Watership Down began as a tale told by Richard Adams to his daughters on car trips. The girls insisted that he write down the epic rabbit tale. In 1972, the novel was released by a small British publisher, Rex Collings, who couldn’t pay an advance but did get the novel out for review. A second edition was released in 1973, with an American edition coming out in 1974.
The story itself is about an epic journey of rabbits escaping their doomed home to found a new warren. Adams kept the narrative at the rabbits’ level, not explaining anything that the rabbits wouldn’t be able to understand. He even created a vocabulary and a creation myth for his rabbits. The locations in the novel came from the trips with his daughters and still exist. The title itself comes from the actual Watership Down in the UK.
The popularity of the book led Martin Rosen to try to adapt the work as a film. Early proposals included the use of puppets for the rabbits, but Rosen wanted to remain faithful. The result, he wound up not being just the writer, but the director and producer of the film, with no expierence as either, working on an animated feature.
The movie starts with the rabbits’ creation myth. Frith, the creator and sun god, created the sky, the stars, the world, and the world’s inhabitants. The first rabbit, El-ahrairah, and his descendants started to out-graze the other creations. Frith tried to warn El-ahrairah, but the first rabbit would not listen. Frith gave the other animals gifts, turning some into cats, dogs, hawks, and weasels who would prey on the rabbits. El-ahrairah ran and hid, but Frith found him and presented his gifts to the first rabbit – speed, listening, and cunning. El-ahrairah became a trickster. The animation of the myth is reminiscent of the art of ancient civilizations.
The art style changes to a more traditional look, though still rich, as the story starts. Two rabbits, Hazel and his brother Fiver*, are out eating and talking. Fiver, the runt of his litter, is nervous, moreso than most rabbits. He is psychic, a seer, though he can’t always understand the meaning of his visions. What he has seen is a blood red soaking into the warren, dooming the rabbits living there. The animation for Fiver’s visions is done in another style, powerful, overwhelming, and forboding. Fiver tells his brother, who believes him. Hazel tries to tell the Chief Rabbit about the oncoming doom. The Chief Rabbit dismisses the brothers; it is May, mating season, and moving the entire warren would be a huge upheaval over something the little rabbit is vague about.
Hazel, though, believes his brother. He organizes a number of other rabbits to leave the warren. The Chief Rabbit’s Owsla, the warren’s defense force, tries to stop the escape. One of the Owsla, Captain Holly, appears in front of Hazel’s band to take them into custody. A former Owsla officer, Bigwig, interferes, attacking Holly. Outnumbered, Holly runs off to get reinforcements. Hazel takes the opportunity to escape with his small band. Not every rabbit who tried to escape did, but Hazel has a core group, including Bigwig, Blackberry, Violet, the kit Pipkin, Silver, and Dandelion. As they leave, a sign that the rabbits can’t understand but the audience can shows that the are will be developed.
The rabbits run into the woods, avoiding a badger. Several obstacles are in their way, including a collie loose in the woods and a river that needs to be crossed. Bigwig suggests that the rabbits who can’t swim remain behind to fend for themselves but Hazel refuses to leave anyone behind. Blackberry finds a plank of wood that Pipkin and Fiver can sit on, with other rabbits pushing with their noses to get them across the river.
The journey is long and restless. Hazel presses the small band to keep going, trying to get distance between them and their doomed warren. Danger is always lurking; Violet gets nabbed by a hawk to never be seen again. Some of the rabbits start calling Hazel “Hazel-rah”, or “Chief Hazel”, though to tease. Hazel, though, is the leader of the band.
