The plays of William Shakespeare have long been the go-to source for adaptations. Some plays, like Julius Caesar, can be treated as historical drama. Others can transcend their original setting and be placed in almost any setting, with Romeo and Juliet as the exemplar. Romeo and Juliet has been adapted as written, transplanted in time as in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, as an action movie with Romeo Must Die, as science fiction with Romie-0 and Julie-8, as a ballet, as a musical with West Side Story, and even animated, as in the aforementioned Romie-0 and Julie-8. This one play could sustain several months’ worth of columns here at /Lost in Translation/ on its own. If you go back to The Nature of Remakes, I brought up the idea that remakes and adaptations should bring something new to the work. Gnomeo & Juliet is not the first animated version of the play, nor is it the first musical.
What it does bring is garden gnomes.
Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies and is typically the first that high school students run into in English classes. The play tells the story of the star-cross’d lovers whose love runs into the feud between their families. Shakespearean tragedies tend to have a body count, and Romeo and Juliet is no exception, albeit having a small number of deaths. Two notable deaths, though, are the title lovers, thus turning the play into a tragedy.
Gnomeo & Juliet, though, is a animated film meant for family viewing. Family fare of late, though, avoid death, especially of the lead characters*. Characters are allowed to be in danger, even in mortal peril, but a “happily ever after” ending is the rule, not the exception. However, older family members may be familiar with Romeo and Juliet as they watch. There are expectations. How does Gnomeo & Juliet fare?
The movie starts with one of the gnome chorus introducing the film, saying that the story has been, “one that has been told. A lot.” Right away, the movie itself is aware that /Romeo and Juliet/ is the most adapted of Shakespeare’s plays. But, the gnome continues, “We’re going to tell it again, but in a different way.” Fair notice that the movie isn’t going to be faithful. However, the gnome then starts with the prologue from the play, ending only when the stage’s trap door opens underneath. The line that got interrupted? “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.”
The story takes place in the gardens of Ms Montague, who lives at 2B Verona Drive, and Mr. Capulet, of Not 2B Verona Drive. The Blues, ruled by Gnomeo’s mother Lady Bluebury, maintain Ms Montague’s garden. The Reds, bitter rivals to the Blues, are led by Lord Redbrick, Juliet’s father, and keep Mr. Capulet’s garden in top shape. Gnomeo, who is a combination of Mercutio and Romeo from the play, first appears in a lawnmower race against Tybalt. The race goes to Tybalt, who wins through a low blow. Meanwhile, Juliet is being kept safe by her father and is chafing to get off the pedestal, metaphorically and literally. With help from her confidante, a ceramic frog named Nanette, taking the role of the nurse from the play, Juliet sneaks out to recover a flower in an abandoned yard. Romeo, too, sneaks out, meaning to exact revenge on Tybalt but is distracted by a figure in the moonlight.
For a movie promising to tell the tale differently, it does follows the play. The balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet appears and, while not in the same language, it does carry the same sentiment, the pull between duty to family and desire for the young gnome. The feud escalates, leading to the smashing of Tybalt during a fight with Gnomeo and Gnomeo’s exile. It’s only when Gnomeo runs into a statue of William Shakespeare is the audience told the movie isn’t beholden to the play. Even then, the destruction of Juliet’s pedestal by the Terrafirminator while Gnomeo trying to free her was big enough for good old Bill to shout, “I told you so!”
Gnomeo & Juliet is an odd movie. It bounced from Disney to Miramax to finally Starz Entertainment before getting the green light. With music by executive producer Elton John, expectations were mixed. At the same time, the casting was both inspired and ecletic. The title characters were played by James McAvoy, a Shakespearean actor, and Emily Blunt. Maggie Smith, another Shakespearean actor, voiced Lady Bluebury, and Michael Caine provided his talents as Lord Redbrick. Patrick Stewart, also Shakespearean, played the statue of William Shakespeare. Adding to the cast, we have Jason Statham as Tybalt, Ashley Jensen as Nanette, Matt Lucas as Benny**, the counterpart to Benvolio from the play, Jim Cummings as Featherstone, a plastic flamingo, Ozzy Osbourne as Fawn, taking the role of Peter in the play, Dolly Parton as Dolly Gnome, who started the first lawnmower race, and Hulk Hogan as the Terrafirminator Announcer. Add in the gnome chorus working for Lord Redbrick and the ceramic bunnies*** helping Lady Bluebury, and the casting is impressive.
As an adaptation, Gnomeo & Juliet is a little loose with the original, though it does hit the major points of the play up to when the movie says it’s deviating. The biggest change is in tone; the original tragedy is turned into a musical comedy. Yet, there are moments when the original play shines through to add drama. The beats of Romeo and Juliet are still in the movie, and the survival of the leads does become doubtful.
Gnomeo & Juliet did well enough at the theatres that a sequel has been announced. Gnomeo & Juliet: Sherlock Gnomes will introduce the world’s greatest detecting ceramic gnome consultant to solve a mystery haunting the families.
Next week, Super Mario Bros.
* There are exceptions, but they are rare.
** Benny did indeed have a scene where “Benny and the Jets” played. The scene was related to the plot.
*** When the feud breaks out into open warfare, the bunnies paint themselves blue like the extras in Braveheart.
Ancient history has fascinated many people. Universities offer entire departments of history and classics based on research by historians and archaeologists. However, there are people who have more fanciful beliefs on what happened before recorded history. There are those who believe that life here began out there, that ancient astronauts landed here to become the first humans. Others believe that the ancient astronauts were once worshipped as gods after they provided such cultural leaps as written language and large works of art and engineering*. While evidence is lacking, the concept of ancient astronauts can be jumping off point for a work of fiction.
