RANT: comic book movies

There's been a lot of comic book-slash-superhero movies of late. They're ranging all over the place, from the good (Nolan's Batman films and The Avengers) to the not-so-good (Green Lantern and Ang Lee's The Hulk).

I saw this quote on io9 regarding the upcoming Superman film:

"We're approaching Superman as if it weren't a comic book movie, as if it were real. It just struck me that if Superman really existed in the world, first of all this story would be a story about contact."

Okay, why - WHY - would you make a movie based on a comic book and using an iconic comic book character not like a comic book?

Superman flies. He deflects bullets with his Superman-ness. He shoots lasers from his eyes. And he wears goddamn tights with a giant 'S' on his chest.

If you are going to make a film about him, he KIND OF HAS TO HAVE THOSE ELEMENTS!

If he has those elements, but the story isn't comic book in feel, seems to me you've both made Superman incredibly stupid and managed to take all the fun out of the story.

'Cause, superhero films? They're really supposed to be fun.

Batman. He's a super-rich heir who is traumatized by his parents getting killed. Goes out. Becomes a freakin' ninja. Dresses up as a bat. Beats up bad guys.

If you want to be realistic, he's a batshit (hah!) insane lunatic vigilante with weird fetish issues. If you're some weird hipster, it's probably fun to try to be ironic and deconstruct that, but really most people who will watch a Batman movie want to watch a suited-up Batman kick ass and take names.

Nolan's films walked that balance nicely, though I found The Dark Night Rises a bit lacking in actual Batman.

Green Lantern. He has a freakin' ring that makes him able to do whatever he can imagine. Screwing that up in storytelling takes some epic incompetence. I haven't watched the Green Lantern movie, so I can't really attest to its failings, but I'm told the story was really pathetic.

Fantastic Four. Four people get zappped and granted superpowers. They fight a mad scientist from a fictional eastern European country (Doctor Doom). That's solid right there. THERE IS NO NEED TO MAKE THE VILLAIN SOMEONE WHO DEVELOPS SUPERPOWERS FROM THE SAME SOURCE!

I actually found the casting in The Fantastic Four pretty okay. The tweaking to a tried-and-true story? Unforgivable. Not because they took liberties. Because they took the liberties and DID IT BADLY.

My problem with these "reimaginings" of existing, well-known stories really stems from an irritation at Hollywood greed and laziness.

Want to tell an original story with some kind of epic super-human theme? WRITE AN ORIGINAL STORY!

"Reimagining" existing characters doesn't do anyone favors. You alienate the fans of those characters and rarely interest a new audience.

Of course, to do original stories, the writing really has to be solid. Push, for example, had original characters and a clever concept. It could have been an original, well-done, X-Men-esque story, only without the baggage of the X-Men comic, but the actual plot of Push collapsed under its own weird complexity.

And I liked Push.

I have no interest in watching the Superman movie. I can't stand Superman as a character and I never really have. Goyer's quote has actually managed to push me even further away from ever considering that film.