A potential sanctuary is found when the band meets with Cowslip, who offers the rabbits an empty burrow in his warren. The warren feels empty to the travellers and Fiver has a bad feeling about the place, like there’s a deception that he can’t quite pierce. Some of the rabbits note that the warren smells like man and press Cowslip for an explanation. Cowslip is evasive, but does offer flayrah (carrots) to the newcomers. His fellows, though, avoid talking to Hazel’s band. Fiver, overcome with nerves, runs away. Hazel follows to find out why, as does Bigwig. The former-Owsla is tired of the predictions of death and doom, and heads off to tell the other rabbits. He never makes it back. Bigwig gets caught in a snare. His fellows work to dig the peg holding the snare out, but it’s almost too late. Figuring out that Cowslip is using them to find and trip snares, the band leaves.
Fiver has another vision, this time of the new home. It is high atop a hill, where there are no men and no predators, where they can see anything approaching. The journey continues, but now with a goal. The band passes through a farm**. While the other rabbits rest, Hazel takes Pipkin to explore. They avoid the guard dog, remaining quiet as it sleeps. In the barn, they find a hutch filled with rabbits. Hazel talks with one of the hutch rabbits, a doe named Clover, but Pipkin spots a cat. The rabbits run, causing the cat to give chase and the dog to bark, and escape.
The journey continues. As they pass through a farmer’s field, Bigwig hears a voice calling his name. Fearing it is the Black Rabbit***, Bigwig cowers behind the others but knows that if the Black Rabbit calls, he must follow. However, it is Holly, wounded and exhausted, the sole survivor of the old warren. The former Owsla captain utters a single word, “Efrafrans” before collapsing unconscious. When he recovers, he tells the others what happened; men came with machines, filling in the burrows, trapping rabbits underground.
In another warren, a young doe named Hyzenthlay tries to point out to her Chief Rabbit, General Woundwort, that the conditions are overcrowded. There are too many rabbits in the warren. The rabbits can only go out at certain times, based on a mark placed on them. Woundwart refuses and, once the young doe is out of earshot, orders Captain Campion, the head of the warren’s Owsla, to keep an eye on her.
Back in Hazel’s band, Fiver finds the hill he saw in his vision, Watership Down. The band climbs up the hill where they find a tree providing space for new burrows. The band settles in. During this time, they discover that they have a neighbour. A seagull, Kehaar, has been injured by a cat and needs to heal. The gull and the rabbits overcome a language barrier, and Kehaar is nursed back to health.
Hazel discovers a new problem. While his fellow rabbits are safe, the warren is still doomed. Not one doe came with them. Even Kehaar notices the problem. Hazel convinces the gull to look for does, though he makes sure that Kehaar belives that it was his idea. The gull, his wings now healed, flies off in search. When he doesn’t return, the rabbits assume that he’s gone back to the “big water” he calls home. Hazel has a second plan, though.
Remembering Clover back at the farm, Hazel takes a few rabbits with him to break her and her hutchmates out. Eating through the hutch’s latches takes too long and the rabbits are discovered by both the cat and the dog. The dog sends up the alarm, getting the farmers out of bed. The men see the hutch open and the wild rabbits and shoot. Hazel is hit. The other rabbits return to the warren to give Fiver the bad news.
Fiver, though, has another vision telling him that Hazel survived. He follows his vision back down to the farm and finds his brother in a culvert. Kehaar returns, finding the psychic rabbit, and explains about the “little black stones” (shotgun pellets) in Hiver’s haunch. The gull removes the black stones, letting the rabbit brothers return to their warren.
Back at the warren, Kehaar tells Hazel about Efrafa, General Woundwart’s warren. Holly adds to the information, telling Hazel about the General’s tyrannical rule. As he recovers, Hazel comes up with a plan. Once healed, Hazel leads a raiding party, heading to Efrafa. Bigwig is sent to infiltrate the warren and gets appointed to Woundwart’s Owsla. While in Efrafa, Bigwig talks to several rabbits unhappy with the warren. One, Blackavar, was caught outside when he wasn’t supposed to and had his ears ripped before being set as an example to others. Bigwig also finds Hyzenthlay; he tries to convince the doe to leave with him. Hyzenthlay, like Fiver, is a seer, and sees the truth in what Bigwig tells her.
