Moonraker
Bond: Roger Moore
Release Date: 1979
Original Story: Moonraker
Publication Date: 1955
Previous Story: Live and Let Die
Next Story: Diamonds Are Forever

Villain: Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale)
Heavy: Chang (Toshiro Suga), Jaws (Richard Kiel)
Bond Girls: Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles), Corinne Dufiur (Corinne Cléry), Manuela (Emily Bolton). Special note here on Dolly (Blanche Ravalec), who pairs up with Jaws.
Other Notable Characters: M (Bernard Lee), Q (Desmond Llewellyn), Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell), General Gogol (Walter Gotell), Minister of Defense Frederick Gray (Geoffrey Keen)

Gadgets: Wrist dart gun (used by 007), X-ray safecracker (used by 007), Q-Branch modified gondola (used by 007), Q-Branch modified speedboat (used by 007), poison pen (used by Dr. Goodhead), flamethrower perfume atomizer (used by Dr. Goodhead), laser torch (used by the US Space Marines), explosive bolos (used by Q-Branch technician)

Opening Credits: “Moonraker” written by John Barry and Hal David, performed by Shirley Bassey
Closing Credits: “Moonraker (End Theme)“

Plot of Original: Sir Hugo Drax uses his companies and fortune to create a ballistic missile with the secret intention to launch it against London with a nuclear warhead supplied by SMERSH. Bond first gets involved because M suspected something was up with Drax’s luck at bridge.
Plot of Film: Industrialist Hugo Drax uses his company, Drax Industries, to choose a small group of men and women to house in a space station in order to repopulate the Earth after using a rare nerve gas to kill the existing human population.

Differences:
Other than the name, Moonraker, and the name of the villain, there’s not much in common between the novel and the movie. When Moonraker was written in 1955, the Arms Race and the Space Race were just beginning. The Soviet satellite, Sputnik I, would be launched two years after the novel’s publication. The US and the USSR were building their nuclear arsenals, and other nations were trying to keep up to have their own deterrence, including the UK. The novel fits in with then-current events.

While the Arms Race continued in 1979, other matters overshadowed the world of entertainment. Star Wars, released in 1977, ignited a desire for more science fiction films set in space. The American Space Shuttle program introduced the concept of a reusable space craft. In 1976, only the prototype Enterprise had been built. It’s look, though, was distinctive. Instead of a silver rocket as all previous manned and unmanned launches had been, the new shuttle had wings to help glide after re-entry. Visually, it was a distinctive craft, ideal for being on film.

To get to 007 being in space, though, there had to be a reason for him to go up. Moving Drax’s base of operations from the English countryside to a space station was definitely a way to do that. Since the Space Shuttle plays a large role, an American agent, Dr. Holly Goodhead, is involved, taking the place of the novel’s Scotland Yard Special Branch agent Gala Brand, who is also embedded in Drax’s organization. However, since Dr. Goodhead is involved in the shuttle side of Drax Industries, Corinne Dufour becomes Drax’s aide.

Even the characterization of Drax changed. The novel’s version was boisterous, at least in public. He was a self-made millionaire, and has the apparent luck to find key metal deposits. Bond first meets Drax at M’s club. M had invited 007 there to figure out how Drax could win consistently at bridge. In the movie, Drax is more reserved, using a few layers to separate himself from the general public and even higher level officials. Ultimately, Drax is revealed to be a high-ranking Nazi officer. The movie version of Drax didn’t have the overt Nazi background, though he did have the idea of creating a master race with a base in Brazil.

The Drax of the novel does appear in a way in a later 007 film, Tomorrow Never Dies, in the persona of Eliot Carver. While Carver in the film is based on the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Bill Gates, he also has the personality of the Drax of the novel. In a nod to the novel, the Minister of Defense mentions playing bridge with Drax.

One scene that did make it from the book is Drax’s attempt at killing Bond and Dr. Goodhead. In the novel, Drax leaves Bond and Gala to die in the exhaust of the launch vehicle. They escape through a ventilator shaft. In the movie, Bond and Dr. Goodhead escape the same way. The difference between the two is that Bond was ready to kill himself to destroy the Moonraker rocket in the novel, one life for millions. In the movie, he is actively looking for escape as the countdown hits ten seconds.

Commentary:
The movie was a way to have 007 tap into the audience that went out to see Star Wars. The Moore-era tended to be far more flamboyant, with Moonraker one of the films used to show how far the movies had gotten from the original concept. At the same time, the film managed to keep the scenes in space believable. The assault on Drax’s space station had no artificial gravity until a tech gets the station to spin again. Outside the station, the battle is in micro-gravity, allowing for three-dimensional movement.

While the desire to pull in the science fiction fan is there, the other problem that the film had was the change in times between 1955 and 1979. The Arms Race was well in gear in 1955, but in 1979, everyone involved was looking at the dangers of mutually assured destruction. The Strategic Arms Limitations Talks, or SALT, were an attempt to scale back arsenals without completely losing the ability for self-defense. SALT I occured in 1967, SALT II in 1972. Having Britain expand nuclear capability in the film would’ve been jarring to the audience at the time. Changed the Moonraker project from ballistic missile to one man’s desire to restart humanity moved the danger out of the Cold War and into supervillainy.

Bernard Lee made his last appearance as M in the movie. He passed away in 1981 before filming started for For Your Eyes Only. Richard Kiel’s Jaws is the first heavy to make a second appearance in a 007 film. He first appeared in the previous 007 movie, The Spy Who Loved Me and was an unstoppable force then. Jaws is also the only heavy to ever switch sides and help Bond, with the help of Dolly, who didn’t meet Drax’s standards for perfection. Shirley Bassey returns for the third time to sing the theme song.

