The Avengers Adaptation continues!
Leading up to a review of The Avengers, I’ve taken a look at Iron Man and Thor, two of the longest serving and iconic Avengers in Marvel’s history. However, the iconic Avenger is Captain America.
Captain America first appeared in Captain America Comics, published in early 1941* by Marvel’s predecessor, Timely Comics. The character and the comic were intentionally patriotic, almost a given considering world events. Marvel brought back Cap in The Avengers #4, thawing him and bringing him to the “modern”** age. Cap started as Steve Rogers, a scrawny young man whose desire to enlist and fight the Nazis in Europe was thwarted by his own ill health. However, his persistence got him noticed and invited to the Super-Soldier project, where Steve was given the Super-Soldier Serum, transforming his body to perfect health and physique. Cap then fought through WWII with his sidekick, “Bucky” Barnes, battling the Third Reich.
Captain America: The First Avenger essentially retells Captain America’s origin. As you might have read last week, I went on for a few paragraphs about superhero origins. However, in Cap’s case, there are two elements to consider. One, Cap’s origins aren’t well known to the general audience. Comic book fans, especially those who follow the Avengers, are aware, but Cap isn’t the household name Superman is. Two, Captain America’s origins alone are an exciting story, especially in the context of modern Marvel stories (as opposed to the Timely comics). How Steve Rogers came to the modern world is well worth spending a movie on, if done well. The other key part to the origin is that Steve already had the right mindset to be a hero, even if his body wouldn’t let him. Falling on a grenade that he thought was live without a thought towards what would happen to him while everyone else dove for cover tends to show people what a hero is.
The First Avenger was done well. Once again, as in Iron Man and Thor, the right cast, the right crew, the right director were all involved. Joe Johnston, the director, had worked on pulp-like projects before, including The Rocketeer and Jumanji. The First Avenger definitely had a pulp feel, from time period to larger-than-life heroes and villains. Casting included bringing in Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull and Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Carter.
If you go back a bit in Lost in Translation, you’ll find my review of Flash Gordon. The two movies work together to show what’s needed to make a good adaptation. Both movies had great casting for supporting roles, excellent music, and a script that acknowledged the comic book feel of the original works. The big difference is that Captain America didn’t have executive meddling. Flash‘s execs interfered with casting, to the point where de Laurentiis’ wife picked out Sam J. Jones from the lead role from a game show. Everyone involved in the making of Captain America had the goal of making the film a success.
Casting wasn’t the only item that got attention. Little details about Cap appeared. The shield he used during the PR tour was based on the original one from Captain America Comics #1, which had to be changed because of a similarity to the one carried by Archie Comics’ The Shield. The First Avenger also had links to the previous movies in the Avengers Initiative, with Yggdrasil, a Norse artifact, and possibly the fate of the Red Skill calling back to Thor and Tony Stark’s grandfather Howard a supporting character. These connections may be the first time a comic book movie acknowledges the rest of the original comic’s universe. Usually, multiple studios have rights for the different characters in a setting. In Marvel’s case, Sony had the rights to Spider-Man while Twentieth Century Fox had the X-Men. With the Avengers Initiative, though, all the movies are being created by Marvel Studios and being released through Paramount. Just as important, many elements of the Marvel Universe were introduced. Hydra, a secret society out for world domination, with the Red Skull and Arnim Zola, could easily be the antagonists of a Captain America sequel set in the modern day.
Was the adaptation accurate? Not completely. Bucky Barnes became Steve’s childhood friend and a sergeant in the US Army instead of being a kid mascot. The Howling Commandos appeared, but without Sgt. Fury. Philips became a colonel instead of a general. Small details. However, the feel of the movie, aided by the direction, by the music, hit the right note.
Next week, on the nature of remakes.
* Prior to the US officially getting involved in World War II.
** As in, the day of publication.
Superman, the superhero who started the entire genre, the Man of Steel who has been adapted many times to radio, television, and film, is returning to the silver screen in a reboot movie. Part of the movie will cover Superman’s origin. Which is great, except, well, if there’s one superhero whose origin is widely known to audiences, it’s Superman. The last son of Krypton, sent away by his parents as an infant as his homeworld exploded, landed on Earth on a farm in Kansas, raised by the Kents, then moved to Metropolis to become a mild-mannered reporter. The quick version can be, he was raised well by adoptive parents. How much time is going to be spent on Superman’s background? How do you show “raised well” when you have a limited time in the film. Spend too long, and you run into the problem Battleship did and lose a lot of energy, especially if the destruction of Krypton appears on screen. At the same time, Clark’s early years could be delved for great drama. In fact, Smallville was all about that delving. Why cover that same ground?