Outside, Hazel prepares for the great escape. He needs to get the rabbits past the iron bridge (a railway overpass) and down the river. Hazel finds a boat and remembers how the wood plank got Fiver and Pipkin across. He sends Kehaar to Bigwig to finalize the plans. Bigwig arranges the escape for sunset. Woundwart, though, is informed of Bigwig’s conversation with the bird, but not of the context. Even so, the General is suspcious and has his Owsla keep tabs on the big rabbit.
Sunset arrives. Bigwig leads a group of rabbits to the iron bridge, but Kehaar is nowhere to be found. Woundwart, with a wide patrol out to find the strangers, gives chase, catching up at the iron bridge. He and Bigwig fight. The clash is brief and ends when Kehaar swoops in at the General, giving Bigwig time to get the escaping rabbits away from the bridge and down towards the river. Hazel gets the escapees on the boat, but in the time it takes to chew through the rope holding it in place, Woundwart catches up. Bigwig delays the General long enough for the boat to get underway.
Hazel’s band, now much larger with the escapees, has a short breather before Woundwart catches up again. He heads out to meet with the General to negotiate, but Woundwart’s terms – return the escapees or death – are non-negotiable. Woundwart also wants Bigwig, the rabbit who dared to betray him. Hazel returns to the warrent and orders the burrows’ entrances plugged. Woundwart’s soldiers begin digging. Fiver falls into another trance and starts moaning about a dog loose in the woods. Hazel remembers the collie at the beginning of the trip and has an idea. He takes three of the fastest runners back to the farm.
With Hazel gone, the other rabbits hunker down, waiting for Woundwart’s soldiers to dig in. One of the entrances is re-opened, allowing the General inside. The twists and turns in the warren allow the defenders to attack from hiding, which is what Blackaver does to Woundwart. The General shows no mercy and kills the escapee before going deeper. He finds Pipkin and other kits and moves in. Bigwig emerges from the dirt and fights Woundwart for the third time.
At the farm, Hazel chews through the rope acting as the dog’s leash. The first runner takes off, getting the dog to give chase. The runners are spaced out; as one rabbit tires, another can take over leading the dog back to the warren. However, Hazel gets attacked by the cat. The cat holds him under her claws, waiting to finish the rabbit. Fortunately, the cat’s owner arrives to scold her.
The last runner, Hyzenthlay, arrives back at the warren, the dog still giving chase. She hides, but Woundwart’s soldiers are briefly surprised. One calls out a warning, but the dog kills the soldiers. Woundwart emerges from the warren, not believing that a dog could be dangerous. Seeing the dog, the general attacks. His body is never found and the General becomes a rabbit legend, a bogeyman to warn young kits.
The movie ends with the lderly Chief Hazel in a field watching over his warren. The Black Rabbit calls, inviting Hazel to join his Owlsa. Hazel follows, leaving his body behind, knowing that his warren will be safe.
As mentioned above, Martin Rosen wanted to adapt the book. His goal was to be as faithful as possible. However, the main challenge he faced was taking a 400+ page novel and condensing it into a 92 minute movie. Even animated, it isn’t possible to get the entire novel in. Rosen, though, managed to get to the core of the novel, the exodus from the doomed warren to Watership Down. He took pains to get details correct, even to the point of sending people to the locations in the novel to get photographs. The area hasn’t changed much since 1972 and even since 1978. The number of rabbits escaping the doomed warren was reduced, making it easier to keep track of which rabbit was which. In the novel, two rabbits, Holly and Bluebell, survived the destruction of the original warren, while only Holly survived in the film.
Minor changes aside, the core of the story remains. The story is still told from the rabbit’s eye view, and each character is recongizable – clever Hazel, nervous Fiver, and brave Bigwig. Rosen’s desire and effort to maintain the story comes through. Watership Down is a good example of being able to get to the heart of a novel without losing anything in the translation to film.