Among the music in the film are shout-outs to a couple of key science fiction films. Also sprach Zarathrusta, Opus 30 by Richard Strauss was originally used in 2001: A Space Odyssey at the beginning, when the Monolith is shown. The other film reference is Close Encounters of the Third Kind, with the four notes used by the aliens to initiate first contact with Earth.

One thing that didn’t make it into the movies is Bond’s drug use. It’s not that Bond regularly shoots up heroin. Instead, he takes advantage of pharmaceutical aid provided by the Service. In Moonraker, he requested Benzedrine, an amphetamine, which he then washes down with champagne. His goal was to come across as inebriated and bold while playing bridge with M against Drax. The combination, not recommended, leads to Bond getting far too overconfident. In “The Living Daylights”, Bond uses stimulants to remain alert while on counter-sniper duty, then using sedatives in order to sleep. While he only uses the drugs while on assignment, the extremes he reaches is aiding his burnout and PTSD. Moonraker also has Bond reading about the dangers of a “murder drug” in use in Japan and the dangers of marijuana. Today, the dissonance would be intentional, but in 1955, Fleming may not have been aware of the mixed messages.

One detail from the novel that has gotten lost in the films is the nature of the 00 section. The novel mentions the three agents under M, with Bond having seniority. The other two, 008 and 0011, were both recovering from injuries in the line of duty. Fleming didn’t get into details, but the implication seems to be that there were six prior 00 agents that have since moved on, either through promotion or death.

The movie is filled with double entendres. While Holly Goodhead’s name isn’t quite on par with Goldfinger‘s Pussy Galore or Diamonds Are Forever‘s Plenty O’Toole, the movie more than makes up for it in other ways. Q may have had the best double entendre at the end, with “He’s attempting re-entry, sir.“

The nature of the passage of time is the main factor in the differences between the novel and the movie. Both Moonrakers are a product of their times, with the movie taking advantage of technology that wasn’t even dreamt of when the novel was first released. The further the franchise gets from the years immediately after World War II, the more James Bond becomes a relic of the time. Updating the character and the franchise is needed with each new movie, while still keeping close to the core of the character. It’s a difficult line to walk, and the film may have strayed a little too far.

The Living Daylights
Bond: Timothy Dalton
Release Date: 1987
Previous Film: A View to a Kill
Next Film: License to Kill
Original Story: “The Living Daylights
Publication Date: February 4, 1962 as “Berlin Escape” in The Sunday Times; 1966 in Octopussy and The Living Daylights as a collection of short stories.
Previous Story: Thunderball by original publication date, The Man With the Golden Gun by collection publication date.
Next Story: The Spy Who Loved Me by original publication date; none by collection publication date; Colonel Sun by Kingsley Amis under the penname Robert Markham was published in 1968.

Villain: Gen. Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé), Brad Whitaker (Joe Don Baker)
Heavy: Necros (Andreas Wisniewski)
Bond Girls: Kara Milovy (Maryam D’Abo)
Other Notable Characters: Q (Desmond Llewelyn), Moneypenny (Caroline Bliss), M (Robert Brown), Minister of Defense (Geoffrey Keen), Gen. Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies), Gen. Gogol (Walter Gotell), Kamran Shah (Art Malik), Felix Leither (John Terry)

Gadgets: Aston-Martin V8 Vantage with bulletproof windows, laser tire slashers, mini-rocket launcher, head’s-up display, outriggers, and self-destruct (driven by Bond); key ring with whistle activated stun gas and explosive; ghetto blaster (used by Q branch tech in preparation for use by American intelligence)

Opening Credits: “The Living Daylights“, written by Pål Waaktaar and John Barry, performed by a-ha.
Closing Credits: “If There Was a Man“, written by Chrissie Hynde and John Barry, performed by The Pretenders.

Plot of Original: 007 is assigned to counter-sniper duty to protect a defector leaving East Berlin. When he goes to shoot the KGB sniper, he discovers that she is a cellist he had been admiring from afar in the three days prior to the defection. 007 shoots, hitting her in the hand instead of killing her.
Plot of Film: 007 is assigned to protect a defector who specifically asked for him, leading to the events in the short story relocated to Bratislava in then-Czechoslovakia. During the defector’s debriefing, he reveals the existence of Smiert Spionen – SMERSH – run by a rogue general. A KGB team grabs the defector, though. 007, however, knows the alleged rogue, Gen. Pushkin. He starts his investigation with the cellist to find out who arranged for her to be the sniper. Pushkin is on the same trail, though, and gets to her first. 007, though, has the cello case with her rifle and blank ammunition. With this knowledge, 007 works to track down the false defector to Afghanistan and disrupts an arms for opium deal.

Differences:
The film doesn’t so much change the plot of the original as expand it. On its own, “The Living Daylights” takes up not even seven minutes of the movie’s runtime, necessitating an expansion of the plot. With 131 minutes to fill, the script had to add a new story that would last the entire movie, essentially turning the rest of the movie into a different work built off the short story. The needs of the new story moves the counter-sniper mission to Bratislava, but keeps the core of “The Living Daylights”. The movie is a good example of the differences between short story and film. The story isn’t has epic as the Roger Moore era, but the stakes will still be felt around the world.

Another major change is that the seven minutes taken from the short story are the last five to six pages. The rest of the story leading up to the defector making his escape is a look into how Bond prepares for the mission and how he sees his job. At this point in his literary career, Bond is tired of being Her Majesty’s blunt instrument. A more modern take may even diagnose him with stress and post-traumatic stress disorder. 007 disobeys orders – kill the Soviet sniper – and doesn’t care if word that he deliberately did not take the killing shot gets back to M. Bond’s disdain for his job does come through in the movie; he has broken the world between professionals – members of the intelligence community – and everyone else.