Stargate is one such work of fiction. Released in 1994, the movie established that the Egyptian god Ra was really an alien who needed the body of humans to maintain his immortality. Getting to Earth involved travelling long distances, using a device the ancient Egyptians referred to as a “stargate”. Long since buried, the artifact was recovered in the late 20s and became an object of study, which is where the main characters come in. First, Daniel Jackson, played by James Spader. Doctor Jackson is a proponent of the ancient astronaut hypothesis, and has studied ancient Egyptian history and languages. His research leads to him being recruited by a joint United States Air Force and civilian project to decipher hieroglyphs found on a relic. On the Air Force’s side, Colonel Jonathan “Jack” O’Neil, played by Kurt Russel, has been brought out of his retirement as a failsafe in case the relic is operational.
Doctor Jackson figures out the symbols, realizing that they’re not words, but coordinates that inform the Stargate the location of the other end. A team is put together to explore what lies on the other side, including Colonel O’Neil and Doctor Jackson, the latter to work out how to return to Earth, the former with orders to plant a bomb to destroy the gate. On the new world, the team discovers a city of humans, all speaking a variation of ancient Egyptian. During the search for the coordinates to Earth, Ra appears in his pyramidal spaceship to search for a new body. The presence of O’Neil’s team encourages a revolution against Ra by the populace, one that ends when O’Neil’s bomb detonates as Ra tried to escape in his spacecraft. Doctor Jackson remains behind, having married Sha’uri. The movie ends with O’Neil and Jackson saying their farewells and promising to see each other some time in the future.
Stargate could have ended there, its main plot wrapped up. There was room for further movies; the idea of turning a popular movie into a TV series wasn’t known at the time. Other than M*A*S*H, the only other recent example was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which had started airing in March of 1997, with Mortal Kombat coming in 1998. June of 1997 saw the pilot of Stargate: SG-1 debut. “Children of the Gods” aired on Showtime, as would the first half of the series’ run. The bulk of the cast of the movie was replaced, with Richard Dean Anderson playing Colonel Jack O’Neill, “with two l’s” and Michael Shanks playing Daniel Jackson. “Children of the Gods” starts with the Stargate, inactive but guarded over the three year difference between the movie’s release and the airing of the pilot, coming to life. Beings similar to Ra and his soldiers march through, killing three of the guards and kidnapping the one woman on the squad. As a result, Colonel O’Neill is brough back from retirement again, this time by General Hammond instead of General West. Hammond gets the truth from O’Neill in a quick recap of the movie, including the part where the Colonel sent the bomb to Ra’s spaceship instead of destroying the Stargate itself. With that news, a message is sent to Jackson, paving a way for a squad to go through the gate.
While Dr. Jackson and Col. O’Neill catch up, the alien who attacked the Air Force team on Earth come through the Stargate on Abydos, the same one the O’Neill’s squad had used. The alien takes away several of the natives with him, including Daniel’s wife and O’Neill’s adopted son, Skarra**. Jackson returns to Earth with O’Neill, determined to find his wife. A briefing by General Hammond introduces the core concept of the TV series, the SG teams. Each team would be sent through the Stargate to the various viable coordinates discovered, coordinates that Dr. Jackson and Captain Samantha Carter, played by Amanda Tapping, have worked out. Jackson and Carter hit it off immediately, as the good doctor’s previous research helps her with her theoretical astrophyics. Together, they work out that many of the coordinates have drifted just from the movement of the galaxy.
With the coordinates of the apparent origin of the new alien, Apophis, teams SG-1 and SG-2 move out. The new world is unlike Abydos. Where Abydos was a desert, the new planet is verdant, covered with plants. SG-1, led by Col. O’Neill, is able to find the people taken by Apophis, not just from Abydos but from many worlds with their own cultures. Apophis, ultimately, escapes with Daniel’s wife and Skarra having been transformed. However, Teal’c, played by Christopher Judge and one of Apophis’s guards known as a Jaffa, is impressed by how SG-1 handles itself and believes that they can succeed in defeating the alien and switches sides.
With the pilot over, the hard part comes. The cast and crew have to deliver a strong story featuring the characters weekly. Over ten seasons, the longest an American science fiction series has run***, they did just that. The movie took a look at first contact and the difficulty of communicating, even when the two sides can trace back lingusitic history. What Stargate SG-1 did was expand the setting, building up Goa’uld and the Jaffa, introducing the Asgard, a species whose appearance was based on the Greys and were responsible for Norse myth, and allowing the technology base on Earth to grow as the series progressed. During this, two spin-off series came about; Stargate: Atlantis, set in a distant galaxy with a team of explorers and specialists who knew that they may never return back home because of the energy required to maintain a wormhole that far, and Stargate: Universe, set on board the Ancient starship Destiny with a crew who are trying to find their way back to Earth.
Stargate-SG1 built on top of what was shown in Stargate, taking what was discovered and expanding. The key elements, ancient astronauts and the Stargate’s coordinates, were in the movie and were fully exploited in a way that was consistant with the events in Stargate. The TV series used its format to expand the setting, adding to the movie without ever taking away from it.
Next week, the May round up on adaptational news.
* For example, the Egyptian pyramids and the Nazca lines in Peru.
** Skaara was played by Alexis Cruz in both the movie and the pilot, making him the only actor who was in both.
*** There are terms and conditions here. Star Trek had more seasons but over multiple incarnations. Doctor Who has lasted longer, but is British. General Hospital was a long running soap opera that pre-dated television, but wasn’t science fiction. Still, Stargate SG-1 deserves recognition of being able to last as long as it did over two cable stations.
