249: Corporate Fanfic

[Sinbeans]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the psychic squid in Watchmen was weird. I always thought it was an obnoxious ending.

My main issue with the movie was that it stayed too faithful to the action in the main plot, without really explaining it (notice I say action and not dialog.) Since there are multiple layers of story going on in the original that add meaning to the main events, all the meaning in the movie was lost. This wouldn't have been as much of a problem if Snyder had, in a sense, made similar changes to the action in the entire story, not just the ending. By staying 'loyal' he made a shallow, boring movie that I would consider incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't read the comic book.

Don't get me wrong I really wanted to like the movie. But no, just no.

 

[WolvenSpectre]

If you think just from watching the movie and reading the comic for Watchmen you know how BAD the 'fanfictionalization' of it is, don't do any looking into the backstory of the series.

They basically took a good piece of literature and boundary breaking art and design that was both in tribute and homage to several things in the comic book world inspired by beatuiful thinking behind controversial news of the day (Iran/Contra Hearings and Oliver North) and told a story that spanned generations in rich detail, and then got very talented people who theoretically could have done it service, and had them make a vague reference to it.

I am not a professional writer or director, but I honestly believe I could try and fail and do better.

If you have to see video, there is a 'motion comic' which takes the original art and animates it, and does a stripped down version with a talented audio book performer doing all the voices and it is 10x as good as the movie. They at least had the brains to leave most of the subtext in.

 

[The Random One]

This is exactly why I can't bring myself to like comic books. When you've got a series of different people writing on a same character, development is extremely limited. Add to that decades' worth of baggage, a need to maintain the status quo, and a self-enforced, pointless decision to keep all of the works in a consistent universe, and I just can't get into mainstream American comics. I hate jumping on the bandwagon when it's moving, I wouldn't know where to start.

It's true that Superman and Batman, for example, came a long way since their beginnings, but I can't help thinking that if their stories didn't have to keep going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on the people who worked on their best stories would have worked on different, but just as good stories. And of course there comes a time when you can't please the fans of Miller's gritty murderous Batman and the fans of West's jetpack-riding batarang-flinging Batman.

Regarding the Watchmen movie, I'd like to make a few commentaries.

1. I have no idea of what Moore says his comic does so awesomely that no other media can. Conceptually speaking, an animated series would convey more or less the same things. I can't find one technique he used (extreme zoom-in to extreme pan-outs, the symmetrical chapter, the multiple repeating symbols) that wouldn't work on, say, an animated series. (Realistically speaking, that one 'Watchmen Saturday morning cartoon' intro someone made is more like how it would be, I know, but I'm speaking strictly as a theory). I just looked at my comic book shelf and Watchmen lies right next to Promethea, another series by Moore that depends much more on panel styling and the comic's fourth wall. The movie had problems with adaptation because it's a movie, and there are lots of things that worked in Watchmen due to its serial nature - Rorschach's backstory works perfectly as a single isssue, but in a big thing is a huge drag right in the middle of the second act. Watchmen wouldn't be able to pull this off if it had come out as a single issue either.

2. My main problem with the movie was that it assumed I was completely dumb. Someone up there mentioned Rorschach's death, but there are a lot of other, smaller things. Like when Rorscharch walks into the bathroom to kill that one short criminal, the movie makes a point of showing him being all scared inside the bathroom as the door swings. Did they really think we wouldn't have figured out that bad guy walks into bathroom + murderous good guy walks into bathroom + blood seeps out of toilet as good guy walks out means what it means? There were other things, but I forget now.

3. What the fuck is up with the Nostalgia ad in the beginning making such a perfect reference to the ending if the ending was changed? I mean, seriously, folks.

You know, I think someone who wrote a rather lengthy poem about learning to abstain from all sin, including those of passion such as furiously butchering things, would have had some problem with being portrayed doing just that.

Wow, I have to read that sometime. I didn't like that poem he wrote about how everyone that doesn't like him either is burning in hell or will burn in hell just as soon as they die.

(Yeah, OK, Paradise is more heavenly in its tone. Still.)