As mentioned, the setting has changed. The original short story is set in East and West Berlin. The defection begins in East Berlin, but Bond’s sniper position is in the West. The defector needs to run thirty yards through an open area to get to and over the Berlin Wall. In 1987, the Wall was still around, but much leakier than in 1962. The move to Bratislava works to emphasize the villain’s plan, with Bond expected to kill the sniper. From the storytelling side, the movie also means that Bond takes a more active role in the mission than just waiting for the sniper to appear. Instead of the defector running thirty yards to climb over the Berlin Wall, Bond now needs to get him out of Czechoslovakia under a much higher police presence.

Commentary:
The Living Daylights is the first of the two Timothy Dalton /007/ films. Dalton took the character back to his roots in Fleming’s novels, a move that wasn’t appreciated at the time. Audiences were more familiar with Roger Moore’s more flamboyant Bond, though even his version still had a dark side to him. In 1987, 007 was a franchise, with the quirks that come with that. After the world saving that Moore’s Bond did, Dalton’s worked on a more personal level. Dalton’s approach is similar to Daniel Craig’s in Casino Royale, a return to the origins.

The late Eighties saw the Cold War cool off. With Gorbachev’s policies of Perestroika and Glasnost thawing relations between East and West, the Soviet Union was not seen as the threat it was in the Fifties, when Fleming created Bond, and the Sixties, when Dr. No started the film series. Any Soviet plot had to be done by a rogue element who was against the opening of borders. Bond is a throwback, as comes up in later films.

The movie got into a bit of trouble with the Red Cross. At one point, Koskov and Whitaker take advantage of the organization’s reputation and symbol to move arms and opium. While there was no lawsuit, the studio added a disclaimer at the beginning of the film, to make sure people knew that such use was not approved by the Red Cross.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has been compared to the American involvement in the Vietnam War. The USSR spent a lot in time, money, and blood for little gain in the country, much for the same reason why NATO got mired in Afghanistan. To make things even more jarring for a modern audience, Bond is working with the same group that NATO fought. Afghanistan is where empires go to die.

Several key cast and crew changes occur. Walter Gotell makes his last appearance as Gen. Gogol, having played the role in The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and A View to a Kill. He also appeared in From Russia With Love as Morzeny, a trainer for SPECTRE. Caroline Bliss takes over from Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny in this movie and returns in the role in the next. Joe Don Baker returns during the Pierce Brosnan run as the CIA agent, Jack Wade, starting with GoldenEye. The score for The Living Daylights is the last one done by John Barry. John Terry, is the 6th actor in the main EON continuity to play the role of Felix Leiter and the 7th after Bernie Casey in Never Say Never Again, the Thunderball remake with Sean Connery.

The world’s best known secret agent has had a long history. Created by Ian Fleming and first published in 1953, James Bond has appeared in 57 books, including 43 by other authors, at least 29 movies, including those made outside the Eon continuity, and in comics. Bond has been portrayed by six different actors in the main franchise alone. With the sheer number of works available, the 007 movies provide a range of adaptations, from the close but not quite approaches of the early films to the in-name-only later works. One film even manages to adapt the novella as smaller portion of its longer running time.

Approaching the project will take time. Several ways of tackling the franchise exist. First is to go movie by movie. With over twenty movies in the main franchise, that will take time. a similar method would be to group the films by the actor playing Bond. That gives the Sean Connery and Roger Moore eras a longer analysis, and doesn’t take into account the one George Lazenby outing. I could also group three movies together, based on the order being used.

The order, though, is another question. There’s the order of the books, starting with Casino Royale. Using this order means jumping around in the film continuity, such as it exists, and several of the movies have titles that come from other aspects of the character instead of story titles, such as The World Is Note Enough. Movie order may be easier – the films may be better known now by the general audience than the books.

Much like the History of Adaptations, the Bond project won’t be week by week. Instead, the goal will be to have an entry each month, with the intervening weeks being saved for other analyses. This will give me time to read the novels and watch the movies again without being rushed. Right now, though, I’m taking suggestions on the approach. Would the best approach be reviewing one movie at a time or grouping the movies together? What order would be best, the books or the films? And should I touch the non-franchise films? Please answer in the comments below.

This will be a big project, but I hope that it will show the range of adapting styles used in cinema.

Big budget blockbusters. Tentpole pictures tested and refined. Studios so risk adverse they run a lunch order past a test audience before committing. Save the cat!

The desire and need for studios to turn a profit leaves little room for new cult classics. Granted, a cult classic is a film that gained a small, dedicated audience instead of having a greater mainstream appeal. Cult classics stumble at the box office but have longevity; The Rocky Horror Picture Show is one of the top grossing film of the Seventies as a result. Today, movies need to be hit over the opening weekend or they’re considered failures. Studios compete for opening days. The result – movies either soar or they’re bland; crashing and burning is rare.

The problem coming up is a lack of innovation. Avatar showed that 3-D could be used to create an immersive experience, but few films used the film technique for anything beyond cheap scares and roller coaster rides. James Cameron took the risk, but he had a number of successes, including Titanic, to persuade the studio that he could succeed. Avatar had people returning to theatres for second and third viewings. The lesson the other studios learned? People will go to 3-D movies. Not, “People will go out for immersive experiences,” or, “People appreciate innovative work when done well.”