Science fiction in comic books wasn’t doing well in Britain of 1977, with titles whithering. However, with Star Wars on the horizon, a new publication, 2000 AD aimed to change that. Several characters debuted in the weekly, including Judge Dredd. Dredd, as created by John Wagner, was meant to be a tough cop along the lines of “Dirty” Harry Callahan on a big bike. However, artist Carlos Ezquerra took the description of “judge, jury, and executioner” and created a faceless law enforcer, with overtones of the fascism he grew up with in Spain*. The iconic helmet was inspired by a medieval executioner’s hood.
As the story got re-written to match the artwork, the dystopia of Mega-City One grew. Despite 2000 AD being a British comic, Mega-City One was placed on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The vision of the setting was an outsider’s look at American society through the lens of celebrity and violence. As the political shift to the right grew in the late 70s, with Margaret Thatcher becoming the UK Prime Minister in 1979 and Ronald Reagan becoming the American president in 1981, Dredd’s world picked up fascist overtones.
With 2000 AD running weekly, and the Judge Dredd Megazine running monthly, many stories were created. The title was treated as an open sandbox, letting writers tell whatever story they could in the setting, with Dredd himself the element that tied everything together. The open nature of the title allowed for elements like psychic abilities, the supernatural, and even time travel to be introduced.
In 1995, the first film adaptation came out. The movie had Sylvester Stallone starring as Dredd. There were a few issues with the film, leading to a lukewarm reception. One big problem, though, was that the studio didn’t want to keep Stallone’s face hidden under the helmet. In the comic, Dredd never removed his helmet; he was a faceless law enforcer. Removing his helmet meant adding a sense of humanity to the character that was never there.
With the 35th anniversary of Dredd’s creation in 2012, a new movie was released. Dredd would see Karl Urban in the titular role. Urban’s previous work includes Lord of the Rings, the JJ Abrams Star Trek, and Doom. In each of those movies, he portrayed his role well, to the point of channelling DeForest Kelly in Trek as Dr. McCoy. In Dredd, Urban became the role again, keeping Dredd’s ever-present scowl on his face.
The movie pulled in many elements from Judge Dredd’s long run, some only showing up as minor details, like in the graffiti scrawled on the walls of Peach Trees. Mega-City One was shown as a huge sprawl, dotted by towering City Blocks like Peach Trees. The inside of Peach Trees was desolate, almost soulless. Ma-ma herself was created for the movie, but she appeared first in the Judge Dredd Megazine in an origins story.
The movie went well out of its way to be a proper Judge Dredd story without adapting one straight from 2000 AD. The problems with the 1995 Judge Dredd were nowhere to be seen. Being a fan of the character, Urban argued that Dredd would never take off his helmet, even in a scene written where he would. As mentioned above, at no point did Dredd take off his helmet. The only time he was seen helmetless was when he was getting dressed; even then, his features were shrouded in shadow.
To include all the aspects of the comic would take far more time than a ninety-six minute movie has to spare. Still, hints of the larger setting and history appeared. Judge Anderson and her psychic abilities came straight from the comic, hinting at mutants and the Dark Judges. The best way to explore the full setting may be a weekly series, giving time to set up arcs and to delve into the setting. However, Dredd, while scratching the surface of the setting, captured the comic’s feel without having to change who Judge Dredd is.
Next week, Stargate-SG1.
* Spain was ruled by Francisco Franco from 1938 to 1975 as a dictatorship, which coloured Carlos Ezquerra’s view of authority figures.
Fairy tales are a popular sources for adaptations. Disney grew on the strength of Snow White and Cinderella. Of late, the trend has become remaking the tales in a darker, grittier version. TV series like Grimm and Once Upon a Time and movies like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland* have taken classic tales and explored the darker side. Even Supernatural has explored American mythology on its way to popularity.
Hansel & Gretel, Witch Hunters was meant to cash in on the trend. Released in 2013, though originally scheduled for early spring 2012, Hansel & Gretel continued the classic fairy tale of two children abandoned in a forest who find a cottage made of candy and must escape the witch who lives inside. Like most fairy tales, the original story of Hansel and Gretel warns children to be careful, to not succumb to desires, like eating too much candy, and to respect other people’s homes.
The movie tells the tale before the credits, using it as a mini-origins story. The credits were used to show Hansel and Gretel’s career of hunting witches using animation based on the artwork of the purported period. When the live action returns, Hansel, played by Jeremy Renner, and Gretel, played by Gemma Arterton, are grown up and have been brought in by the mayor of Augsburg to rid the town of witches and find the children taken by them. However, the head witch, Muriel, played by Famke Jannsen channeling her inner Morticia Addams, is using the upcoming blood moon to make sure that all dark witches will no longer burn on pyres. Along the way, the witch hunting siblings run into a fanboy who has a collection of their exploits and a poster of Gretel on his bedroom wall.
Hansel & Gretel, Witch Hunters is well aware of what sort of movie it is. It doesn’t take itself seriously, yet shows equal amounts of horror, action, comedy, and drama. The weapons the siblings use add to the over-the-top nature of the film; Gretel carries a double-barrelled, fully automatic crossbow. The movie becomes Strawberry Fields, from Casino Royale, and Hawkeye, from Marvel’s The Avengers fight the supernatural. Yet, it works.
The movie is a re-imagining of the fairy tale, continuing the story of Hansel and Gretel past their defeat of the witch of the candy cottage by using her own over agaisnt her. Hansel & Gretel, Witch Hunters expands the story and the setting, adding twists that both surprise and follow from the characters while still keeping a sense of fun in the mix. The writing showed an understanding of the fairy tale and an eye on how a pair of orphans could survive while adding little quirks, like the fanboy, that spoke to the desired audience.
