Best and worst changes in an movie adaptation of a comic book

The Overlord

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What are best and worst changes made in an movie adaption of a comic book? Some of the changes I like is taking some rather lame or one dimensional villains and giving them better motives or more of fleshed out personality. I greatly prefer movie Whiplash over comic book Whiplash and I like the sympathetic take they give Loki in Thor.

Some of the changes I don't like is where they take a villain and make him or her less interesting or menacing in the process. Movie Doom being a corporate slime ball rather then a king was pretty lame, likewise Lex Luthor engaging in real estate scams in the movies.
 
Re: Best and worst changes in an movie adaption of a comic book

Best :

The Mask - A completely different feel to comics. But as a stand alone film it works as is hilarious.

The ending of Watchmen - In my opinion so much better than comic ending

V for Vendetta - Again I proffered the movie much more.

Batman Begins extending the origin/missing years



Worst :

The fallen in Transformers 2 - counting this as he was comic character but was just basically his name on a generic

No web-shooters and no sarcasm in spider-man 1 to 3 - hated

the Entire judge dredd film

making superman a deadbeat dad in returns

and of course bat-nipples
 
Re: Best and worst changes in an movie adaption of a comic book

I agree that The Mask is probably a lot better than it would have been if they made a direct adaptation (from what I've read of the comics). The missing years in Batman Begins are pretty much all in Batman: The Man Who Falls. Bruce Wayne was taught manhunting skills in France by an Interpol agent named Henri Ducard, and he was taught ninjutsu in North Korea by a man named Kirigi. Ducard later turned out to be sort of a villain in the comics, and Kirigi was a member of the League of Assassins. Ra's al Ghul was just put in instead for the movie.

I think making Bane a mute dumbass was a pretty bad decision in a movie that was full of bad decisions.
 
Re: Best and worst changes in an movie adaption of a comic book

Best Changes: Organic Webbing
Batman Begins (all of it)
Ed Norton as Bruce Banner (yeah, **** you Marvel)
Liv Schreiber as Sabertooth
Sympathetic Doc Ock


Worst Changes: Movie Doom... (He's about as intimidating as a paper weight)
Movie Thing (aka Tiny) He's supposed to be as big as the Hulk, not barely taller than Sue.
Movie Phoenix. I understand it's hard to incorporate the Space stuff in X-Men movies, but if you can't do it right, don't do it.
Superman Returns being a sequel to the Reeve Superman movies.
Luthor in the Donner Superman movies. (I found the Luthor in Returns to be only a hair better)
Ears on the 90's Captain America cowl
Batman as a midget (aka Michael Keaton)
 
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Re: Best and worst changes in an movie adaption of a comic book

Best:
TDK Joker.
Batman Begins.


Worst.
BM&R version of Bane
Mute Deadpool In Name Only
 
Re: Best and worst changes in an movie adaption of a comic book

Best:
Organic Webbing
Doc Ock's outfit
Michael Clarke Duncan as The Kingpin
Barely any screentime for Wade Wilson before slapping the Deadpool name on generic movie monster #3. (Because f*** Deadpool)
No giant vaginasquid in Watchmen

Worst:
Effeminate Abe Sapien
Johann Krauss being stereotypical german/comic relief (I like the Hellboy movies, but they portrayed my 2 favorite characters from the comic completely wrong.)
Hellboy getting Liz pregnant (How would that even work!?)
Thundercloud galactus
Nicholas Cage as Ghostrider
Batnipples and the Halle Berry Catwoman outfit
 
Re: Best and worst changes in an movie adaption of a comic book

that makes no sense. Luthor's bald!


I-see-what-you-did-there-Fry.jpg
 
Five best changes:
- Peter refusing to stop the wrestling thief out of spite in Spidey 1, instead of just inexplicably not wanting to get involved. Makes it a way more relatable and human issue.
- An all-black batsuit in Batman '89 and the films that follow it.
- Robin's age and personality in Batman Forever
- More or less everything about Krypton and the Fortress of Solitude in Superman: The Movie
- J.A.R.V.I.S.

Five worst changes:
- Superman leaving Earth for five years, Lois marrying/raising a kid with another guy, all that ****.
- Retard Bane in B&R
- Tentacles that mind-control Doc Ock into being a criminal. I love that film, but the tentacle-control and its showcasing scene are the definite low points, and just make it way too similar, for no reason, to what was already done pretty well with the Green Goblin.
- The dark, small-S, leather-caped, distinctly not super costume in Superman Returns.
- The ultimate plan at the climax of Watchmen. Yes, it's easier for audiences to swallow, but I'm sorry, it completely misunderstands the concept of the whole scheme.
 
