The 8 Worst Comic-Book Movie Canon Changes, Part 2
Since the days of the first flickering images, we have known that film adaptations of existing stories have to have some differences from their source material. With each film version of a book, TV show, play, or even other movie, we know things will change in some form or fashion.
Comic-book movies are no exception, though comic collectors may come off as more vocal or even whinier than most. While “Guardians of the Galaxy” no doubt deviates from its source material, the spirit of the source is still there. Fellow Film Yapper Evan Dossey and I, each self-avowed comic-book nerds (perhaps he more than me, though) recently discussed our least-favorite, most radical, and perhaps most nonsensical changes from comic-book source to celluloid. Here’s how our discussion went down.
Joe: "Daredevil" was full of those head-scratching moments. I remember my first indication that things were off was Daredevil's patrol, where's he's leaping rooftop to rooftop, and he executes this really stupidly impossible leap from one rooftop to the next where he does sort of a mid-air backflip. It just looked fake and stupid. That movie could easily have been really terrific, which makes it that much more disappointing.
Speaking of movies that are mostly good, let's go back to the granddaddy-Superman. For 2/3 of "Superman II," it's arguably the best superhero movie EVER. Superman vs. three Kryptonian criminals? Yes, please, at least until "Superman II"'s really terrible finale at the Fortress of Solitude, where Superman starts replicating himself, teleporting, turning invisible, and, in a move that admittedly the 5-year-old me thought was wicked cool, peeling a layer of the Superman shield from his suit and turning it into this quasi-cellophane super-net that he throws onto Non.
Of course, we'd already overlooked Zod using the Finger Ray of Death on that farmer and telekenesis to take the Sheriff's shotgun, but this was all too much. Then (although it's a little fuzzy), Superman apparently MURDERS all three of them by knocking them into the bowels of the Fortress (though I like the think they fell into a supervillain prison of some sort). Of course this is all capped off by the Super Memory Extraction Kiss to Lois Lane. Ludicrous, and a gutless move in a movie that otherwise demonstrated a lot of them. To be fair, that shoot was extraordinarily ambitious for its time and was a logistical nightmare, but it's pretty easy to see the switch from Richard Donner to Richard Lester on film as things get increasingly ridiculous.
Evan: Superman' had quite the history in films, and it isn't one of gradual improvement. "Man of Steel" is the exception to the rule of "characters get better over time," a movie where Superman has zero agency in his role as humanity's protector. Under the direction of Zack Snyder, Superman as a character is a foil, a pretty-faced hollow man, who follows a story because the script dictates it rather than by his own moral code. The tragedy is, it is Superman's unique brand of morality that sets him apart from other heroes. He is the interventionist God, the creature from the stars who not only protects us, but wants to BE us, at our best. Henry Cavill's Superman hates his godhood and is all too human in the worst, most violent ways. "Superman II," for all it's faults, did not waver on who Superman is - "Man of Steel" chose to completely ignore it.
Joe: I can see that, but I'm reserving final judgment on "Man of Steel" until the next film. I agree his actions, specifically in the movie's finale, were very not-Superman-like (and wasn't even a he-had-no-choice kind of moment; why not just fly straight up into the air with Zod?), but if this movie's events become a learning moment for him, I can accept them.
Okay, now for my choice of worst comic book movie canon change of all time. I've said before that as a kid, there were two stories I wanted to see made into a movie, both surrounding Spider-Man: the death of Gwen Stacy and the black suit saga. And indeed I was geeking out like a madman the first time I saw the photo of a black-suited, angsty Spider-Man sitting atop a rainy church tower. But when I saw the way Raimi handled the black suit saga in "Spider-Man 3," to say I was disappointed is a gross understatement.
In the comics, the black suit was an alien that Spider-Man picked up on the Secret Wars planet. The suit capable of serving as a Spidey costume covering his whole body, or becoming street clothes instantly as a response to his thoughts. As a result, he rarely took it off, and it began bonding with him, and soon he found himself in less and less control of his own body. He (barely) was able to escape and capture/contain the suit (with the help of the Fantastic Four, not an option in the studio system). Later the symbiote escaped and bonded with Eddie Brock to become Venom, in my mind one of Spider-Man's coolest and most dangerous villains.
In adapting the story for the big screen, Sam Raimi and co. frankly removed everything cool and unique about the suit, i.e. the mental connection and transformative powers, and simply laid the symbiote over his existing suit. He merely wore the black suit under his clothes, and Tobey Maguire added a silly self-conscious tick for Peter where he rubbed the suit under his clothes.
Also, the realization of Peter's growing aggression was poorly displayed through lame, nerdy dance numbers and lashing out at Harry and MJ. Even the sequence where he "kills" Sandman is poorly done, because we definitely know he's not dead.
Very disappointing indeed, and even weirder when you take note of how they give Venom the suit's traditional powers, but don't devote the time to really establish him as a character. Venom should have been introduced in this movie, then had a movie more or less to himself as the villain.
Venom has a rich story that is a natural progression into an even larger threat: Carnage. Instead of devoting a movie to that very worthy storyline, they short-shrift the character entirely, killing him off after ostensibly half a movie. I'm hoping they return to the story at some point and do it justice, but I think it needs to wait until perhaps the NEXT incarnation of Spider-Man (hopefully doing more of a James Bond-style continuation rather than trying to reboot again).
Evan: I was talking about "Spider-Man 3" with some friends recently, and, absolutely. "Spider-Man 3" was a pretty awful film in general. Venom, the change in Uncle Ben's death, the complete mess that was the Harry Osborn Goblin saga. That's not to say I felt like this year's "Amazing Spider-Man 2" did much better with its interpretation of the death of Gwen Stacy, which in the comics is as defining a moment for the character as can be in monthly periodicals, but in the movie ultimately feels like an afterthought. But we've already discussed that!
If I had to come to a closing point, I'd like to flip our discussion on its head. I recently re-watched all four of the 1990's "Batman" films, each of which features amazingly poor decisions when it comes to the villains, to Batman's character, and to generally storytelling. But I couldn't help but love them. They're gonzo, oddball interpratations of the characters. Joker dancing to Prince? S&M Catwoman? Neon-glowy Gotham? Poison Ivy, the sexiest plant-woman in all of cinema? It's strange how time heals all wounds - now that we have the stellar Nolan films, it's easier to look back on what was otherwise a somewhat embarrassing era of Batman film and find some gold there.