After watching this new trailer a few times, I notice that Peter Parker has a bit more of a sense of humour when he is in the Spider-man garb. But there is something else that is striking, and this refers a bit to my post a little while back. It’s about narrative, but now I’m thinking more about how the media of comics and film are crossing over.
In comics, fans are treated to not one definition of Spider-man or Batman or their villains. Many authors have adapted and reinterpreted these characters. Alan Moore has done his own version of Batman with The Killing Joke, and DC has even gone so far as to entirely reboot ALL OF THEIR CHARACTERS! The basic idea with this is that even though for many characters there is a supposed narrative canon–Bruce Wayne’s parents are murdered, Superman is from Krypton and came to Earth after his planet was destroyed, Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider–there is room for interpretation and a limitless plethora of stories for authors to write for these characters.
In comics…
In film there seems to be an unwritten rule that the canon must be held more tightly than in comics. The rule doesn’t suggest that reboots are bad, but the rapid reboot of Spiderman amidst the reboot and adaptation fever of the mid-to-late 2000s has fans in an uproar. The usual complaint comes from fans who are angry that studios are milking properties for all they’re worth in lieu of creating original content. Where, then, is the delineation between film and comic authorship, canon and production? Who decides that film producers are or aren’t able to recycle characters? After all, television producers are not chastised for producing series and shows around characters after a few years, but why is there such an uproar when Hollywood producers announce a re-boot or ‘re-imagining’ of celebrated popular narrative characters?
Commercial reasons aside, we can look at this uproar in an industrial complex; the relationship between producers and consumers in the case of each medium differ, but we must also consider certain similarities between these relationships, which I will outline below.
I am not a hardcore comic book fan. My interest is derived from a fascination with Batman–as such I have read mostly Batman comics–and some interest in the authorship side of comics, so I have read much of Alan Moore’s work, some Frank Miller and each of their interpretations of Batman. This admittedly limits the levels of my possible analysis, but my goal is not to conduct an authourship study or a character analysis. What I intend to do here is look at adaptations between two specific media and ask the question “Why do popular audiences attack Hollywood for ‘reboots’ of characters when comics do it all the time?’ This is no mere double-standard. Instead it is a complex interplay of relationships between producers and consumers around the term ‘adaptation.’
We should begin by examining the relationship between comic producers (production houses, writers, artists, etc) and the comics audiences. With production costs that are in many cases lower than Hollywood productions, comics offer a space for more artistic narrative expansion. Without the constraints of a production budget comics authours are more able to write and illustrate stories with vast, expansive geographies, universes and histories and action scenes that are only limited to the imagination. Cinema attempts to remove limitations on these imaginative sequences with CGI filmmaking, motion capturing, etc, but even these are burdened by high production costs.
With comic books there is simply more available. More authors, more stories, more crazy plot-lines involving trips to outer-space or adaptations seeing Batman turned into a Vampire or other alternate universes. Adaptation is not a sin, but rather a rite in comic books. Comic fans are thus treated to a plethora of narratives that expand on the grand mythos of a single character or singular narrative. We’ve seen several origin stories for Batman, but they all retain the same elements. It is how those stories develop into the narratives authoured by comic writers–i.e. the adaptation–that is where the debate takes off from. After all, not all stories can be as self-contained as Alan Moore’s Watchmen…but more on that later.
This understandably creates a difficult problem for cinematic of televisual producers who wish to adapt these characters. Not only must they narrow down a singular approach to a character, but they must also remain consistent and, though not always necessary, they hold close to the pre-established canon that comics authours have provided. Because production costs are so much higher for film or television there is only so much money that producers can spend on a single narrative text whereas comics producers can spend that same amount on money on many different interpretations. It is a simple realization, but it seems to be an assumption that once Hollywood producers have produced that singular cinematic narrative there becomes some unwritten rule about a length of time that must be honoured before another interpretation is attempted.
Since I have such a fascination with Batman, let’s use that as an example. Film serials of the 1940s aside, we have the famous television show of the 1960s with Adam West and Burt Ward. Over twenty years later, after a tumultuous aesthetic journey with DC comics, Batman reaches theatres with Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989. In 91 Burton directs the sequel, Batman Returns. Now, it is not uncommon for filmmakers busy schedules or contracts to get in the way of further productions, so in 1995 Joel Schumacher was brought in to direct Batman Forever and later Batman and Robin. Though these four films are parts of the entire series of films they are marked by significant stylistic differences and authors. A conflict arises, then, when we consider them as part of the same series.
