I’m just saying…

Here, there be rant.

I’ve got a buddy. More than a buddy. One of my best friends. Goes by the name of Justin. A tall, lanky fellow, fellow film major, and Kung Fu black belt. More importantly, we’re both comics nerds, and hungrily devour news about upcoming comic book movies. We’d have these amazing and epic debates over what should/should not happen in the next film, what is or is not happening, and othersuch nonsense. Friends of ours know these debates. If memory serves right, we weren’t speaking to each other for about a month because of our “What should happen in Spider-Man 3″ debate. It was fierce.

Recently, I’ve grown weary of debates like these with him or anyone else for that matter. It got to the point where I was just left thinking, “I’m not the director. I’m not the producer. I’m not even the coffee monkey. Arguing about what should go on in these movies is fucking pointless.” It was fun once, screaming and ranting about Brett Ratner and shit. But it gives me a migraine now. If friends approach me with movie news or speculations or rumors or anything of the sort, well… Let’s just say I get pretty fucking irate.

So when I come across news on my own, I have no one to blame but myself. Or Xerexes, I guess. Comixpediating son of a bitch.

Now, I pretty much agree with the basic assessments of this blogger here. Sure, the costumes could be better. Sure, Stacy X is a pointless damned character to have in the movie, and it’s damned weird that she’s standing alongside Psylocke and Callisto. Overall, it seems like there’s a lot of stuff being crammed into the movie, over saturating it with “X-tra” characters. So it’s looking not so good, the movie. People are screaming, forums are shouting, fans are foaming at the mouth. The movie could turn out to not be what the fans want.

Oh fucking well.

It’s getting harder and harder to identify myself as a comic book fan. Because we comic book fans are a selfish lot. Trained by our very own entertainment source to be sticklers for hardcore continuity. Growing up reading the monthly escapades of our beloved characters, etc.

The bulk of the superbook fandom, like most fandoms, attains this great sense of entitlement over the characters and worlds they read. So when a movie like Daredevil or Punisher comes out, that are both inaccurate and straight up bad movies, the fandom goes nuts.

Personally, I’m getting fucking tired of it. So I’m going to say this to all the frothing fanboys and comic book readers who waste an excess amount of time predicting and pre-scripting and pre-viewing the movies and their contents in their heads. To all of those who let loose a bloody, screaming rage because the movie didn’t go their way:

They didn’t make the movie for you, they made the movie for everybody. And if you expect them to do otherwise, then you have no clue how Hollywood works.

I’m no expert on Hollywood. Closest I’ve been is to LA, and that was for E3. Not even the same industry. I am, however, a filmmaker, so I have a base insight if nothing else. But to make a movie for the super-niche audience that is the comic book reader is a big, big risk financially. Sure, they could do a panel-by-panel by-the-book 100% accurate rendition of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. But you’ll be excluding a huge chunk of people who don’t even know who the fuck The Dark Knight is.

Making a big budget movie requires many safety nets to ensure that at the bare minimum, you break even. One of those safety nets is simplification of the story, in the sense of adjusting it for the common viewer. And there’s a great difference between that and “dumbing it down.” As long as you have all the base elements from the original story, you’re solid. Eschewing these things is the difference between a good and bad adaptation.

So there’s room for change. In X-Men, they decided to make the starting X-Men Cyclops, Jean, Storm, and Wolverine (as opposed to Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman and Jean). And that was fine. It was still a good X-Men story because you had the social conflict between humans and mutants, a main villain that opposes or otherwise hinders the belief of peaceful co-existence, and the X-Men willing to fight for those that hate and fear them. Storywise, that’s all you need (aside from, I’d argue, Professor X and the school. I feel those are essential for an opening X-Men story. The characters are variable). So in X-Men, we had a very decent departure from the true “origin story,” but because we had all the basic elements it was a faithful adaptation.

Combined, of course, with smashing presentation and performances. That’s crucial for any movie, regardless of story.

But there’s the whole mentality that needs 100% faithful adaptation. The mentality that refuses to accept variations of every kind. I knew a lot of folks who were pissed off that Spider-Man had biological web shooters, rather than mechanical. Honestly, who gives a fuck? That’s really incidental to the story’s meaning and message.

And when the movie comes out, and you invariably disagree with some part of the adaptation, you can go ahead and be annoyed. That’s fine and reasonable. Disagree, talk about why you thought it was wrong, or how it could be changed. That’s good ol’ healthy criticism.

But don’t be that guy who posts on the forum screaming for the head of Director or Writer because they “betrayed you.” Getting that angry about it doesn’t do a goddamned thing, and only helps to tarnish the reputation and image of the comic book reader. Relax and accept that there’s room for reasonable change during the adaptation. But think about the changes they made, and try to think about why they made them. If you’re stumped, it’s because they did it so more people than just you might enjoy the movie. Because they’re trying to make some money. Which, ultimately, was why the characters were created in the first place anyway.