Welcome back to the Adaptation Fix-it Shop. The goal: rehabilitate remakes and reboots that, for one reason or another, just didn’t work. This time in the shop, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.
The Legend of Chun Li is the second Street Fighter movie. The first, Street Fighter: The Movie also had issues, but the delicate balance the movie has between brilliance and inanity makes tinkering with it a difficult proposition. The Legend of Chun Li, though, has the issue of not quite feeling like a Street Fighter movie. There are two separate narratives in the film; one following Chun Li and her search for her father, the other following a pair of Interpol investigators trying to bring down M. Bison’s criminal organization. The separate plot lines do eventually merge late in the running time of the movie, but, until then, they’re in competition with each other for screen time.
The obvious fix is to pull the narratives apart, placing them in their own works away from the other. The Legend of Chun Li is an origin story; taking the focus off Chun Li detracts from the purpose of revealing her background. The Interpol investigation could stand alone without the Street Fighter ties; there is no reason for the main villain to be M. Bison. With the idea of pulling apart the narratives in mind, let’s rebuild The Legend of Chun Li.
One issue that needs to be dealt with early, the mix of martial arts and gun play. When a movie emphasizes martial arts, guns stop being effective, at least when used on the heroes. Likewise, the heroes never touch a gun. Why should they when their body is a far more effective weapon? The Legend of Chun Li mixed the two, adding to the narrative split. Chun Li avoided guns, but the Interpol agents were effective with them. The mix added to the issues the movie had. Another problem, this time stemming from the Interpol investigation, is that the narrative requires the villain be stopped, one way or another. Because Bison is a key character from the video game, he has, or, should have, script immunity, as will any character working for him that appeared in the game. Yet, given the events that happen in the movie, allowing Bison to escape will make the investigators look bad, especially given how close they got to him. Time to fix this.
I’ll start with the Street Fighter elements. It’s Chun Li’s origin story; how she became the character in the video game. The video game had her as a martial artist from China working as an Interpol agent avenging the death of her father. The Legend of Chun Li did have that up until the end, where she turned down the Interpol agents. Even having her father working for M. Bison’s organziation can be kept. Bison, though, is a would-be world conqueror with a criminal organization. It seems to be a step down to become just an land developer with no scruples. Bison should be up there in the same ranks as Blofeld, the Red Skull, and Cobra Commander. Why else would he have the spiffy red uniform? Given that several other characters from the video game also have a bone to pick with Bison, if The Legend of Chun Li is the start of a series of origin movies leading to a final showdown against Shadaloo, then Bison needs to survive the movie.
Now that I have the required elements, time to put things together. The goal of the story is to get Chun Li working for Interpol. Defeating Bison once and for all is out; we need him for another movie if this works. Disrupting one of Bison’s plans is possible, though. Chun Li needs a history with him, even if it happened on a Tuesday. The early part of The Legend of Chun Li, showing her time as a young girl, can be used, if only to show her relationship with her father. Even Bison’s organization kidnapping him can be kept, though having him appear to Chun Li should be avoided. Again, the goal is to get her into Interpol to avenge her father’s death. Chun Li needs to track her father and see him die at Bison’s hand, to make sure her quest for vengeance is personal. Bison, for his part, needs an appropriate scheme. The land flipping in the movie is a start, but it shouldn’t be the end goal. The man has eyes on taking over the world. Getting power over elected and unelected officials is just part of the plan. Replacing them, taking over their country, building up a private army, that’s more world conqueror. The land flipping needs to lead into the bigger scheme, something that Chun Li can disrupt while still letting Bison escape.
The tone is going to be difficult. On one hand, the almost cartoon-ish approach of Street Fighter: The Movie is too light. At the same time, the martial arts involved aren’t that realistic, even if they are based on real arts. The video game characters toss fireballs and perform upside-down flying spin kicks. The movie’s tone has to handle the almost-superheroic powers. This is why I compared Bison to the Red Skull and Cobra Commander; his scheme needs to be achievable but matching the over-the-top-ness of the video game’s martial arts. Buying up land on the cheap is too real. Using that land to hide a mind-control laser is too unreal. There’s a sweet spot somewhere in the middle.
At this point, I have Bison kidnapping Chun Li’s father to use him as part of a nefarious plot, Chun Li learning martial arts to help her track her father’s kidnapper, and Bison executing the father in front of Chun Li. Her father needs to be integral to the scheme; scientist is usually a good role and the specialization can inform the nature of Bison’s plot. At some point, though, Chun Li’s father becomes superfluous and is either killed to prove to Chun Li that Bison means business or is killed out of hand to eliminate a loose end. Either way, Chun Li witnesses the execution. Through this, Chun Li battles waves of Bison’s troops, starting with mooks both singly and en masse before running into on of Bison’s lieutenants. The Legend of Chun Li used Balrog for this role, though Vega got a brief cameo for the sake of a cameo. In either character’s case, the fight must leave whoever appears alive, though unconscious or thrown off a building into a container of pillows are acceptable end conditions. The final battle should involve Chun Li and Bison, with Bison getting away. The appearance of an Interpol team who needs help from Chun Li should be enough to let Bison get into an escape craft; the idea should be that, if the fight wasn’t interrupted, Chun Li could have won. Interpol recruits her, and the movie ends.
The idea is very loose, and The Legend of Chun Li did incorporate most of the above. The difference is that the above outline keeps the focus on Chun Li. Interpol is there solely because the organization needs to recruit her. The agents appear at the end, though hints throughout the new movie can be inserted. Shadowy people on street corners watching Chun Li can reveal themselves at the end when they need to be rescued, for example. The Interpol angle, though, is a subplot, not the main plot.