 

[BizRodian]

I'm a huge fan of the Watchmen book, and I thought the movie was pretty good. Thing is, I'd never need to watch it again, really, because I could just read the book and get a better experience. It's an okay companion to the book, but I agree with pretty much everything Elesar says. Just because of its medium, it could never be as subtle or as complex. It's still essentially the same great story, it's still very detailed and well done. It's just not as good, but it couldn't be. To give it some credit, the film probably captured some of the same feeling because it kind of commented on super hero movies in the same way that the book commented on super hero comics. There are a few other things I could fault (SuperChurl mentions a few) but they didn't bother me that much in the grand scheme of things.

Worst example of Corporate Fan Fiction? Hmmm. I know back in the late 90s I was a big Star Wars fan (and I'd still say I am) but I used to read some of the EU stuff and it was just awful. Some of the books were well written, but the vast majority of the stuff was so fanficy and so far removed from the actual feeling of the movies.

 

[elricik]

If you have a problem with corporate fan fiction then just go into fan amnesia, believe me it works wonders.

"What? There were no prequels! Jar Jar Binks was a bad dream."

"What? There are no sequels to Highlander!"

 

[omegawyrm]

This article went in a completely different direction than I expected. When I think of the concept of "corporate fanfic" I'm thinking of things way, way, WAY more ubiquitous than the examples given. Sure, original films/series based on existing franchises count as fan fiction. No question there. But everyone pretty much knows that's the case. Here are some forms of professional fanfiction that maybe people aren't aware of.

Every TV drama you have ever watched, ever. In your life.
Because of the high turnaround in writers over even a single season:
Counts as Fanfiction.

Every sequel you have ever watched, ever.
Because they're rarely written by the original screenwriter:
Fanfiction.

Every comic of an established superhero you have ever read, ever, past the golden age.
Fanfiction.

Every Star Wars novel; every Star Trek novel; etc, ect, etc, and ect.
Fanfiction.

Every Dune sequel written by Frank Herbert's son; the final "Wheel of Time" novel.
Fanfiction.

Every original movie which, during preproduction, needed a new scriptwriter to come in and make major revisions.
Fanfiction.

Any original creation that employs the Cthulhu mythos. Sorry Stephen King. I like your work but:
Fanfiction.

Dante Alighieri's "The Divine Comedy"
Fanfiction.
OH SNAP! That's right I went there.

I think this post illustrates pretty well how the writer of this article kind of missed the point of what he was talking about.

Pretty much every comic written by Grant Morrison or Mark Waid or Geoff Johns is authorized corporate fanfiction of characters they loved from silver age comics and some of their stuff is acknowledged as some of the best comics ever written about those characters.
Ask anyone who's read Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire Trilogy that was a NYT bestseller if they liked it and a lot of them might say it's better than any of the movies.
After the 1st season, Star Trek TNG was pretty much entirely a corporate fanfiction of Rodenberry's ideas.

So let's keep this in perspective, this dark and cynical view that this article advocates is not necessarily the correct one.

 

[JohnTomorrow]

This article went in a completely different direction than I expected. When I think of the concept of "corporate fanfic" I'm thinking of things way, way, WAY more ubiquitous than the examples given. Sure, original films/series based on existing franchises count as fan fiction. No question there. But everyone pretty much knows that's the case. Here are some forms of professional fanfiction that maybe people aren't aware of.

Every TV drama you have ever watched, ever. In your life.
Because of the high turnaround in writers over even a single season:
Counts as Fanfiction.

Every sequel you have ever watched, ever.
Because they're rarely written by the original screenwriter:
Fanfiction.

Every comic of an established superhero you have ever read, ever, past the golden age.
Fanfiction.

Every Star Wars novel; every Star Trek novel; etc, ect, etc, and ect.
Fanfiction.

Every Dune sequel written by Frank Herbert's son; the final "Wheel of Time" novel.
Fanfiction.

Every original movie which, during preproduction, needed a new scriptwriter to come in and make major revisions.
Fanfiction.

Any original creation that employs the Cthulhu mythos. Sorry Stephen King. I like your work but:
Fanfiction.

Dante Alighieri's "The Divine Comedy"
Fanfiction.
OH SNAP! That's right I went there.

Applaud this man! Applaud him! Stand up and give him a damn standing ovation, because he has summed up all visual media of the last twenty years brilliantly and with almost Carlin/Hicks-like brilliance!

