There’s a known issue when making a photocopy of a copy. The resolution drops; the further generations of copying from the original, the worse the resolution gets. A second season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “Up the Long Ladder”, uses the term “replicative fading”, applying it to the fading of DNA in clones. While the problem doesn’t appear when copying digital media – ones and zeroes don’t degrade – the idea is still key to examining adaptations. Ideally, an adaptation begins with the original work, not another adaptation. Hollywood is nowhere near ideal. There have been works that have been based on adaptations of adaptations; the Frankenstein movie is a good example, coming from stage adaptations instead of from the original Mary Shelley novel. Another good example is today’s subject, The Green Hornet.
The Green Hornet began as a radio series in 1936. Britt Reid, a millionaire playboy* and newspaper publisher, and his sidekick Kato fought crime. The twist, though, was that the Green Hornet and Kato were seen as villains by criminals and the press alike. Reid, as the Hornet, used a gas gun to subdue his foes while Kato used martial arts. The pair got around the city in Black Beauty, a heavily modified sedan. Helping the duo was Lenore Case, who provided information to Reid to help him fight crime.
The Green Hornet has since been adapted in other forms, including movie serials, comics, and a TV series. The 1966 series introduced Bruce Lee to North American audiences in the role of Kato. Van Williams played Reid. The series lasted one season, but did crossover with the 1966 Adam West Batman series. Al Hirt provided the theme music, a jazz version of “The Flight of the Bumblebee” used by the radio series. The TV series, while considered to be camp, did take itself seriously.
In 2011, Seth Rogan co-wrote and starred in a film adaptation of The Green Hornet, playing millionaire playboy Britt Reid. Jay Chou and Cameron Diaz co-starred as Kato and Lenore, respectively. The movie acts as an origin story for the Green Hornet. Britt Reid begins the film as a layabout, living off his father’s wealth. When his father dies from a bee sting, Britt inherits his publishing empire. He discovers his father’s car collection and the mechanic who maintains it, Kato. Together, they get drunk and go to cut the head of the stature of Britt’s father. During their task, they hear calls for help from a couple being mugged and go to render assistance. The police mistake them for the actual criminals, though, and the pair escape without being seen.
Back at Britt’s manor, he gets the idea to fight crime by posing as criminals, making sure that innocents couldn’t be used against them. Kato modifies one of the cars in the collection, adding weapons and gadgets to it, calling the car the Black Beauty. Britt uses the files his father had on Chudnofsky, a Russian mobster that Britt believes his father was trying to expose. Using his newspaper, the Daily Sentinel, Britt begins to publish articles about the new criminal in town, the Green Hornet. Britt uses the criminology knowledge of his new secretary, Lenore, to plan the Green Hornet’s every move, taking out a number of Chudnovsky’s operations.
Chudnovsky, however, isn’t about to let a new criminal take over any piece of his empire, and has an ace up his sleeve. After a failed attempt on the lives of the Green Hornet and Kato, though, he offers them half the city if the Green Hornet kills Britt Reid. Meanwhile, Britt discovers that his father’s death wasn’t an accident but murder. The DA tried to bribe Britt’s father into downplaying the levels of crime in the city but was refused. He offers Britt the same bribe and, when rebuffed, tries to kill the millionaire playboy using the same bee venom that killed his father. Kato arrives at the restaurant, nominally to kill Britt, but rescues him while disrupting the meet.
Britt thought ahead, though. He had made a recording of the DA’s bribe, saving it to a USB memory stick. He and Kato escape the restaurant and race to the Daily Sentinel to get it on the paper’s website. The DA and Chudnovsky chase the pair, leading to the climactic fight in the paper’s offices.
The movie stays more or less faithful to both the original radio series and the 1966 TV series. However, there is a change in tone. The radio series was a serious crime drama. The TV series, while camp, was also serious and played straight, more melodrama than crime drama, but not intentionally a comedy. The movie, though, was a straight up action-comedy. The action portion would fit in with the TV series. The comedy, though, creates a situation where the uncanny valley effect comes into play. The movie feels off, but not in any way that’s obvious, much like a too human-looking robot or animated character feels off because it doesn’t quite have the proper responses expected. If the movie were less like the TV series while still using comedy, the problem would be obvious. Likewise, if the comedy was toned down, it’d feel closer to the original and the TV adaptation. The movie, though, hits a not-quite-right tone; it gets most of the details near-perfect, but the comedy becomes dissonant**. Thus, the movie isn’t a bad adaptation, in fact, it comes close to being ideal, except for the dissonance.
The movie adaptation of The Green Hornet shows some of the problems of copying a copy. The introduction of the comedy aspects threw off an otherwise near-perfect adaptation. Ignoring the comedy portions, though, the movie does adapt the TV series well.
* It seems that the best superpower to have is incredible wealth. While Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, is the best known millionaire playboy, other mystery men with the same background include Oliver Queen (aka the Green Arrow), Lamont Cranston (the Shadow), and, Tony Stark (Iron Man).