* The names both in the novel and in the movie are translated from Rabbit. The book goes into more details. Fiver gets his name because he was the fifth born, when rabbits can only count up to four; in rabbit, his name is “Little Thousand”.
** Nuthanger Farm, another real location.
*** The god of the moon and darkness, seen as a death god by rabbits.
The History of Adaptations
Twenties
Thirties
Forties
Fifties
Sixties
Seventies
Eighties
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. Last time, the Eighties turned out to be a complete reversal of the Fifties, with only three movies adapted from other works. Granted, the Eighties were known for sequelitis, but the continuing stories came from an original work.
The Nineties saw the introduction of the the biggest game changer to date, access of Internet to the masses. Prior, only government sites and universities provided email and access to Usenet newsgroups with their accounts. Companies like AOL, CompuServe, and GEnie brought the Internet to the home user. The Eternal September began the day AOL provided access to Usenet in September 1993. Compared to today, Internet access was slow and not very user friendly. Speeds were measured in bits. Downloads took days. Usenet, however, allowed people to talk about a wide variety of topics*.
Sequelitis continued, with varying qualities. Disney animation returned in force, having gone through lean years in the Seventies and Eighties. The disaster film made a brief comeback, though the genre succumbed to weak blockbusters that were more effect than story Computer generated graphics became affordable and reliable enough for regular use, allowing for shots that would be impossible to film using a practical effect. The advent of CGI effects allowed the disaster movie to return, with natural disasters replacing airplane disasters**.
As mentioned with the Eighties, there is a barometer of popularity. “Weird Al” Yankovic is still writing songs parodying movies. The different now is that the songs are coming out far closer to the movie than before. “Jurassic Park” and “Gump” both were released after the titular movies were. The cover of the 1993 album, Alapalooza, parodied the posters for Jurassic Park. “The Saga Begins“, though, was written before the release of The Phantom Menace and came shortly afterwards. Weird Al used Internet rumour, trailers, and other information to write the song in time for the movie’s release.
The top movies of the decade, by year:
1990
Home Alone – original. The antics of Macauley Culkins’ Kevin had people returning to see the movie multiple times during the Christmas movie season.
1991
Terminator 2: Judgment Day – a sequel to 1984’s The Terminator. Terminator 2 continued the story of the future war between man and machine, with humanity on the losing side.
1992
Aladdin – adaptation of the Arabian tale. Aladdin was Disney’s comeback movie but almost lost a nomination for best screenplay due to the improv of Robin Williams as the genie.
1993
Jurassic Park – adaptated from the Michael Crichton novel of the same name. Jurassic Park is one of the last movies to remain in theatres for over a year from release. The success of the movie has made it more difficult for other dinosaur films to succeed because of heightened expectations.
1994
Forrest Gump – adaptated from the 1986 novel by Winston Groom of the same name.
The Lion King – original but influenced by both the Biblical Moses and by William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. While Aladdin was a huge hit for Disney, The Lion King is considered the start of the Disney Renaissance.
1995
Toy Story – original. Pixar didn’t specifically base the story on the toys used.
Batman Forever – sequel to the 1989 adaptation, Batman and its sequel, Batman Returns.
1996
Independence Day – original. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin came up with the story while promoting Stargate. Independence Day combined the disaster movie with science fiction.
Twister – original. Part of the disaster genre’s resurgence. Twister was the first movie released on DVD.
1997
Titanic – original, using the sinking of the RMS Titanic as the backdrop for a doomed romance.
Men in Black – adaptation, based on the comic, The Men in Black, by Lowell Cunningham and published by Aircel.
1998
Saving Private Ryan – original, based on the D-Day invasion of Omaha Beach by American forces.
Armageddon – original. Armageddon is one of two releases dealing with asteroid strikes, with Deep Impact having been released two and half months prior.
1999
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace – sequel, well, prequel to the 1977 movie, Star Wars.
The Sixth Sense – original. M. Night Shamalyan made his mark with this film with a then-unexpected twist.
