Movies "loosely" based on original books...

[Corey]

Originally Posted by Papa_Complex

Which, I suppose, is why we're getting Watchmen in a couple of weeks rather than over the summer. If they keep at all to the storyline, then it'll be one hell of a movie. Graphic novels tend to go deeper into a real story than do comics and Watchmen is a hell of a good story, for people who at all read comics as kids.

That was the movie I was thinking of actually. I'm both anxiously looking forward to it and completely dreading it. I started my personal boycott of all pictures, videos, interviews, and stories of the movie about the end of December. Two previews were a little more than I wanted to see, but that got the hopes up pretty high already. God I hope it doesn't suck.

[Papa_Complex]

Originally Posted by Corey

That was the movie I was thinking of actually. I'm both anxiously looking forward to it and completely dreading it. I started my personal boycott of all pictures, videos, interviews, and stories of the movie about the end of December. Two previews were a little more than I wanted to see, but that got the hopes up pretty high already. God I hope it doesn't suck.

I'm hoping that the various lawsuits killed their ad budget, so we won't be completely inundated before it actually arrives.

[Amorok]

I've seen so many movies that did that, and some of them were movies I loved. Comic book movies are the worst, but even some of them that wildly departed from the source still managed to be awesome. The prime example of this was the Crow. The basic story is almost the same, but having read the James O'Barr graphic novel and seen the movie, I can't call them the same thing, and they really tried with that one within the boundaries they had. Max Payne pissed me off, and so did the abortion that was Hitman.

Here are a few guidelines to making a succesful movie adaptation of anything:
1) Go with the original script. I don't see how this is a problem. People who played the game/read the book/own the comic love it, and they want to see what they love. Leave it alone, the book/comic/game was awesome and sold millions, so why would you think you needed to change the script to make more money?
2) Don't kill off or alter key characters. The fans of the source want to imagine themselves as that guy, leave them the same. Don’t make a guy a girl, don’t make the sidekick black, and when Snake Eyes takes off his mask I better not see a white guy. And don't kill them, keep them for sequels.
3) Don't call Uwe Boll. This rule can be translated to fulfill all other rules, seriously, the guy is beyond suck. Letting Uwe Boll and his shitty, government-subsidized German filmmaking anywhere near any movie is like letting the Nazis arbitrate the Middle East dispute, it’s just begging for disaster. That man ruined Bloodrayne, House of the Dead, and too many other movies to count. They better not give him Farcry or it’ll be jihad time.
4) Cast characters who have at least a passing resemblance to your source. A good rule of thumb for this is don’t cast Nicholas Cage or Toby McGuire, ever. Pick someone who has played a character like yours before, so you’re guaranteed at least an idea of the character getting through. For instance, Toby McGuire is a shitty Spider-Man. Should’ve gone with Topher Grace, he’d have been cheaper and done a better job. Don’t pick actors who are trendy or a hot name right now, pick actors who can act. Kirsten Dunst, Jennifer Garner, and Jessica Alba should not act in comic book movies.
5) Don’t make main characters supporting characters. Venom is a main character. Fuck you, Sam Raimi.
6) Make your villain badass. I shouldn’t have to be convinced he’s a badass, I should know as soon as I see him. Ian Mcklellan is a fine actor, but he’s not Magneto. They should have gone with Apocalypse and had James Earl Jones or Lawrence Fishburn be the voice of an animatronic, CGI nightmare that the X-men could be properly terrified of.
7) Inside jokes and allusions to the source and related material are a must. Iron Man did it right, nobody else did. And don’t make it a set-up for the next movie, put it there for the joy of it. The hardcore fans will connect with the movie more, and the regular folks will either miss it or get curious and go check the source material, making them interested in a sequel.
8) Read the source material. If you’re making a comic book movie then everybody there down to the craft services guy should read that comic book, and there should be copies of it everywhere. If you’re making a movie of a game then everybody involved should have to beat the game, and you should bring in some geeks to play it on a jumbotron the whole time you film. People should be familiar with the source material and use it, and not just your writers but your director and actors as well.
9) If there’s a message, it better be the one the source material presents. Constantine shouldn’t have been an anti-smoking movie. They should have never taken “The American way” out of Superman. And for fuck’s sake, if you have George Clooney prattling on about family, you’re not making a Batman movie, you’re making a mistake.
10) Special effects do not a plot make. If your production value is off the scale but your plot, characters and acting sucks, nobody will remember how great the movie looked, they’ll remember how shitty it was. Special effects for their own sake are boring, that’s why those Mind’s Eye videos never took off.