** It took several viewings and chatting with other members of Crossroads Alpha to figure out why the movie didn’t feel right despite hitting all the right notes, thus causing last week’s hiatus.
The animated adaptation is an odd duck. The requirements of a cartoon can be at odds with the original work. Sometimes, the results can be head-scratching, such as the Rambo animated series*. However, not every decision comes from left field. In 1991, Universal Studios wanted to break into family entertainment, and decided to create an educational series based on Back to the Future, the third movie of the series having been released the previous year.
Back to the Future starred Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd as Doc Emmett Brown. Set in Hill Valley, the movie starts with showing the trouble that Marty’s father has with his employer, Biff Tannen, played by Thomas F. Wilson. His mother isn’t faring much better, being depressed. Marty meets up with his friend, Doc Brown, who is either a crackpot or a brilliant mad scientist. Doc has a new invention, a flux capacitor built into a DeLorean, turning the car into a time machine. To achieve the 1.21 gigawatts** needed to power the flux capacitor, Doc had stolen plutonium from Libyan terrorists, who arrive to retrieve the material. Doc and Marty get in the DeLorean to escape the Libyans and achieve 88 miles per hour, triggering the flux capacitor.
Doc and Marty arrive in Hill Valley of 1955. Without spare plutonium, they need to find the Doc’s younger self to get his help to produce the energy needed to activate the flux capacitor. Time travel can be tricky, though. Marty meets his mother’s younger self, and accidentally changes history and risks his own existance as his mother becomes infatuated with him. The energy is easy to find; the town’s clock stopped working when it was struck by lightning. Restoring Marty, though, requires making sure his parents meet and fall in love. Biff unwittingly provides the circumstances, and after Marty’s father decks him, Marty’s own existance is saved. Doc takes Marty back to 1985 before taking the DeLorean to the distance future of 2015. The movie ends with Doc returning, needing the help of Marty and his girlfriend, Jennifer, to fix a problem with their children.
Back to the Future Part II picks up where the first movie left off. Marty’s son is being pressured into crime by Biff’s grandson, Griff. Marty poses as his own son, preventing his arrest and resulting in Griff being taken into custody instead. Afterwards, Marty picks up a sports almanac that includes the results of matches after 1985. Jennifer, though, discovers that her future marriage isn’t as wonderful as she’d want. The future Marty is being goaded, much like his son was, into a shady deal. The future Biff notices the time machine and steals both it and the almanac and travels back in time to give the book to his younger self before returning with Doc and Marty none the wiser.
When Doc and Marty return to 1985, Hill Valley is not like it was when they left. Marty’s father died in 1973 and Marty’s mother was forced to re-marry, this time to Biff, who is the wealthiest and most corrupt person in the town. Marty and Doc escape, using the DeLorean to go back to 1955. Realizing what happened, Marty retrieves the almanac from Biff while avoiding being seen in the middle of the events of the first movie. Before Marty can join Doc in the DeLorean, the car is hit by lightning and disappears. Moments later, a courier arrives with a letter from Doc in 1885.
Back to the Future Part III, filmed with Part II, continues right where the previous movie left off. Doc’s letter details where the DeLorean can be found and, with the help of 1955’s Doc, the car is repaired. However, Marty notices Doc’s tombstone dated six days after the letter; Doc was killed by Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen, Biff’s ancestor. Marty travels back to 1885, arriving in the middle of a cavalry charge. The fuel line is damaged, so Marty hides the car in a cave and walks into Hill Valley. Marty runs into Buford, but is rescued by Doc. With the knowledge of his fate, Doc agrees to leave 1885, but he needs a way to get the DeLorean up to 88mph, since gas isn’t available yet.
The solution is to have a locomotive push the car to the needed speed. While exploring a rail spur that could be used, Doc and Marty see a runaway wagon. Doc rescues the passenger, Clara, played by Mary Steenburgen. They fall in love. During a town festival, Buford tries to kill Doc, but Marty intervenes. The name on the tombstone disappears, but the date doesn’t. Someone is fated to die, but who it is unknown. Doc tries to explain to Clara that he’s from the future, but she doesn’t believe him. He goes to the saloon to binge, has one shot of whiskey and passes out. Buford arrives, but Marty, having learned his lesson from the previous two movies, refuses the duel. Buford has his gang kidnap Doc, forcing Marty to fight him. During the fight, the tombstone is broken and Buford is defeated.
Clara, heartbroken, leaves town. On the train, she hears about Doc in the saloon and how sad he was. She heads back to town to Doc’s home and sees the model of the time machine. Realizing that he was telling the truth, Clara chases after him. Meanwhile, Doc and Marty have acquired a locomotive and are getting it in position. Doc has created explosives to give the locomotive the boost it needs to reach 88mph. Clara catches up and boards the locomotive just as Doc climbs into the DeLorean. Doc goes back to help her, but the DeLorean reaches 88mph, sending Marty back to 1985. Doc and Clara, though, escape the locomotive’s demise thanks to the hoverboard Marty picked up in 2015.
