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.

Unexpected fan favourites can appear just about anywhere.  Marvel Comics has several, characters that, for various reasons, just resonated with readers.  With some, such as Squirrel Girl, it’s the innate humour that draws in fans.  For others, it’s the rebel of the group.  In the various X-Men titles, that was Wolverine.

Wolverine first appeared in the final panel of The Incredible Hulk #180, with the story continuing the next issue.  Conceived as a mutant agent of a Canadian intelligence agency, Wolverine reappeared in the first issue of Giant-Size X-Men, the soon afterwards in X-Men #94.  His popularity grew, exploding in the 80s as the anti-hero movement began.  This popularity led to a four-issue mini-series, Wolverine, helmed by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller.  With Wolverine’s in-universe longevity, thanks to his mutant healing factor, writers could look at various parts of his past, adding depth to the character.  Popularity with fans led to Logan to several mini-series, cross-overs, becoming the anchor in the weekly Marvel Comics Presents, his own ongoing series, joining the Avengers, and the lead of a cartoon.  He has joined Spider-Man as a means of letting readers know a title is part of the Marvel Universe just by appearing in a new character’s comic.  Wolverine has been a Canadian secret agent, a teacher, an X-Man, a crime lord, a ronin, a soldier, an Avenger.

The Wolverine, released in 2013 by Twentieth Century Fox, takes a look at a moment in Logan’s long life, with Hugh Jackman returning as the title character.  The movie opens at a prisoner-of-war camp in Japan in 1945, across the bay from Nagasaki.  Logan is the first to hear the approaching B-29 bomber, but a Japanese officer also hears it and frees the prisoners to prevent their deaths in the coming bombing run.  As the prisoners run for their lives, the officer remembers the one in the hole, Logan, and frees him as well.  Logan, though, recognizes what is about to happen.  There is only one bomber.  However, instead of also running, the officer joins his superiors as they commit seppuku.  Logan prevents the lethal stabbing, and both watch as the second atomic bomb ever explodes.  Hauling the officer along, Logan returns to his cell in the hole, where he protects the officer from the fireball with his own body.

Logan then wakes up from the dream within a dream.  As he shakes off the nightmare, he realizes that he’s in the Yukon, where he went after the X-Men movies.*  He spends a typical day, a trip into town for supplies followed by work in the woods.  He ignores the boisterousness of a group of hunters, not wanting to get involved or be noticed.  That night, though, he hears their screams.  When he investigates, he finds their camp torn apart and a bear in the throes of agony from an arrow.  Logan puts the poor beast out of its misery and heads to town.  He easily finds the hunters, including the one survivor of the bear’s rampage and starts asking questions, wanting to find the owner of the poisoned arrow he pulled from the bear’s body.  Before an all-out brawl can start, a tiny Japanese woman introduces herself and her katana.  The hunters don’t take her seriously, but she demonstrates finesse with the weapon, killing no one while making precise cuts that show that it was her decision to keep them alive.  As she leaves, she invites Logan to follow her to her car.

The young woman introduces herself as Yukio, representing Yashida, the dying CEO of Yashida Industries, who has requested Logan, the Wolverine, to talk to him before he passes away.  Yukio, herself a mutant who can see how people will die, manages to persuade Logan into going to Tokyo, though just for one day.  As for the hunters, Yukio sees them dying in a week in a car crash.

In Tokyo, Logan is reunited with the Japanese officer he saved, Yashida himself, who is in the final stages of cancer.  Yashida asks his doctor, Dr. Green, and his family, son Shingen and granddaughter Mariko, time alone to talk with Logan.  With everyone out, Yashida makes an offer to Logan, the end of Wolverine’s long suffering, the removal of his powers and transferring them to the dying man.  Logan refuses.  Later that night, Yashida passes away.  That same night, Jean Grey returns again in Logan’s dreams, only to turn into Dr. Green.

