h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Anyone want to talk about a particularly good/bad comic-based book/film/TV-series they've encountered? Why are most of them so bad? Should Hollywood just stop trying?

A major problem in translating comics to movies is that the moviemakers try and pack too much "stuff" from the comic book into the movie, and not enough of its essence.

My biggest bugbear is with the Judge Dredd movie. They completely misread the essence of Dredd (from my POV anyway). Dredd is less about action heroism and gratuitous violence (though the latter is an important facet), and more about satire largely directed at "fascist US law enforcement". And they gave him emotions. E-FRIGGIN'-MOTIONS!!! This is NOT the Dredd I've been reading all these years. Even that Dredd-ripoff Robocop had more emotions than Dredd. Sure, Joe isn't completely heartless, sure, he'll save a kid from a burning building, but if the kid has an illegal substance like sugar, he'll be in an isocube before his clothes stop smouldering.

And they didn't capture the comic's style of storytelling either. Dredd isn't so much a character as an archetype, a symbol of absolute and unwavering law & order, in a city of chaos. Many stories I've read in 2000AD only use Dredd as a plot device, usually the terminus of a story. (My fave? A Judge Cadet directs the actions of a Senior Judge as part of his training, in this case Dredd. The endings a doozy!) So I could see a movie about Dredd being more like Pulp Fiction or that great Simpson's episode "22 Short Films about Springfield", a series of character vignettes, all with Dredd as the common plot thread, and perhaps with little seeds of a bigger plot brewing in the background for the finale.

It might go something like hostage drama, pro-democracy riot, Judge Amok, then perhaps a Sov Judge plot for the big finale.

I apologise for going on so long, but I've been mulling over that one for some time. (And no pinching my script ideas!!!)

Yeah, I saw the movie again the other night and it's *so poor*. I mean when they said they wanted to explore Dredd's character (which is why they let Sly take the helmet off) alarm bells started ringing. The guy doesn't really have a character, he's this literally faceless authority figure.

I get completely what you mean about Dredd sometimes hardly being in the strip. Some of my favourites are those stories - the one with the guy with the giant nose, and the one about the Two-Ton Man spring to mind.

But apart from the ropey plot (wasting the Angels completely) the main problem with the film is that all the best ideas from the strip had been used in Robocop (who's basically Cyber-Dredd) and Demolition Man (satirical future society). And the strip is nearly always funny - yes, it's about a fascist police state, but somehow this is always light-hearted rather than grim. (And I think the 80s strips at least were more a reaction to and satire of Thatcher's Britain than any US situation. 2000AD in the early eighties was one of the most subversive, left-wing magazines being published.) The film got the tone completely wrong.

Doing a day-in-the-life type story as you suggest would have been a brilliant idea, but possibly a bit too quirky for a blockbuster action film.

Still, it could have been worse - could have been Judge Anderson starring Pamela-of-that-ilk...

Judge Pamela Anderson? Now there's a thought. Anyway, I can't get my brain wrapped around the idea of Hollywood making a faithful Judge Dredd movie in the spirit of 2000AD. The recent "Batman Adventures" animated series, as seen in Britain on ITV and The Cartoon Network, is much more faithful to its source, and usually a whole lot of fun, while the live-action TV series of 'The Flash' was surprisingly good, I thought, if hard to track down to actually see.

I'm not sure who I'd want to see as Judge Anderson but it's certainly not Pammy. For me the definitive Anderson was the Brett Ewins version who looked a bit like Kim Basinger. I agree that the Batman cartoon series was excellent, as was the Superman show by the same team (DC publish excellent books based on both - plus a (I think defunct) series featuring other DCU characters like Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, etc, drawn in the same style). I've only seen one episode of the Flash TV show and was not impressed. The FX were weak and the script didn't do the character justice. Putting Flash concepts in a moving image would be extremely difficult. The closest thing I've seen was the superspeed sequence in Terry Gilliam's Baron Munchausen movie.

Curiously, both Flash and Batman Animated have provided Mark Hamill with employment.

The Maxx, Sam Keith's revisionist superhero satire for Image was almost flawlessly turned into an MTV cartoon. I don't know how they managed it, but having Keith himself play a large role in production was probably it. Reading the comic now, I still hear the music and the voices from the show. Unfortunately, I think only one series was ever made, covering roughly the first 12 issues (leaving out #11, adding part of #1/2 and a few extra scenes to round things off IIRC).

Any thoughts on the new X-men film. Bryan Singer directing...any thoughts as to the casting?

Christian

I regret I'm not well-versed in his work, though I am aware of the work (some of it great) that he has done.

