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  1. #1
    Incredible Member Doom'nGloom's Avatar
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    Default Adaptations not being "comic accurate"

    This is a criticism that I've seen a lot when it comes to comic book adaptations. And the first thing that people latch onto is the look of actors and actresses, more specifically their race, ethnicity and gender and how it differs from the characters that they are playing. To be fair I also like to see characters on the big screen as they appear on the page and I fully understand why it is problematic to cast a caucasian actor to play a minority character due to real life societal issues that still persist today, I think I didn't need to state that but still. However I don't understand why it is such a big deal among some people that characters should look a certain way when adaptations change certain aspects far more crucial to the source material all the time. In the comics Spider-Man's web shooters and web fluid are important scientific accomplishments of Peter Parker, Raimi movies threw that away. MCU turned Tony Stark into a snarky quip machine who always has something funny to say. Ragnarok turned Thor into a funny doofus which is the complete opposite of his comic counterpart. Avengers literally erased Hank and Janet from the teams roster. I'm not necessarily saying I agree or disagree with these changes, just that physical appearance seems to take precedence over them. Even with physical appearance certain things get overlooked. Wolverine was meant to be a short, sorta ugly man, not 1.90 m tall handsome Hugh Jackman. Yet many people are fine with these changes as long as characters look certain way from what I've seen on the internet. Why is it so? Why some people question Anya Taylor Joy hypothetically playing Silver Silver and not if the movies gonna explain Zenn-La which is literally the characters origin and why he became Surfer in the first place? Why some people say Pedro Pascal doesn't look like Reed Richards as if that's the most important aspect of Reed?

    On a related note, how much deviation from the source material is too much for the posters here? Like what's the limit of that?

  2. #2
    Ultimate Member ChrisIII's Avatar
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    Read that at some point they were thinking of not using Wolverine's Canadian roots.

    David Hayter, who wrote the first two films and is Canadian himself, nixed that idea. (He's also the English voice actor for a certain other chain-smoking guy who was a government experiment at one point-Solid Snake)
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  3. #3
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    Just as a 300 page Stephen King novel is gonna take some heavy trimming to fit into a 2 hour movie, a comic character with *40 years of stories* (by a dozen or more creatives, often with vastly different interpretations on the same character!) is going to have to cut *something* to fit into the movie format.

    It's an adaptation, not a 'slavish 100% faithful recreation.' Same with plays turned into movies, or musicals adapted from Disney attractions, or any other stuff. There will be changes, some necessary, some because the adaptor thought he had a better idea than the original (and sometimes, he'll be objectively right, and sometimes, he'll be objectively wrong, and sometimes *my* reaction will be subjectively very different!). Peter Jackson's adaptation of Lord of the Rings had a few elements I liked *better* than the books, and a few where I very much preferred Tolkein's take (and there were some opinions online which I did not share, caring not a fig for Tom Bombadil, for instance, and not missing him at all!).

  4. #4

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    The thing with adaptations is that they are that, adaptations. They are meant to be faithful to the source material. Doing so has the advantage that the character design and the branding already exist, and the disadvantage that you are constrained to be faithful to the source material.

    As for the premise of the OP, it is wrong. Physical appearance IS the most crucial aspect of a character in an adaptation: it's the way the character looks, the first thing you see when you see him. As for the things that you say are "more important", let's see.

    * Spider-Man's webshooters are not treated like an important scientific accomplishment (well, perhaps in Ultimate Spider-Man). It's simply one of his "powers", and I bet that Lee and Ditko made it a mechanical device instead of part of his powerset so that he constantly ran out of it at the most inconvenient moment (as Spider-Man's initial premise was that he would be the superhero that gets into mundane problems that other superheroes do not).
    * 616 Tony Stark may not have been a quip machine, but Ultimate Tony Stark was, and the Ultimate universe was a big thing and source of inspiration when the MCU started. This didn't get from out of nowhere.
    * Thor started serious as in the comic, and stayed that way in his first 2 films and the first 2 Avengers films. But his films did not do that great, and by the time we got to Ragnarok, the MCU had a life of its own.
    * The first Avengers film already had too many lead characters as it was. And the idea was to use characters that had already appeared in previous films, but the ant-man film was in development hell for quite a time. They were not going to delay the Avengers just because they have problems with the ant-man film.
    * Wolverine is played by a handsome actor? Well, duh. It's Hollywood. ALL actors and actresses are hot, handsome, cute, or otherwise nice to look. Otherwise, the door is closed. Even the characters who are supposed in-story to be "ugly" or "not so nice" are actually nice. Ugly actors may be awesome actors regardless, but usually stay confined to B movies.