Yashida’s funeral the next day is somber and formal.  Logan, though, senses something is off just before the Yakuza gangsters reveal themselves.  One gangster produces a shotgun from underneath his monk robes and shoots Logan.  While shooting the Wolverine is never a good idea, this time, Logan is staggered.  The wounds don’t close as rapidly as they should.  Logan doesn’t let the wounds slow him down as he demonstrates that he is the best at what he does.  Still, he is slowed down by gunshot wounds, far more than he should be.

The gangsters’ target is Mariko; they attempt to kidnap her, but are stopped by not only Logan, but by Harada, who is making accurate bow shots from rooftops over a kilometre away.  Logan is the only one to spot him, but since Harada is assisting Mariko, does nothing to stop the archer.  Instead, he grabs Mariko to take her away from the fighting and the gangsters.  The pair work their way through Tokyo, running from the Yakuza, until they reach the train station.  Mariko loses Logan in the crowd at the station and boards a bullet train to Nagasaki.  As she starts to relax, Logan falls into a seat across the aisle from her.

Logan’s tenaciousness is rewarded.  Several gangsters have also boarded the train.  Logan spots them and tries to deal with them.  Adamantium claws are not the best weapon in an enclosed space, especially if trying to keep the space enclosed; Logan rips through the outer wall of the train car.  At first, it works to his advantage, letting him toss out a couple of gangsters, but he, too, is soon dragged out of the bullet train.  The fight winds up on the top of the train, still travelling at 300km/h** and ends when Logan bluffs the last gangster into jumping at the wrong time.

The pair leave the train at the next stop, long before reaching Nagasaki.  Stopping at a love hotel,  Logan gets patched up by a veterinary student after collapsing.  His healing factor is completely shut down, yet he insists on protecting Mariko through to Nagasaki and beyond.  They take a bus to the reborn city, where Mariko’s grandfather had built a sanctuary for the family.  Logan recognizes the view.  He looks for and finds the cell he was in when the atomic bomb exploded.

During the time at the sanctuary, Logan and Mariko fall in love.  Yukio, still in Tokyo, has a vision of Logan dying, and heads to the haven to warn him.  The Yakuza catch up and kidnap Mariko, taking her away before Logan can stop them.  After some interrogation of the sole gangster stopped by Logan and some investigation, Logan and Yukio return to the Yashida residence, where they do not find any security.  Eariler, Harada and his ninja had arrived to rescue Mariko from her father.  Dr. Green also appears and poisons Shingen, leaving with Harada.  Logan, not finding anyone, heads to Yashida’s hospital bed and uses the X-ray machine there to find out why his healing factor isn’t working.  The X-ray reveals a device attached to his heart.  Yukio reminds Logan of the vision she had: him, on his back, his heart in his hand.  Logan, however, performs his own open heart surgery.

Shingen, left for dead by Dr. Green, appears.  Yukio fights him off as Logan tries to remove the device.  The Wolverine does, indeed, die on the table, but instead of his heart in his hand, he has the device that had blocked his healing factor.  Yukio keeps Shingen away from Logan, the fight a standstill.  Despite the flatline beep, though, Logan’s body repairs itself.  Shingen manages to get the upper hand in the sword fight, but before he can kill Yukio, Logan stops him.  The fight’s tenor changes.  Logan is no longer hampered by his lack of power.  Cuts that would kill another man just get him angry.  Shingen’s best attack, one that, if The Wolverine was an anime series, would leave Logan cut in twain, does little to stop him.  Logan leaves Shingen alive, reminding him that he tried to kill his own daughter.

Yukio and Logan work out where Mariko is taken.  Logan heads out to Yashida’s birthplace and enters the family compound.  Harada confronts him, and tries to point out that getting further is a death sentence, not realizing that Logan has solved that little problem.  Ninja move in to attack and are cut down.  Harada, realizing that there’s nothing gained by throwing more ninja at Wolverine other than giving Logan practice, orders his men to use bows insteads.  The archer poisons his own broadhead arrows, and, after many arrows, all with cables attached, Logan is brought down.