I had a really long and detailed post for this, but obviously I accidentally didn't upload it right or something. :(

Anyway, suffice to say I pretty much agree with Planet-Man other than about the Superman Returns costume which doesn't bother me as much.

As for other good changes...

...I would cite getting rid of Clark's past as Superboy in Superman: The Movie as a definite highlight. It was a very firm staple of the comics by the time they made the movie and yet they wisely chose to ignore it, allowing for greater character development from Clark as a young man to Clark revealing himself as Superman for the first time.

...the black leather costumes in the X-Men movies were great and made so much more sense than the stylised costumes in the comics. I never really saw the X-Men as 'super-heroes' per se. They don't go on vigilante patrols or stop bank robberies. They're more of a top-secret task force. It made more sense for them to have stealth suits than to have flashy superhero suits.

...one more vote for Organic Webbing. It's a real shame that they appear to be doing away with it for the new series of movies.

As for bad changes, I would cite the following:

- Simplifying and dumbing down the character of Luthor for the original Superman movies. Throughout the 70s, Luthor was given a vast, thorough and complex identity and modus operandi (mostly by Elliott S! Maggin) that was completely thrown out in favour of campy 2-dimensional megalomaniac who was only interesting because Gene Hackman is such a good actor. Oddly enough, the only time I think Luthor is truly as much of a genius as he says he is, is in Superman IV (especially in the deleted scenes).

- A lot of the changes to the Superman mythos for the movies are really strange and dumb when you think about them. At the start of the movie, Clark finds a glowing green crystal and inexplicably heads to the arctic where the movie only sort of hints that the crystal is 'telling' him to throw it into the middle of a wide clearing, where it magically builds the Fortress of Solitude. Not only that, but Jor-El has sent his son a series of semi-interactive messages that focus his consciousness into a giant holographic head that seems to be playing from a face-shaped crystal?

The green crystal is particularly annoying, because it's basically indistinguishable from Kryptonite. Almost every single person I've ever watched the movie with has asked why the Kryptonite doesn't kill him. Why didn't they make it just a plain white crystal?

- Another change I find annoying is the irritating refusal of the Batman movies to use established minor characters from the comics or even the animated series. Eckhart in Batman 89 was exactly the same as Bullock (or Flass, at a push) and Grissom was exactly the same as any number of the various mob bosses from Batman comics (Rupert Thorne, Lex Moxon, Boss Maroni, etc). Would have been so difficult to strap those names on them? This has carried over to the new series with Stephenson and Ramirez (who pretty much are Bullock and Montoya having walked off the comics' pages).

It doesn't annoy me as much, but there's no reason why they couldn't call Rachel Dawes 'Julie Madison' or 'Andrea Beaumont' either, although that's more of a push.
 
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Why is E always so down on organic webbing?

I ask this as someone who knows the ins and outs of almost every aspect of Peter Parker's mechanical shooters.
 
- A lot of the changes to the Superman mythos for the movies are really strange and dumb when you think about them. At the start of the movie, Clark finds a glowing green crystal and inexplicably heads to the arctic where the movie only sort of hints that the crystal is 'telling' him to throw it into the middle of a wide clearing, where it magically builds the Fortress of Solitude. Not only that, but Jor-El has sent his son a series of semi-interactive messages that focus his consciousness into a giant holographic head that seems to be playing from a face-shaped crystal?

I can see what you mean, but even putting my deep, lifelong love of that stuff aside, I love it because it's the first time(and virtually the last) that they got really creative and went the distance to come up with a truly alien version of Krypton. Almost every other version, especially pre-movie, has it as a sort of "MEN! FROM MARS!", retrofuturistic, World Of Tomorrow sort of place, which is nowhere near as cool. The bizarre crystal planet with the spinning rings and Phantom Zone square, completely unknown starship design, godlike psychic crystals and all the other stuff that's just so far beyond the realm of 20th century Earth paints a really different picture. And yet from an emotional angle, it's all still completely believable and human.

The green crystal is particularly annoying, because it's basically indistinguishable from Kryptonite. Almost every single person I've ever watched the movie with has asked why the Kryptonite doesn't kill him. Why didn't they make it just a plain white crystal?