With the Street Fighter elements taken out, what can be done with the Interpol half of The Legend of Chun Li? The investigation was a decent enough crime drama. With the requirement to be tied into the Street Fighter setting removed, the criminal land developer becomes a decent mastermind. The land flipping makes sense as a plot, something that local police can’t handle because the upper echelons have been bribed or ordered to ignore what is happening. The over-the-top martial arts are gone, allowing the agents to use guns and normal combat techniques in the final assault. The running time of the movie that dealt with Chun Li can now be dedicated to either the investigation or the machinations of the villain. The Interpol agents can come into their own instead of sharing a plot with a licensed character.
The key issue with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li was the tone. The movie just did not have the right field. Part of the problem was keeping Bison as a realistic, though exaggerated, crime lord. Separating Chun Li’s origins and the Interpol subplot allows both to thrive.
Next week, a look at adaptations through the history of film.
Growing up has been a common theme for children’s works. The time between the carefree days of playing and the world of adult responsibilities is a tough transition, one that some don’t want to go through. Meet Peter Pan. Pan, best known from J.M. Barrie’s play and novel, Peter and Wendy, is the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up. He lives in Neverland with the Lost Boys, boys who found their way to the realm, and leads them against the pirate Captain Hook. Hook, as appropriate for his name, has a hook replacing a hand, lost to a crocodile after a fight with Peter. The crocodiles still has Hook’s watch, which still ticks inside the belly of the beast.
The play, now mostly performed as a pantomime*, begins as Peter enters the Darling home in pursuit of his shadow. Wendy, the eldest Darling child.wakes up and sees Peter. She reattaches the shadow; in return, Peter invites her to go with him back to Neverland, where she can tell the Lost Boys bedtime stories. Peter and Wendy fly away, with Wendy’s brothers John and Michael tagging along.
Adventure abounds in Neverland. The Darlings are knocked out of the air by cannons on arrival, forcing Wendy to rest at Peter’s hideaway with the Lost Boys. The Darlings go with Peter and the Lost Boys to rescue Princess Tiger Lily from Captain Hook, with Peter wounded in the fighting. During the adventures, Wendy starts falling in love with Peter, a sign that she’s growing up. She remembers her parents, and decides to take her brothers back home.
Captain Hook, however, has other plans. He kidnaps the Darlings and the Lost Boys, taking a moment to poison Peter’s medicine. Tinker Bell sacrifices herself by drinking the medicine before Peter can, leading to him asking the audience to clap loudly to save the fairy. With Tinker Bell safe, Peter rushes off to rescue Wendy and her brothers. The crocodile, however, reappears, still ticking. Peter imitates the ticking, which scares Hook into cowering. Stealing the key to the cages holding Hook’s hostages, he defeats several pirates before facing off against Hook. The battle ends when Peter kicks Hook off the ship and into the jaws of the ticking crocodile. Hook’s last thought was the “bad form” of Peter’s win.
The Darling children return home bringing with them the Lost Boys. Wendy’s mother, Mary, adopts the Boys and makes the same offer to Peter. Peter refuses, saying that he doesn’t want to become a man. He returns to Neverland, but promises to return to see Wendy every spring.
While the original play ends with Wendy at the window asking Peter to please remember his promise to return, Barrie added an extra scene four years later. Titled “An Afterthought”, the scene has Peter returning for Wendy years later. Wendy has grown up and is now married and has a daughter of her own, Jane. Peter is heartbroken over the “betrayal” of Wendy growing up. Jane, though, agrees to go with Peter to Neverland. The cycle continues with Jane’s daughter, Margaret, and may continue for time immemorial.
The play has been adapted many times, including Disney’s animated Peter Pan and a 2003 live action Return to Neverland. In 1991, Steven Spielberg directed a sequel. Hook added the premise, “What if Peter Pan grew up?” The cast included Robin Williams as Peter, Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, Bob Hoskins as Hook’s first mate Smee, Maggie Smith as Wendy, and Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell. The movie opens as Peter Banning, a lawyer, is at his daughter Maggie’s school play, Peter Pan, where she plays Wendy. During the play, Peter receives a call on his mobile phone** about the upcoming trip to London where his wife’s grandmother will receive an award. The grandmother, Wendy, has been running the Lost Boys Orphanage, taking in young children and finding homes for them.. As a father, Peter falls a little short. He is overly protective to the point of never allowing a window to be opened. His work takes precedence; he misses his son Jack’s big baseball game because of a meeting. He has forgotten what it is like to be a child, something his children and wife Moira are too aware of.
The flight to London is difficult for Peter. He’s afraid of flying and the rift between him and Jack keeps getting wider. Jack’s resentment of his father is building while Peter keeps seeing every possible way for a plane to crash. The tension remains even after arriving at Grandma Wendy’s home. Peter gets yet another phone call about the ceremony; with all the commotion around him, he explodes on his children. The children are taken to Wendy’s old bedroom, which is laid out just as in Maggie’s play.
That night, at the ceremony for Wendy, Peter tells of being taken in as an orphan by her and being adopted by an American couple. The scene shows Peter’s more vulnerable side and a longing that he doesn’t quite acknowledge. Back at the Darling home, sinister machinations are afoot. Nana, the dog, is upset and Tootles figures out why. But by the time Peter, Moira, and Wendy get back, all that is left of Maggie and Jack is a ransom note on parchment, nailed to the wall by a dagger. Captain Hook has kidnapped the children; in exchange, he wants Peter Pan to return to Neverland to face him one last time.
While everyone else is dealing with the police and finding the children, Peter heads up to the bedroom. He mistakes a glowing figure as an oversized firefly and tries to swat it. The figure grabs the rolled up paper and swats Peter back. After a tussle that leaves Peter sprawling, he gets a better looking at his firefly. Tinker Bell tells him that Hook has his children and that he needs to go to Neverland right away and what is he waiting for, doesn’t he know, oh, get going Peter. Peter, though, is having problems accepting the new reality and doesn’t believe he can fly. Tinker Bell winds up having to carry him to Neverland.