Inside, when he awakens, Logan finds out what has been happening.  The family’s Silver Samurai, protector for many generations, has been modified.  The pilot needs Logan’s healing factor.  Logan, however, refuses to go down without a fight.

A lot happened in the movie, to say the least.  Before I analyze The Wolverine, I want to make reference to Adaptations and the Superheroic Setting, which discussed the creation of using a different universe in different media.  The short version of it:  Comic books tend to have a lot of continuity behind them.  With the Wolverine, there is forty years worth of stories since his first appearance in 1974.  While fans of the character are aware of the backstory, not everyone in the audience is.  Setting the X-Men movies as their own cinematic universe allows the film makers room to tell the story they want without spending half the running time explaining everything that has happened prior.  Adding to the complexity, The Wolverine also has to fit in with the previous movies; X-Men: First Class was, essentially, a prequel to X-Men, not a reboot.  It’s an interesting position to be in, where interesting is akin to the “Chinese curse“.

The film makers, in the DVD extra***, mentioned that they used the Claremont-Miller mini-series as a starting point, using the dichotomy in Logan’s nature to be both soldier and loner.  Mariko has appeared not only in the mini-series but also in the regular X-Men title and is, for the most part, portrayed the same.  Logan’s visions of Jean flow from the events in X2, though it’s possible that the film makers could be angling towards the Dark Phoenix Saga or that what Logan remembers is not necessarily how things are, thanks to Days of Future Past.  Time travel really messes up continuity.  The Wolverine focuses on Logan as Logan, not his superhero identity.  This focus has appeared in the comics, including his time as the anchor for Marvel Comics Presents and his own mini-series.

Balancing the different aspects and origins (film and comic) of the character is a fine line, but the movie manages to walk it.  Anyone familiar with Logan from either just the comic or just the movies will have no issue with Jackman’s portrayal.  There are liberties taken; in the comics, Harada is the Silver Samurai and a mutant himself.  The changes, though, don’t take away from Logan, nor do they substantially change the events.  While The Wolverine follows the movies more than the comic, the essence of Logan is caught and portrayed well.

Next week, a second look at Mr. Peabody & Sherman.

* The X-Men movie timeline gets a bit convoluted.  X-Men: Days of Future Past ignores X-Men 3 completely.  The Wolverine seems to do the same thing, but there are elements, such as the Jean Grey dreams, that hint at something else, like a timeline that is about to change.
** Speed limit in Ontario is 100km/h, or a bit over 60mph.
*** DVD extras are a boon to these reviews.  Sometimes, a bit of insight into the process of making the movie helps figure out why some decisions were made.

Lost in Translation has taken a look at different movies based on Marvel characters, from the Avengers Initiative to the licensed characters like Spider-Man and Daredevil.  The recent movies have all been well received for the most part.  However, Marvel’s fortunes weren’t always so lofty.  The first theatrical release featuring a Marvel character* laid an egg.

The character, Howard the Duck, was created by Steve Gerber and Val Mayerik for Adventure into Fear #19 in 1973.  Howard was a duck who found himself stuck on Earth, pulled away from his life on his home planet of Duckworld, plucked from his life by Thog the Nether-Spawn.  Thog wanted to collapse all realities into one under his control.  Howard teamed up with several other heroes to stop Thog, but a misstep sent him to Cleveland.  After a few problems with law enforcement and being mistaken for a mutant, he happened across the lair of the villainous Pro-Rata and rescued Beverly Switzer, a life model, with the help of Spider-Man**.  Howard and Beverly would come to love each other across species differences.

The movie Howard the Duck, released in 1986, focuses on Howard and his arrival on Earth.  Without access to other characters in the Marvel-verse, the movie shows Howard in his everyday life, establishing him as an everyduck, before hurling him through a wormhole to land in Cleveland, Ohio, outside a dive bar with live band Cherry Bomb.  Howard bounces from trouble to trouble before finding a place to hide and gather his wits.  Meanwhile, the lead singer of Cherry Bomb, Beverly Switzer, has wrapped up for the night and left the bar.  Two “fans” intercept her and refuse to let her leave.  She fights them off the best she can while calling for help.  Help does arrive, all three-foot-two of him.  Howard leaps in with his Quak-Fu and helps Beverly chase away her assailants.  Not having anywhere else to go, Howard takes up Beverly’s offer to go home with her.