I don't have high hopes for the movie's success (critical or financially) but that's largely due to previous comic-to-movie efforts in which they've gone to great pains to get the right look, ignoring things like story, plot, character development. Another problem that I foresee is that this is a team movie, most if not all previous efforts have been single characters.

However they have got a pretty talented cast on their hands so it's not as if their battle is an uphill one.

One thing I noticed about the X-Men roster for the movie: no strongmen. Rogue is in her original state (ie no flight or superstrength), Colossus & Beast are absent, Wolvie & Sabretooth are abnormally strong guys but not superhumanly so. My guess/personal view is that the only films to come close to achieving a realistic feat of superhuman strength (in live-action) are The Matrix (remember Hugo Weaving smashing a brick column in the subway fight?) and Blade (just in one small scene as he's leaping from the hospital to a neighbouring rooftop). All the rest, even the Superman films, just look phony.

It may have something to do with their attempt to do the film in a semi-credible way, so its comic book origins aren't necessarily obvious. To have guys like Colossus and Juggernaut chucking buses around would be too fantastical for the tone they're trying to strike.

So long as they stay true to the spirit of the book I'll be happy. That spirit is best summed up by the blurb at the top of every front page of every issue.

"These outlaw mutants fight an endless battle to bridge the ever-widening gulf between humanity and mutantkind, protecting a world that fears and hates them."

X-Men is basically a story about racism and the most comparable film (in terms of storyline) in recent years is The Siege. In that film the American Government tries to deal with a crisis, treating every citizen of Middle Eastern descent as a potential terrorist. In the X-Men, swap Middle Eastern for Mutant and you've got the same scenario. The message in The Siege is obviously that the Government's reaction to the problem was over the top and blatantly racist. The X-Men scenario adds a new twist: what if every one of those people interred was a mutant, able to read minds, juggle main battle tanks or incinerate a city block with a blast of white-hot plasma?

Some of Marvel's greatest characters and stories have an obvious thrust in one direction, but they add little extra tidbits that make you think twice about them.

Well, I think we'll be very lucky if the movie picks up on the racist subtext simply because your average studio exec thinks - 'Comic books - kid stuff - keep it simple - bright flashy colours - hammy acting - no plot to speak of - definitely no broaching of adult issues like racism or whatever' which is basically the approach taken with every mainstream superhero film of the last five years. They're not going to risk blockbuster budgetting money on a film that may not find the right audience. Look at what happened with Mystery Men, a very smart satire of superhero books, with terrific production values, but it was a flop because the blockbuster audience didn't quite get it. They're not going to take that chance with X-Men.

I don't think you should write the film of so early. As far as you could see from Bryan Singer's: Usual Suspects, I don't think the man would jump into a project without making pretty sure that it wouln't be just another comic-turned cartoon-turned film. As we saw in the Matrix, the technical hardware is available to make superhuman feats look right (I agree, the first example where this has succeded) lets hope the Singer gets his hands one some of the FX-wizards that worked on that one. As far as plot goes, I just hope Chris Claremont has a fingerprint somewhere on the script.

Christian

Anyone heard of the italian comic Superwest? Pretty strange stuff

christian

I really hope the X-men movie rocks, and all my worries are based in trends rather than facts. It'll just need to be more like the Tim Burton Batman movies than the Joel Schumacher ones.

Joss ("Buffy") Whedon is supposed to have had a hand in the scriptwriting (they brought him in for a rewrite but Whedon doubts they used much of his stuff). Whedon definitely has a handle on superhero angst. Some episodes of Buffy could have come straight from the pages of X-Men.

Buffy's definitely got a superhero whiff about it (along with bits and pieces from all over the place). All those references to Buffy's 'secret identity' - perhaps Giles is secretly a comic collector?

Well, Buffy as Chosen One is certainly stronger and more agile than mere mortals. And she does have her own monthly comic book from Dark Horse Comics, up to #16 now, which I really ought to try reading. Early issues probably go at a premium these days, but the kindly publisher has done a trade paperback or two reprinting such tales in a more bookshelf-friendly format. We know Rupert "Ripper" Giles has a shady past, so maybe there are a few old comics in his closet, along with the obligatory skeletons...

I was thinking more of the social aspects of Buffy (but occasionally thinking of the physical ones too), eg her attempts to try and retain some semblance of a normal life while all manner of freaks and psychos are trying to rip her spine out.

Also, trying to live up to the expectations of her friends, as well as the neverending responsibility seems to weigh very heavily on her.

I read a piece on Buffy recently which made direct reference to Stan Lee's famous 'with great power comes great responsibility' quote. Except the 'great power' in Buffy's case is the power that comes from sexual maturity. Or something. Ahem. When the 'Ripper' Giles storyline got started and we learned his history I couldn't help thinking there were shades of John Constantine in his background (but Giles has obviously taken elocution lessons).