When Peter regains consciousness, he finds himself on the docks near Hook’s pirate ship. Maggie and Jack are locked in a cage high above the ship’s deck. The evil Captain awaits Peter Pan’s arrival and is disappointed when Peter Banning arrives. Hook is incredulous that Peter grew up and got old. Peter stays focused on getting his children back, but when he can’t fly up, hook despairs of having one last war. Hook orders the death of Peter and his children, but Tinker Bell makes a deal. Three days and she’ll have Peter Pan back and ready for a fight.
Peter’s arrival at the Island of Lost Boys elicits even more disappointment. None of the Boys accept that Peter grew up. The leader, Rufio, doesn’t believe that Peter is the Pan. The littlest Lost Boy, though, looks deep into Peter’s eyes and sees Peter Pan deep within. It takes time, but Peter begins to remember how to be a child. To riff off River in the Firefly episode, “Safe”, Peter was waiting to be Pan, but he forgot. Now that he’s back in Neverland, he remembers what he is.
The only thing Peter is lacking is flight. All he needs is a happy memory to be able to fly. As he talks to Tinker Bell, he remembers his real mother, he remembers how he got to Neverland, with Tink flying him there as a baby, he remembers how Wendy kept getting older each time he visited, and he remembers why he left Neverland after falling for Moira. He rediscovers his happy memory, the day Jack was born.
During the three days, Hook is also busy. Instead of relearning what it is like to be a child, he is working on turning Peter’s children against him. Maggie is difficult, remaining true to her parents. The gulf between Jack and Peter makes it easy for Hook to get his hook into the boy. Jack starts forgetting his parents and his home, seeing Hook as his father figure. Hook encourages Jack to teach the pirates about baseball, leading to a game. Peter returns to the docks on a mission to steal the keys to the cages his kids are kept in, but sees the game. Realization that he hasn’t been there for Jack crashes into him, as does the idea that Hook is being a better father than he ever was.
At the end of the three days, Peter is ready. He has remembered who he is and is ready to fight for his children. Peter arrives at the docks, alone. Hook’s mood improves greatly on seeing his foe back to form. Peter takes on the pirates singlehandedly. When he sees Jack, Peter tells him that his happiest memory is about him. The only thing that could stop him is a net, which Hook had anticipated. Trapped under the netting, Peter calls for the Lost Boys. The battle is enjoined, Boys versus pirates, with the Lost Boys getting the upper hand. Peter and Rufio go after Hook, but when Maggie calls for help, Peter goes to her rescue. Rufio and Hook clash; Rufio’s speed a match for Hook’s skill. Alas for Rufio, his speed is no match for Hook’s ruthlessness.
With Rufio dead, Peter calls on Hook for a one-on-one duel. Hook agrees. Their fight is an even match. Peter does get the upper hand, disarming Hook and removing the Captain’s wig to reveal that the pirate is an old man. Hook begs for dignity. Peter retrieves Hook’s wig and sword, returning both. Hook, however, is a pirate and pirates aren’t known for their fair play. He waits until Peter’s back is turned to try to run his foe through. The Lost Boys are ready; each one holds up a ticking clock. Overcome by fear of clocks and crocodiles, Hook cowers. The taxidermed body of his other old foe, the crocodile, falls on top of him.
Tinker Bell takes Jack and Maggie back to London. Peter stays behind long enough to pass along his sword to a new leader of the Lost Boys, telling him to take care of everyone smaller than him. Back in Wendy’s home in London, Maggie and Jack see their mother sleeping in a rocking chair and climb back to bed. Moira hears the children, who wake up from their dream. Outside, Peter wakes up curled up beside a statue. He runs back to Wendy’s home, retrieves his phone, then climbs up the drainpipe to the children’s bedroom for a reunion. The phone once again rings, eliciting groans and glowers. Peter answers it, then flings the phone through the open window, having learned his lesson about what is important in his life.
While the movie builds on and takes some liberties with Peter and Wendy, it takes the theme of the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up and flips it around. Instead of the fear of growing up and its inevitablility, Hook looks at what it means to be grown up. Hook is an adult fairy tale, looking at adult fears. From Peter’s fears for his children and losing them to Hook’s fear of aging, the movie resonates more to the adult than to the child. Peter’s problems balancing his work with his home life is a problem most adults have to deal with. Hook’s main goal is trying to recapture his glory days one last time while staving off death. It’s when Peter embraces the imagination and creativity of his childhood while still remembering his happy moments as an adult that he becomes whole again, while Hook can only see death ahead of him.
With Peter and Wendy, not growing up seems lovely, but there is a price. While you might remain forever a child, everyone else is growing up and growing old, leaving you behind. The extra scene, “An Afterthought”, shows how Peter is missing out on life by refusing to leave Neverland. In Hook, the problem isn’t so much growing up as forgetting what it was like being a child, with little responsibility and all the time to engage the imagination. Peter became a workaholic, missing out on his children and on his wife. It is possible to grow up without necessarily growing old. That spark that sees the fun in everything needs to be kept nourished, whether by enjoying time with your children or seeking out new experiences, but without letting that spark be all-consuming. It’s a fine balance, one that Peter figured out while Hook could not.
As an adaptation, Hook is essentially a mirror to Peter and Wendy. The movie builds on top of the original play, using the play’s structure to present the new themes mentioned above. While there were scenes that could have been shortened without losing their impact, Hook does add to the play without detracting from it. While not a perfect adaptation, it comes close.
Next week, the February news round up.
* Essentially, a musical comedy with audience participation. Pantomimes are associated with the Christmas and New Year holiday season.
** In 1991, cell phones weren’t ubiquitous and were a sign of an important and/or overworked business man. The scene has more resonance today than it did in 1991.
*** J.M. Barrie gave the rights for Peter and Wendy to the Grand Ormand Street Hospital, a British children’s hospital, so that it could use the royalties from the play and novel.