It may sound like I’m harping on origin stories, and I am. It feels like every reboot, remake, and adaptation of a superhero story has to spend time showing the hero getting his abilities. Lately, superhero movies have been focusing on the origin. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Some heroes, such as Iron Man and Thor have compelling beginning stories. With others, such as Batman and Spider-Man, the compelling feature isn’t getting powers (or, in Batman’s case, his wonderful toys), but why they turned to being heroes. Tony Stark created a suit of power armour to escape captors. Peter Parker failed to stop a robber who wound up killing Peter’s uncle. Bruce Wayne wanted revenge on the criminals who killed his parents in front of his young eyes. Clark Kent . . . was raised well. Something just doesn’t fit.
Don’t get me wrong. If a, say, Cloak & Dagger TV series were to be made, I’d expect the pilot to show how they got their powers.* Same with other characters like the Punisher, Zatanna, and Speedball. Not to mention, with television, there’s more time to set up longer arcs. In a movie, though, very few last longer than three hours, with most run times being under two.
Superman, though, isn’t known to just comic readers. He is arguably the best known superhero character around.** He’s been around since 1938. He’s been adapted to radio, serials, television, and movies. The most recent television adaptation, Smallville, was a ten season long origin story. Before that, Lois and Clark, the New Adventures of Superman*** managed to remind viewers of Clark’s humble beginnings by including Jonathan and Martha Kent as regular characters, even if they only appeared when Clark phoned home. The 1978 Superman movie with Christopher Reeve, the definitive Superman film for a generation, did spend time with Clark’s upbringing, but not in depth. However, remaking that movie shot for shot will leave people wondering why they just didn’t pop the 1978 film into the DVD player instead.
My hopes for the Superman reboot is that, if the director really needs to show the origin, then Clark’s background is done as a montage, quick enough to not lose energy, but long enough to show where Clark is from. The movie then should get to the heart of the plot.
Next week, despite the above, the Avengers Adaptation continues.
* In fact, how they got their powers – forcibly injected with synthetic drugs triggering their latent mutant abilities – is key to most of their comic runs, as they took the War on Drugs down to the pushers.
** Definitely in the top three, with Batman and Wonder Woman. Marvel’s Spider-Man and X-Men (as a group) fill out the top five.
*** Lois and Clark also took a different approach to Superman stories by examining the relationship between Lois Lane, Clark Kent, and Superman.
The game Battleship is a venerable one, dating back to a pad-and-paper release by Milton Bradley in 1931, and even that game may have just been a codification of a game that existed before then. Milton Bradley released Battleship again in 1967, this time as a board game with plastic representation of ships and pegs to track hits and misses. The game was simple enough, hide your ships well enough on your board while still trying to find your opponent’s vessel. Last person to still have an un-sunk ship won. Nice, simple, not even a backstory involved. Just two evenly matched fleets, each with a battleship, aircraft carrier, destroyer, submarine, and patrol boat, trading shots.
In 1984, Hasbro bought out Milton Bradley and maintained it as its own subsidiary. This gave Hasbro access to a large number of popular games, such as Battleship. Hasbro has also been developing live-action movies of various toy lines over the past few years. Naturally, Battleship would be turned into a movie.
The movie Battleship had some problems. It had a $200 million budget, but, unlike Thor, the money wasn’t spent well. Actors were wasted in roles. The script had several eye-rolling errors, including an alien ship with materials “not found on the periodic table of elements”.* The movie plays out as a by-the-numbers action movie, with the lead character being such a screw up that his family still takes care of him in his mid-twenties, a love interest whose father is in charge of the screw up, a sacrificial family member, a rival the screw up has to work with for the greater good. The plot is telegraphed; twists are seen coming.
A judicious editor should have had a go at the script before it reached the filming stage. The first half hour sets up subplots and could have been done better and shorter. There are elements of the game poking in and out of the movie, but the titular battleship (played by the USS Missouri) is a Chekov’s gun and not the main stage. The board game’s grid appears after radar is useless to track the alien vessels; tsunami trackers allow the heroes to detect the aliens’ movements. The shots are even called the same way – “G-4”.
Obviously, an entire movie of grid-calling would get tedious. At the same time, that same grid-calling is the essence of Battleship. Games tend to abstract details; in real naval battles, ships keep moving so that they’re harder to hit, and the movie reflects that. There are several shots of five-ship groupings, and there’s an attempt at getting the game’s ships in, with the aircraft carrier, the battleship, and the destroyer.** The aliens’ shells even look like the pegs from the game.
With all that, though, the movie really can’t do much more with the Battleship title. It would be a far better movie under a different name. Stunt casting didn’t help. Liam Neeson is wasted with what little screen time he has. Rhianna didn’t bring much to her role, though she also didn’t take away from it; an experienced actor could have done more with the role of Raikes, the weapons specialist.*** With the addition of invaders from space, the movie was really Battleship in name only and another, a video game, would’ve fit the plot better.