  5. #5
    Incredible Member Doom'nGloom's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ultimate Captain America View Post
    The thing with adaptations is that they are that, adaptations. They are meant to be faithful to the source material. Doing so has the advantage that the character design and the branding already exist, and the disadvantage that you are constrained to be faithful to the source material.
    If that's the case then almost none of the MCU movies are adaptations since every one of them takes huge creative liberties. Aside from the ones I listed and you tried to explain let's look at some other deviations

    * Tony's origin in MCU didn't have cold war undertones unlike 616. As for 1610 I don't remember Tony taken hostage in middle east or the organisation ten rings.
    * Bucky and Cap being roughly the same age instead of Bucky being Cap's younger sidekick.
    * Hulk being the result of trying to replicate SSS.
    * Hela being a sister to Thor and Loki
    * Star Lord's personality, Drax being alien, Moondragon literally not existing
    * Ultron having his daddy issues directed towards Tony instead of Hank
    * Civil War doesn't involve enlisted supervillains or a prison built into Negative Zone which are important plot points for that story, or the Stamford incident, or Cap surrendering at the end
    * Shuri being super smart
    * Carol predating all the Avengers except Cap
    * Thanos's whole motivation, Adam Warlock not being involved in Infinity War

    These are just the ones I can think of now. When so much is changed why draw the line at who plays a humanoid alien in metallic white color. And some aren't even consistent with this anyway. I don't remember much fuss when Ra's al Ghul was played by Liam Neeson, or when Tom Hardy played Bane.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sutekh View Post
    It's an adaptation, not a 'slavish 100% faithful recreation.'
    Exactly.

  6. #6
    Ultimate Member ChrisIII's Avatar
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    Some of these are from the Ultimate continuity, which in a few ways were 'blueprints' to the MCU, although in many cases far grimmer material.

    Peter's scientific skills (as well as Norman's) were still pretty much a big part of the films although in many cases it was told rather than shown in Raimi's stuff at least.


    Regarding the other points about adaptations, as a Bond fan I find it interesting that in many ways the film Bond is kind of it's own unique cultural entity apart from the Fleming novels, although occasionally the films do go back to mine the books for material-the Dalton and Craig Bonds, for example, were heavily tied to the book version of Bond; and two of Brosnan's films are arguably better adaptations of the novel version of Moonraker than the actual film.


    Also the Jurassic Park films go the opposite direction from the first book which sort of had Hammond be a standard evil billionare (Much of his novel characterization is given to Gennaro in the film as Ludow in the sequel)
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  7. #7
    Astonishing Member mugiwara's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ultimate Captain America View Post
    As for the premise of the OP, it is wrong. Physical appearance IS the most crucial aspect of a character in an adaptation: it's the way the character looks, the first thing you see when you see him. As for the things that you say are "more important", let's see.
    * Wolverine is played by a handsome actor? Well, duh. It's Hollywood. ALL actors and actresses are hot, handsome, cute, or otherwise nice to look. Otherwise, the door is closed. Even the characters who are supposed in-story to be "ugly" or "not so nice" are actually nice. Ugly actors may be awesome actors regardless, but usually stay confined to B movies.
    You can't say physical appearance is the most crucial thing, and then say it doesn't matter for Logan. His size is the most defining physical trait of the character (unless you count the claws, of course), his code name even comes from that.

    I wouldn't say physical appearance is the most important thing for me, but I admit there is a real pleasure to find the live action characters to look almost exactly like the comics version. To be so faithful that I could tell who they are even if they are wearing civilian clothes. Tony Stark, JJJ, Illyana... Those are perfect castings.

    The skin color is just one of the factors that matters more or less depending of the character.
    Steve has to be white, and Sam black. But it wouldn't be such a big deal if Tony were black, and Rhodey white.
    If MCU Vulture was played by an old an frail looking black actor, he would be way closer to comics Adrian Toomes than what we got. (All the rest would still be wrong, but at least, the major physical attributes of the character would be respected).
    And nobody could convince me that white Typhoid Mary from Netflix is more faithful to the comics than black Ben Urich.

    Origins, powers, personnality, appearance... There a whole set of attributes which importance depends of the character and our own subjectivity.