8 Things to Do With Zombies
Apparently I’ve been on a zombie kick as of late. I haven’t actually written any zombie stories recently, but I just finished writing a three-part series of articles on zombies for Sanitarium and there’s a zombie section to be written up soon, for a sourcebook that I’m putting together.
Here are a few ideas that I haven’t seen often, or at all. (more…)
Murder mystery movies have a fine line when it comes to casting. When a big name is attached to the movie and isn’t the investigator, chances are that the person is the murderer, spoiling the reveal during the opening credits. There are ways around the problem. One is to have the big name be the murder victim, but that means spending a large chunk of budget on a role that appears for the first act. Another approach, the one used by Columbo, is to show the murder. The dynamic changes. The drama comes from wanting to see how the detective solves the crime.
The character of Columbo was created by Richard Levinson and William Link, originally for the anthology series, The Chevy Mystery Show, in 1960, adapted from a short story the creators wrote for Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine Levinson and Link then adapted the episode for stage in 1962. The Detective Lieutenant Columbo people are familiar with reappeared on television in 1968 with Prescription Murder, based on the stage play. Peter Falk, who played Detective Lieutenant Columbo in every movie since then, was not the first choice to play the role, but he convinced the creators he could be the character.
Prescription Murder did well enough as a one-off movie that NBC requested a pilot for a potential TV series. The resulting movie, Ransom for a Dead Man, was also successful. Columbo became part of the rotating NBC Mystery Movie line up along with McCloud, MacMillan and Wife, and Hec Ramsey The rotation allowed each part of the line up to spend the time needed without rushing, adding to the quality of each show. Falk won an Emmy for his portrayal of Columbo in the show’s first season, showing the benefit of the extra time.
Columbo ran until 1979 on NBC, then was revived on ABC as part of the ABC Mystery Movie line up in 1989, running until 2003. Peter Falk’s health prevented a 2007 Columbo movie from being made. Over the course of the series, most episodes followed a set format. The first act showed the murder and the murderer. Once the body was discovered and the police called in, Columbo would investigate the crime scene, looking at it at different angles, trying to find that one clue. The rest of the episode followed Columbo’s investigation, including his persistant questioning of his main suspect. The questioning was always done in a friendly manner, and never was directly about the murder. Instead, Columbo would ask about details about daily routines, about the victim, about the suspect’s job. Eventually, Columbo would find that one tidbit that would confirm beyond a doubt that his suspect was the murderer. The writers also played fair; all the details would be available and shown on screen. There was never a hidden clue pulled out from nowhere.
The heart of the series was always Peter Falk’s portrayal of Columbo. Falk provided much of Columbo’s wardrobe and ad libbed many of the detective-lieutenant’s mannerisms, including feeling through his rumpled raincoat for a pencil. Columbo is a friendly, unassuming man with an eye for detail and a quick mind. He loves his wife and his adopted Bassett hound and owns a one-of-a-kind car* that is much like him. At the same time, Columbo has no problem with misleading a subject, though never to the point of creating evidence. Staging a bicycle accident or using subliminal images to find the last piece of the puzzle, however, are just some of Columbo’s tactics. Columbo also went against the grain compared to other investigators of the era; with three exceptions, he never carried a gun. Two of the exceptions, No Time to Die and Undercover, were based on stories by Ed McBain. The third exception, and the only time Columbo has been seen shooting a gun, was Troubled Waters, where he fired a gun into a mattress for ballistics testing.
As mentioned, the special guest starts were usually the murderer. The interaction between Falk as Columbo and the guest stars resulted in many memorable scenes. Among the guest stars were Faye Dunaway, William Shatner (twice), Jack Cassidy (three times), Patrick McGoohan (four appearances and directed five episodes), and Robert Culp (four appearances, three times as the murderer). Identity Crisis, which not only featured McGoohan’s second guest appearance but also had him directing, was the closest to being a Columbo/The Prisoner cross-over**, with Lt. Columbo and Number Six trying to outwit each other.
In 1979, Fred Silverman was looking for a replacement movie in the Myster Movie line up. Silverman commissioned the spin-off Mrs. Columbo despite protests coming from Columbo creators Levinson and Link and from Falk. Silverman wanted to keep the Columbo name, if not the rest of the show. The opening credits formed the connection to Columbo, showing the Columbo’s distinctive car and distinctive dog along with ashtrays filled with cigar ash. The episodes, though, never showed Columbo, focusing on Mrs. Columbo, played by Kate Mulgrew, who would go on to play Captain Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager.
Mrs. Columbo lasted one season and went through several name changes over thirteen episode. The series became Kate Columbo, then Kate the Detective, and, finally, Kate Loves a Mystery. Along the way, Kate’s last name became Callahan, explained as the character having gone through a divorce. The series followed the same format as Columbo, having well known guest stars as the murderer and showing the murder at the beginning. Kate worked at a small weekly newspaper as a columnist, which would lead her to getting involved in several mysteries. The first regular episode, “Murder is a Parlor Game”, guest starring Donald Pleasence (Blofeld, You Only Live Twice) and Ian Abercrombie (voice of Palpatine, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, among many other roles) had Kate get involved after she met retired Scotland Yard investigator Morly (Pleasence).
Mrs. Columbo, as a series, suffered from being a spin-off, an unpopular one to boot. While Mrs. Columbo was never seen in any episode of Columbo, the lieutenant spoke often and fondly of her. Kate Mulgrew was far too young to play Columbo’s wife; other details in Mrs. Columbo contradicted what was revealed by Lieutenant Columbo. The expectations that were set by being a Columbo spin-off were too high to be met. Mrs. Columbo was an obvious attempt to cash in on a familiar name and could have thrived without being attached to the earlier series. However, executive meddling by Fred Silverman set up the connection. The cast and crew did what they could. By the time the series found its feet, it was too late.