Worse, there were elements in the plot that had so much more potential. The subplot of Mick****, a double amputee US Army colonel acting as an impromptu resistance against the aliens, could have been its own movie. The idea of using an older warship against an alien invasion because modern electronics are too easily hacked could have been done.***** There were bright spots throughout the movie. The aliens show tactical intelligence, wanting to get communications back up while disrupting infrastructure and military resources. They also don’t just attack in rushes to get killed; at the end of the movie, the aliens still had the higher number of kills.
Overall, the movie Battleship was disappointing. Although it had little to work from, it squandered what it brought together.
Next week, on adapting games to the big screen.
* All metals, even alloys, can be found on periodic table of elements. The table even leaves room for elements not found or created under lab conditions, just based on atomic structure.
** For all we know, there was a submarine, too, but we couldn’t see it under the water.
*** This is a risk whenever bringing in a singer as an actress; see also Kylie Minogue in Street Fighter.
**** Played by Colonel Gregory D. Gadson, who lost both legs above the knee in Iraq and is still on active duty. Sure, not much of a stretch in the role, but he knows the role well.
***** And has, though it was called a Battlestar instead.
As seen many times here at Lost in Translation, classic works of fantasy, including myths and fairy tales, are modern fodder for the Hollywood adaptation engine. Fantasy, whether classic or urban is everywhere – television, silver screen, books, video games. The major influence for many of these is JRR Tolkien. The influence may not be direct; many fantasy video games can trace their roots back to Dungeons & Dragons; but, D&D‘s creators looked at, among other writers, Tolkien for world creating and game design.
The above-mentioned influence came mainly from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, but before the epic was a children’s story about a hobbit who reluctantly went on an adventure. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again followed Bilbo Baggins as he gets manipulated into joining thirteen dwarves in a quest to recover their homeland. Along the way, Bilbo discovers that he is more than what he appears to be, outwits trolls, and wins a game of riddles, and finds a magical ring. Middle Earth is presented as both being wondrous and dangerous.
After the success of his Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson was signed on to produce an adaptation of The Hobbit. Originally to be done as one movie, the script grew to the point where two, then three movies would have to be made. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was filmed in 3D at 48 frames per second, double the usual frame rate, though standard viewing was also released.
The new Hobbit does its best to stay close to the original story. Some characters from Lord of the Rings make cameos, particularly during the framing sequence.* CGI is evident, but not blatant. Care was taken to make sure each dwarf had an unique appearance. Magic is treated as wondrous and dangerous. The whimsy from The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is kept and is welcome at a time where most fantasies have gone dark and gritty. The story is treated as a personal one for Bilbo instead of the epic that the Lord of the Rings movies were.
However, some characters and scenes were added. A meeting between Gandalf, Saruman, and Galadriel that helps relate where The Hobbit stands relative to Lord of the Rings was never in the novel, with both Saruman and Galadriel being imports to the movie. Similarly, the framing device at the start of the film is set at the beginning of Fellowship of the Rings. The additions are understandable; tying the movie into the previous LotR trilogy enhances continuity, and having a movie without a woman in it is unthinkable to studios today.
Fans were already muttering about the novel being turned into a trilogy. Breaking the story into three parts, however, is one of the best ways to ensure that very little gets cut; the only other option is to turn the novel into a television mini-series. Television, though, doesn’t get the budget needed to do all the special effects or get the cast.
Ultimately, this is the best live-action adaptation possible with current technologies and will be enough for the casual fan and the fan drawn in by the Lord of the Rings movies, but will still leave hardcore fans of the original story cold.
Next time, continuing the Avengers Adaptation.
* It appears that Jackson is assuming that people have seen /Lord of the Rings/ but haven’t read The Hobbit.
The murder mystery has long been a mainstay of television and cinema. Characters from all walks of life have delved into the art of solving a murder – lawyers, doctors, mystery writers, con men, post officer clerks, and, yes, even private detectives. All of these characters have one man to thank: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Doyle’s creation, Sherlock Holmes, first appeared in 1887 in the novel /A Study in Scarlet/. That story, and each one following, featured a mystery as written by Holmes’s friend, Dr. John Watson, solved by Sherlock’s keen observation. No detail was too small for Holmes to ignore, and keen readers could work with the clues found to determine who the perpetrator was. However, Holmes had his flaws. He was a brusque man, didn’t like dealing with people, and tended to brush others aside while working. Incompetence was not tolerated. Fortunately, Watson could be the softer side of Holmes, letting Sherlock do what he did best.
Sherlock Holmes is the most adapted character ever, featuring in theatre, movies, radio plays, television, and pastiches*. Television series that didn’t normally deal with mysteries would have a Holmesian episode; Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “Elementary, My Dear Data” is a perfect example. The lure of an intelligent man who still has flaws appears to be irrestible to writers. Helping with the temptation is the work being in the public domain.