 

[SteveZim1017]

when a character(s) is created it generates a certain fanbase. After an extended period of time the character has such a long history that it becomes very inaccessable to any new fans. This means you are only loosing fans and revenue as time goes on.

The only options for the owners of these characters are to either change them to appeal to a larger audience or to let them die away.

There are many characters that I feel should have just died away over the years, but I can't blame a corperation for wanting to keep them alive at all costs.

 

[Plurralbles]

if movie makers have the balls to make a BOARDGAME movie.... I would expect that this article will someday become one too.

 

[lanoger]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the psychic squid in Watchmen was weird. I always thought it was an obnoxious ending.

The way it sounds here (I've never read the comics, I haven't seen the movie) is that the author was too busy giving a 'screw you!' to his copyright holders (who would be the ones to authorise any such spin-off) and the industry than resolving his story arc with finesse and good writing.

Is that true?

 

[Fish and Chips]

Aha, this is why I love the movie adaptation to The Princess Bride. The author of the book was also the screenplay writer! Yesss.
Seriously, if anyone else had written the screenplay, I would be pissed at the amount of stuff they left out. But William Goldman made the concessions himself, so it's all good.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Was wondering if the first post would be horror over Dante's Inferno or horror over a Monopoly movie. And I thought when Robot Chicken turned the Hungry Hungry Hippos into a cop movie ("Hungry... FOR JUSTICE!") it was a joke.

They did a few boardgame movie skits, funny thing is if anyone did go ahead and make movies off those games would Robot Chicken then do a spoof of the movie based off the game based off the skit they did?

 

[Aiberg]

Do you think Watchmen the movie is a bad adaption? I'm really surprised to see many may think so, because it was an adaption as good as it could ever be.

 

[vortexgods]

The way it sounds here (I've never read the comics, I haven't seen the movie) is that the author was too busy giving a 'screw you!' to his copyright holders (who would be the ones to authorise any such spin-off) and the industry than resolving his story arc with finesse and good writing.

Is that true?

No.

If you haven't read Watchmen, and you don't wish to be spoiled, stop reading this post in 3... 2... 1...

Still here?

[Spoilers]

It's unfortunate that the author has this impression that the ending is "bad" and that it is bad on purpose. Or has conveyed this impression, at least.

Alan Moore was staying true to the dimensions of several comic book traditions. His alien monster was straight out of an E. C. Science Fiction comic (much as the Black Freighter was straight out of an E.C. Horror Comic).

By the way, even the fact that the alien monster was a fake alien monster designed to trick humanity out of its differences fits in with E. C. comics. (E. C. Comics stories were very similar to the Twilight Zone after all, and of E. C.'s Weird Science. [http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2009/07/watchmen-squid.jpg])

In other words, he did it on purpose, he wasn't trying to be obnoxious. If you didn't like it, well, different strokes for different folks as they say. It was however supposed to be a comic-book villains comic-book villainous plot. (I mean, why object to that and not his antarctic fortress [http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8623/watchmen1116.jpg] or genetically engineered super lynx, Bubastis? It strikes me as a dangerous game Mr. Snyder plays, this is "cheesy" and this is not. You have a guy dressing in an Owl suit, right? That's in the movie, correct?)

(The alien was also to some extent a MacGuffin, the real ending was the conflicting morality between Rorschach and Ozymandias.)

Another important fact, Alan Moore shares copyright with D. C.

It wasn't work for hire, he has signed contracts and everything. It was his misfortune that he didn't realize that D. C. was going to keep the miniseries in print forever, because if Watchmen ever does go out of print the rights to it revert to him. However, at the time he was writing it, he believed he was going to own those characters and the whole book eventually, so he had no need to sabotage his own property.

As much as anything else, Watchmen is a comic book about comic books and about comic books in the context of American society. Therefore, when he does a deliberate nod to a particular comic book, don't assume he's doing it to "be stupid." [http://thefishshow.com/Archive/WATCHMEN%20UNMASKED.htm]

He was also writing with a purpose. He missed the old days, when there was more to comics than men and women in capes and masks. He hoped to revive some of the broader themes that had been popular in comics before the CCA crackdown left us mostly with capes and masks, and was looking at them in his book. I'd say he somewhat succeeded, but he did always feel bad that he also influenced the brooding sociopathic anti-heros who have dominated comics since the success of Watchmen.)

