Joe Kalicki
Well-Known Member
I wasn't really sure what forum this should be in, but this seems okay.
Reading through the Dreamcasting threads and seeing everyone's interpretations of stories and characters made me think about just when a reinterpretation has gone too far and ceases to even remotely be recognizable as what it should be.
Not to pick on Proj, but two examples from him really stood out to me, so I'll use them.
First, a dark, Gothic Wizard of Oz. Gothic retellings of children's stories are so overused now they really turn me off. They all seem cool at first, but eventually they just get boring and less interesting than the original. I totally get it, though. It's a good story that you know so well maybe a new twist will make it fresh again. But Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz, these aren't horror stories. They have some dark elements, particularly the books, but it totally misses the point to pervert them into straight up horror.
Second, he wanted to make Penguin a European crime boss and not a crook with a bird fetish. Well, what makes him Penguin then? The Batman villains, particularly Joker, are a prime example of this kind of thing. Everyone keeps adding more and more pathos to them and reinventing them, which always means making them darker and more scary, until they bear no resemblence to who they're supposed to be. I've said before I hate crazy mass murdering Joker. Sometimes a character really needs a twist, an extra something to make them viable. But I think it's going too far when you have to change the very nature of that character to make him that way. Just make a new character. You practically are anyway, with all the work you put into changing the old one.
Reading through the Dreamcasting threads and seeing everyone's interpretations of stories and characters made me think about just when a reinterpretation has gone too far and ceases to even remotely be recognizable as what it should be.
Not to pick on Proj, but two examples from him really stood out to me, so I'll use them.
First, a dark, Gothic Wizard of Oz. Gothic retellings of children's stories are so overused now they really turn me off. They all seem cool at first, but eventually they just get boring and less interesting than the original. I totally get it, though. It's a good story that you know so well maybe a new twist will make it fresh again. But Alice in Wonderland and Wizard of Oz, these aren't horror stories. They have some dark elements, particularly the books, but it totally misses the point to pervert them into straight up horror.
Second, he wanted to make Penguin a European crime boss and not a crook with a bird fetish. Well, what makes him Penguin then? The Batman villains, particularly Joker, are a prime example of this kind of thing. Everyone keeps adding more and more pathos to them and reinventing them, which always means making them darker and more scary, until they bear no resemblence to who they're supposed to be. I've said before I hate crazy mass murdering Joker. Sometimes a character really needs a twist, an extra something to make them viable. But I think it's going too far when you have to change the very nature of that character to make him that way. Just make a new character. You practically are anyway, with all the work you put into changing the old one.