The next day, Beverly introduces Howard to Phil, a scientist and intern at a lab.  Phil is ecstatic at meeting an living, breathing, talking example of parallel evolution.  Howard gets overwhelmed and leaves.  As he tries to adjust to Cleveland, he looks for a job.  The best he gets a position as a janitor at a romance spa.  The job and the boss soon get to him and Howard quits.  He wanders around Cleveland, eventually returning to the dive where he first landed and met Beverly.  Cherry Bomb is on stage inside.  Howard goes inside, where he overhears Cherry Bomb’s manager talk about his plan to withhold the band’s money to get Beverly to go home with him.  A barroom brawl breaks out with Howard outnumbered three to one by the manager and his friends, but the alien duck wins.  Howard takes the money and forces the manager to stop managing Cherry Bomb.  Later backstage, Howard reveals the cash to Cherry Bomb.

Meanwhile, Phil has been busy.  He has spoken to Dr. Jennings, the lead researcher at the lab, and arrives at the bar.  Phil wasn’t expecting Howard to be there, but takes advantage of the situation to take one of Howard’s tail feathers.  The DNA in that feather matches the DNA on a feather that appeared after a laser-retrieval experiment.  Dr. Jennings was responsible for pulling Howard across the galaxy to Cleveland.  Howard reasons that if the laser could pull him to Cleveland, it could send him back to Duckworld.

An accident at the lab interferes with Howard’s plan.  Dr. Jennings has been changed.  The police arrive as a result of the alarm going off and wind up arresting Howard for being an illegal alien.  Howard manages to escape from the police and meet up with Beverly and Dr. Jenning.  In Dr. Jenning’s car, the researcher starts undergoing a transformation.  The last experiment had pulled one of the Dark Overlords, one who is now occupying Dr. Jennings’ body.  The Dark Overlord wants to free his comrades and plans to use the laser to bring them to Earth.  His comrades need a body, and the Dark Overlord plans on giving them Beverly’s.  Howard, with the help of Phil, rescue Beverly, defeat the Dark Overlord, and sends the other Overlords back.

As mentioned at the beginning, the movie bombed.  However, as an adaptation, it works.  There’s a change from the existentialism that Gerber had in the comic to a science fiction comedy, but the idea of a person ripped out of his home, his life, to an alien landscape is still there.  The love between Howard and Beverly is still there, and builds subtly where even they aren’t aware of it even if the audience is.  When two people can finish each other’s sentences without effort, there’s a true connection between them.  The main issue is the design of Howard.  The movie was made before CGI was commonplace.  The Last Starfighter had been released two years earlier in 1984, but the techniques were still in their infancy.  Thus, Howard was a man in a duck suit.  Howard’s look in the comics was still very duck-like, and his stance would be murder on most people’s backs if attempted in real life.  Industrial Lights & Magic did manage to create believable animatronics for Howard’s facial expressions.

As for tanking at the box office, Howard the Duck was an odd choice to adapt.  George Lucas had found the comic, read it, then passed it on to Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck to write.  The project sat for a few years before Universal needed a film to add to its line up.  The original idea was to create an animated feature, but Universal needed one sooner than animating would take.  This need led to Howard being live action.  The other issue was that Howard, both comic and movie, wasn’t a children’s title.  Howard smokes cigars and has sex.  At the time of release, though, the movie received a PG rating, which allowed for saltier scenes and topless nudity without necessarily allowing much in language or violence.  As a comparison, Airplane also received a PG rating with a topless woman shimmying with the plane.