That is something I've always found almost inexplicable. I'm glad it's a coloured crystal to differentiate from the others, but imagining myself as the film-makers, why wouldn't they at just make it blue? Or any colour that made it not resemble Kryptonite? Oddly though, I don't think I've ever heard anyone not get it, when it seems way more confusing than some of the other stuff people go on about like how the Joker shot down the Batplane.
 
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I'm going to be splitting these up for spacing reasons so I'll start with Best and Worst: DC Movie Edition

Best:

Batman '66
People say Sin City was a literal adaptation of the comics but this is the most faithful movie of a comic ever made. "Sometimes you just can't get rid of a bomb."

Superman
Changing Krypton (I agree with Planet Man on this)
Killing Jonathan Kent.
Taking away Superboy.
Luthor's plot. I mean giving the technology back then having Luthor build a robot or super weapon would've been atrocious but they gave Superman a reasonable threat that was totally within their limits. Plus Hackman was awesome.
Having Jor-El speak to Clark. It helps they had Brando but the concept was just great.

Superman 2
General Zod was a perfect choice when you think about it. Terrence Stamp made him probably the best comic movie villain outside of Ledger's Joker and McKellan's Magneto.
Lois being proactive in figuring out Superman's identity. I always thought that Lois should know he's Superman before he tells her and they came close with this. This was one of the few things Smallville did right. Though in the Donner Cut where she just shoots him is pretty perfect and totally in character for Lois.

Batman and Batman Returns
Even though I think the plots and characters sucked Tim Burton did a great job making Gotham feel like a real city. The mixing of film noir with modern technology (well for 1989) worked great. Plus the score.

Batman Forever
The entire origin story and costume (sans nipples) of Robin was great and I liked Chris O'Donnell as him.
Jim Carrey playing it up as Riddler was great and I think he would've been leagues better than Nicholson as Joker. Plus his scheme was actually interesting.
I love how in this one they realized it was Batman '66 all over again (even though Burton's movies didn't) and just embraced it.
Switching from Keaton to Kilmer was a great choice.

Batman and Robin
At least Robin was good in this one again. Clooney was funny in an unintentional way.

Batman Begins
There's not much I can't say I didn't like about this. Making Jim Gordon, Alfred and Lucias Fox major players probably being the best part.
Batman's gadgets were great, especially the bat sonar scene.
Christian Bale's performance as Bruce and Batman were perfect and I could believe that no one would associate the two (as opposed to Keaton who really seemed creepy the entire time as Bruce)

Superman Returns
Brandon Routh's Clark was great as was Jimmy. This isn't really a change I just thought they were really good and wish they'd had a better script to work with.
Putting in pure "Superman Moments". This might have lacked in action but you had Superman saving a plane, stopping a bank robbery with a smile, saving a breakaway car, listening in on people to save, lifting a yacht and saving the Daily Planet which were all awesome. Sure the climax blew but hey you had a lot of times where you saw Superman being Super.

The Dark Knight
I of course have the usuals like Joker "making" Two-Face, Two-Face dying, Scarecrow returning, etc.
The Bat Pod makes so much more sense than any Batmobile Bruce has ever had. I hope they keep it in the sequel.
The "Bat-Men" vigilantes were a great spin and something that would actually happen in real life.
I know this isn't a change but still, "Not killing Joker" is perfect in contrast to killing Dent.

Watchmen
The costume changes were all pretty great with the exception of Ozymandius's. It's not the nipples or anything it just seemed like he looked like a villain from the get-go which ruins the ending.
The action scenes were really done great while not taking away from the realism of it. Sure Night-Owl and Silk Spectre were a little too in shape but people don't tend to forget moves like that. (And it made sense that Ozy would have such an easy time taking them down later on).

Worst:

Superman
Superman's extra powers. The entire turning back time thing was rediculous. The same goes for the "Super-Kiss" and "Super-Latex-Shield-Thingy" in the second.
I thought Reeve was a bit too bumbling as Clark. I thought Brandon Routh and even Tom Welling played better Clark Kents. Though Reeve still was the best Superman ever.
Luthor wearing wigs. It's just stupid that a character like Luthor wouldn't revile in his own physical look. He'd play it as a strength, not hide it.
Luthor's henchmen were horrible.

Superman 2
Some of the slapstick moments were horrible. It's not a comic change but firing Donner was their biggest mistake and his parts were easily the reason this one is so good.
Superman losing his powers and getting it on with Lois. It really was unnecessary though I can see where they were going with it.