Back in 1985, the DeLorean arrives in front of a diesel locomotive. Marty escapes the car, but the DeLorean is destroyed. He returns home to discover that the timeline has been restored to the way it was after the second movie. The next day, he and Jennifer return to the wreckage of the DeLorean. The warning signals start, though no train can be seen. Moments later, a steam locomotive appears, with Doc, Clara, and their sons, Jules and Verne. Marty’s future has changed, and the future remains unwritten. Doc leaves with his family in the train to an unknown time.
The Back to the Future cartoon continues the adventures of the Brown Family, with Marty tagging along. Doc and his family have returned to Hill Valley of, well, if not 1985, shortly afterwards. The DeLorean has been rebuilt, and the locomotive is also around. Both vehicles are used to get the Browns and Marty to the adventure. Christopher Lloyd returns as Doc Brown for the live action segments, and Mary Steenburgen and Thomas F. Wilson reprise their characters in the cartoon. Playing Marty is David Kaufman, who also took over another Michael J. Fox role, that of Stuart Little in the TV series of the movie of the book of the same name. While Lloyd was in the live action segments, Dan Castellaneta played the voice of the animated Doc, sounding so much like Lloyd that one episode had a jump cut from the animated Doc speaking to Lloyd as Doc commenting without being jarring.
The change of focus from Marty to the Brown Family takes advantage of Doc being a mad scientist. Educational content is easier to introduce when the starring character is a scientist. The episodes aren’t just educational, though. Over the two seasons of thirteen episodes each, the Brown Family uses the time machines to visit different eras. The eye to detail for the different years helps with the series. The episode “Swing Low Sweet Chariot Race” features dialogue in Latin that sounds authentic***. Fashion is appropriate for the years featured.
Characterization, critical for an adaptation of any stripe, is kept. The characters are recognizable by their actions. Even the character designs are decent. Marty looks like Marty, and, given the live action segments, Doc looks right. Even the various Tannens, from Biff to his ancestor, Lord Biffington of Tannenshire, are recognizable. The animators put in an effort to create designs that could be animated without losing who each person was.
Each episode stands alone, unlike the movies. This is more from the nature of an educational animated series that could be rerun out of order than from anything else. However, the series avoids using time travel as a deus ex machina. Time travel is just as often the cause of problems as anything else, and only once is a time machine, in this case, the locomotive, used to fix a problem. Even then, the solution needed the locomotive more than it needed the flux capacitor. Do the episodes feel like watching the movies? Not really, but that’s a function of the time available. Thirty minutes, including commercials and science segments, isn’t enough to delve into complex temporal mechanics. The format works against the adaptation, even taking into account that the Brown Family is scientifically minded to begin with. There isn’t enough time to delve into the use and abuse of temporal mechanics and deliver a physics lesson while still working in a bit of adventure. The writers did make the effort, though.
The live action segments feature Lloyd as Doc Brown, either introducing the episode or setting up the science experiment. Lloyd remains in character through the segments, even while narrating the experiment. The experiments themselves were created by and starred Bill Nye the Science Guy, and were based on an aspect introduced in the episode proper. While temporal physics weren’t touched, possibly because of difficulty recreating temporal experiments in a kitchen safely, the sciences involved were physics and chemistry. The experiments could stand alone as part of a lesson.
The Back to the Future cartoon was ambitious for its time. Universals first foray into family entertainment and educational cartoons worked, thanks to the core characters from the movies. The result was entertaining, though time travel wasn’t used as thoroughly as the movies. The animated series had some rough spots, but it did make the effort to keep the feel of Back to the Future.
* A cartoon aimed at the pre-teen crowd based on two R-rated movies.
** Or possibly jiggawatts.
*** Though someone more familiar with Latin should weigh in.
Peanuts was a long-running popular comic strip. Created by Charles M. “Sparky” Schulz in 1950, Peanuts can still be read today in reruns, which are still new to many readers. The series ended when Schulz retired for health reasons in 1999. Sparky passed away February 12, 2000, the day before the last of the Sunday Peanuts strips was published.
The strip centred on Charlie Brown and his friends, a slice of life comic focused on just children. No adults appeared in the strip. Peanuts cemented the four-panel comic format in newspapers, though later in his career, Schulz moved to full panels. The comic became a hit, published throughout the world. This popularity led Coca-Cola in April 1965 asking for a Christmas special to sponsor. The result was A Charlie Brown Christmas.
The special first aired in December 1965 and was a smash hit. A Charlie Brown Christmas earned a 49 share the week it aired, second only to Bonanza. Almost half the televisions in the US were tuned in to watch A Charlie Brown Christmas; in a three-channel universe, the show dominated. The initial success led to A Charlie Brown Christmas being an annual tradition for fifty years.
A Charlie Brown Christmas follows Charlie Brown as he deals with the Christmas blues. He’s feeling that the holiday has gotten too commercial, with friends and even his sister, Sally, and dog, Snoopy, forgetting the meaning of the season. Snoopy has entered a home decoration contest to win cash, and Sally’s dictated list also mentions money. The blahs send Charlie Brown to Lucy’s psychiatrist stand. She determines that what he needs is to get more involved and all but shanghais him into being the director of the Christmas pageant.