What Mrs. Columbo did show was that the approach to murder mysteries that Columbo took could work with other characters. A series that did use the approach would have to ensure that the investigator was his or her own person and not an attempt to mimic Falk’s character. Mrs. Columbo did have the advantage of flipping the investigator’s gender. In short, the series was handicapped by the connection and would have been better served by being its own entity instead of a spin-off.
Just one more thing. Some time back, I mentioned that Columbo would be a series that could never be remade. Without Peter Falk, it just wouldn’t be Columbo. He created so much of what endeared the detective to the audience through his ad libs that anyone else would be a pale imitation. Mrs. Columbo tried to bottle that lightning by riding the rumpled coattails, but there are spiritual successors. The Mentalist and Monk are both contenders. With a bit of effort, Mrs. Columbo could have been one, too.
* Columbo’s car is a 1959 Peugeot 403 Cabriolet two-door convertible. Only five hundred and four were made by that year. Peter Falk found the car that would become Columbo’s on the Universal back lot and decided it would be ideal. The car is as much a classic as Columbo.
** Also guest starring was Leslie Nielsen as the murder victim. Detective Lieutenant Columbo, meet Sergeant Frank Drebin, Detective Lieutenant, Police Squad
- Magic means that everyone is armed
You may recall that there is something of a debate going on in America about gun control. Imagine that this couldn’t even be a debate. Everybody had laser eyes and a third arm with rocket-propelled knife fingers. You could, conceivably, rip those eyes out and amputate that arm, but a lot of people would complain about that and you’d have a much harder time justifying it. Especially since this wouldn’t be seen as an abnormal state of affairs. (more…)
Last month, I introduced a new feature here at Lost in Translation, the Adaptation Fix-It Shop, where I try to salvage works that so missed the mark that audiences start wondering what was really being adapted. This month, I bring Battleship into drydock.
Battleship had major problems from the outset. The movie was a victim of the Save the Cat approach to scripts that the check boxes were visible onscreen. The director did make some attempts to link the movie to the game with the alien shells given the shape of the pegs used and the grid calling. The core problem with the movie starts with the script*. There are several good ideas in the movie that just get pushed aside because studios either can’t or won’t take the risk of a film that doesn’t follow Save the Cat.
In a discussion with other Crossroads Alpha contributors, a couple of ideas came up on how to adapt Battleship, the game. The first was to go the route of The LEGO Movie. The movie would look like a dumb version of a war movie, with the ships looking the way they do in the game. The reveal in the last third of the movie is that everything up to that point was a game between two brothers, older and younger. The tactics of one side, being blatant and wrong, is just the kid brother not having the experience that the older one has with the game.
The second Battleship idea built on top of the above. Instead of two brothers playing, it would be a game between a navy vet and his young grandson. As the vet tells his stories of service, the young boy imagines them in terms of the game and other toys. The movie would be about how the characters bond over the game and how a young child uses what he knows, in this case, the game and his other toys, to try to understand the grown-up world.
Both of the above ideas make use of the game as the basis of the adaptation. In the first, the game is in the background, hinted at until the reveal. The second uses the game first as a narrative frame and then as the action. Both ideas could still use the pegs as the shells fired by the ships’ guns and as torpedoes. The resulting movie would be far ahead of what was made and could easily be done using Battleship‘s $200 million budget.
With the concept of adapting the game of Battleship not just possible but capable of thriving, what do we do with what was released? Tossing away $200 million, even in a hypothetical situation, is never a good idea. Is there anything in the movie that can be salvaged before we scupper the film and turn it into a coral reef?
There were several great ideas lost in Battleship. Let’s start with the premise of the film as released – an alien invasion needs to be stopped and the only ship capable of doing so is a World War II era battleship, either due to the older technology or having guns powerful enough to penetrate the alien hulls. Ignoring that I’ve just described the Battlestar Galactica remake**, the idea of a veteran being brought out of retirement for one last mission is a common theme in fiction. In this case, it’s possible to keep the designated screw-up, as required by Save the Cat in the story, but the USS Missouri needs to be brought in far sooner than the last quarter of the movie. The titular ship should not be treated as a Chekhov’s 16″ gun. There’s enough potential drama having the Missouri‘s crew teaching the young screw-up about naval tactics and a cat-and-mouse hunt in the Pacific that introducing and then killing off the screw-up’s older brother/mentor is unnecessary. If the new movie is to continue to be an adaptation of the game, have the battleship take command of a small fleet of survivors that include a small patrol or torpedo boat, a destroyer or frigate, a submarine, and an aircraft carrier. The extra ships don’t need to be that involved, but the aircraft carrier could send out planes for reconnaissance.
The alien invasion in Battleship showed signs of being thought out by scriptwriters. There seemed to be at least one invader working against his fellows, helping the humans. There was a colour difference, red instead of purple, and the alien looked directly at scientist Cal Zapata, played by Hamish Linklater, but did nothing to stop him. This may have been the remnant of a plotline butchered by a Save the Cat rewrite. The problem is that a movie doesn’t have enough time available to flesh out this subplot. Battleship spends little time on the aliens, something that kept the invaders as a menace. Having intra-invader conflict, though, becomes opaque; the audience doesn’t have enough information to go on because of how little time is spent with the aliens. Rectifying the problem means changing to a format that supports a longer narrative arc, such as television or comics. Combining this plot arc with the bringing from retirement arc described above does a disservice to both. The focus of a Battleship adaptation should be on the battleship. Switching over to the aliens draws attention away from where it should be. Thus, for the alien invasion with internal conflict, the story should be its own, with humanity fighting and working to make allies with the opposing alien faction.