The lack of innovation, especially when married to the Save the Cat approach to scripts, means that, after a while, all movies start looking the same. Does “Washed out hero is forced to work with others to save the world,” sound like Guardians of the Galaxy or Battleship? The difference is often just execution. Granted, this sort of thing comes in waves. The Seventies had disaster movies*; the Eighties had science fiction and sequels. The Western was a staple until Heaven’s Gate and still appears from time to time. Superhero movies aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. The Eighties, though, show more variety even with the sequels. Not every movie succeeded, but there was room for other movies outside the Star Wars sequels and Indiana Jones films, from Short Circuit to The Breakfast Club to UHF to Weekend at Bernie’s to Alien From L.A. Not every film succeeded at the theatres, but there was variety.

The core issue is money. Studios don’t want to lose $200 million on a bad movie. At the same time, studios don’t see a problem in investing $200 million in a movie that follows a checklist. Battleship wears the checklist on its sleeve. Even comedies are getting into increased budgets. The Hangover 3 had a budget in the same neighbourhood as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. On the flip side, Johnny Mnemonic (1995) was first developed for a $3 million budget and the studio turned the idea down, but then accepted it when the budget was upped to $30 million.

This isn’t to say that cult classics don’t happen. They’re rare. Few people set out to create one, and deliberate attempts to be a cult classic tend to fail. Today, though, the elements that turn a movie into a cult hit get weeded out during the checklist and further removed with all the audience testing that happens. A movie that fails at the box office isn’t necessarily bad; it’s just bland. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li suffered this fate. Names could have been changed with no effect on the film. The earilier Street Fighter: The Movie may have been cheesy, but it was a better adaptation and it is more fun to watch**. Same goes with Flash Gordon; it was a fine cheddar, but the supporting cast and the soundtrack transform the film into the classic it is.

Today, the only way either Street Fighter or Flash Gordon could be made they way they were is if there was a big star attached. Granted, that is how Street Fighter was made, with Jean-Claude van Damme and Raul Julia. Today, much of the humour would be toned down or removed, turning the action-comedy to either pure action or an action-drama. The heart would be gone.

All of the above ignores television. The SyFy channel is the new home for B-movies, with such luminaries as Sharktopus, Lavalatula, and the Sharknado trilogy. Low budget monster movies with cheap CGI effects with an audience that wants to see that type of movie. It’s not the same; SyFy’s B-movies follow their own formula, mostly combining an animal with something else, either another animal or a natural disaster. Again, it comes down to execution and, for these movies, chutzpah.

Will the cheese return to the big screen? Eventually. Universal Studios managed to have a profitable summer without a non-franchise blockbuster. Outside Jurassic World and Fast and Furious 7, Universal’s line up has been of reasonable budgets, allowing for fewer losses on a movie that falls flat and huge profits for their successes, including Fifty Shades of Grey***. If other studios follow Universal’s lead, and give that a few years, the lower budgets means there’s room to experiment and try something different. An unsuccessful experiment won’t cost as much, especially if it does well on DVD. A successful one means that a larger budget can be assigned for similar in the future.
* Until Airplane! skewered the airplane crash genre so thoroughly.
** Raul Julia alone is worth seeing in the film. Having Adrian Cronauer as the Armed Forces Radio announcer was genius.
*** $40 million budget, over $560 million in box office take globally.  That sort of success allows Universal to try another $40 million movie and not worry about failure.

The silver screen has been the pinnacle of Hollywood since the early days of Hollywood.  Movies occupy the top rung of the creative hierarchy, towering over television.  Actors work hard to get their big break, looking to move from TV to the big screen.  For adaptations, movies are both a blessing and a curse.  A film adaptation means that an author has reached enough of an audience that a studio has noticed.  On the downside, few books survive the process of being adapted.

Over the past fifty to sixty years, the average length of a book has grown over the past 50 years, with doorstoppers common today.  There are exceptions, naturally; each book of The Lord of the Rings was far longer than the other fantasy novels of the time.  At the same time, The Lord of the Rings became the template for modern fantasy works, leading to series such as The Wheel of Time and A Game of Thrones.  With the increased length comes more detail, more plot points, more action, all of which makes it difficult to put into a feature film.

Typically, a theatrically released movie is from ninety minutes to two hours long, with a few going under to eighty-five or over to three hours.  Any shorter, and the audience starts wondering about the cost of seeing something so short.  Longer, and audience fatigue sets in unless the film is kept tight so that the viewers don’t notice the passage of time.  The time limit means that something from the original work has to give.  Usually, the decision is to remove scenes that will confuse the audience or that don’t add to the plot.  Such partial adaptations can work; Blade Runner, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and Jurassic Park all kept to the core story while still excising elements that detracted from the plot.  However, if the wrong elements are removed, or the story is so intertwined that removing elements causes the story to fall flat, movies can fail.  The Dragonlance animated film is a good example; with a ninety minute running time, the movie felt shallow, missing concepts that made the original work breathe.

The problem grows if the original work is part of a series that isn’t yet complete.  While Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was successful both as a movie and as an adaptation, some parts of the story that became important in later book were removed for the sake of fitting the movie into a decent running time.  With Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the studio decided to split the book into two movies to avoid rushing the story in just one.  Likewise, The Hobbit became three movies in part to give the plot the time it needed to unfold.

With short stories and novellas, the problem doesn’t quite go away.  A short story may not have enough plot to last even ninety minutes, requiring padding.  A good example is the Ian Fleming story, “The Living Daylights”.  The story has 007 protecting a Soviet defector from a sniper.  In the movie, The Living Daylights, the original story takes up about twenty minutes of screen time, leaving over one hundred minutes to be filled.

The answer, though, isn’t to stop adapting books.  Given the risk aversion in Hollywood, not adapting anything is off the table.  One solution is to take into account book length.  Going back to James Bond, the movie versions of both Dr. No and Casino Royale stayed close to the original works, with little to no scenes added or removed.  Longer books could be broken into parts, though if the first movie fails at the box office, the rest of the story won’t be filmed.