Next week, Dredd.
* Yes, Alice isn’t a fairy tale, but does share some characterstics of such a story.
The review is about another movie still in theatres, so I’ll try to avoid spoilers as much as possible.
The idea of a heart-warming story about a boy and his dog is practically cliché. From Rin Tin Tin to Lassie to Boxey and Muffet on the original Battlestar Galactica, people have sat and watched stories where boy and dog save the day. However, only Ted Key flipped the relationship around.
Peabody’s Improbable History started in 1959 as a series of short cartoons as part of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show*. In each cartoon, Mr. Peabody, a brilliant dog capable of building a time machine, took his pet boy Sherman to a historical event using the WABAC Machine. The event would never be going as the history books said, though. There was always some problem that needed correcting, and Mr. Peabody was just the dog to help. Each short would end after the problem was solved and after Mr. Peabody quipped a pun related to what happened.
In 2002, Rob Minkoff decided to bring back Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman. After twelve years of development, caused in part by a similiarity to the first Despicable Me movie, Mr. Peabody and Sherman was released. The movie took the core concept of the original shorts, the trips taken by the main characters in the WABAC Machine, and expanded it, adding details to not just the world around Mr. Peabody and Sherman but the relations between the two. The movie starts with a nod to the original Peabody’s Improbable History with a trip to pre-Reign of Terror** France to visit Marie Antoinette. After a misunderstanding that escalates to revolution, Mr. Peabody extricates both Sherman and himself to return home after quipping a pun. All in all, a bang up job where nobody lost their head.
The movie continues, showing Sherman’s first day at school and dealing with one of the more dreaded beings ever to set foot on Earth, a girl named Penny. Things don’t go well, leading to Sherman biting Penny, setting off a chain of events that brings in Mrs. Grunion, a Dolores Umbridge-style antagonist. Grunion wants to separate dog and boy. In an effort to work things out with Penny’s family, Mr. Peabody invites them over for dinner to discuss the events. While Peabody charms Paul and Patty Peterson, Sherman gets to show Penny around, with strict orders to not show her the WABAC Machine. Naturally, Sherman shows Penny the WABAC Machine, starting the romp through history, meeting luminaries such as Tutankhamen, Agamemnon, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Between 1959 and 2014, a lot has changed in the world of animation. Computers, which were room-sized, tape-driven monstrosities with minimal graphics capability in 1959, are integral to animation today. Audiences expect more in the relationships between characters. Smoking is forbidden; the pipe-smoking Mr. Peabody of 1959 just wouldn’t be shown. Casual cruelty, especially towards children, is also frowned upon. The acceptable quality of animation has also changed; for a feature film, backgrounds can no longer be sketched in or repeated on a loop.
The other huge jump from Peabody’s Improbable History to Mr. Peabody and Sherman is running time. Peabody’s Improbable History was part of a 22 minute episode of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, so it never took more than four to five minutes. Mr. Peabody and Sherman runs 92 minutes; the movie just can’t rely on the old formula to work.
The scriptwriters were up for the task. They took the core of Peabody’s Improbable History and used it as the foundation for the movie. It didn’t matter if part of the audience was too young to have ever seen the shorts; the movie starts off with an extended version that would fit well in the original’s run. The movie then expands, discovering and developing the relationship between dog and boy, and between Mr. Peabody and Sherman with the rest of the world around them, all without sacrificing the humour Peabody’s Improbable History was known for. Sure, there may be a fart joke or two, but anyone who knows of history, of drama, and even of psychology will get the humour. You have to admire a movie that works in a subtle Oedipus complex gag into a scene inside the Trojan Horse.
Does Mr. Peabody and Sherman work as an adaptation? Yes. The script built on top of the original cartoon and expanded without sacrificing what made Peabody’s Improbable History memorable.
Next week, The Mechanic.
* Also known as Rocky and His Friends among others, depending on the syndicator.
** Five minutes before to the Reign of Terror.
Tie-ins are a difficult area to judge. At what point does a work stop being merchandising and start being a work of its own? I have reviewed some tie-in works, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic because of its impact on the Internet and the Richard Castle Nikki Heat novels because of the meta nature of the books. While I have reviewed movies based on toys – G.I. Joe – The Rise of Cobra and Battleship – I haven’t touched any of the animated works. The cartoons came about after the easing of US Federal Communications Commission regulations restricting toy- and game-based series in the 80s. While several cartoons from the era were memorable, including Transformers and Jem and the Holograms, most were just there for merchandising.
Last month, The LEGO Movie opened. A CGI animated action movie, The LEGO Movie was based on LEGO, the construction bricks created in 1949 and refined in 1958. Given that the company wasn’t directly behind the creation of the movie, I felt that The LEGO Movie was an adaptation.
Since the film is still in theatres, I’ll try to keep the summary as spoiler-free as possible. The plot has Emmett, a Minifig, find the Piece of Resistance that makes him the Special that can stop Lord Business from using his secret weapon to destroy all of the different worlds. Unfortunately, Emmett isn’t all that special, but WyldStyle, who was looking for the Piece of Resistance, is there to help him in the fight against Lord Business. Along the way, Emmett and Wyldstyle get help from Batman to get to Cloud Cuckooland to find the Master Builders in hiding.
The movie uses many a bad pun.