In favour, the writers, producers, directors, even actors had read the comic.  Lea Thompson, who played Beverly, was given copies of the comic after she was hired.  The original idea of an animated film would have avoided some of the problems they had.  With John Barry, of 007 fame, composing the soundtrack and Thomas Dolby writing songs for Cherry Bomb, the music fit.  The original Howard the Duck was respected, even with the problems of doing Howard live.  With Howard making a cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy, it could be time for his triumphant return.

Next week, The Wolverine.

* The 1944 Captain America Republic film serial was under the Timely banner.
** To establish a character within the Marvel Universe and to pull in readers, editorial frequently used Spider-Man as a guest star.  In later years, the Punisher and the Wolverine would also guest in titles for the same reason.

The atomic bomb has been used just twice in war, both times on Japan.  The destruction the bomb wrought led to nuclear escalation between the US and the USSR, and a permanent change in the Japanese psyche.  Post-war atomic testing on uninhabited islands still had fallout.  Even now, nuclear energy isn’t trusted fully.  In science fiction, atomic radiation leads to mutations.  Marvel Comics’ X-Men are specifically called the Children of the Atom.  Spider-Man gained his powers from a irradiated arachnid.  Going back further, though, leads to the grandfather of atomic changes.

Gojira first hit Japanese movie theatres in 1954 and featured a monster that had been reawakened by nuclear weapons testing.  The monster symbolized the destructive potential of nuclear weapons, something Japan had experienced first hand.  Although not the first kaiju*, Gojira became the example of what giant monsters, daikaiju are.  The movie starts with ships being attacked at sea near Odo Island by an unknown vessel, one that disappears as quick as it appears.  The investigators discover that the islanders used to sacrifice girls to a monster called Gojira to appease it.  During a storm that wracks the island, more destruction occurs, far worse than accountable by the storm.  This time, there is a witness who can identify the cause – Gojira!

An archaeologist discovers large radioactive footprints and a trilobite that is normally found in the depths of the sea.  An alarm sounds, and the archaeologist, along with the villagers, run to the hills, only to meet Gojira himself, towering over the island.  A short, desperate skirmish breaks out long enough for the villagers to get to safety.  Gojira returns to the ocean.

In Tokyo, the findings are given over to a commission.  Nuclear explosions are responsible for reawakening and freeing the daikaiju.  A discussion about whether to reveal the monster’s existance or not later, the public is informed.  The Japanese Self-Defense Force sends ships to drop depth charges.  Instead of killing Gojira as planned, the charges merely attract his attention to the ships and Japan.  Gojira attacks Tokyo, emerging from Tokyo Bay, leaving a trail of destruction not seen since the Allied bombing of the city.  Emergency measures are put in place, including a fence of electrical towers that will give off a 50 000 volt shock when walked through and the evacuation of Tokyo.  Gojira returns.  The electric fence does little to slow the monster down; Gojira destroys the wires with his atomic breath.  Tanks fire but can’t penetrate Gojira’s hide.  Once again, Tokyo suffers under the rage of the daikaiju until he leaves in the morning.

However, Tokyo may have a chance at surviving.  Daisuke Serizawa has developed the Oxygen Destroyer, a side effect of his research into cleaner energy.  The Oxygen Destroyer does exactly what it says on the tin – it destroys oxygen atoms.  Anything needing to breathe oxygen is left asphyxiating.  Serizawa is well aware of the potential misuse of his invention, though, and is hesitant to use it.  Once he sees the extent of Gojira’s destruction, he changes his mind.  To be safe, he burns his notes on the Oxygen Destroyer so that they can’t be used to create more.  Serizawa is taken by ship to the last known location of Gojira.  Finding the monster, Serizawa activates the Oxygen Destroyer, then cuts his own oxygen cable.  Both he and Gojira perish.

The implications of Gojira, that the monster is more an unstoppable act of nature caused by nuclear radiation, is woven through the movie.  The military is helpless as Gojira rampages through Tokyo.  The destruction is immense.  Nuclear weapons testing led to Gojira’s reawakening, which in turn led to Tokyo’s destruction.