Firstly, though they feature the same characters (Batman, Alfred, Commissioner Gordon) new actors, directors, and production teams deliver a product that is very different than Burton’s films, though they are considered part of the same whole–sold together as a Batman 4-film multipack on DVD even though popular discourse divides them by director, but nowhere are Forever and Batman and Robin separated from Burton’s films.
It isn’t until 2005 when Christopher Nolan and Warner’s produced Batman Begins that the term ‘re-boot’ was popularized, leaving a gap of eight years between Batman and Robin and Batman Begins. In the meantime was a slew of television interpretations, new authors in comics and even some video games altering the Batman landscape.
To the same point, there have been three cinematic interpretations of DC’s The Punisher between 1989 and 2008 all with different directors, cast and crew.
With the gap between Sam Raimi’s Spiderman 3 and Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spiderman it is only five years (2007-2012), but the fan uproar was increased compared to the eight years from B&R to Begins. Why? And why is this a pressing issue to consider? We can consider this a paradox: Each interpretation is a representation of the canon, but no single interpretation represents the canon. This is accepted–nay, encouraged!–with the comic interpretations, but why does cinema fall into trouble with fans when they present loyal fan-bases with a film based on a property that they adore?
Clearly a large portion of fans considered Sam Raimi’s films to be valid cinematic interpretations, enough that for some reason or another new interpretations were unnecessary. But are they canonical? They may represent the canon, but can we even consider any character’s origin narrative as a ‘canon?’ Authors may refer back to the story as the basis, as perhaps an assumed beginnings to the story, but can that not be reinterpreted in some way or another–adapted? Comics writers like Alan Moore do this all the time.
Moore is famous for many things, including his series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen where he borrows characters from literary canon and creates an Avengers-style superhero squad which includes Mina Harker (Dracula), Captain Nemo (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, etc. But According to Moore, he is not adapting. Moore states that:
It might be splitting hairs, but I’m not adapting these people, these characters. I’m not doing an adaptation of Dracula or King Solomon’s Mines. What I am doing is I’m stealing them. There is a difference between doing an adaptation, which is evil, and actually stealing characters, which is, as long as everybody is dead or you don’t mention the names, is all right by me…
With comics characters that have been created by cheated old men, I feel that is different…
Moore is coyly referring to himself as one of these ‘cheated old men’ as recent news has announced that DC has commissioned Len Wein and Jae Lee to write origin stories for characters from Moore’s Watchmen series without Moore’s involvement. Is this stealing? From a technical standpoint Moore does not own the characters from Watchmen, otherwise there would be no possible way for DC to move forward with the project. From a moral standpoint Moore believes he does have some control over the characters, and seeing as they’re being adapted for new stories expanding on the previous canon he and Dave Gibbons created–the series is tied to the narrative world that Moore worked to create and is being called Before Watchmen–the world is now in the control of other writers in a new direction.
How important is this narrative ‘world’ then? Moore created his own world for the characters in League to interact in, separate from the narrative worlds their authors created–like a child playing in a sandbox, using characters but making a new world for them. How different is Spiderman from Batman in this debate? Batman comes from a fictional City that refers to American Society while Spiderman is constantly depicted in representations of the real New York City. Thus, the environment of Gotham City is integral to the Batman mythos, while the world of Spiderman is a narrative world, less dependant on physical place. New York is a set place with fixed locations and cultural codes while Gotham is an adaptable referent to current political and social attitudes –each is both fixed and malleable at the same time and continuing our paradox.
This again boils down to the question: “Why can comics get away with this paradox with no problems but cinema is constantly at the mercy of a fan-base that ridicules it as lazy and uninventive?”
The relationship between Hollywood and its audience is now a different animal to examine. Hollywood, as discussed earlier, has a different financial model that today requires massive revenue just to get a project on the ground. As a promise for filmmakers to receive production capital they must have a promise that they can get that production capital back from ticket sales and hopefully turn a profit. Piracy has created a further problem by making it more difficult for producers to earn back that capital if audiences are finding other ways to see films without paying the studios for producing films.
The recent rumours of a Venom film have surfaced, raising again the same question. IGN’s article, which outlines their views on how to properly make a Venom film to please fans, references to problem with defining the proper canon to both use AND represent. And with The Avengers opening soon, how long until we can expect another Batman film before Warner Brothers launches a Justice League film? Given that Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan have gone on record to state that The Dark Knight Rises will be their final foray with the character we will undoubtedly see a new Batman if a JLA film ever comes to pass.