    For instance, I don't like the choice for Domino. They got the power and personnality right. But Domino is one of those characters whose apperance is very noticable, to the point she is named after that.
    Or let's take Ghost. It's basically a whole new character. What are the characteristics of comics Ghost? Phasing, male, white, middle-aged, bad hygiene, anti-corporations. They only got one right. Well, If I could change some of those things in the MCU version to make it closer to the comics, my order of priority would be 1 anti-corp, 2 bad hygiene, 3 male, 4 middle aged, 5 white.
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  8. #8
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    When it comes to characters...stay as close to the source material as possible...for the most well known version.

    Otherwise where to you draw the line...Male Storm played by Jaleel White? White-Trans Luke Cage played by Elliot Page? How about Billy and Teddy being straight?
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  9. #9
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    In my mind, adaptations of an established property should only be held to the notion of keeping the "flavor" of the story. All Spider-Man movies follow the basic outline of Spider-Man (Miles or Peter) but do things differently in their story then was done in the source material. Different characters interact differently than they did in the comics. Elements of the story that seem outdated due to being written in the 60s or 70s get updated for a modern audience. Because a movie usually runs up to two and a half hours, of course they are going to have to cut things out of comic book stories that run for years. I don't mind them changing the little things (organic web shooters, armored goblin outfit) as long they remember what made the story work in the first place.

  10. #10
    Uncanny Member Digifiend's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ultimate Captain America View Post
    * Wolverine is played by a handsome actor? Well, duh. It's Hollywood. ALL actors and actresses are hot, handsome, cute, or otherwise nice to look. Otherwise, the door is closed. Even the characters who are supposed in-story to be "ugly" or "not so nice" are actually nice. Ugly actors may be awesome actors regardless, but usually stay confined to B movies.
    The problem with Wolverine isn't his looks, it's his height, Hugh Jackman is much taller than the comics version of Wolverine. It's a trope - Ability Over Appearance. They cast Jackman because he's a good actor! Simple as that.

    What would be more of a problem for me is if they arbitrarily diversify a character via race or gender swap... use the characters who actually have those traits. You want a girl Iron Man, there's Rescue and Ironheart (both of whom the MCU has used). Black Spidey? Cast someone as Miles. If Tom Holland's successor as Spider-Man is black and not white, then their character should be Miles and not Peter.

    Speaking of which, Spider-Man Homecoming had some questionable decisions. Ned Leeds isn't an adaptation of Ned, at least not in that first film. He's Ganke Lee, a Miles supporting character (the producers of the Spider-Verse animated movies noticed this, resulting in Ganke getting mostly cut). Peter's counterpart for Ganke should be Harry Osborn, who the MCU hasn't used yet. Also, the actress who plays Betty Brant should've been Gwen Stacy - comics Betty usually has a dark bob, Gwen has longer blonde hair, which Betty has in the movies. Peter met Betty and Ned at the Bugle, not at school, in the comics, so both characters are completely out of context and barely resemble their comics counterparts.
    Last edited by Digifiend; 03-12-2024 at 04:29 AM.
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  11. #11
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    Adaptations are very loose anyway, so I’m not upset by how acurate they are.
    Even alternative universes like Ultimate and Life Story are essentially adaptations, and it would be boring to read something and then watch something the exact same.

    The only time I’ve ever looked at a marvel product and thought “this is too much for me” is Ezikiel in Madam Web.

    Stuff like Secret Wars, we know it’s not going to be a Doom story, but it’ll use the idea of multiverses to tell its story.
    Civil War may not have had the superhuman act, but it did explore themes that comic had.

    Really, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter

  12. #12

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    During the casting of the first X-Men film

    Short and ugly actor: Hi bub, I'm the best there...
    Casting Director 1: Thanks, we'll call you! Next!
    ----------
    Casting Director 1: What were you thinking?!?
    Casting Director 2: Well, you said you wanted gritty. In other word... ugly.
    Casting Director 1: I wanted Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island" ugly, not Cornelius on "The Planet of the Apes" ugly! TV-ugly, not... ugly-ugly!