The characters are well aware that they are in a LEGO multiverse and most can build items out of the scenery. The CGI makes it hard to tell whether the settings were built physically out of LEGO bricks or if the animators were just that good. The ground, where it isn’t paved by flat-topped bricks, has the classic LEGO brick struts, including the company’s logo. With adaptations, the little details can make or break the work. The eye for detail in The LEGO Movie is amazing. Emmett’s hair has a molding seam. The 80s Spaceman’s helmet has a crack where the piece always got a crack. The Minifigs, for the most part, come from existing sets past and present. The construction scene as the big musical number starts has a Minifig calling for a 1×2 macaroni piece and getting it, just as people playing with LEGO bricks have since, well, 1958.
The LEGO Movie felt like the writers were playing with LEGO while working on the script. Building of items, like a motorcycle from parts in an alley, referenced the LEGO videogames, where players could do just that. The buildings, the vehicles, the animals, the sets, all could be built given enough bricks. Given that LEGO is a toy meant for creating your own designs, the movie showed possibilities and encouraged imagination.
As an adaptation, The LEGO Movie worked. Emmett lived in a LEGO world and acted knowing he was a LEGO minifig. All the bits came together and screamed “LEGO!” as the movie progressed while still allowing the story to unfold. The story itself could not be told without the LEGO bricks.
Next week, the nature of tie-in media and adaptations.
The year 1977 was a banner year for Hollywood. Several iconic films were released that year, including Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Saturday Night Fever. Star Wars alone dominated, giving way to an appetite for science fiction. Meanwhile, Saturday Night Fever tapped into the disco fever of the 70s. Not to be left out, car chase fans got their iconic film, Smokey and the Bandit.
The plot of Smokey and the Bandit is simple. Bandit, played by Burt Reynolds, and the Snowman, played by Jerry Reed, need to get a truckload of Coors beer from Texas to Georgia. At the time, Coors beer wasn’t available east of Texas due to an arrangement between Coors and Anhauser-Busch. Hauling a cargo of the beer was essentially bootlegging and, well, illegal. To distract the police during the cargo run, Bandit takes an advance on the payment to get a Trans Am to use to flush out roadblocks, giving the Snowman and his dog, Fred, open highway.
Along the way, an unexpected complication jumps into Bandit’s car. Carrie, played by Sally Field, left her fiancé at the altar and wants out of the county. Adding to the complexity, Carrie’s ex is the son of the Smokey, one Sheriff Buford T. Justice, played by Jackie Gleason. Sheriff Justice didn’t take the jilting of his son well, and starts his chase, completely unaware that there is a truck full of illegal beer involved. Most of the police are unaware of the beer in Snowman’s truck; Bandit becomes enough of a distraction that Snowman can keep the hammer down and speed with impunity.
Car chase movies exist solely for the automotive stunts. Plots don’t have to be elaborate, and Smokey and the Bandit‘s is more than enough for the vehicular carnage that ensues. The pull for these movies is in the chase; everything else is secondary. To be fair, all the main characters in Smokey and the Bandit have a motive for what they’re doing. Bandit and the Snowman want to win the $80 000 bet; Carrie is running away from a wedding she knows is wrong for her; and Sheriff Justice wants to stop and arrest the man who kidnapped his son’s bride.
Two more theatrical sequels followed, the first following the fallout of Bandit and Carrie breaking up, the second with Sheriff Justice trying and failing to adjust to a life of retirement. Smokey and the Bandit 2 held together well enough, going back to the core of the car chase. Smokey and the Bandit 3, however, went far overboard in the writing. Jackie Gleason pulled off the role, but the rest fell short.
Fast-forwarding, we reach the year 1994. The 500-channel universe hasn’t yet arrived, but both Bruce Springsteen and “Weird Al” Yankovic had commented on the number of hours to be filled; the former with “57 Channels (and Nothin’ On)” in 1992, the latter with “I Can’t Watch This” in 1993 with the line, “I hooked up 80 channels, and each one stunk”. While The Real World had started on MTV in 1992, the reality show explosion would go off in 2000 with the debut of Survivor on CBS. The airwaves and cable channels had to find programming somewhere, and syndication was hitting its stride. Universal Television responded to the need with its Action Pack, a number of movies meant for syndication. The Action Pack included Hercules: The Legendary Journeys*, TekWar, based on the novels by William Shatner, the Midnight Run films, based on the movie starring Robert DeNiro, and the Bandit movies, based on Smokey and the Bandit.
Four Bandit movies were made, with Hal Needham, creator and director of Smokey and the Bandit, as the executive producer and director. With Burt Reynolds working on the final season of Evening Shade, a new actor was needed. Brian Bloom, who would go on to play Pike in the adaptation of The A-Team, got the role. A few changes were made with the supporting cast. The Snowman and Carrie weren’t around; instead, Lynn Denton, son of the governor, was introduced as the Bandit’s best friend, and each movie had its own romantic interest. While the movies did have chase sequences, the focus turned to Bandit and his endeavors and complications. Bandit: Bandit Goes Country has him returning to his hometown to clear up long-standing feuds and meet up with an old girlfriend. Bandit: Bandit Bandit has him tracking down an imposter of himself who had stolen a prototype alternate fuel car. Bandit: Beauty and the Bandit has him helping a woman, played by Kathy Ireland**, on the run from both mobsters, federal agents, and a bounty hunter. Bandit: Bandit’s Silver Angel sees him stepping forward to help a circus owned by his late uncle.
The Bandit movies wound up in an odd position. For low budget TV movies, they were watchable and fun. However, by carrying the Bandit name, comparisons to the original would happen, and a theatrical release where cars could be abused and junked has the edge over a series of TV movies where repairs eat into the budget. At the same time, without the link to Smokey and the Bandit, the movies might get ignored or, worse, be thought of as a rip-off of the original work. Television adaptations also have a different flow thanks to the need for commercial breaks. A theatrical release can keep building to a big ending, adding ebbs to let the audience catch a breather. On TV, the requirement for advertisements means that, every ten to fifteen minutes, the movie needs to have a mini-cliffhanger to ensure viewers return after the ad. Viewing a TV show or a made-for-TV movie on DVD, with no commercial, can become choppy as a result.