The pageant rehearsal is chaos. The cast is busy dancing and barely pays Charlie Brown any notice. Lucy gets their attention, but once Charlie Brown is down his speech, the cast is right back to dancing. Charlie Brown does get the roles handed out, but he still doesn’t feel any better. Lucy, figuring that the set isn’t Christmas-y enough, sends Charlie Brown and Linus to find a tree. Others in the cast tell him to get a nice, shiny aluminum tree, preferably pink.
At the tree lot, all brightly lit and full of fake trees, Charlie Brown finds a lonely real tree. Feeling for the scraggly tree, he buys it and takes it back to the rehearsals. The cast isn’t impressed and laughs at him. Charlie Brown bemoans that there’s no one who knows the true meaning of Christmas. Linus then quotes from the Gospel of Luke*.
Charlie Brown takes the little tree back home. Snoopy’s doghouse, all decked out with lights and ornaments, won first place in the contest, but Charlie Brown tries to put the display out of his mind. He adds an ornament to his tree, which bends over under the weight. This turns out to be the last straw for Charlie Brown. Dejected, her slumps away.
Linus walks by and sees the tree. He wraps it in his blanket, which helps the tree gain strength. The rest of the cast arrives and helps redecorate the tree, turning it from scraggly to beautiful. Charlie Brown returns to see the result and to hear everyone say, “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!”
The special, as mentioned above, was well received. Along with the amazing ratings, A Charlie Brown Christmas won both an Emmy and a Peabody. The results came as a surprise to the creators. They had six months to pull together the special, a time frame that was far too short to result in any quality. The network felt that the voice talent sounded amateurish; given that almost all the voice actors were children the age of the characters, the accusation was accurate. The one adult, animator and director Bill Melendez as the voice of Snoopy, did the role just to fill the need; his work was kept because what he did as Snoopy worked well.
The audience, though, found that the special had charm. A Charlie Brown Christmas maintained the characterizations found in Peanuts. While Schulz had finished with the special and went back to working on the comic strip, Melendez and producer Lee Mendelson worked to bring the characters alive during the animation process, keeping true to Sparky’s creation. The decision to use children instead of older voice artists acting as kids was to keep an authentic voice for the characters. Only two of the actors, the voices of Charlie Brown and Linus, had worked professionally before the special.
The music also played a large role in the special. Jazz musician and compose Vince Guaraldi created and adapted the music in A Charlie Brown Christmas, including the now iconic piece, “Linus and Lucy“. He adapted Christmas classics, “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” and “O Tannenbaum” to great effect. While the network wasn’t sure of the music, feeling that it didn’t fit, the audience and critics praised it.
A Charlie Brown Christmas is a great example of what can happen when production staff take pains to keep to the vision of an original work. Melendez went to great effort to work out how the characters would move when animated, even when keeping to a simpler animation because of time restraints. The result is a Christmas special that has aired every year since its first appearance in 1965.
* And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said until them, “Fear not; for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.
And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was with the angel amultitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on Eartrh, peace and goodwill towards men.
– Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, verses 8-14, King James version.
Works adapted for television produce a new set of concerns. With movies, one of the big limitations is time; commercial film releases run anywhere between ninety minutes to two hours, with rare releases reaching the three-hour mark. A television series, however, has far more running time available to it than a feature film. Even accounting for commercials, there’s still twenty-two to forty-five minutes of show each episode. Long-running series may run out of original material before ending and will need to create new content*. With novels, especially those in a series, it’s possible to keep using existing content in a TV show. HBO’s A Game of Thrones is an exemplar of this sort of planning. Adapting a movie as a TV series, though, means that the show’s writers will be adding material. Today’s review looks at that situation.
In 1999, George Lucas released the first of the prequel movies, Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. In the gap between that film and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, released in 1983, numerous tie-in novels, comics, games, and toys were produced, creating the Star Wars Expanded Universe, or EU. The EU added more characters and settings to Star Wars. With the prequel movies filling out more of the history of the Rebellion, more EU products were created to fill in details not covered by the movies.
Such is the case with the CG-animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, the series covered the Clone Wars at several levels, from the clones on the front to the politics of the Senate to the Jedi Council. The Clone Wars ran for six seasons, from 2008 until 2014, before ending. During its run, familiar characters mingled with new ones, showing the toll of the wars on all levels of Republic and Separatist society.