  13. #13
    Mighty Member Maestro 216's Avatar
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    It depends I think Norman being a Jeckyl Hyde persona works better than Lex Luthor in a Halloween costume. Where as the Eternals didn't feel remotely interesting like their comic selves

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Doom'nGloom View Post
    This is a criticism that I've seen a lot when it comes to comic book adaptations. And the first thing that people latch onto is the look of actors and actresses, more specifically their race, ethnicity and gender and how it differs from the characters that they are playing. To be fair I also like to see characters on the big screen as they appear on the page and I fully understand why it is problematic to cast a caucasian actor to play a minority character due to real life societal issues that still persist today, I think I didn't need to state that but still. However I don't understand why it is such a big deal among some people that characters should look a certain way when adaptations change certain aspects far more crucial to the source material all the time. In the comics Spider-Man's web shooters and web fluid are important scientific accomplishments of Peter Parker, Raimi movies threw that away. MCU turned Tony Stark into a snarky quip machine who always has something funny to say. Ragnarok turned Thor into a funny doofus which is the complete opposite of his comic counterpart. Avengers literally erased Hank and Janet from the teams roster. I'm not necessarily saying I agree or disagree with these changes, just that physical appearance seems to take precedence over them. Even with physical appearance certain things get overlooked. Wolverine was meant to be a short, sorta ugly man, not 1.90 m tall handsome Hugh Jackman. Yet many people are fine with these changes as long as characters look certain way from what I've seen on the internet. Why is it so? Why some people question Anya Taylor Joy hypothetically playing Silver Silver and not if the movies gonna explain Zenn-La which is literally the characters origin and why he became Surfer in the first place? Why some people say Pedro Pascal doesn't look like Reed Richards as if that's the most important aspect of Reed?

    On a related note, how much deviation from the source material is too much for the posters here? Like what's the limit of that?
    When it comes to the issue of race/ethnicity/gender/sexual orientation etc. well, the fact is, that these are pretty politically charged decisions - whether intended to be or not - especially in our current highly polarized media and socio-political environment. "Comic book accuracy" is just one component of the debate here - probably the only one people feel they can safely voice amidst deeper concerns.

    I don't want to get too deep into this aspect because it'll inevitably derail the thread, but I just want to make one observation - people tend not to get that heated about race-bending or gender-bending supporting/secondary characters. Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon in the Reeves Batman film has received almost universal praise. Zoe Kravitz' Selina Kyle in the same film is the splitting image of the comic-book character. Not too many people seem bothered about Perry White being played by a black man for the second film reboot in a row now. And of course, you have Nick Fury in the MCU (and the Ultimate Universe before that) as the, well, ultimate example of a race-bending that was universally lauded with no political rancour.

    On the other hand, the merest suggestion of a possibility that Superman will get race-bent is enough to kick off a political shitstorm. Ditto with James Bond (if we step aside from comic-books for a moment). There was even that memo I think Sony had which mandated that Peter Parker would be white, male and straight on-screen come what may.

    Anyway, to a larger extent, beyond the physical attributes, there's generally a lot more freedom to take liberties with characters/franchises that do not have massive pre-existing mainstream popularity or success, or at least one prior adaptation that has really cemented its perception in the popular consciousness. Pre-MCU, Iron Man really wasn't that big a deal outside of the comics, so Kevin Feige, Jon Favreau and RDJ could pretty much put their definitive stamp on the character and his mythos. There was a lot more freedom to reimagine the Mandarin than there ever would be to reimagine the Joker or Lex Luthor. And when it comes to a really obscure property like Guardians of the Galaxy, there's virtual carte blanche.

    Contrast this with Superman, where creators of adaptations are held to a significantly higher standard, and where the shadow of the Donner movie looms large and permits little deviation (which, IMO, screwed over Snyder's MOS - but that's a whole other debate). Even the MCU Spider-Man films, as massively successful as they were, received significant criticism for their perceived deviations from the 'traditional' Spider-Man status quos, to the point where NWH received a lot of praise for moving this iteration of the character close to the traditional set-up.

  15. #15
    Astonishing Member mugiwara's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Digifiend View Post
    What would be more of a problem for me is if they arbitrarily diversify a character via race or gender swap... use the characters who actually have those traits. You want a girl Iron Man, there's Rescue and Ironheart (both of whom the MCU has used). Black Spidey? Cast someone as Miles. If Tom Holland's successor as Spider-Man is black and not white, then their character should be Miles and not Peter..
    1000 times this. It's a shame that there have been talks for a black Superman (Clark Kent) while characters like Val Zod, President Superman, and of course Icon exist. This is erasure of existing comics black characters.

    I'll also be very annoyed if they use the same Not New Not Different X-Men for the MCU and decide to bring some diversity by racebending Jean or Charles instead of using some of asian, native, black, etc existing mutants.
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