Finally, the greatest waste in the move Battleship was the subplot featuring Lt. Colonel Mick Canales, played by Colonel Gregory D. Gadson. Col. Gadson is on active duty with the US Army, having served in several wars, including Operation Desert Storm, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He lost both legs below the knee in 2007 when a roadside bomb exploded in Baghdad. Lt. Col. Canales’ character arc involved getting used to having lost his legs. When the alien invasion begins, Canales takes two civilians with him to obtain needed gear. The idea of an injured war vet returning to duty despite his injuries deserves its own film. This time, instead of being a supporting subplot, the wounded vet takes charge of a resistance cell, becoming the focus. The idea could work both as a movie and as a longer format, again, like television. If a TV series, the show could combine this element with the alien in-fighting element above without losing focus on either. The cell could and should discover that the aliens aren’t monolithic and do have a weakness.
From one leaking scrap heap of a movie, five potential great stories can be made. If there’s a lesson, it’s this: Even the most disappointing release can have nuggets that can form the core of something great.
* Not necessarily the scriptwriter. Writers are seeing more and more changes done to their work to the point where the final product is nothing like the original script, but, due to Writers Guild regulations, they can’t have their names removed.
** The movie’s USS Missouri had a few things in common with the Galactica at the beginning of the remake mini-series, including being a museum crewed by her original crew and having technology that wasn’t hackable by modern methods. If the game had been called Carrier and the movie featured the USS Hornet, Universal could have grounds for a lawsuit against itself.
Hey gang, taking a break for a week on Way With Worlds. Work’s hammered me (work does pile up over the holidays), other things piled up, and I’m taking a bit of time to tweak the speed on the Sanctum. NaNo and the holidays brought in a lot of new users (like, 15% to 33% more) and I noticed some periods of slowdown in the morning. I think the new cacheing worked, but I might try a different server setup.
Thanks for understanding!
Respectfully,
– Steven Savage
http://www.musehack.com/
http://www.informotron.com/
http://www.seventhsanctum.com/.
The adapting of comics to television and motion pictures has more pitfalls than expected. While all three are visual media, the artwork in comics allows for a greater range of imagery that budget and physical restrictions disallow in movies and on TV. A laser beam is easily drawn, inked, and coloured on the page; on screen, that same blast takes longer to add, with multiple frames drawn on and edited. Something along the lines of Jack Kirby’s dots are prohibitive without the advents of modern CGI.
Adding to just the difficulty of adapting the visuals of powers is the sheer mass of continuity, some of it conflicting with itself. Marvel has fifty years of Spider-Man stories establishing the character and the setting. DC Comics, the older of the Big Two, has over seventy-five years of Superman* stories, with the added bonus of continuity being an afterthought during the Golden Age. Adapting a character may mean sifting through the years of issues to find the hero’s essence.
With Wonder Woman, there are other elements that come into play. Her creator, William Moulton Marston, had ideas he wanted to present in the title. Working under the penname Charles Moulton, Marston created Wonder Woman to offset the more violent titles featuring male heroes like Superman and Batman. Instead of pummeling a miscreant into submission, Wonder Woman would use love to put the villain back on the path of good. To emphasize the different approach, Wonder Woman came from Paradise Island, populated by just women, where they were able to advance technology and philosophy because the the threat of violence was non-existent. The early run of the title explored bondage and submission; defeated villains would be bound by the golden Lasso of Truth and submit to Wonder Woman, only to be released reformed. Comics Bulletin has more about Moulton in a review of The Secret History of Wonder Woman.
With the first appearance in late 1941 and the first issue of the title released in 1942, Nazis appeared often as the villain. Wartime comics were used as propaganda, keeping American morale up while warning of the dangers of the Axis. The war intruded on Paradise Island when a plane piloted by Steve Trevor, an American intelligence officer, crashed on it. While the women on the island were not keen on getting involved in the man’s war, Wonder Woman, then just Princess Diana of Paradise Island, fell in love with Trevor. She earned the right to take him back to the US, competing against other athletes in disguise. Diana received the Lasso of Truth and magic bracelets that would let her deflect bullets. In the US, Diana took on two new identities, the first being the superheroine Wonder Woman, the other being Diana Prince, assistant to Steve Trevor.
As time passed, Wonder Woman stopped fighting Nazis and started dealing with criminals and other would-be world conquerors, always using love instead of fists as her weapon of choice. In the Sixties, the title ran into sagging sales. To bolster readership, the character lost her powers, becoming secret agent Diana Prince, who used her head and heart to investigate. By the end of the decade, though, feminists were demanding that Wonder Woman get her powers back. Wonder Woman had become a feminist icon.
In the Seventies, ABC was looking for a new series. The network ordered a pilot for Wonder Woman, a ninety minute movie starring Lynda Carter as the heroine and Lyle Waggoner as Major Steve Trevor. The creators went back to the early years of the comic and set the movie during World War II. Maj. Trevor was assigned to a mission to stop a new Nazi bomber from destroying a secret base. Ultimately, Maj. Trevor rammed his fighter into the Nazi craft. Both pilots bailed out before the collision, leading to a gunfight while parachuting that left Maj. Trevor critically wounded and the Nazi pilot landing amidst sharks.
Maj. Trevor was more fortunate where he landed, an uncharted island in the Bermuda Triangle known by its inhabitants as Paradise Island. Two women spot the parachute and run to investigate. One of the women, Princess Diana, picks up the wounded pilot and rushes him to the island’s hospital where he is nursed back to health. While Maj. Trevor is never allowed to see his surroundings, Diana does what she can to spend time with him. As the Major heals, the Queen announces a competition to see who accompanies the American back to Washington. Diana is forbidden to enter the contest, but she does so using a disguise. The final event, Bullets and Bracelets, is down to two women, one being the disguised princess. Diana wins after she wounds her opponent without being touched by any of her shots. She reveals herself to her mother, who reluctantly lets her go.