The Clone Wars started with a feature movie, with Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi and a number of clone troopers defending Christophis against the Separatist droid army. Young Ahsoka Tano is introduced as Anakin’s padawan, an attempt by the Jedi Council to try to teach Skywalker the dangers of his inability to let go of those he holds dear. Once the battle is won, Anakin and Ahsoka are assigned the task to retrieve Jabba the Hutt’s son, who has been kidnapped, to get the gang boss’s favour. The search leads to Teth, where the Separatists are holding the Huttlet. Anakin leads a force of clone troopers against the droids’ base, leading to a showdown against the assassin, Asajj Ventress, a protege of Count Dooku. Senator Padmé Amadala of Naboo finds out about Anakin’s mission and tracks down Ziro the Hutt on Coruscant, but discovers that he is part of the conspiracy against Jabba and the Jedi. With the help of C3PO, Padmé escapes and Ziro is arrested. On Tatooine, Anakin deals with Count Dooku long enough for Ahsoka to return the Huttlet.
The first season continues in a similar vein, at least to begin with. “Ambush”, the first regular episode, features Yoda and several clones on a mission to meet with the king of Toydaria. The episode sets the tone, showing that the clones, even though they look alike, are individuals, and Yoda treats them as such. As the seasons progress, the stories become darker, with the Jedi forced into becoming what they are not and Darth Sidious’ manipulations starting to pay off. That’s not to say that the first season was all light-hearted. Clones and Jedi died on-screen, and one Jedi fell to the Dark Side before being killed by General Grievous. The first season also showed why the Republic was fighting; the episodes “Storm over Ryloth”, “Innocents of Ryloth”, and “Liberty on Ryloth” depict what the droid army did with the Twi’leks and the liberation of their homeworld.
Being placed between the second and third prequel places a few limitations on the series. First, several characters had script immunity due to appearances in Revenge of the Sith. That’s not to say that the couldn’t inflict non-permanent injuries and psychological issues on existing characters. Second, new characters had to be written out in a way that their absence in Sith made sense. In particular here, Ahsoka could not be Anakin’s padawan by the end of the series. Likewise, Venrtess could not remain Dooku’s apprentice.
As mentioned at the beginning, adapting movies for television may mean adding new material. The Clone Wars did just that, but in a way that added to the original. New characters, like the aforementioned Ahsoka and Ventress, clone troopers Waxer, Boil, and Fives, and bounty hunter Cad Bane had their own stories that intersected with the lives of the original cast. In addition, minor characters like General Grievous had their roles expanded. Grievous, first seen in Sith primarily escaping before being defeated by Obi-Wan, is shown to be far more dangerous and far more callous, killing several Jedi and targeting medical frigates.
The series delved into other parts of the Galaxy Far Far Away. Seasons three and four showcased the Nightsisters, a sect of the Witches of Dathomir, and Asajj Ventress. Mandalore, the home of some famed armour, also had several episodes focused on it and its internal politics. The Galaxy felt larger as a result, away from Tatooine and Coruscant. At the same time, classic equipment seen in the original Star Wars began appearing, from the Y-Wings to the evolution of the clone trooper armour to look more and more like that used by stormtroopers.
The Clone Wars also managed to make Revenge of the Sith a stronger movie. Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side is shown throughout the series, as Palpatine introduces doubt that worms through his mind. The deaths of the Jedi as a result of Order 66 hit harder. No longer are they nameless characters in a montage but Plo Koon, Kit Fisto, and Aayla Secura, Jedi who have appeared and were developed as full characters in their own right.
As an animated adaptation, The Clone Wars took characters that were larger than life in movies and brought them in a new form on television. The animation evolved over the run of the series, noticeable even in the first season, and evolved to handle more difficult challenges. There were times when certain elements, such as the clone troopers, the battle droids, and General Grievous, were indistinguishable from what appeared on screen in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. The eye to detail and the desire to respect the films came through. While it is true that Lucasfilm was still the studio behind The Clone Wars, not all of the studio’s releases matched the quality and care shown in the animated series.** The Clone Wars is well worth studying as a successful adaptation.
* I’m ignoring filler episodes here. Filler is more commonly seen in anime based on manga, where the series has to wait for new content to be created.
** The Star Wars Holiday Special stands out as a prime example here.
The Adaptation Fix-It Shop is open again. The Shop looks at adaptations that have major problems and tries to rebuild the concept. Previously, the Fix-It Shop rejiggered the 1998 Godzilla as a action/comedy monster hunting flick and separated the two movies trying to get out from Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.
Today, I delve back into Dungeons & Dragons.
The first inclination is to drop a meteor swarm* on it and call it a day.
The first inclination, while satisfying, is wrong. While Dungeons & Dragons had many problems. Its 2005 direct-to-video sequel, Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God, was a far better movie and a far better adaptation, just lacking the effects budget the first movie had. The sequel works as a template on how to fix the the original. There’s also the issue of the original movie having decent set pieces that just didn’t work with all the others.
Let’s get some of the problems out of the way. Role-playing games add an extra twist to adapting that most media doesn’t, as mentioned before. While most novels, comics, TV series, and even video games have a plot, RPGs leave that up to the players. Characters are the same; in an RPG, the players create them. Settings may or may not be included, depending on the game. Dungeons & Dragons, in most editions, has The World of Greyhawk as a default setting, but with little information beyond names like Drawmij, Mordenkainen, and Zagyg. Other settings were produced and sold, and Dungeon Masters (DMs) were given world-building tips, much like Way with Worlds, to help create their own. That leaves game mechanics, which did appear in the movie.
