Saturday, December 1, 2012

comic book characters and the movies

comic books are like movies, except you read with your eyes while your mind puts together the movie in your mind. The very idea of a super hero movie had been kicked along for a while before it ever happened. It was the technology that needed to improve, but still it was along time coming.
   The first one that really hit its mark was Superman with Christopher Reeves, it was very well done, a little dorky and Jokey but still a serious effort, though the Lex Luthor character as compared to the villains in the Dark knight series come off as silly, Superman 2 was also excellent and in fact may have been better then its antecedent, but superman 3 was a dud.
  Timothy Burtons Batman was also excellent but once again the villain come off as second rate, Jack Nichlson Joker is silly, as though that is what is expected of Villians in comic book movies, and lets not even talk about Danny Devito as the Penguin in Batman 2 or Michelle Pfiefer as Catwomen.
   Batman 3 was so bad it threatened to destroy the whole idea of movies based on comic book heroes, and then things changed.
 For some reason Marvel was having problems getting its characters on the big screen, all kinds of law suits, people screwing around while their was real money to be made on screen and dvd etc. Finally they got a movie to screen, the terrible beyond belief Fantastic Four. Some how they found the nerve to make another one, i guessed they learned from their mistake, and this time they got it all right, they found the perfect cast, perfect director and the X-men was awesome.
   They followed this with a great Spiderman 2 years later and we were off and running. X-men 2 and Spiderman 2 made a fortune and people  were looking to make more superhero movies, and we got a reboot of Batman. But THIS batman was different then the last version, this movie was deadly serious, and the villains were worth advesaries, Then Iron Man and then the incredible game changer of all game changers: The Dark Knight. This movie just wasn't successful…it became the highest grossing movie of all time, a literal cultural phenomena.
   Over this past summer both the Avengers and Dark Knight rises ruled the box office and sold lots of popcorn for the owners of movie theaters
  what has been shown is this, if the studies are going to be serious and put the money with great special effects, great directors and serious actors, not too mention compelling stories, they can make a fortune, on these characters who have literally been entertaining people for years before they were ever near a movie screen, because the characters are great and compelling, with excellent villains and characters.
   Its just like the comic books, the x-men comic was ready to be canceled because the people writing tim and drawing them didn't have that spark that people recognize immediately and thats what you must  have. Daredevil is a great character but that movie was a bust, in the hands of the right man, it could be just as great as the Dark knight.
   I don't know if the Fantastic Four can ever be a good movie, the powers of the heroes are too tough to duplicate on screen, i mean Reed Richards stretching ability looks almost silly on screen, and the Thing is so hard to duplicate, and sues power is invisibility for goodness sake, how can you even show it, its a shame, when it comes to characters The Fantastic Four has it all, the perfect Villian The Darth Vader like Doctor Doom, allies The Silver Surfer, and its a great bunch of characters, Reed is as Brave as Bruce Wayne and when it comes to intelligence he's Tony Stark times three, Sue is beautiful and Reed has a Rival in the Namor the Submariner for her affections, The Ben Grimm character is a tragic character, a handsome man turned into a walking freak show but with the strength to go toe to toe with the hulk and a hero through and through, and Johny i guess he's the Justine Beiber of the group and that will bring in the young girls.
   Its the idea of rebooting The Batman character and then building a trilogy around that vision that was the real game changer, now if you make a bad version of let say Daredevil just reboot it with a different director and star.

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