Overall, the Bandit movies are fun for what they are, low-budget TV movies. Brian Bloom’s Bandit is clearly the same as Burt Reynold’s, a man who gets by on charm and can wind up over his head as a result. With Hal Needham on board as producer and director, the TV movies could keep to the core of the originals and move away from the car chase without losing the identity.
Next week, the February adaptational news round up.
* And, later, the Hercules spin-off, Xena: Warrior Princess.
** Kathy’s southern accent is far more easy to listen to than her squeaky voice in Alien from LA.
Dinosaurs have long been a source of fascination. For many people, their first foray into science was as a young child pouring over anything about dinosaurs, leading some into careers in paleontology. Only fossils remain from the reign of the dinosaurs, but that keeps scientists and the curious intrigued enough to try to discover much about Earth’s prehistoric past.
In late 1990, Michael Crichton released his science fiction novel, Jurassic Park. At the heart of the story was the idea, “What if someone recreated dinosaurs?” He worked out the details, who could afford the cloning equipment, why would dinosaurs be cloned and brought back, the legal issues in opening a theme park featuring wild animals.
In the novel, the CEO of the fictional InGen, John Hammond, created the titular park on the fictional Isla Nublar as a theme park where people could visit and see the returned dinosaurs in a somewhat natural habitat. The park’s investors, through their lawyer, needed assurances by academics that the park was accurate and safe. Hammond brings on board Doctor Alan Grant, a paleontologist, while the investors’ lawyer brings in Doctor Ian Malcolm, a chaos therorist. Dr. Grant brings along grad student Ellie Sattler, a paleobotantist, along.
During the tour of the main facilities, Hammond shows how the dinosaurs were recreated, replacing damaged genetic code with DNA from reptiles, birds, and amphibians. The new DNA was then modified so that only females were viable and that the creatures required regular doses of lysine to survive. However, among the more benign species like Triceratops were carnivores like Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus Rex.
For the tour of Jurassic Park, Hammond sends along his grandchildren, Lex and Tim. Tim, like many boys his age, is dino-crazy and is looking forward to the tour. During the tour, Velociraptor eggs are found, something that shouldn’t occur in an all female population. Dr. Malcolm also points out that a flock of Procompsognathi have a normal distribution of heights instead of the expected uniform height he’d expected from cloned creatures.
Elsewhere, a tropical storm forms and moves in on Isla Nublar. Dennis Nedry, a subcontractor with financial problems, takes advantage of the storm to steal genetic samples for InGen’s competitor, and sabotages the park’s computer systems to help in his escape. The sabotage disrupts all security, including the electric fences keeping the dinosaurs apart from not just each other but from the tours. For the herbivores, this isn’t a problem. For T. rex, it now has a larger range to hunt, and the tour group, in two electric trucks that are also out of power, had stopped near the dinosaur’s paddock.
Things get worse. Grant and the children get separated as the T. rex and its child attack. Malcolm is critically injured. The park’s power returns, but is soon again lost as only the auxiliary power was restored. With the loss of auxiliary power, the Velociraptors, quarentined due to intelligence and visciousness, escape. The ship that had left Isla Nublar for the mainland has Velociraptor stowaways, not the formerly quarentined ones, but wild ones.
The movie adaptation of Jurassic Park follows the plot for the most part. Given the length of the novel, some scenes in it had to go to keep the movie’s running time under ten hours, let alone the two hours, seven minutes it did have There were changes made, though. In the novel, Lex’s role is to be The Load, screaming anytime a dinosaur appeared. Her brother, Tim, not only was well-read on dinosaurs but also was a hacker. The hacking ability was transfered over to Lex for the movie. The fate of Hammond is different as well; he gets to escape the island in the adaptation. Helping to ease the transition from book to movie was having Michael Crichton on board as a scriptwriter. He was able to remove elements from the novel that let the movie still hold together without dragging out the film. Some elements removed, such as the Pteranodon aviary, returned in Jurassic Park III. Other elements, such as what happened to Malcolm, were added. The novel never went into details on whether he survived his injuries or died from them. The movie, Malcolm is seen in the helicopter, awake and alert, allowing him to return for The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
The core of the novel, the warning about hubris, the dangers of reintroducing an extinct species, the folly of trying to control nature, remains intact. The movie did not back away from showing the consequences of trying to play God. Even with precautions in place – the lysine requirement, the electric fences, the all-female population – dinosaurs ran amok and multiplied. People died from one man’s folly.
Some time back, I mentioned that there would be times when I would run into the adaptation before the original. This in one of those cases; I saw the movie when it first came out, but only read the book recently. The differences were startling, not only in the scenes that weren’t filmed or were used for Jurassic Park III, but the roles. As mentioned, Lex’s role expanded in the movie, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In the book, Lex was very much the damsel in distress, needing Dr. Grant’s assistance. In the movie, she took on dimensions, and the interplay with her brother felt more natural. Once she adjusted to the events, she took charge of her brother, particularly in the park’s kitchen.
Overall, the movie is faithful to the original work. Not all of Jurassic Park was adapted, but what was came through. The core of the story remained in one piece, keeping the thriller aspect of the novel front and centre without losing the message.
Next week, the problem with movies.
It’s a new year, it’s a new review. To ease back into reviewing, let’s look at somewhat lighter fare.