Toy Story 2 – sequel to the 1995 animated film, Toy Story. Pixar’s reputation was cemented with the sequel.
Of the movies above, nine are original, two are sequels to original works, one is a prequel to an original work, four are adaptations, and one is a sequel to an adaptation. I have counted sequels as original works for this series. However, sequels of adaptations add a new problem. This isn’t the first decade to have such a film. Demetrius and the Gladiators from the Fifties was the first and was counted separately. Batman Forever will be counted separately as well.
The Star Wars prequel presents a new conundrum. It has been sixteen years since Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, so is The Phantom Menance a sequel or a reboot? Return of the Jedi was the end of the original story, at least on film. The Phantom Menace introduces new characters and shows one returning character at a much younger age. For purposes of tallying the numbers, The Phantom Menace will be treated as a reboot, thus an adaptation. These decisions will get less and less clear-cut in coming decades.
With those rulings, that makes eleven original, five adaptations, and one sequel to an adaptation. The percentage of original films drops, but the majority of popular movies for the Nineties are still original works, continuing the reversal started in the Eighties. Of the adaptations, there are two based on novels, one reboot of a movie, one adaptation of a legend, and one adaptation of a comic book. There is a variety of original works, which reflects the variety shown in the popular movies. That’s now two decades in a row where the originals finally outnumber the adaptations.
* It is best not to contemplate the variety. The hierarchy was fairly broad, but for those who were into topics that couldn’t get a large base for support, the alt.* hierarchy existed.
** There may never be another airplane disaster film. Airplane! is too well known, to he point where Sharknado 2 opened with an homage to the film. Airplane! has entered the pop culture subconscious to the point where the gags are known even if the source isn’t.
Big budget blockbusters. Tentpole pictures tested and refined. Studios so risk adverse they run a lunch order past a test audience before committing. Save the cat!
The desire and need for studios to turn a profit leaves little room for new cult classics. Granted, a cult classic is a film that gained a small, dedicated audience instead of having a greater mainstream appeal. Cult classics stumble at the box office but have longevity; The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of the top grossing film of the Seventies as a result. Today, movies need to be hit over the opening weekend or they’re considered failures. Studios compete for opening days. The result – movies either soar or they’re bland; crashing and burning is rare.
The problem coming up is a lack of innovation. Avatar showed that 3-D could be used to create an immersive experience, but few films used the film technique for anything beyond cheap scares and roller coaster rides. James Cameron took the risk, but he had a number of successes, including Titanic, to persuade the studio that he could succeed. Avatar had people returning to theatres for second and third viewings. The lesson the other studios learned? People will go to 3-D movies. Not, “People will go out for immersive experiences,” or, “People appreciate innovative work when done well.”
The lack of innovation, especially when married to the Save the Cat approach to scripts, means that, after a while, all movies start looking the same. Does “Washed out hero is forced to work with others to save the world,” sound like Guardians of the Galaxy or Battleship? The difference is often just execution. Granted, this sort of thing comes in waves. The Seventies had disaster movies*; the Eighties had science fiction and sequels. The Western was a staple until Heaven’s Gate and still appears from time to time. Superhero movies aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. The Eighties, though, show more variety even with the sequels. Not every movie succeeded, but there was room for other movies outside the Star Wars sequels and Indiana Jones films, from Short Circuit to The Breakfast Club to UHF to Weekend at Bernie’s to Alien From L.A. Not every film succeeded at the theatres, but there was variety.
The core issue is money. Studios don’t want to lose $200 million on a bad movie. At the same time, studios don’t see a problem in investing $200 million in a movie that follows a checklist. Battleship wears the checklist on its sleeve. Even comedies are getting into increased budgets. The Hangover 3 had a budget in the same neighbourhood as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. On the flip side, Johnny Mnemonic (1995) was first developed for a $3 million budget and the studio turned the idea down, but then accepted it when the budget was upped to $30 million.