Wrath of the Dragon God showed that it is possible to do a D&D movie. Wrath had a lower budget, but made up for it with more attention to game elements and easing those elements into the narrative. The sequel created its own setting and characters, using ideas presented in the Third Edition core rulebooks, and building on them for the plot. Wrath is proof of concept; a D&D movie can be made that isn’t bad.
With the above in mind, what can be done to repair the Dungeons & Dragons movie? The core plot is about five adventurers who band together to stop an evil wizard from overthrowing the queen. It’s a good plot, one not used too much lately in movies. The devil’s in the details, though. In a D&D game, evil wizards capable of succeeding in overthrowing a monarch tend to be capable of tossing fireballs without breaking a sweat. While a group of adventurers can defeat a much higher level opponent if they team up and work together, an evil wizard should be portrayed as smart enough to have lieutenants, henchmen, and minions in between him and any resistance. In the movie, the villain was powerful enough to command dragons and beholders, one of either can be a difficult foe for a group of adventurers.
It could be that the plot needs far more time to resolve properly than a movie can provide. Stopping anyone from taking over a kingdom can be a full campaign spread over several months of play. The same thing happened with the Dragonlance animated film; a ninety minute animated movie wasn’t enough to cover a novel. Even with the expanded DVDs of the Lord of the Rings movies, a lot had to be left out just to get the story told. Epic fantasy just doesn’t fit in a tidy 90-120 minute time slot. Three ways around the problem; the first, look at going to television. TV allows for 13-20 45-minute chunks of time, providing far more time to properly tell a story. The anime Record of Lodoss War lasted thirteen episodes, each one being 25 minutes long, and it was based on an RPG campaign.
Second method involves multiple movies. There’s a risk inherent to the approach; if the first movie isn’t a draw, the story ends incomplete. This seems to be the fate** of The Mortal Instruments. The City of Bones underperformed at the box office. leading to the sequel to be first pushed back and then cancelled, leaving the story unfinished. The goal for the repaired Dungeons & Dragons, under this workaround, is to keep the production costs down without looking cheap to maximize the box office returns. It will be a balancing act to keep the effects looking good while still not breaking the budget.
The third approach is to cut through the backstory and start in media res. The evil wizard is making his move and the adventurers have to act and act now! Details can be filled in as flashbacks and the Seven Samurai-like gathering of the heroes avoided or truncated. The key events are the discovery of the plot, the investigation into how the plot will be enacted, and the stopping of the plot and the wizard. The heroes have a time limit.
While a TV series may be the best approach, to properly fix the movie would be to keep the format***. Multiple movies aren’t a guarantee; unlike Harry Potter or The Hunger Games, Dungeons & Dragons isn’t based on a series of bestselling books. Even Star Wars was filmed to be a stand-alone work if it didn’t do well. That leaves option three, cutting out or cutting down unnecessary events and trimming the gathering of the heroes. The goal, now, is to get something that feels both epic in nature and still personal. To elevated, and the audience doesn’t have a character to follow. Too close, and the saving of the kingdom becomes overwhelming.
The wizard’s plot to take over the kingdom needs a bit of work. Summoning a flight of evil dragons is epic, but one dragon could turn the heroes into cinders without effort. Controlling one is enough and keeps the menace of both the dragon and the wizard intact. A quest to retrieve a means to call a good dragon to counter the wizard’s will allow the dungeon half of the title to appear. The wizard’s motive is power and riches, something the kingdom has in plenty.
Now that the villain’s plot is more or less set, a way to stop or at least neutralize him is in place, it’s time to get the heroes going. Two rogues, a mage apprentice, a dwarf fighter, and an elf ranger discover the scheme and work together to recover the MacGuffin of Good Dragon Summoning before the evil wizard can overthrow the queen. Let’s use a plot point from the original movie, the apprentice discovers that her mentor is part of the evil scheme. Instead of discovering this after stopping two half-competent thieves, she does this and then discovers them looting the lab. This gives her leverage; help her stop the evil wizard or be turned over to her mentor. The rogues, being greedy but decent people, help because while the kingdom, a magocracy, benefits only wizards with non-magical types on the edge of society, having an evil wizard in charge is a change for the worse.
A mage and two rogues aren’t an effective combat force. Earlier editions of D&D saw magic-users who could die if their cat familiar played too rough. Rogues do their best fighting when their opponents can’t see them. The group takes stock and heads to the best place to find someone who is good in a fight, a seedy tavern. “You all meet in a tavern” is a cliché, but works to get players together fast. By choosing a dive where brawls are known to occur nightly, the group can invoke the cliché without engaging it. They’re looking for the last man standing, who turns out to be the dwarf fighter. They explain what’s happening, tell the dwarf there will be lots of fighting, and work out the next step, which is to somehow summon a good dragon. The dwarf knows someone, a ranger, and leads the group to the elf. At this point, the group is as connected as it can get, and time’s wasting.