Batman and Batman Returns (I'm biased because I hate the Burton movies)
Showing the Joker's origin plus making him Bruce's parents murderer (people ***** about it in Spider-Man 3 but never this one which I don't understand)
Batman killing people.
Really Penguin's entire plot in the second.
I could go on with many more but Chris Sims sums it up pretty well in his articles on the movie.

Batman Forever
Replacing Billy Dee with Tommy Lee. Seemed unnecessary but with the tone they had I think it worked.
All that neon.

Batman and Robin
Too hard to nail one down so I'll just say FreezeIvyBane.

Batman Begins
The tumbler turned me off a bit.
I wanted a lot more "Scarecrow moments" if you can understand what I mean.
Rachel Dawes was just horrible. I also agree with Gothamite that they should've used a character name from the comics. I mean they had Flass and Loeb it shouldn't have been too hard.

Superman Returns
Not tying it to the comics but to the movies. I mean you had Birthright at your disposal and you made Superman a deadbeat dad instead. I loved the originals but you've got to separate them. The saddest part is Singer could've made a great Superman origin movie with the right script but now we have Zak Snyder's questionable skills to look forward to.
As opposed to the first two Luthor's plot was horrible in this one. This isn't a knock on Spacey at all who I thought was great but his plot really didn't make any sense.
Lois also didn't seem to do any reporting in this one. Shame as she's one of my top ten favorite comics characters ever.

The Dark Knight
The sonar was kind of lame and one of the reasons it was kept out of the Oscar running honestly.
If I had to nail down one problem with the costume it was the symbol. Not that it didn't have the yellow background (I think a gold one matching the belt would've worked though) but that it was small and bent and meaningless compared to the rest of the suit.

Watchmen
Really Snyder's use of gore in these kinds of movies is getting excessive. Sure it was perfect in 300 but I don't want to see people's bones breaking through their skin. Moore insinuated at the violence perfectly and knew that sometimes less is more (no pun intended :p)
This is something that they should've changed. The lynx. Get rid of it in a movie confusing as this.

Jonah Hex
Really everything. Mysticism being the main word coming to mind.
 
For the record, I do love the Krypton in the Donner movies and it's a shame that they're probably going to go with a far more mainstream 'Coruscant/Blade Runner' type Krypton for the new film.

I just thought the idea of Clark finding a crystal that's only hinted to be telepathic was a bit of a shabby change. They could have spelled out the crystal's function a bit better. In the first two films (the theatrical cuts, anyway) it sort of became a deus ex machina plot device. And it still makes no sense why it wasn't blue or purple. I just also think Jor-El's "Face-crystal" was a bit weird, when they could have just had crystal projectors. It's as if the film is saying that instead of a projection of Jor-El, we're actually seeing a crystal hanging in the air, moving around to the whims of the program.

The "twelve-year training" in STM is also a bit bizarre as it's unclear what's going on. Is Clark sitting in the Fortress just having things downloaded into his mind or is he actually flying through the universe? Is he experiencing it in real-time or is time moving much faster?

Ultimately, I don't really like the idea that Clark becomes Superman because Jor-El tells him its "his destiny". I much prefer the idea of Clark becoming Superman by his own volition, because he believes it's absolutely the best way to help people.
 
I liked most of the changes that X-Men First Class made. Sebastian Shaw was made into a more creepy, sinister villain then he was in the comics, Shaw being part of Magneto's back story, the X-Men working with the CIA, Xavier being a womanizer in his youth who used his powers to help pick up and drank insane amounts of alcohol and the X-Men getting involved in real life events like the Cuban missile crisis.
 
I liked most of the changes that X-Men First Class made. Sebastian Shaw was made into a more creepy, sinister villain then he was in the comics, Shaw being part of Magneto's back story, the X-Men working with the CIA, Xavier being a womanizer in his youth who used his powers to help pick up and drank insane amounts of alcohol and the X-Men getting involved in real life events like the Cuban missile crisis.

Those are all really great changes and I'd agree that those are what made the movie so great.

I still think all of Magneto's parts were hands down the best and the Hellfire Club becoming a proto-Brotherhood was also a good choice.
 
Yeah, while FIRST CLASS did have some real problems, by and large it was not only a lot of fun, but the best X-movie and one of the better X-Men stories I've encountered. Certainly, it's nonchalance about playing with established comic continuity was extremely helpful in allowing it to do what it needed to tell a good story.
 

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