In 1956, the movie was retitled Godzilla: King of Monsters and brought over to North America.  New scenes with Canadian actor Raymond Burr were added to reduce the amount of dubbing needed.  Burr played an American reporter who was on the scene when Godzilla first attacked Tokyo, telling the story as a flashback.  This Godzilla was then released in Japan in 1957 and was popular like the original.

Despite being an actor in a rubber suit, Godzilla moved like the giant monster he was supposed to be.  Part of this came from the sheer mass of the original suit.  The added verisimulitude helped win popularity, which led to Toho producing /Godzilla/ movies through to 2004.  Along the way, other daikaiju either fought or teamed up with Godzilla, inluding King Kong, King Ghidorah, Mothra, and Mechagodzilla.  Godzilla also served as inspiration for other giant monsters, including Gorgo and Gamera.  As mentioned, Godzilla wasn’t the first giant monster, but he was the most influential.  Few other daikaiju had songs written about them.  Over the years, Godzilla became less a danger and more the protector of Earth, defending the planet against would-be destroyers and conquerors, including humans.

In 1992, Tri-Star picked up the rights to Godzilla with an eye on making a trilogy.  The first, Godzilla, was released in 1998.  It starts much the same as the original, a fish canning ship is attacked by an unknown creature and is found washed ashore, this time in the Atlantic.  The US sends the military to investigate, pulling in experts in biology and paleontology, including Nick Tatopoulos.  Nick, played by Matthew Broderick, was pulled from his investigation of the effects of radiation on worms in Chernobyl, Ukraine.  Meanwhile, Philippe Roaché, a French insurance investigator, is also looking into the attack on the canning ship, ostensibly for purposes of insurance payout.  He tracks down a survivor of the attack, who is only able to say one word, “Gojira.”

Early appearances of Godzilla are brief; the most seen of the monster are the spikes along his back.  It’s only when Godzilla arrives in New York City that the audience sees him fully.  Instead of being an actor in a rubber suit, the new Godzilla is rendered with CGI.  Jurassic Park, originally released in 1993, helped make great strides in rendering dinosaurs with CG, and the new Godzilla benefited.  However, the new Godzilla was based on iguanas and lizards, creating a new look for the giant monster.  Still, New York suffered the same fate Tokyo did in the original Gojira, with massive damage to streets and buildings.  And, just like the original, the military was helpless to stop the monster.

As New York is evacuated to New Jersey, Mayor Ebert tries to stay on top of matters, more to help get re-elected than anything else.  During the chaos, the military loses sight of Godzilla.  As blame gets thrown about, the civilian specialists work out what happened just as an Army recon squad reports that one building they checked had no more floor.  Godzilla went underground.  Nick comes up with an idea to get the monster back above ground to give the Army another go at him – fish.  A large pile of fish is dumped near Times Square and manhole covers removed to let Godzilla smell the bait.  The plan works; Godzilla breaks through the street from underneath and goes after the fish, giving time for the squadron of Apache helicopters to move in and attack.  The helicopters’ missiles are useless, missing Godzilla and destroying the Chrysler Building instead.  The reason – the missiles carried are heat seekers and have nothing to lock on.  Being cold-blooded, Godzilla is the same temperature as his surroundings.  Switching to miniguns, the Apaches pursue Godzilla through the ruins of mid-town Manhattan.  The tall buildings become a maze, and the pilots lose the monster.  The monster, however, did not lose the helicopters, and prey becomes predator again.  Hemmed in by the towers, the helicopter pilots aren’t able to pull away* from Godzilla and are made a snack.  Godzilla disappears again.

Nick makes a few calculations and realizes that the amount of fish from the canning ship, from three fishing ships that disappeared, and from the pile he had the Army make was far more food than needed.  He grabs a sample of Godzilla’s blood, then finds an open pharmacy where he buys every pregnancy test available.  While in the pharmacy, he runs into an old girlfriend, one who had rejected his marriage proposal.  He takes her back to his tent, doubling as a lab, catching up on old times along the way.  Nick finds out that his ex works at a TV station, then finds out that Godzilla may very well be pregnant, either about to lay eggs or has just laid them.  The biologist runs off to warn the Army of his discovery and to perform proper tests to confirm his results.