The dungeon is the location where each character can show off their abilities, though this needs to be subtle. It’s also a chance to bring in some classic monsters that wouldn’t necessarily fit into the plot, though the choices need to be careful. As tempting as it is to toss in a rust monster to scare the dwarf fighter, the creature can look a little silly. The rust monster was based off a toy that Gary Gygax used as a miniature. But, if the rust monster can be brought in and made fearsome, it is iconic to the game and easier to avoid or defeat than a beholder.
The MacGuffin of Good Dragon Summoning now in their hands, the heroes rush back to the capital, but dark clouds loom overhead. The wizard finishes controlling his dragon and sends it out to wreak havoc on the city. The heroes must now use the MacGuffin to call a good dragon while fighting off the wizard’s lieutenants and minions. It’s close, but the good dragon arrives and attacks the evil one. The heroes slip into the city as the wizard closes in on the queen, leading to the final fight. Pyrotechnics go off as the heroes battle the villain while the dragons fight in the background, reflecting the fortune of the heroes. Ultimately, the heroes win, the kingdom is saved, and triumphant music plays.
Plot aside, that leaves the effects, another point of failure. By reducing the number of dragons, that should give the effects team both the time and money to focus on just two instead of two flocks. The dungeon can be built on a set instead of on location, unless a decent catacomb can be found for less. Some set pieces from the original are lost, including the Thieves’ Guild maze, which was a high point of the film. That maze, though, just duplicates the dungeon, and can be let go. The final battle needs to reflect spells that are in the game, and the mage apprentice should run out of spells or be down to utility types like light or mage hand.
Will the above work? It depends on the cast, crew, and budget. Wrath of the Dragon God did show that a D&D movie is possible, provided that the plot can handle the effects budget available. A less ambitious plot could help, as could reducing the time spent on subplots that lead nowhere.
Next week, the June news round up.
* Ninth level magic-user spell that summons a meteor shower on an area that used to have opponents in it.
** A TV series, Shadowhunters, is in the works, however.
*** Besides, D&D has already had a TV series, albeit animated.
Almost missed all of April, but there was news about adaptations coming in. Here is your news round up.
Sony Pictures to make live-action Robotech.
Sony now has the rights to Robotech, via Harmony Gold, and is looking to use the series as the base of a franchise. Harmony Gold seems to be still involved.
Steven Spielberg to helm Ready Player One adaptation.
Ernest Cline’s cult novel, Ready Player One has been optioned by Warner Bros, who will be working with director Steven Spielberg to make the movie. Some rights issues, mostly involving video game icons of the 80s, will need to be cleared, but Warner is hoping for a repeat of what happened with The LEGO Movie, where rights owners jumped on board.
Coach returning after 18 year hiatus.
Craig T. Nelson is coming back as the titular character in a follow-up series. Thirteen episodes have been ordered. This isn’t the only TV series making a comeback.
X-Files returning.
The reboot re-unites David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, and Chris Carter. The three said they would only come back if the others did as well.
Galaxy Quest Returns to TV.
Okay, technically it was never on TV. But the show in the movie was, in-universe. And thus is getting a reboot. Sort of. Metafiction weirds timelines.
Full House Returns to TV.
This, however, is simpler. Fuller House is a continuation, with Candance Cameron Bure, Jodie Sweetin, and Andrea Barber returning to their original roles. Talks are ongoing with other members of the original cast, though John Stamos is on board as producer and will guest star.
It’s Time to Get Things (Re-)Started!
A new Muppet series to air on ABC. The new show will be aimed at an adult audience, though that’s not new for Muppets, and will take a look at their personal lives.
Archie will face his most deadly crossover yet!
Archie vs. Sharknado is a real thing. Sharknado director Anthony C. Ferrante has teamed up with Archie artist Dan Parent to bring the latest Archie crossover. Move aside, Punisher. Too bad, Predator. Archie has a new danger in his life.
One of the most sympathetic monsters in cinematic history came from a rainy Swiss vacation. While stuck inside due to the rain, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelly, and George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron, decided to have a writing contest. Percy and Lord Byron were already known as poets. Mary would write the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. Frankenstein was a Gothic horror, invoking a feel as the novel told of Victor Frankenstein’s life, including his endeavor to create life and the fallout from his success.
The novel is told through letters from a ship captain to his sister after he is trapped in the ice of the north Atlantic Ocean. Captain Walton rescues a forlorn man who is also trapped and learns of his tale. Victor Frankenstein, the rescued man, tells a story of warning, of trying to reach too far beyond. Frankenstein wanted to learn the secret of life. He studied under Professor Waldman, learning chemistry, biology, anatomy, and physiology, then applied his lessons in creating new life, a new species. Frankenstein’s creation wasn’t what he wished for. Instead of appearing healthy and whole, the creation looked like an animated corpse.
