderful in the movie.  Compare*.

From “Henry VIII”:
Catharine Parr, Henry’s fifth wife, is along the wall for her execution, facing a firing line aiming golf clubs.  Sherman naturally asks about her and Mr. Peabody explains.
Sherman: “But the guards are aiming at her with golf clubs?”
Mr. Peabody: “How else would you shoot Parr?”

From Mr. Peabody & Sherman:
After escaping Robespierre at the start of the Reign of Terror, Mr. Peabody remarks on how the French Revolutuion could have been prevented.
Mr. Peabody: And think, Marie Antoinette could have avoided the whole revolution if she simply issued an edict to distribute bread to the poor.  But then she couldn’t have her dessert.
Sherman: But why, Mr. Peabody.
Mr. Peabody: Because, Sherman, you can’t have your cake and edict, too.

It’s obvious that the writers watched the original series, all of it.  They started at the original concept, of a dog adopting a boy and Mr. Peabody needing a way to channel Sherman’s energy, leading to the creation of the WABAC.  The CG animation was used to tell the story about a dog and his boy instead of being the reason for the movie.  There were a few updates; it’s been fifty-five years since “Show Opening” first aired and a lot more history has happened, but Mr. Peabody is still a genius.  The effort was made to keep the core, and the movie leans heavily on the first short as its main source.  Mr. Peabody & Sherman is a far better adaptation than expected.

Next week, the November news round up.

* Neither of these comes close to the pun ending the “Mata Hari” short.  The fourth wall was broken to warn viewers of the quality of the final pun.