Diana receives her costumes, her Lasso of Truth, her bracelets, and a belt that allows her to keep her strength and speed in the man’s world away from Paradise Island. She takes Maj. Trevor back to Washington in her invisible plane, leaving him at a hospital before disappearing. As she walks around the city, Diana and her costume attracts attention from both men and women. Diana is unfamiliar with the customs outside Paradise Island but is unfazed. During her exploration of Washington, she stops a bank robbery, through deflecting bullets, tossing the robbers, then picking up the back of the getaway car, all insight of a promoter, played by Red Buttons. The promoter makes Diana an offer, she performs on stage and she gets half the ticket sales. Not knowing better, Diana agrees.
The show is very much vaudeville. Diana is billed as Wonder Woman, capable of stopping any bullet. A number of people line up to take shots, from a revolver to a rifle to an old woman with a Tommy gun. Diana blocks every shot. Having earned enough money to get clothes and her own apartment in the one show, Diana leaves showbiz and returns to helping Maj. Trevor. The Nazi plot to destroy the secret base is still going. A second bomber has been sent, and there are Nazi agents even at the offices of Air Force intelligence. Diana also infiltrates the offices, posing as Petty Officer First Class Diana Prince, all the better to keep an eye on Maj. Trevor.
For Steve Trevor, his return to the US was a shock. He had been declared missing, presumed dead, after the collision in the Bermuda Triangle. No wreckage of his plane was recovered. His return meant that the defense of the base was still possible. The Nazi agent is also surprised by his return, having mourned him with the general. The Nazis kidnap Maj. Trevor, forcing Wonder Woman to rescue him. She is unsurprised to see the promoter; Diana had suspected something was out of place when an older woman with a machine gun showed up at the show. A shoot out starts, but the promoter is well aware of how effective shooting Wonder Woman is. Diana frees Steve and gets the identity of the Nazi infiltrator after using the Lasso of Truth. Back at the OSS offices, the Nazi tries fighting Wonder Woman, but loses. The second bomber is stopped by Maj. Trevor and the secret base is saved.
The pilot did well enough in the ratings for ABC to pick up the series. Etta Candy, one of the comic’s supporting cast, is introduced as a corporal, subordinate to Diana. Etta, played by Beatrice Colen, was a contrast to Diana and was a more representative woman of the era. Wonder Woman still faced Nazis, but also some domestic threats. The cost of keeping the series in the Forties led ABC to drop the show at the end of the season. CBS, though, was willing to pick it up, with changes. The second season brought Wonder Woman to the today of 1977. The first episode of the season starts with Diana back on Paradise Island after the end of WWII. Overhead, a private jet with Inter-Agency Defense Command agents has been infiltrated, with the hijacker unable to keep his gas mask on during a fight with Steve Trevor, Jr, played by Lyle Waggoner. The plane starts to crash in the Bermuda Triangle, but women operating a magnetic field bring the craft down safely. Diana is again the first to board the craft, where she sees Steve. After the war, Maj. Trevor found someone else and had a son who grew up to look just like him. Everyone is healed up, and Diana earns the right to follow the plane in her invisible jet after another Bullets and Bracelets contest.
Diana again must adjust to life in Washington. Fashion has again changed, as have prices. This time, though, she’s prepared. Her mother, the Queen, gave her some vintage, undamaged drachmas, which Diana is able to sell for a good price. Diana is quick to learn computer programming and adds new data to I.R.A.C., the Information Retrieval Associative Computer, that creates a background for Diana Prince. Most of the opponents Wonder Woman faces come from Diana’s job at the IADC, though she also has to deal with aliens and telepaths. Through it, Wonder Woman still tries to turn people around from their wrong-doing ways, but will fight if she must.
Season one of Wonder Woman took its lead from the early comics. Season two and three took some ideas from when Diana lost her powers and became a spy, but let her keep her powers, with some Seventies-specific ideas, like ESP, added. At the time, concerns about television violence and repeatable stunts were making the rounds, forcing Wonder Woman to find a way to stop an opponent without throwing a punch. That requirement worked out well, though. Wonder Woman went from punching to throwing, using a judo-like maneuver. Martial arts like judo and aikido are known as soft arts, using the opponent’s energy against him, fitting in with Wonder Woman’s original concept as envisioned by Marston.
Casting was key. Lynda Carter was ideal to play Wonder Woman. Beyond just looking like the character, Carter had the poise and confidence in the costume to be Wonder Woman. She performed feats of strength while looking like she wasn’t making an effort, but when effort was needed, she showed it. Wonder Woman wasn’t confident because she was sexy; she was sexy because of her confidence, and Carter portrayed that aspect well. For Maj. Steve Trevor, Lyle Waggoner may not have looked like him, but he was comfortable enough with his masculinity to be the damsel in distress of the series. Waggoner had been on The Carol Burnett Show and, prior to that, appeared as the first nude centerfold for Playgirl. Sex appeal and a sense of humour, both needed for the role.
As mentioned above, the key to a good adaptation of a comic is the ability to find the essence of the character or characters and bring them out on screen. With Wonder Woman, the TV series did that. Casting, as mentioned above, helped. Gender-flipping the hero/damsel dynamic emphasized Wonder Woman as the superheroine. Lynda Carter’s poise and confidence mirrored that of the character in the comic. The creators went out of their way to make sure that the source was honoured. Many of Wonder Woman’s opponents in the TV series were also women; if they weren’t in charge, they were the mastermind. The introduction of Wonder Girl, played by Debra Winger**, in the first season let the series show how well Diana adjusted to living in the man’s world. Even after the time and network jump, Diana kept her confidence and was allowed to do more investigating in her secret identity, only changing to Wonder Woman when needed.
The TV series became influential on the comic. Before the show aired, Wonder Woman changed clothes in two different ways. Originally, she just took off the top layer, revealing the costume underneath, much like Clark Kent changed into Superman in a phone booth. As the title continued, Diana would twirl her lasso, which would change her clothes for her. That method, though, would require a level of special effects not available yet in the Seventies. Instead, the creators came up with the idea of Diana twirling, using a platform. Carter suggested that she just twirl herself, taking advantage of her dance training. At first the twirling showed her clothes coming off, but to save time and money, an explosion of light marked the change from Diana to Wonder Woman. This twirl was then adapted by the comic.