In 1984, the idea of a pre-packaged campaign world for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was still new. TSR had a house settings, The World of Greyhawk, based on Gary Gygax’s home campaign. The idea first came from Tracy and Laura Hickman, who wrote two modules for TSR hoping to be paid for them after Tracy lost his job; instead, he was hired. He worked with several people at the company, including Margaret Weis, decided to create a new setting, one not seen before, one where TSR could tie together a campaign setting, a series of modules, and a tie-in novel trilogy. The result was Dragonlance.
To make Krynn, the world where the Dragonlance campaign would be set, different, the creators removed all divine magic from the world’s recent history. The result of the removal would mean that classes that depended on powers granted by deities – clerics, paladins, and druids – would be severely hampered at the start. The first modules, the name for published adventures, focused on the return of the gods of Krynn and set up the epic battle between Good and Evil. The modules’ events were mirrored by the first Dragonlance trilogy, written by Weis and Hickman.
The novels and the modules were based on the playtest campaign, where TSR staffers took the roles of the main characters – Tanis Half-Elven, Caramon and Raistlin Majere, Goldmoon, Flint, Tasslehoff, Tika, Laurana – and the results noted. Some changes occurred. Tasslehoff, one of the halfling-like race of kender, had managed to pick up a ring of invisibility; the writers realized that the combination would get a little to close to a certain hobbit for Legal’s comfort. The first novel, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, hit the New York Times bestseller list.* The novel did two things; it let players, including the Dungeon Master, get a feel for both the world and the plotlinem; and, it served as an introduction to AD&D to people who had never played but were curious.
A lot of the success of Dragonlance came from the characters. All of them were flawed in some way, and not all of them were good.** There was friction within the group, characters made poor decisions that came from their motives and goals, yet the fellowship could still come together to thwart evil. The setting expanded, in game material, in novels and short stories, in video games, and in comics. When D&D went to its third edition with new owner Wizards of the Coast, Margaret Weis Productions licensed and released a compatible version of Krynn.
In 2008, Paramount licensed the rights to make an animated Dragonlance feature from WotC. The movie, based on Dragons of Autumn Twilight, was to be the first of a trilogy based on the original Chronicles. With Kiefer Sutherland as Raistlin and Lucy Lawless as Goldmoon, the production team went for star power to draw in viewers while filling the rest of the cast with experienced voice actors***. The animation team made sure that the characters resembled their likenesses from the Larry Elmore covers. However, the movie had some issues. The animation, a mix of 2D and 3D techniques, clashed. The main characters were 2D, but had to fight such three-dimensional monsters as draconians and dragons. The 2D animation also became choppy in parts, jumping without a in-between work. The differences were jarring. The visuals for several spells also didn’t match the what the original descriptions in the Player’s Handbook. In particular, Fireball doesn’t smash into targets; it explodes instead. The Fireball spell as cast by Fizban resembled the lower level spell, Flaming Sphere.
Another problem was the running time; ninety minutes was just not long enough to cover Dragons of Autumn Twilight properly. The novel spent time with world-building, setting up the intricate balance between the different races and nations, introducing the elements that made Krynn a different campaign setting. One character’s death was moved to a different part of the story after the passage through Mount Nevermind, the home of the tinker gnomes, was removed entirely. The death becomes far more dramatic, though. Insufficient running time is an ongoing problem for novels depicting epics. Books can pack in a lot of information in their pages; it takes skill to be able to figure out what can and cannot be removed, and is much easier when there is no Book 2, 3, or, in the case of A Game of Thrones, 7. Blade Runner and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World both managed to extract the core story from the original works. Unfortunately, Dragons of Autumn Twilight became shallower with the removal of material.
A third issue came from the rating. Dragons of Autumn Twilight is a swords and sorcery tale. Swords and axes mean bloody corpses, and blunt weapons like maces and staves aren’t much better. The movie received a PG-13 rating because of the “fantasy action violence”, and while charred, featureless corpses were allowed, blood was reduced, to the point where swords were clean even after striking goblins. Fortunately, the draconians could be stabbed; on death, the creatures turned to stone. Still, to avoid the R rating, the blood needed to be cleaned up some.
With Dragons of Autumn Twilight not faring well, it appears that the next two books, Dragons of Winter Night and Dragons of Spring Dawning will not be adapted, at least as animated features. Cindi Rice, the co-executive producer, estimated that a live-action adaptation of the book would cost around US$75 million. While that is far less than many of the blockbusters that failed in 2013, Dragonlance doesn’t have the namespace among the general public that would get studios to take the risk to finance the adaptation.
The animated Dragons of Autumn Twilight comes out as a “nice try”. Ignoring the animation issues, the running time was the biggest drawback, not giving viewers the time to properly experience the setting or the story.
Next week, the adaptational news round up.
* TSR’s publishing arm did well with fiction and was willing to take risks that other publishers wouldn’t. The Edgar-winning novel, Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb, was first published by TSR after McCrumb passed her manuscript along to Margaret Weis.
** Or even Good; Raistlin, in particular, started with a Neutral alignment and shifted to Evil over the course of the novels.
*** This isn’t to say that the leads weren’t inexperienced. Both Sutherland and Lawless had a number of voice acting prior to Dragons of Autumn Twilight, though they weren’t primarily known for such work.
Back in November, one of the news round-ups mentioned that there Hummingbird working on a sequel to It’s A Wonderful Life. With Paramount contesting the sequel, I want to take a look at the mess and how to avoid it.