This isn’t to say that cult classics don’t happen. They’re rare. Few people set out to create one, and deliberate attempts to be a cult classic tend to fail. Today, though, the elements that turn a movie into a cult hit get weeded out during the checklist and further removed with all the audience testing that happens. A movie that fails at the box office isn’t necessarily bad; it’s just bland. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li suffered this fate. Names could have been changed with no effect on the film. The earilier Street Fighter: The Movie may have been cheesy, but it was a better adaptation and it is more fun to watch**. Same goes with Flash Gordon; it was a fine cheddar, but the supporting cast and the soundtrack transform the film into the classic it is.
Today, the only way either Street Fighter or Flash Gordon could be made they way they were is if there was a big star attached. Granted, that is how Street Fighter was made, with Jean-Claude van Damme and Raul Julia. Today, much of the humour would be toned down or removed, turning the action-comedy to either pure action or an action-drama. The heart would be gone.
All of the above ignores television. The SyFy channel is the new home for B-movies, with such luminaries as Sharktopus, Lavalatula, and the Sharknado trilogy. Low budget monster movies with cheap CGI effects with an audience that wants to see that type of movie. It’s not the same; SyFy’s B-movies follow their own formula, mostly combining an animal with something else, either another animal or a natural disaster. Again, it comes down to execution and, for these movies, chutzpah.
Will the cheese return to the big screen? Eventually. Universal Studios managed to have a profitable summer without a non-franchise blockbuster. Outside Jurassic World and Fast and Furious 7, Universal’s line up has been of reasonable budgets, allowing for fewer losses on a movie that falls flat and huge profits for their successes, including Fifty Shades of Grey***. If other studios follow Universal’s lead, and give that a few years, the lower budgets means there’s room to experiment and try something different. An unsuccessful experiment won’t cost as much, especially if it does well on DVD. A successful one means that a larger budget can be assigned for similar in the future.
* Until Airplane! skewered the airplane crash genre so thoroughly.
** Raul Julia alone is worth seeing in the film. Having Adrian Cronauer as the Armed Forces Radio announcer was genius.
*** $40 million budget, over $560 million in box office take globally. That sort of success allows Universal to try another $40 million movie and not worry about failure.
Apologies to all. I had a post needing some finishing, but a hardware failure prevented me from getting to the file. There will be a post this weekend, barring a second laptop death.
Again, apologies. I did not want to have an off week so soon here.
Works adapted for television produce a new set of concerns. With movies, one of the big limitations is time; commercial film releases run anywhere between ninety minutes to two hours, with rare releases reaching the three-hour mark. A television series, however, has far more running time available to it than a feature film. Even accounting for commercials, there’s still twenty-two to forty-five minutes of show each episode. Long-running series may run out of original material before ending and will need to create new content*. With novels, especially those in a series, it’s possible to keep using existing content in a TV show. HBO’s A Game of Thrones is an exemplar of this sort of planning. Adapting a movie as a TV series, though, means that the show’s writers will be adding material. Today’s review looks at that situation.
In 1999, George Lucas released the first of the prequel movies, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. In the gap between that film and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, released in 1983, numerous tie-in novels, comics, games, and toys were produced, creating the Star Wars Expanded Universe, or EU. The EU added more characters and settings to Star Wars. With the prequel movies filling out more of the history of the Rebellion, more EU products were created to fill in details not covered by the movies.
Such is the case with the CG-animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, the series covered the Clone Wars at several levels, from the clones on the front to the politics of the Senate to the Jedi Council. The Clone Wars ran for six seasons, from 2008 until 2014, before ending. During its run, familiar characters mingled with new ones, showing the toll of the wars on all levels of Republic and Separatist society.