With Nick gone, his ex, Audrey, played by Maria Pitillo, takes a tape showing the path Godzilla has taken, including footage of the survivor saying, “Gojira,” to her station.  The tape is immediately placed on the air, right as Nick is trying to explain the pregnancy.  Nick is kicked off the investigation.  As he leaves, he meets Philippe.  Nick explains the problem and gets Philippe, played by Jean Reno, on his side.  Turns out, Philippe isn’t an insurance investigator; he works for the Direction génèral de la sécurité extérieure, or the French Secret Service.  Philippe has been tracking the destruction from French Guyana to New York with an eye on stopping the monster.  Nick, Philippe, and Philippe’s small team head into New York to look for the eggs.

Back in New Jersey, the collective armed forces of the US come up with a new plan to kill Godzilla.  Once again luring him out, the Air Force directs Godzilla towards the ocean, where two submarines wait.  Torpedoes are fired, but Godzilla is not only able to out-swim them, he lures them into one of the subs, destroying it.  A second brace of torpedoes is fired and this time, Godzilla is hit.  Mayor Ebert hears the news and starts insisting on having the evacuees returned to their homes in Manhattan.  Colonel Hicks, played by Kevin Dunn, wants to confirm the death of Godzilla.

Back on the island, Nick and the French spies discover Godzilla’s nest.  All of seats in the stands of Madison Square Garden have an egg, each one on the verge of hatching.  As the Godzilla-lings emerge, hungry, they go after the fish and anything that smells like fish, including Nick and the French.  The group makes the only rational decision possible – to run, blocking the doors to the arena.  However, they’re still stuck inside the building.  Fortunately, Audrey and her cameraman, Animal, were following him and know where the broadcast room is.  Philippe, the sole French survivor of his team, assists in unlocking the door to the broadcast room.  Audrey forces a break into the TV station’s live feed, letting the Army know where the offspring are.  Nick joins her and explains the problem; Godzilla’s offspring are asexual, born pregnant, and are hungry; basically, they’re less fluffy tribbles.

Colonel Hicks calls for an air strike, giving the survivors inside Madison Square Garden six minutes to escape.  It’s close, but they do get out.  The baby Godzillas are derstroyed, but Godzilla returns.  During the chase, where the heroes have borrowed a taxi to try to outrun a monster that can hit 80mph, Nick gets a message through to Colonel Hicks about Godzilla.  A last ditch plan is made; draw out the monster to a bridge so that the Air Force can use missiles without buildings being locked on instead.  The first missile strike staggers the monster; the second kills it.

The first half of the movie does a good job recreating the events of the original Gojira.  The problem begins when the tone of the movie switches from “giant monster” to “action”.  The original Godzilla took extreme efforts to stop; the subsequent films either have Godzilla as an act of nature, impossible to stop, or a protector, one who inflicts a lot of collateral damage.  The design of the new Godzilla is closer to Repitilicus and The Beast of 20,000 Fathoms, with a touch of The Giant Gila Monster.  Toho, the company that created the Godzilla franchise, has renamed the monster in the movie “Zilla”, but hasn’t completely disavowed the film.

The scene involving Zilla chasing the Apache helicopters had an odd special effects failure.  Nothing wrong with Zilla’s CG.  New York just looked like it was a model, as did the helicopters.  Given the nature of the movie, was it an error or was it deliberate, a callback to the use of a model Tokyo and model military vehicles in Gojira?  Given that the rest of the movie didn’t show any problems, the choice seems deliberate.

Godzilla has issues as an adaptation, as pointed out above.  The issues, though, do really start after Zilla reaches Manhattan.  Until then, it does feel like a proper adaptation of Gojira.

* Apparently, the pilots forgot that they could go in three dimensions, specifically up.  The Apache has a service ceiling of about 21 000 feet, much higher than even the tallest building in New York City.