Another solution is to take a hard look at adapting the work for television.  Whether the work becomes a regular series or a mini-series, the adaptation isn’t as dependant on the vagueries of the international market.  With mini-series, the full novel will be shown in a short span, long enough to get the immediate ratings, but not long enough for the network or cable channel to end the adaptation early.  In a regular series, the adaptation will have the time it needs to build the world and establish characters, but poor ratings could kill the show before the work has been fully aired.  However, cable channels aren’t as beholden to the Neilsens as the broadcast networks are.  Dexter, True Blood, and A Game of Thrones all thrived as series, with each book becoming a season in the series.

Reducing the size of novels is a non-starter.  As mentioned earlier, The Lord of the Rings became not only a classic but also a template for writers inspired by it.  It is rare to find a stand-alone fantasy novel that isn’t a tie-in to a property such as Dungeons & Dragons.  Science fiction does have them, but given the time and effort needed for worldbuilding, recycling the work becomes tempting when looking at building a new universe from scratch.  There’s also the readers’ reaction; the price of books has crossed a point where buyers are expecting not just a good story, but a long one to match the cover price.  A short book just doesn’t have the physical weight that readers want.

In short, the glamour of the movies needs to be balanced with the idea that two hours just isn’t enough time to do justice to today’s works.

Next week, Smokey and the Bandit.

Last week’s link round up included several movies being turned into TV series and one TV series being adapted as a movie. The former tends to be successful; the format of a series allows the development of characters and plots over more time. TV series adapted into movies haven’t had the same success. The root cause has been a lack of respect to both the original material and the fans.

Lost in Translation hasn’t looked at many TV series adapted to movies. The more successful ones, like Star Trekand The Naked Gun were made with the original creative staff and cast; the transition was to take what was being done on television to the big screen. In the case of The Naked Gun, the move allowed the creators to indulge without having to worry about restrictions imposed by the network’s Broadcast Standards and Practices group. Meanwhile, works like Land of the Lost and Starsky & Hutch played the ideas behind the original shows for laughs, missing the point of the original work. The A-Team remake ran into the passage of time; The Vietnam War was still lurking in American culture when the TV series debuted while the Gulf Wars didn’t affect the American psyche with returning soldiers vilified.

This leads to the news of Dwayne Johnson, “The Rock” himself, being cast to play Colt Seavers in a Fall Guy remake movie. For those not familiar with the show, The Fall Guy was about a stuntman who moonlighted as a bounty hunter to make ends meet. Colt would use tricks of the stunt trade to help track down the men and women who skipped bail, with the help of his cousin Howie and fellow stunt performer Jody. The show was light action/adventure, with humour coming from the byplay between the core cast. Note that the show wasn’t a comedy, though; the humour came from reactions of characters. The trick is to trim back the 80s era cheese while still keeping the core of The Fall Guy and also feature Johnson and give him a solid role to build on. At the same time, Johnson brings in his own physicality and can bring a new dimension to the character. Ultimately, Johnson has to respect Lee Majors’ work while adding his own element.

What holds for The Fall Guy holds for other movie treatments of old TV series. Just because the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s had different approaches to televised storytelling doesn’t mean that series from those decades can be easily held up for ridicule. The shows did have a following; what is seen as cheesy now was once ground breaking. The grim darkness of today’s works will be seen in similar light in time. Respect for the original work and its fans is critical to success.

Next week, Doom.

After wrapping up the Avengers Adaptation series last week, I started wondering what was in store for adaptations of comic books. If you’ve followed along here at MuseHack, you’ll have noted the posts about the movie meltdown coming. From Spielberg to Cracked.com, the current bubble is predicted to pop, possibly as early as 2015. Meanwhile, Marvel Studios and Warner Brothers have a number of big screen adaptations in planning. Add in companies like Dark Horse Comics, and the comic book movie looks to be a mainstay until the pop.

First, Marvel Studios has a number of sequels related to The Avengers, including Thor: The Dark World and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Outside the Avenger titles, Marvel’s taking a risk with Guardians of the Galaxy, based on an older title of space-faring heroes. Another risk, though linking back to The Avengers, is the Ant-Man movie. Marvel did succeed with the movies leading to The Avengers despite the characters being lesser known. What may help is Marvel Studios using existing storylines from the comics. That still leaves the question on whether audiences are willing to give the non-sequel movies a shot. Summer of 2013 has audiences not turning out for the big-budget blockbusters as they had in the past.

Marvel Studios isn’t the only studio adapting Marvel titles. Fox has the rights to the X-Men and related titles and characters and have released The Wolverine and is working on X-Men: Days of Future Past combining the original X-trilogy with X-Men: First Class. Sony has the rights to Spider-Man and has rebooted the series.

Over at Warner, owner of Marvel’s Distinguished Competition, the success rate of movies depends on whether it centres around Batman. Man of Steel underperformed at the box office. The Green Lantern fizzled. Catwoman bombed. The Dark Knight trilogy did do well, though. The advantage Warner has is that it holds all the rights to the DC characters. If they need a character, they have the access. However, the lesson that Warner learned is that dark, grey, and gritty is the way to go, leading to Man of Steel. Warner’s next adaptation is based on World’s Finest, a Batman-Superman movie. Meanwhile, a Justice League movie may be on its way, thanks to the success of The Avengers, but this would put Warner into the position of catching up with Marvel. With The Green Lantern‘s middling success and the studio having no idea what to do with Wonder Woman, that leaves the rest of the classic team in limbo. Aquaman would need a Dini-verse makeover. The Flash would mean trying to pick which Flash* to use. There is a Flash movie in the works for 2016, though.  The character does not work in a grim and gritty story. Other than Batman, the Green Arrow has had some success through the TV series Arrow

Adding to the movie implosion of 2013 is R.I.P.D., an adaptation of a Dark Horse comic of the same name. The comic doesn’t have the same name space in pop consciousness, so the failure of the movie shouldn’t impact the title. However, by being off the pop culture radar, the movie had to rely solely on marketing, a problem plaguing several releases over the past few years, including John Carter. While Marvel Studios, Fox, Sony, and Warner have the money to get word of a movie out to everyone if they wish**, a lesser movie won’t get the money behind it. R.I.P.D. did have marketing, but audiences stayed away.