The Clone Wars started with a feature movie, with Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi and a number of clone troopers defending Christophis against the Separatist droid army. Young Ahsoka Tano is introduced as Anakin’s padawan, an attempt by the Jedi Council to try to teach Skywalker the dangers of his inability to let go of those he holds dear. Once the battle is won, Anakin and Ahsoka are assigned the task to retrieve Jabba the Hutt’s son, who has been kidnapped, to get the gang boss’s favour. The search leads to Teth, where the Separatists are holding the Huttlet. Anakin leads a force of clone troopers against the droids’ base, leading to a showdown against the assassin, Asajj Ventress, a protege of Count Dooku. Senator Padmé Amadala of Naboo finds out about Anakin’s mission and tracks down Ziro the Hutt on Coruscant, but discovers that he is part of the conspiracy against Jabba and the Jedi. With the help of C3PO, Padmé escapes and Ziro is arrested. On Tatooine, Anakin deals with Count Dooku long enough for Ahsoka to return the Huttlet.
The first season continues in a similar vein, at least to begin with. “Ambush”, the first regular episode, features Yoda and several clones on a mission to meet with the king of Toydaria. The episode sets the tone, showing that the clones, even though they look alike, are individuals, and Yoda treats them as such. As the seasons progress, the stories become darker, with the Jedi forced into becoming what they are not and Darth Sidious’ manipulations starting to pay off. That’s not to say that the first season was all light-hearted. Clones and Jedi died on-screen, and one Jedi fell to the Dark Side before being killed by General Grievous. The first season also showed why the Republic was fighting; the episodes “Storm over Ryloth”, “Innocents of Ryloth”, and “Liberty on Ryloth” depict what the droid army did with the Twi’leks and the liberation of their homeworld.
Being placed between the second and third prequel places a few limitations on the series. First, several characters had script immunity due to appearances in Revenge of the Sith. That’s not to say that the couldn’t inflict non-permanent injuries and psychological issues on existing characters. Second, new characters had to be written out in a way that their absence in Sith made sense. In particular here, Ahsoka could not be Anakin’s padawan by the end of the series. Likewise, Venrtess could not remain Dooku’s apprentice.
As mentioned at the beginning, adapting movies for television may mean adding new material. The Clone Wars did just that, but in a way that added to the original. New characters, like the aforementioned Ahsoka and Ventress, clone troopers Waxer, Boil, and Fives, and bounty hunter Cad Bane had their own stories that intersected with the lives of the original cast. In addition, minor characters like General Grievous had their roles expanded. Grievous, first seen in Sith primarily escaping before being defeated by Obi-Wan, is shown to be far more dangerous and far more callous, killing several Jedi and targeting medical frigates.
The series delved into other parts of the Galaxy Far Far Away. Seasons three and four showcased the Nightsisters, a sect of the Witches of Dathomir, and Asajj Ventress. Mandalore, the home of some famed armour, also had several episodes focused on it and its internal politics. The Galaxy felt larger as a result, away from Tatooine and Coruscant. At the same time, classic equipment seen in the original Star Wars began appearing, from the Y-Wings to the evolution of the clone trooper armour to look more and more like that used by stormtroopers.
The Clone Wars also managed to make Revenge of the Sith a stronger movie. Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side is shown throughout the series, as Palpatine introduces doubt that worms through his mind. The deaths of the Jedi as a result of Order 66 hit harder. No longer are they nameless characters in a montage but Plo Koon, Kit Fisto, and Aayla Secura, Jedi who have appeared and were developed as full characters in their own right.
As an animated adaptation, The Clone Wars took characters that were larger than life in movies and brought them in a new form on television. The animation evolved over the run of the series, noticeable even in the first season, and evolved to handle more difficult challenges. There were times when certain elements, such as the clone troopers, the battle droids, and General Grievous, were indistinguishable from what appeared on screen in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. The eye to detail and the desire to respect the films came through. While it is true that Lucasfilm was still the studio behind The Clone Wars, not all of the studio’s releases matched the quality and care shown in the animated series.** The Clone Wars is well worth studying as a successful adaptation.
* I’m ignoring filler episodes here. Filler is more commonly seen in anime based on manga, where the series has to wait for new content to be created.
** The Star Wars Holiday Special stands out as a prime example here.
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.