The other influence was on artists such as Phil Jimenez and Alex Ross, who had watched the show when it was ion the air. Jimenez, in his last issue on the title in 2003, managed to get permission to use Lynda Carter’s likeness as Wonder Woman and as Diana. DC Comics has also released Wonder Woman 77, a continuation of the TV series. The Wonder Woman series caught the core essence of the comic and of the character.
Next week, the Adaptation Fix-It Shop looks at Battleship. Can the movie be salvaged?
* Action Comics #1 was released July 1938.
** The same Debra Winger who would go on to be nominated for an Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman, Terms of Endearment, and Shadowlands, among other awards. Her version of Wonder Girl was Diana’s younger sister, Druscilla, created by Dru to hide her identity from the Nazis. The Nazis, though, confused her with Wonder Woman. In the comics, Wonder Girl was, first, just a teenaged version of Diana, and later a mantle taken up by Donna Troy and Cassie Sandsmark.
Harry Potter, Night Watch, The Dresden Files… There are more than a few worlds with a society of wizards hiding in the shadows. Throw in masquerades of any supernatural sort, not just wizards, and you have most of the urban fantasy genre. (more…)
It’s a brand new year. Studios are announcing blockbusters. Both Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. have a slate of superhero adaptation coming up, theatrical and televised. Sequels and adaptations are going to dominate the multiplexes. But people have been predicting a collapse for the past few years, people like Steven Spielberg. Collapses have happened before. In 1980, Heaven’s Gate was, if not the catalyst, the nail in the coffin of unfettered directors, free from studio control. The high budget coupled with poor performance in theatres killed United Artists, leading to its sale to MGM. While the film has redeemed itself over time, allowing the audience to see the movie without the raw knowledge of the behind the scenes history, the four hour epic originally fared poorly.
Studios have not been known for being risk takers. They exist to make money through movies. A film that doesn’t recoup its budget at the box office is considered a failure, though the advent of merchandising and, later, the purchase of personal copies on first video tape and later DVD can help offset that loss. As the cost of making movies have gone up, studios have gone from risk-adverse to risk-phobic. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace had, in 1999, a budget of $115 million. In comparison, the 2013 film, The Hangover Part III had a budget of $103 million, with far less of its budget allocated for special effects than The Phantom Menace did. Blockbusters are now regularly reaching $200 million budgets. While one flop won’t destroy a studio, a string of failures will.
There are two ways for a studio to control risk. The first is adapting a popular work. Lost in Translation has been reviewing movie adaptations for over two and a half years. It’s not a new approach, as an upcoming series here will show. The difference now is that the original works aren’t the high-brow sources as in the past. From the 20s through to the 60s, adaptations were taken from literature, from the Bible, from theatrical plays. Adaptations of family fare came from children’s books or fairy tales. The adaptations of today are more low-brow, coming from popular works – book series, comics, cartoons, video games, and toys, all the purview of the masses. This difference leads to the perception that studios are in the middle of an adaptation boom, where original works fall aside. However, Alfred Hitchcock adapted several works into movies, including To Catch a Thief, from the novel of the same name by David F. Dodge, and Psycho, from the novel by Robert Bloch. The upcoming series will go into more details, but the perception that all that studios produce comes from two decades where original works were the norm in popularity lists.
The second way studios use to control risk is the Save the Cat formula. Save the Cat, by Blake Snyder, goes through the steps of screenwriting, placing the story beats, fifteen key events in a movie, down page by page. Snyder called his work a structure, but studios latched on to the method as a formula after the book’s publication in 2005, leading to movies feeling the same, no matter who starred, who directed, what genre the film was, or even the budget. With all films following the formula, one variable is nailed down if a film fails. It can’t be from the script; it followed the structure. Sometimes, though, that structure harms the movie. Battleship was blatant about the check boxes. With studios risk-phobic, though, don’t expect a change in how a script is written.
Studios are relying more on blockbusters. With the success of Marvel’s The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, studios will stay on the blockbuster bandwagon. With the auteur period, massive box office flops, like the aforementioned Heaven’s Gate, sent studios into minimizing risks. With studios managing risk, it is unlikely that a number of blockbusters will fail. The failures of The Lone Ranger and R.I.P.D., both adaptations*, provided different lessons. With The Lone Ranger, the lesson was that an older property that hasn’t been seen in at least a generation may not have the best way to attract an audience. The failure of R.I.P.D. showed that studios can’t adapt just any comic.
With franchises becoming the core of studio income, can studios survive an implosion? Universal Studios’ 2014 lineup had no blockbusters, yet the studio had a record profit. The linked article goes into greater detail, but the vast majority of Universal’s releases were made for under $40 million. Universal’s franchise films, Fast and Furious 7, Minions, and Jurassic World should appear in 2015. There were only two adaptations, Ouija, a horror movie based around the Ouija board, and Dracula Unbound, featruring Bram Stoker’s vampire. The result – Universal didn’t lose as much money on failures and made amazing profit on unexpected hits, all from keeping budgets down. It is possible for a studio to thrive without a tentpole blockbuster.
The year ahead won’t see a collapse, not right away. Individual big-budget blockbusters might fail, which will get insiders talking about an impending collapse, but no one studio will see a string of failures. Universal’s lesson won’t be learned right away, but will be around. An underperforming franchise may be an indication that it’s time to let the franchise lay fallow for a few years, giving fans time to miss the series and demand a new film. Studios will make excuses for the failure of a tentpole blockbuster, blaming factors beyond just yet another formulaic movie. It will only be when a number of big-budget films underperform that studios will panic.
* The Lone Ranger was originally a radio series before being adapted for television and film. R.I.P.D. was based on the comic, Rest in Peace Department.