Marvel managed to capture attention using the Avengers Initiative and high quality movies. Warner needs to play catch up without looking like a Marvel imitator, making the success of a Justice League movie difficult.

Next week, Blade Runner

* Jay Garrick, Barry Allen, and Wally West have all taken up the mantle of the Flash in DC Comics.
** For a counter-example, see John Carter. Please.

Adventure novels have gone through their own evolution. Novels by Alistair MacLean (The Guns of Navarone among many others) and Ian Fleming (of 007 fame) gave way to the creation of the techno-thriller. While Tom Clancy is seen as the start point for the techno-thriller genre, both Robert Ludlum and Craig Thomas had novels out a decade before. Thomas could be seen as taking Fleming’s setting and bringing it into alignment with the reality of the Cold War*. Starting with Rat Trap in 1976, Thomas showed a grittier, more realistic look at espionage, showing missions at several levels, including the agents on the ground and the MI6 heads revising plans as better intelligence arrived.

In 1977, Thomas released his second novel, Firefox. In the story, the Soviet Union had developed a new fighter jet, the MiG-31**, that incorporated stealth technology, could reach Mach 5, and had a weapons system controlled by the pilot’s thoughts. At the time of publication, the B-2 stealth bomber was in development and the fastest aircraft were the SR-71 Blackbird, reaching Mach 3.2, and the Soviet MiG-25 “Foxbat”, reaching Mach 3. Thought control was in the realm of science fiction at the time, but is now available to the general public. In the novel, an advance like the Firefox would upset the balance between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

To counter the Soviet breakthrough, Kenneth Aubry, one of Thomas’s recurring characters, devises a brash plan. He recruits American pilot and Vietnam war veteran Mitchell Gant to sneak into the Soviet Union and steal one of the MiG-31 prototypes. Aubry’s choice of Gant boiled down to the American fitting the pilot’s uniform and helmet. Gant, however, has Post-Traumatic Stress from his experiences in Vietnam; Aubry is well aware and trusts that the stress won’t affect Gant’s flying abilities.

To get Gant into the Soviet Union, Aubry uses up several contacts and dissidents. The main goal is to get the Firefox. After arriving in Moscow, Gant meets the dissidents, gets another false identity, and is taken to Bilyarsk, where the MiG-31 is being tested. Once there, Gant sneaks in, creates confusion, and steals the Firefox. Once in the air, he’s invisible to radar and satellite. He lets himself be seen by an Aeroflot crew before changing to his real course. Meanwhile, the Soviet Air Marshal begins to realize the sort of chess game he’s in and gets reconnaissance craft, both air and sea, to cover the northern routes while telling the crews to seach for the stolen Firefox’s heat signature. The second Firefox prototype is sent to destroy Gant’s jet.

Adptations in the 80s were mainly made to exploit the name and make a quick buck. Writers didn’t have the pull that JK Rowling, Stephanie Meyer, and Suzanne Collins do today. However, when the producer, director, and owner of the studio enjoyed the book and wants to bring it to the silver screen, the chance of a good adaptation rises. Clint Eastwood had read the book and thought it would make for a good movie. His studio, Malpaso, shot the film for $21 million, most of which were on the special effects. The movie follows the book as close as it can, though at times feeling a little shallow from the transition – the book delved into the focus characters’ thoughts and brought forth imagery of the locations. Eastwood, who also starred as Mitchell Gant, keeps close to the events in the book, only adding little details. One detail, Gant’s flashback, made it into the novel Firefox Down, which picked up from the end of Firefox.

There are some interesting elements in the story and movie. Wolf Kahler played the head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov. During filming, Andropov replaced Leonid Breznev, and the world saw what he looked like for the first time, which was nothing like Wolf Kahler. The fictional MiG-31 took design elements from the SR-71 and the XB-70. The outer skin the B-2 stealth bomber wound up having elements in common with the Firefox. Thought control has since been relegated to toys, but the voice commands used to trigger the thought impulses needed are making their way to commercial uses, such as Apple’s Siri.

The likelihood of Firefox being remade today is low. Both the novel and the movie are artifacts of the Cold War that ended almost twenty-five years ago. The remake would have to be done as a period piece, but that could drive away the younger audience. That said, Firefox shows what can be done when the studio makes an effort to adapt a work properly. With Clint Eastwood as star, director, producer, and head of Malpaso, meddling by the executive suite was removed from the efforts, leading to a good adaptation.

Next week, the ultimate Avengers Adaptation review.

* The Cold War plays a huge element in this review. While an extensive knowledge isn’t needed, if things get confusing, the BBC and the History Learning Site have summaries that can help.
** There was a real MiG-31, codenamed “Foxhound”, in production at the time of publication. Its specifications are nowhere near as groundbreaking as its fictional counterpart’s. The real MiG-31 entered service while Firefox was being filmed.