Frankenstein abandoned his creation in disgust. The creature followed. Everywhere the creation went, people recoiled in fear. Frankenstein’s creature had one desire, to be happy, and the only way he thought he could achieve that was through his creator. As Frankenstein travelled to escape his creation, the creature followed and saw that for every man was a woman, for every beast was a mate, except for him. He demanded of Frankenstein a bride, and when Victor refused, vowed killed his creator’s own bride, Elizabeth. After the murder, Victor chased his creation, getting trapped in the ice field and leaving Captain Walton’s ship when Walton turned south for home once free.
Frankenstein was almost immediately adapted for the stage, with numerous plays being written within years of publication. The first film adaptation was made in 1910 by Thomas Edison, a short silent film. The best known film, though, came from Universal Studios in 1931. Like several other popular works of the 1930s, Frankenstein was an adaptation of an adaptation, based on the 1927 play by Peggy Webling. Several new elements were introduced, elements that still appear even in today’s works.
Universal was having money problems, thanks to the Great Depression. Dracula, with Bela Lugosi, was released earlier 1931 and helped, but the studio was still on the brink. Frankenstein, thanks to the performance of Boris Karloff as the Monster, became the top film for 1931. The Monster was a sympathetic character, the victim instead of the villain.
The movie veers off from the novel at the start, with Henry Frankenstein and his henchman, Fritz, spying on a funeral. Once the body is buried and the gravedigger gone, Frankenstein and Fritz dig the coffin back out, stealing it plus the fresh remains of hanged man before they return to Frankenstein’s lab in a windmill. The novel never went into detail about how Frankenstein brought his creation to life. The movie shows the final step, skipping over most of the sewing of the Monster’s body together. Frankenstein uses the power of lightning and electricity to bring his creation to life, uttering the now famous line, “It’s alive! It’s alive!” when the Monster moves.
The Monster is portrayed as child-like. There is joy when he first sees the sun. There is fear when he sees fire. The Monster cannot speak and moves awkwardly*. Fritz torments the Monster with a torch and a whip, and pays the price. Frankenstein and Dr. Waldman come to the conclusion that the Monster is too dangerous and must be destroyed. Waldman fills a hypodermic needle with enough sedative to kill a man and plunges it into the Monster. The Monster falls. Wanting to see how the Monster was brought to life, Waldman decides to dissect him. The Monster wakes up during the first incision and kills the doctor, then escapes the mill. While out, he meets a little girl, Marilyn, who plays with him. She shows him how she can make daisies float. The Monster tosses a few daisies into the pond, then tosses Marilyn in. When she doesn’t float or even come back up, the Monster runs away.
At the Frankenstein manor, Baron Frankenstein hosts the wedding of his son, Henry, to Elizabeth. Henry feels that something isn’t right. Waldman is seldom late for anything, yet he hasn’t arrived at the manor. Killing the Monster didn’t sit well with him; the Monster was tormented by Fritz and reacted. Out in the courtyard, the festivities die as Marilyn’s father carries her body to the Burgomeister and the Baron. The villagers are organized into a search party, complete with torches. Henry Frankenstein takes one group up the mountains, where the mill sits. He spots the Monster, but his villagers continue past him. Henry and the Monster fight, and the Monster hauls Frankenstein to the mill.
The villagers hear Henry’s calls for help and reach the mill. Inside, Henry tries to escape his Monster. The fight ends up outside on a balcony, with the villagers’ torches lit below. The Monster picks up Henry and throws him off the balcony. Henry hits one of the mill’s wind blades before landing on the ground. The blade slowed his fall; Henry lives and is carried away by several villagers. The rest leave, setting torch to the mill. The Monster is trapped inside and is caught under a collapsed beam as the mill burns.
As mentioned above, the movie heads in its own direction, taking names and some ideas from the novel. Yet, it is this movie, the 1931 Frankenstein, that most people are familiar with. All the trappings of the mad scientist, from the secret lab to the Jacob’s ladders to the thunderstorm to the minion. Fritz was never in the novel; Victor Frankenstein worked alone. In the novel, Frankenstein’s creation moved at “superhuman speed” and spoke with eloquence. The Monster in the movie lumbered around with awkward movements and could only growl. The sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, gave the Monster a voice and picked up on an element in the novel, the creature wanting a mate of his own. The novel gives no name to the creature; Frankenstein calls it “monster” and “creature” and the creature compares itself to Adam. In the movie, Henry, in a shout of encouragement, says, “Take care, there, Frankenstein,” implying that he sees it as his own child. The big difference between the novel’s creature and the Monster is maturity; the creation in the novel behaves as a grown man while Karloff imbued a child-like quality to the Monster, making it sympathetic to audiences.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or a Modern Prometheus and the movie, Frankenstein, share a few names and the sense of hubris on the part of Frankenstein, but go off in different directions. As an adaptation, the movie bears little resemblance to the original. As a cultural touchstone, Frankenstein and Boris Karloff have had more impact than the original novel.
Next week, a look at adaptations have had a bigger impact than their originals.
* Helped in part by the heavy costume that included a pair of asphalt-layer boots, where each boot weight 13 pounds.
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.
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
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.