This brings us to today – specifically, last week – with the premier of a new CBS TV series, Elementary. The series brings Sherlock Holmes, played by Jonny Lee Miller, to modern day New York City after being released from rehab back in England. To help him keep on the wagon, Dr. Joan Watson, played by Lucy Liu, is assigned to keep Holmes company. As part of his self-imposed conditions, Holmes returns to doing what he does best, being a freelance consulting detective, this time working with the New York Police Department to solve crimes. The first episode had Holmes as a brusque, haunted man, one who doesn’t pay attention to social niceities. Watson helps temper Holmes’s rude manner, being the friendly side to the partnership. Throughout the episode, camera tricks help with Sherlock’s observational skills, letting the audience see what he sees. The tricks aren’t overused, though. Often, Holmes would ask an odd question or suddenly change direction and check an area that originally wasn’t part of the crime scene.
Elementary takes some liberties with the original work. Bringing Holmes to modern times and transplanting him to New York are the obvious ones, as is changing Dr. Watson’s gender. Yet, the explanation for moving to New York City makes sense and follows from Sherlock’s addiction to cocaine in the original stories. Holmes is also not starting out as a rookie; instead, he has a proven track record with police and intelligence services in Britain already, though entering rehab did cause some problems there. As for Watson, she is working to get Holmes’s trust while making sure he is healthy, and can keep up with the detective’s quirky train of thought.
Overall, despite the liberties, the show works as a Sherlock Holmes series. Ultimately, the main characters represent the original work well. The writers, cast, and crew of Elementary should take pride in being able to move the setting, both in location and in time, without losing the essence of Doyle.
Next time, another look at hard to reboot series.
* Pastiches are like published fanfiction with the author imitating Doyle’s style of writing.
The 1970s was chock full of children’s programming on Saturdays, despite (or because of) the lack of specialty cable channels. The three major American broadcasters – ABC, CBS, and NBC – competed for the eyes of the youth. Sid & Marty Krofft produced a number of live action TV series for the networks, many of which were more cartoony than an animated series. Among their work was Land of the Lost, created by David Gerrold, writer of the classic Star Trek episode “The Trouble With Tribbles”. The series told the story of a father and his two children who went canoing and wound up in a different land.
The opening theme served as much of an explanation as anyone would get. Our heroes, Rick Marshall and his kids, Will and Holly, were plunged into a land where dinosaurs roamed, primitive human-like creatures were discovering tools, and reptile-men lurked. Marshall used his survival skills to find food, create shelter, and domesticate young dinosaurs*. Meanwhile, a fearsome** Tyrannosaur hunted, waiting to grab any creature who couldn’t outrun it. Unusual for its time, the series ended with an episode that would work as a finale of sorts, a time loop that brought the characters back to the beginning of the season just in time for reruns.
Although the series was short run, it left an impact on many people***, in part because of the sense of exploration and danger that the series created. The land was an alien world, with beings that weren’t just humans with funny foreheads. The Sleestak were a credible threat and weren’t defeated by their own incompetance. The writers included several science fiction authors, such as Larry Niven, Ben Bova, Norman Spinrad, and Theodore Sturgeon.
In the 2000s****, studios were exploiting the market for remakes of old TV shows, popular or not. Land of the Lost was remade as a feature film. Several liberties were taken. Marshall, played by Will Ferrell, became a paleontologist instead of a park ranger. Will and Holly were no longer related to Marshall or to each other, and both were aged up. The tone went from family adventure to broad, loud “adult” comedy. While the original TV series did have comedic moments, the focus was light adventure, with enough fright to keep the intended audience watching without sending it running under a couch.
The movie did not fare well with audiences or critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported only 26% of reviewers gave favourable reviews. The box office returns didn’t cover the budget of the movie. The movie received seven Golden Raspberry nominations. What happened?
The big problem was that Land of the Lost was used as a Will Ferrell comedy vehicle, with all other considerations coming a distant second. Fans of the original series would be disappointed with how the original material was treated. The care taken in the original series into creating a larger world than seen on screen was not evident in the movie. Things existed solely for comedic purposes. In terms of previous columns, there was no respect for the original material.
The Land of the Lost movie could have been different. It could have followed a family dropped into a strange world and having to survive against numerous threats. Instead, the movie was a brash comedy aimed at a completely different audience than the original series was. The potential was wasted.
Next week, side-tracking a little.
* Herbivores only.
** Supposed to be fearsome, though the special effects budget was already strained.
*** References to Land of the Lost have even appeared in Peter David’s Star Trek tie-in novels, including a character Marshall Willenholly.
**** Also not know as the Oughts and the Naughties.