[Corey]

Originally Posted by Amorok

4) Cast characters who have at least a passing resemblance to your source. A good rule of thumb for this is don’t cast Nicholas Cage or Toby McGuire, ever. Pick someone who has played a character like yours before, so you’re guaranteed at least an idea of the character getting through. For instance, Toby McGuire is a shitty Spider-Man. Should’ve gone with Topher Grace, he’d have been cheaper and done a better job. Don’t pick actors who are trendy or a hot name right now, pick actors who can act. Kirsten Dunst, Jennifer Garner, and Jessica Alba should not act in comic book movies.

Fucking this times a god damn billion. I don't care if somebody was excellent in some random fucking film that nobody gave a shit about, or that Mr. Big Name Actor is a Big Name Actor. There's casting for a part and casting for fame. Dying someone's hair color to sorta match the source does not suddenly make them perfect for the role.

And when I hear people give excuses to shitty actresses because they're hot, I want to crack skulls. Yes, Jessica Alba is hot. She's got a great body, nice ass, and a perky set of tits and I'd blow a lifetime worth of semen down all of her orifices if I could. She can't fucking act worth a shit though, so stop putting her in movies. Her level of attraction does not hide the fact that she sounds like a stunted four year old reading phonetically written lines off a herky jerky teleprompter. And for fucks sake, lrn2emotion already.

[Papa_Complex]

Amorok, you're pretty much bang-on there. I might quibble a bit (Toby Meguire isn't actually a BAD Spider-Man, but perhaps Topher Grace might have been a better choice), but I can't fault the logic.

There are plenty of websites out there where fans have doen their fantasy list of actors for comic movies and, without exception, I've liked their choices better.

http://www.themovieblog.com/2008/06/...rnate-castings

[Corey]

Originally Posted by Papa_Complex

Amorok, you're pretty much bang-on there. I might quibble a bit (Toby Meguire isn't actually a BAD Spider-Man, but perhaps Topher Grace might have been a better choice), but I can't fault the logic.

There are plenty of websites out there where fans have doen their fantasy list of actors for comic movies and, without exception, I've liked their choices better.

http://www.themovieblog.com/2008/06/...rnate-castings

I used to read the Wizard Casting Calls and remember them being pretty spot on about some choices and absolute fuckin wrecks about others. Managed to scrape up the X-Men casting call on the interwebs and they managed to hit on a few good ones, at least visually.

Professor X - Patrick Stewart
Bishop - Michael Dorn
Colossus - Dolph Lundgren
Cyclops - Michael Biehn
Gambit - Jean-Claude Van Damme
Storm - Iman Bowie
Psylocke - Tia Carrere
Sabretooth - Clancy Brown
Magneto - Rutger Hauer
White Queen - Rebecca de Mornay
Juggernaut - Vader
Jean Grey - Nicole Kidman
Wolverine - Glenn Danzig
Cable - Clint Eastwood

Some of the names betray the list's roots in 1993, but some of them are still solid choices. Iman, at the time of the list at least, might as well have been the living embodiment of Storm. That one always struck me as flat out visually perfect. Halle Berry stinking things up only confirmed that. And Danzig as Wolverine is both laugh worthy and practically perfect, all at the same time.

[Smittie61984]

Midnight in the Gardne of Good and Evil. I read the book then saw the movie. If you have never been to Savannah, GA it would be good to watch the movie to get the feel for the area but type on the puter/forums so you don't get too lost in it. Just get an idea of the area, accents, characters, feel. If you've been there then don't watch the movie.

I try to avoid books that are also movies, but if I do I try to avoid the movie. Rarely do I watch a movie then get the book. Infact I don't think I have ever done that.

[Racerboy]

The Sum Of All Fears.....a complete disappointment when the movie came out....

Run Away Jury...changed the plot

Misery....no real hobbling

[Dave]

michael biehn is the shit. period

"i like to keep this handy for close encounters"