 

Early in Lost in Translation‘s run, I covered Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. The movie, while being successful at the box office, had its problems – awkward moments, odd pacing, weak writing. The entire Star Wars prequel series shared the problems, with a romance between Padmé and Anakin that felt rushed in Attack of the Clones. The sheer amount of events to be covered in just three movies was one of the primary causes; at best, only highlights of the Clone Wars, specifically, the beginning and the end, could be touched. Characters came and went without much fanfare but with backstory connected to the main characters; Clone Commander Cody and General Grievous both appeared from nowhere* but had met Obi-Wan previously.

The Star Wars Expanded Universe may hold the key to fixing the problems the prequels had, though. Instead of patching in details afterwards, the concept of a larger universe could be built up prior to the first production’s release. The idea changes from filling in plot holes and introducing characters who become important in a movie to laying out groundwork for projects that connect as a whole. The rushed romance in Attack of the Clones can be expanded on and given the time it needs in a televison series, which was the case with the Star Wars: The Clone Wars CGI-animated series. The animated series also showed Anakin’s slow fall to the Dark Side, making his Face-Heel Turn in Revenge of the Sith far more believable.

The key to this approach is to capture the audience’s attention and curiosity. In the past, the goal of a TV series, especially a science fiction series, was to get enough episodes for syndication and enough of a following to justify a movie. Books are routinely turned into films. Right now, there is a massive boom in comic book movies. Even tabletop role-playing games aren’t immune; Gary Gygax had been trying to get his Dungeons & Dragons RPG for two decades. The silver screen has been considered the ultimate production for some time now. However, Hollywood is running into problems. We here at Musehack have been covering it, from The Lone Ranger‘s belly-flop** to movie fatigue to Steve’s look at the inevitable bubble popping. Cable television is getting more attention, thanks to series like Dexter, True Blood, and A Game of Thrones. Even animated series are getting attention. Thus, use the movie as a pilot. Plan out movies to deal with big events in the plot line and use television to deal with reactions, romances, and slower moving yet still needed plotlines. Movies have limited run times; few people will sit for longer than two hours unless the movie is riveting. Television, however, allows for a more expanded plot. If the villain is manipulating people like pawns, a movie will make him or her obvious, while a television series can use subtle moments that lead to the reveal. The Clone Wars is a great example of watching a chessmaster play both sides of a conflict.

Let’s take Star Wars as an example. George Lucas released the original Star Wars first because it was self-contained and it got to the heart of the main conflict. If the movie failed, no cliffhangers would be left dangling. Star Wars would still be the first movie to be released if everything was pre-planned. Get the audience’s attention with leading edge special effects and a classic storyline. Afterwards, a TV series showing the fighting between the Rebellion and the Empire, introducing more setting elements and Vader’s search for the pilot who destroyed the Death Star, with everything leading up to The Empire Strikes Back. People following the TV series would know why the Rebels are on Hoth and the screen crawl would catch others up on events. Following Empire, a new TV series that leads people up to the events of Return of the Jedi, including Luke’s training, the search for Han, and the discovery of the second Death Star. The prequels can follow a similar format. The Phantom Menace introduces the new series, shows the beginning of the fall of the Republic. The follow-up TV series shows Anakin’s training, the budding romance between Anakin and Padmé, and early machinations of Darth Sidious, leading to Attack of the Clones. The next TV series is, essentially, The Clone Wars, leading to Revenge of the Sith. Optional TV series or series of series to bridge the gap between the fall of the Republic and the attack on the first Death Star.

The problem is audience fatigue. Star Trek ran into the fatigue problem when Star Trek: Enterprise lost its audience. Enterprise followed directly after fourteen straight years of Trek, from the beginning of The Next Generation to the end of Voyager, with a seven year period where Deep Space Nine accompanied the other two series***. The franchise should have allowed to lie fallow for a few years, until viewers wanted more instead of just expected a Trek show to be on. A project that incorporated both movies and television would need to be aware of the risk of a falling audience. The other problem is trying to get the audience in the first place. If the first movie fails, the audience for the project may not exist; no studio is going to throw more money into a project that has already floundered. The work put into the setting up the film-and-TV series will go to waste, possibly to be integrated into other works.

Back-filling, for now, may be how movies get plot holes fixed. With Hollywood seeing a burst bubble on the horizon, a new approach may be needed.

Next week, Ma and Pa Kettle.

* Actually, in non-movie works. Grievous first appeared in a Star Wars comic.
** Despite having a shirtless Johnny Depp in leather pants.
*** Three year overlap with TNG, four years with Voyager. Twenty-one years of Star Trek in a fourteen year period, ignoring syndicated reruns of the original series.

Welcome to Lost in Translation‘s quick series about the ins and outs of adapting games to television and film.* As seen since the first post, if something is popular, someone else will want to adapt it to a different medium. Today, 2013, the most likely medium to adapt from elsewhere is the Hollywood film.

Part I – Video Games
Part II – Boardgames
Part III – Tabletop Role-Playing Games
Part IV – Adapting Games to Games

Tabletop Role-Playing Games

A relatively new form of gaming, tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) evolved from fantasy wargaming. The grandpappy of RPGs, Dungeons & Dragons came from adding elements to the Chainmail rule set allowing for individual characters to gain experience. From those humble beginnings, RPGs have spread to cover almost every conceivable genre, from swords & sorcery to space opera, historical romance to post-apocalyptic horror, Wild West to hard science fiction. Players take on the role of their character, unravelling the Game Master’s (GMs) plots.** The simplest and oldest of plots is the dungeon exploration, where a group of specialists go into a structure to kill the inhabitants and take their belongings.

For the purposes of this week’s entry, I’ll be including tabletop wargaming. RPGs were originally an offshoot of wargaming. Several franchises, such as Warhammer and Battletech have related role-playing lines. Other franchises, such as Traveller had tactical and strategic wargames based off the RPG’s setting.