 

[TheodoreLuke]

The main problem i had with the Watchmen movie was the way they OVERSTATED everything, from the sex scenes to the sound track to the gore and the blue wang compared to the subtleties of the comic.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

No one mentioned the 1985 adaption of Clue? Yeah, it was a board game to movie adaption - and it wasn't that bad. It was a playful family movie, with a killer cast.

Edit: The article said the best case-scenario of movie adaption is grave robbing, but what about authors like Stephen King or Neil Gaiman who are more than happy to have their work adapted to other mediums? You get authors who co-operate with directors and vice versa, and they often create amazing landmark films. It really depends on the author, the property, and the care that goes into the movie's production. Sometimes things are misjudged and a movie tanks, but if all the stars align then you get a great adaption.

 

[lead sharp]

The main problem i had with the Watchmen movie was the way they OVERSTATED everything, from the sex scenes to the sound track to the gore and the blue wang compared to the subtleties of the comic.

That was one of many problems with it.

@vortexgods, good bit of typing there, especially regarding the squid. Even if you go with the thought that the monster in the comic about comics was a hark back to EC so it wouldn't be effective in a film, there's enough giant squid/monster epics of a classic nature to argue the same point in a film that SHOULD have been about comic adaptations in film and not about a film nut having a glorified wank over material he didn't understand.

 

[JonahNYC]

Hey, you forgot the film adaptation of Beowulf. Grendel's mom's never been more... HOT!

 

[A Weary Exile]

Honestly it was the buildup to the Watchmen movie that kind of ruined it for me; months of interviews with Snyder playing up how faithful the movie would be to the book. And then... it wasn't. It kept the characters--kind of--and went through the motions, but it replaced crucial and characterful dialogue with Hollywood mush, played self-depreciating parts straight, and glorified in the violence Moore was writing against, radically changing the tone if not the message of the original... Apparently in Snyder's mind a deluge of f-bombs and gore are all that's required to tell an "adult story", without regard for subtlety or maturity. And seriously, a faithful adaptation means more than making sure the props in the background match the comic panels perfectly.

Don't get me wrong, it was an entertaining audio-visual spectacle that genuinely felt like a labour of love, and of course there's no way everything could have been crammed into one film. I did enjoy it; but I felt a little cheated at just how far the film deviated from its roots in ways beyond costume and colour scheme.

By contrast I totally loved Sin City, which I thought preserved the grit, tone and spirit of the comics, without compromising the entertainment value of the end result. "Put the original creator in the director's seat"? Fuckin' A.

...Not that Frank Miller's other attempt at directing was exactly stellar...

You're the second peson I've come across with this attitude (Disliked Watchmen, liked Sin City, is a fan of both comics) but I've never read either comic and I love the Watchmen film, but I dislike Sin City. I felt that it was very schizophrenic and obsessed with sex and violence for no other reason than sex and violence, like a generic action movie only with a cool CG color palette. I don't understand what there is to like about it.

 

[JohnTomorrow]

What we have here isn't fanfiction, but someone taking an original premise and putting their spin on it.

In my own opinion, proper fanfiction should not be used as a retcon tool, but as a continuation of the creative world. Perhaps a proper way - maybe even the ONLY way - for Mr. Snyder to act was;

- Recreate the graphic novel EXACTLY as it was, only in movie format (i.e. you could use the comic to storyboard the movie exactly, giant squid and all)

or, as i'd have liked to see;

- Continue the story from where Mr. Moore left off.

In the correct hands, and with enough dedication and commitment from the creative team, a continuation can be a godsend to a franchise and/or story. People wishing for 'more, more!' get their proverbial fill, and the creators all get a nice slice of profit (extra points if the original creator gets in on the action, even if its at a consultant position).

Never-mind the nay-sayers, the internet tough-guys who would certainly flame it like an Alien egg within the Queen's hive - if the sequel was done properly, those delegating insults would be far and few between - you cant do any real damage with a low caliber bullet (unless it is aimed properly, but thats up to the professional critics, like MovieBob or Yahtzee).