Yet specific circumstances should not be ignored. Prior to their reboots both Batman and Spiderman were reviled by critics and audiences in their final instalments. Any foray further with those specific franchises seemed to spell doom and gloom for producers. So, then, why aren’t Spidey fans welcoming a newer, fresher interpretation? Has their disappointment with Spiderman 3 jaded fans to hate Hollywood producers who are listening to them, even slightly?
We can all to easily place the blame on jaded fanboys, after all being the consumer base for these products lends them some authority on the subject, but that authority does not fall on the creative end, rather the consumption. They are allowed to gripe, but does that allow them to challenge the producers to provide a better product or even change the product, like Bioware changing the ending to Mass Effect 3 due in part to fan fuelled hatred.
We see fans aggravation with Hollywood or big producers, yet fans still buy that product. The commercial wheel keeps spinning regardless of the paradoxes that drive it. Due to production costs and time spent (waiting) many fans feel that the product had better meet their expectations. Rather than explore the intricacies of the story and examine why a story has a particular ending, fans feel compelled to force a role in the creative aspect of their favourite stories, and when artists give in the dynamic changes completely. What will the new ending to Mass Effect 3 be? Will The Amazing Spiderman meet expectations even though by every right Columbia Pictures can make another adaptation whenever they want? What code are fans abiding by that says Columbia couldn’t?
I’m curious to see just how fans react to the new Spiderman. The roles and responsibilities of consumers and producers has never been more in flux–a famous event like Batman: Death in the Family, where fans voted in via phone on the fate of Jason Todd, the second Robin— was unprecedented in 1989, but today the fans can communicate with producers at such an unprecedented level that events like this are more common and met with less of an impact.
Alan Moore again thinks this role the audience is taking acts as a threat to producers:
In latter times I think that artists and writers have allowed themselves to be sold down the river. They have accepted the prevailing belief that art and writing are merely forms of entertainment. They’re not seen as transformative forces that can change a human being; that can change a society. They are seen as simple entertainment; things with which we can fill 20 minutes, half an hour, while we’re waiting to die. It’s not the job of the artist to give the audience what the audience wants. If the audience knew what they needed, then they wouldn’t be the audience. They would be the artists. It is the job of artists to give the audience what they need. (Emphasis added — From The Mindscape of Alan Moore)
In some ways I agree with Moore, and it has driven to read things differently. If there is something you don’t like about the ending, there remains nothing you can do to change the text or images the producers have provided; that ending in that novel or film will stay the same, unless the director has provided a directors cut or alternate ending. But there is a reason for the ending to be the way it is, or it would not be there. I’m reminded of the ending of Kevin Smith’s Clerks.
His first film, Clerks details the day in the life of Dante and Randall, two clerks at convenience and video stores. There lives are filled with empty pop-culture references and vapid go-nowhere delusions of a grander existence. The theatrical ending, which was settled on, has the day ending like any other: a perfect comment on the endless cycle that these vapid characters are cursed to continue. The original ending killed Dante in a store hold-up. Why? Smith states in many places on the DVD that he simply “didn’t know how to end the movie.” So the ending wasn’t placed in the film, not because of any greater attempt from the filmmaker, but producers from Miramax intervening. These producers are in the business and understand storytelling (more than we’d like to think they do). So we are left with two endings to the film, each with a reason and each with their own meanings.
Like Clerks there is the distinct barrier between those on each end of the counter: retailers/producers/those in ‘the biz’ and the consumer, and anyone who’s ever worked in retail will attest to that barrier. It’s clear that the roles are shifting, the Internet is allowing a lot of these shifts, but it’s changing the nature of art into a product faster than we can remember. When some fans can start taking legal action against arguably artistic products the dynamic shifts considerably. The debate over art or product is now erased if the consumer isn’t satisfied. Art is meant to be challenging, unnerving, uncomfortable and not always does an artist intend satisfaction in the aesthetics they present. Personally, I’m more worried about the level of control fans are wringing from their content producers because if paints a bad picture of the fanboy, a picture that is already cliched and, well, not very nice. Fanboys are doing themselves a disservice with all their belly-aching, and perhaps if they would put themselves up to the challenge they would find something to enjoy from a bad product instead of complaining. How do you think I’ve been able to watch Batman and Robin as much as I’ve watched The Dark Knight? I’ve found value in the kitsch and glamour of B&R, and it is in every way a good interpretation of Batman as TDK.
Paul Sawchuk 