I’ll return again to the four elements noted in Part I – plot, setting, characters, and gameplay. Each of these need to be acknowledged and included for an adaptation to succeed. With RPGs, though, the plot and characters are created by the players. Some games, notably Steve Jackson’s GURPS and Hero Games’ Champions, come without a setting in the core rules. Gameplay may be critical; players will want to be able to duplicate what the characters do on-screen.

If plot is player created, then what can the writers do? Ideally, they can figure out the sort of adventures player characters (PCs) are meant to go on. A fantasy game tends to imply an epic. Dungeons & Dragons should also include a dungeon*** and a dragon; some items are just expected. Meanwhile, the cyberpunk/Tolkien-esque fantasy fusion Shadowrun should involve a group of specialists hired to be expendable assets who break into a mega-corporate facility to retrieve the plot coupon, as in the shadowruns the title implies. Not all RPGs provide such inspiration, though. The various editions of Traveller allow GMs to create a huge sandbox for the players to wander in, to find adventure both in space and on the ground. The writers will have to pick a potential plotline out of supplemental material. Other games, such as TSR’s Boot Hill and R. Talsorian’s Mekton, bring their genres to the table to play in; in the examples given, Westerns and giant mecha anime, respectively. At this point, why license (other than to get the name)?

For games that come packaged with a setting, most of the work is done. Typically, there’s still room left for GMs to add their own twists, but basic facts are provided to help out. Catalyst Game Labs’ Shadowrun and Battletech and Alderac Entertainment Group’s 7th Sea are good examples, coming with a well-formed setting in each game mentioned plus numerous supplements that expand options. In Shadowrun‘s case, the history of the world from 2012 until 2070 is given, including the return of magic, the fragmentation of nations, and the rise of the mega-corporations. Battletech provides the background of factions, the different types of gear, including the game’s king of the battlefield, the BattleMech, and the various fronts of the wars between 2375 and 3072. 7th Sea shows a fictional Earth, called Théah, its history, and the political alliances that form the backdrop to a campaign. An adaptation needs to remember these details; players will be looking for them. Some items, such as history, can be glossed over, be referenced in throwaway line, or even forgotten about if the characters don’t care about the matter. However, ignoring the fracturing of Canada and the US in Shadowrun/ or dropping an alliance from 7th Sea because it’s inconvenient to the plot will have players complaining, killing word-of-mouth.

Characters for an RPG adaptation gives the writers room to maneuver. In some settings, there are a number of key non-player characters, such as Elminster for the Forgotten Realms and Seattle Governor Kenneth Brackhaven in Shadowrun. They don’t need to appear necessarily, but their existance may provide some inspiration for writers. Ideally, the characters created for the adaptation should be possible under the game’s character generation system. That said, most games try to make it possible for believable characters. Even when the power level is stratospheric, there needs to be room for character improvement. The other question is how experienced the characters of the adaptation are. Level based games such as Wizard of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons and Palladium Games’ Rifts start new PCs as youngsters heading out to adventure at the beginning of their career. Even games that aren’t based around levels can start PCs as rookies; White Wolf’s Vampire: The Masquerade had PCs start as recently turned vampires. Other games, the various Travellers in particular, had PCs begin play with a years of experience under their belt. Still other games allowed for a variety of prior life experience, from the hot-shot rookie to the world-weary veteran, before play started. The key here for writers is to make sure that the main characters reflect what’s possible. A D&D-based movie can have a mid-level**** character as the hero as long as his or her abilities match what they should be for a PC in a game of that level.

The last, gameplay, is going to be a sticky point. Game mechanics do try to represent the genre, but abstraction does happen. A PC in D&D can keep going without a drawback as long as his or her hit point total remains above zero. Loss of hit points represents minor scrapes, twisted ankles, fatigue, and luck, but there is no mechanical disadvantage for being wounded. On screen, people may have trouble setting aside suspension of disbelief and believing that the fighter who just took an arrow to the knee can still run. Some mechanics may have to be set aside. However, if the game system uses Vancian magic+ and a wizard in the adaptation keeps casting Fireball multiple times without stopping to pull out his or her spellbook, there’s a problem. Writers need to keep the mechanics in the back of their mind to prevent glaring mistakes.

There hasn’t been many movie and TV adaptations of RPGs. The main factor is that tabletop RPGs are a niche market. Many exist to let players play in a specific genre, so adapting one of those games can seem silly. The best known RPG has had two adaptations; Dungeons & Dragons was first adapted as a Saturday morning cartoon, then later as a movie.  Vampire: The Masquerade was turned into an Aaron Spelling nighttime soap called Kindred: The Embraced, lasting eight episodes. Over in Japan, the fantasy RPG Sword World became the basis for the novel series and anime Record of Lodoss War, based on the creator’s home campaign. The mecha wargames and RPGs Battletech and Heavy Gear have been turned into animated series. At one point, Rifts was optioned by Jerry Bruckheimer, though that seems to be at least stuck in development.

Record of Lodoss War may be the route to use, at least for a TV series – base the series off an actual campaign that has been played. The characters will have been developed, the setting is already fleshed out, and plot lines will have flowed from events naturally. For movies, the best way may be to give the game a test play and see if the results were both fun and lead to exciting visuals.

Next week, part IV, adapting games as games.

* And theatre, though I’d be surprised if someone made that leap.
** Like a cat unravels a wool sweater.
*** Or other underground structure.
**** Levels 5 through 8 or so. Enough to start dealing with serious threats without becoming responsible for a town’s security.
+ Magic where spellcasters memorize a spell, then release it later, “forgetting” the spell afterwards. Named after Jack Vance, who used the method in his works.