With It’s a Wonderful Life, the problem stems from a clerical error; the movie’s copyright wasn’t renewed properly, sending the movie to the public domain. The owners, Republic Studios, managed to regain most of the rights through backdoor methods that allowed them to control who could show it and at what price. The short version, the film itself is in the public domain, but the story and the music are not. The question that a court may have to decide is how much It’s a Wonderful Life: The Rest of the Story depends on the copyrighted story.
Before I continue, I want it made known that I am not a lawyer, not do I play one on TV. This article is all from a layman’s point of view and isn’t legal advice, even if it sounds like it.
The first thing when adapting a work is to find out who has the rights to it. If the work is old enough, it’s in the public domain where anyone can take it. As a rule of thumb, if a work is older than Disney’s “Steamboat Willie”, it is very likely in the public domain. Works by Shakespeare are definitely in the public domain, as are myths, legends, and fairy tales. To verify, sites like Project Gutenberg can be helpful. That Romeo & Juliet alternative universe rom-com* where he’s the son of a necromancer and she’s the daughter of vampires can be made with no rights issues at all.
More recent works, though, have owners who expect payment when someone else plays in their sandbox. Research skills pay off here. First thing is to find out who holds the rights. Sometimes it’s easy; a Star Trek adaptation has to go through Paramount to be made. Sometimes, it’s not. It is the rare company that survives a hundred years. Studios like RKO, Orion, and United Artists have gone under, leaving entire libraries to be picked over. With UA, MGM bought most if not all of its assets, including the 007 franchise. It is a matter of research to find out where the movies have gone. This is where It’s a Wonderful Sequel is running into problems. Both studios can rightfully argue their sides; the film itself is public domain, provided that it is not shown in its original order. The sequel, and any other movie, could very well use images and scenes out of context as flashbacks and not run afoul of the copyright.
Once the rights owner has been found, it’s time to convince them that the adaptation should happen. The easiest way is sums of cash, or, as it is better known, a licensing fee. The owner sets the fee, but could be negotiated down. If there’s no agreement, no adaptation. A possible alternative is to convince the owner that they want to produce the adaptation themselves, with the adapter at the helm of the work. This method works best when remaking a movie, but can also work in the comics industry. This is what I expect the outcome of the dispute between Hummingbird and Paramount to be, an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed sum that allows It’s a Wonderful Sequel to go ahead.
If the rights owner says no, that’s not the end of the adaptation. Unless the new work relies heavily on established canon, changing details such as character names, setting, and even genre may be enough to make the former adaptation look original. This process is, essentially, “filing off the serial numbers”. Done well, no one notices. Done poorly, and the work gets called a rip-off of the original work.
Let’s take a hypothetical** example. I want to create a dark and gritty remake of BJ and the Bear, setting it in a post-apocalyptic America where BJ and his mutant chimpanzee deliver needed supplies through blighted wastelands to the last remnants of humanity living in fortified towns and cities, getting past corrupt warlords who want the goods for themselves***. The original owners of BJ and the Bear are easy to find – Glen A. Larson and Universal. The two still have a working relationship as of the Battlestar Galactica remake. All I need to do is convince both parties that I can make it worth their while to license the rights to me. Simple, no?
Not so fast. BJ’s main adversary in the remake, Warlord Lobo, is based on a character that got his own spin-off. If I want to use Lobo, I need to make sure that his character isn’t stuck in some sort of rights limbo. The problem has cropped up; The Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man were both set, at least partially, in New York City. However, Marvel licensed Spider-Man and his supporting cast to Sony Pictures, who isn’t about to give up the wall-crawler anytime soon. Both Marvel and Sony negotiated to get the Daily Planet into The Avengers, but, ultimately, the building wasn’t there. Marvel is running into a similar situation with the next Avengers movies with Quicksilver and the Scarlett Witch. Fox has the rights to all characters related to the X-Men, including mutants. Quicksilver and the Scarlett Witch not only are mutants but have worked alongside Magneto in their villain days. Marvel is skirting the problem by not mentioning the m-word (“mutant”) in the movie. However, there has been a massive crossover of rosters between the two teams; other X-Men who have been Avengers include the Beast and Wolverine.
The issue of rights doesn’t affect just movies. The Battletech game has what players have come to call The Unseen, thirteen BattleMechs that could no longer made as miniatures or be used in artwork as a result of a rights dispute between FASA and Harmony Gold. Both companies had licensed the mecha designs; Harmony Gold through the respective studios of Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Fang of the Sun Dougram, and Crusher Joe as part of Robotech, FASA through the design studio, Victor Musical Industries, for BattleTech. The case was settled out of court; FASA might have been able to win except the cost of fighting the case became too high for the company to justify. The loss of the Unseen meant redoing several books and creating new minis for the core game and led to the Clan Invasion.
In my hypothetical example, the competing rights issue doesn’t come up. Glen A. Larsons Productions and Universal are still the people to talk to about Lobo. However, if the word is no, I can make changes to remove the BJ and the Bear markers from the project. Keeping the post apocalyptic setting, I can change Bear into a horse that CJ rides. Instead of delivering supplies, CJ delivers news through the wastelands to the fortified towns. Or, since the new project is a little too close to The Postman for comfort, I change the setting to space, where CJ and his sidekick alien buddy try to make ends meet in their dilapidated space freighter while Space Admiral Lupine hunts them down for crimes they may or may not have committed.
In short, check the rights situation. Sometimes it’s clear, sometimes it’s not. When in doubt, rework to avoid legal entanglements.
Next week, 2013 in review.
* Yes, Romeo & Juliet is a tragedy. That didn’t stop Gnomeo & Juliet.
** At least, I hope it’s hypothetical.
*** If someone reading does do this remake, I would like on-screen credit, please.
