I love comic book movies. No matter how bad they may be. No matter how let down I am that they didn’t get the right actor to portray my favorite characters or that the direction isn't what I wanted for said characters. No matter how cheesy the writing and/or acting may be. I love comic books and comic book movies and I always will.
The Lord of the Rings movies were based on the books of the same title. You didn’t have to read the books to enjoy the movies but if you had read them you were probably that much more excited to see the characters come to life. It’s the same with comic books. All my life I have read X-Men, Spider-Man, Avengers and all sorts of other Marvel titles with a handful of DC, Image, Dark Horse and others thrown in when I saw something that peaked my interest. X-Men had always been my favorite and Colossus was my favorite character. When the first X-Men movie came out I, like my comic-book-nerd brethren, was so excited that I had what may be referred to as a “nerd-gasm.” My favorite escape from my youth would come to life on the big screen!
Hugh Jackman is now famous for playing Wolverine in the X-Men movies, and now the standalone Wolverine films, but my first reaction as a comic-book-nerd (I push up my glasses and snort at this point) was that Wolverine is supposed to be shorter. That’s why he was always called “runt”; he’s a little guy. Also...Iceman is a boy? He was one of the first X-Men! Despite my excitement about the whole thing I kept thinking “What have they done? That’s not how it is in the comic books. If only they’d consulted me...I could have told them the right way to do this!”
Wouldn’t we all like to be consultants for these movies? There is always so much excitement leading up to a new comic book movie coming out and then so much criticism from the biggest fans once they see the movie. One such movie is Watchmen. I was late in getting around to reading this book (in GN form) but once I did, I was equally as psyched as anyone else to see it on the big screen. I went to the theater to see it and was thrilled at its awesomeness and faithfulness to the printed page. I knew that plenty would be cut from the story, as it is a pretty vast tale, but I thought the final product was a very enjoyable experience. So why all the complaints? Are these “fans” not grateful to see such a well-written story brought to life? I suppose they have nothing better to do. Classic case of first world problems. If that’s all you can find to complain about in your life, you’re in pretty good shape.
Don’t get me wrong, I have done my fair share of complaining too (Fantastic Four, Punisher, Spider Man 3 [musical numbers?!], FF: Rise of the Silver Surfer, not to mention some of the earlier Batman movies), but I try my best not to take it too seriously and to just enjoy the fact that there is enough interest in one of my favorite things, comic books, to keep having these movies made. Besides, if the bad comic book movies hadn't been made they wouldn't know what to make better in the new ones. And so...bring on another version of The Punisher. Redo Fantastic Four. Start from scratch with Spidey (as they have done already). Comic books have always been rebooted and rewritten and rethought and redesigned. It's just part of it. A new writer/artist team comes along and they do their own thing with the characters and we keep reading and enjoying it all.
Though I may complain a little when the resulting film doesn’t match my imagined version of the characters, I will always keep watching and waiting for the next vision to come along.
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