raul grau
Jul 16, 2005, 07:47 pm
<img src="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/images/columns/oneshots1.jpg" hspace=10 align=left border=0 alt="One-Shots logo">By John Pierson (icemanfan21), john.pierson@gmail.com
Director Ratner, or How I Learned to Stop Panicking and Love the Movie
An interesting thing happened a while ago on the Comixfan message boards. I became enraged while reading an interview given by Matthew Vaughn. He answered some questions about Layer Cake, but the troubling stuff was about the upcoming X-Men movie.
According to him, Juggernaut's origin "is ****ed-up." Dark Phoenix has some "stupid **** in it." Guess what, as a filmmaker, he's probably right. I've been reading X-Men comics for thirteen years and have collected issues from every storyline that impacts the perception of the X-Men franchise as it is today. I love those classic stories more than some of today's. But think about it; Juggernaut gets his powers and then a cave falls in on him. He's super-strong, but gets trapped by some rocks? Dark Phoenix gets mind-controlled into believing she's her reincarnated ancestor in colonial America? The most powerful telepath in the universe gets mind controlled?!? I don't necessarily like the way Vaughn made his statements, but they're undeniably true.
Granted Vaughn is no longer on the movie, due to personal reasons, but it doesn't seem that Brett Ratner is looking to make any huge changes from his general drift.
At any rate, after reading the Vaughn interview, I also read a flurry of posts talking about how awful the movie would be, how Vaughn didn't respect the X-Men's history, and how the movie would be so much better if Dark Phoenix were in space with the Shi'ar.
And then I started to think back on all my previous experiences with comic book movies. When I first heard Bryan Singer was directing X-Men, I said to myself: "Who?" Then I watched The Usual Suspects and thought to myself: "This guy can tell a pretty good story." Then I heard he was putting my favorite characters in LEATHER. I roared. I rampaged. And when I saw the movie, I got bloody satisfaction. Literally, from the opening scenes through the end of the movie, I leaned forward in my seat; slack jawed, staring in utterly rapt attention.
Then I heard about Daredevil. I followed every step of that movie's production. I watched the MTV Special. I read interviews with Affleck and Kevin Smith and Jon Favreau, someone I consider to be a top actor and a pretty good producer/director as well. I absolutely loved everything I was hearing about Daredevil. I even bought a bunch of Daredevil comics, so I'd be prepared for the movie. I went and saw it on opening day.
What an absolute piece of schlock. There were zero transitional scenes, the story didn't feel cohesive. The acting, at least on the part of Affleck, Garner, and Clarke-Duncan, was flat and wooden. There was nothing to like about this movie, except for Colin Farrell's performance as Bullseye. And yet, I'd loved everything that I'd heard about the movie. Weird.
I paid attention to Alfonso Cuaron's work on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I was horrified that he was cutting the movie length from the previous two films, and strip-mining the book. I was heartbroken when Cuaron said that certain things in the book wouldn't be appearing in the film. I nearly flipped when I learned that the kids wouldn't be running around in their Hogwarts uniforms most of the time. And then I saw the movie. Cuaron kept to the spirit of the book. He explored what made Harry tick at that point in his life, and made that the central focus for the movie.
Noticing a pattern here?
Vaughn was not positive about everything the way that Singer was. But he's not Singer. Ratner has been relatively quiet about his plans for the film. I've seen a couple of his movies, namely Rush Hour. While I enjoyed Rush Hour for a buddy-comedy/action-flick, it doesn't inspire me with a lot of confidence that Ratner can handle a cast the size of X3. But then, I've seen another Ratner-helmed movie, The Family Man, a great character-based film (and one of the few where Nicholas Cage is actually a good actor). So I'm waiting. I'm being patient.
You see, characters are what we love. Stories come from the characters, and if we get the spirit of the characters involved, we'll get the spirit of the stories. I am a bit worried about the future of the movie because it's had a number of pre-production stumbles. But we've got to wait for the movie to come out.
We can't judge the directors in advance. We can't say that they're going to make an amazing movie because they've made amazing movies before (look at Ang Lee and The Hulk). We can't say they'll make an awful movie because they've made awful movies before (look at Jerry Bruckheimer and Pirates of the Caribbean).
So to all the fanboys out there, take a look. Take a long, soul-searching look. What makes a movie good? Is it a slavish adaptation of the source material? Is it the director carefully choosing his words to please the fanboys (an admittedly small segment of the population)? Or is it taking the source material, and the established direction, stripping away what doesn't work, keeping what does, and establishing your own tone with the franchise that you have been chosen to direct? When you see a directing choice that you may not agree with, step back from your rage. Do not immediately pass undeserved judgment on a director because they may have had a clunker of a film in the past. Ask yourself what is important to you in a movie, and then start posting your reactions for the entire world to see.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
John Pierson is a college journalism graduate who has collected comics since before puberty, and also wishes that people would use their spell checker before posting. While he hates the Wolverine claws on the poster instead of a number '3', he still likes movie-Wolverine better than the comic version.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
One-Shots is an ongoing, revolving column, ready and willing for your contributions. Please read over our <a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?t=32883" target="_blank">guidelines</a> first, and then send your submissions to Raul Grau at columns@comixfan.cjb.net.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its staff.
Director Ratner, or How I Learned to Stop Panicking and Love the Movie
An interesting thing happened a while ago on the Comixfan message boards. I became enraged while reading an interview given by Matthew Vaughn. He answered some questions about Layer Cake, but the troubling stuff was about the upcoming X-Men movie.
According to him, Juggernaut's origin "is ****ed-up." Dark Phoenix has some "stupid **** in it." Guess what, as a filmmaker, he's probably right. I've been reading X-Men comics for thirteen years and have collected issues from every storyline that impacts the perception of the X-Men franchise as it is today. I love those classic stories more than some of today's. But think about it; Juggernaut gets his powers and then a cave falls in on him. He's super-strong, but gets trapped by some rocks? Dark Phoenix gets mind-controlled into believing she's her reincarnated ancestor in colonial America? The most powerful telepath in the universe gets mind controlled?!? I don't necessarily like the way Vaughn made his statements, but they're undeniably true.
Granted Vaughn is no longer on the movie, due to personal reasons, but it doesn't seem that Brett Ratner is looking to make any huge changes from his general drift.
At any rate, after reading the Vaughn interview, I also read a flurry of posts talking about how awful the movie would be, how Vaughn didn't respect the X-Men's history, and how the movie would be so much better if Dark Phoenix were in space with the Shi'ar.
And then I started to think back on all my previous experiences with comic book movies. When I first heard Bryan Singer was directing X-Men, I said to myself: "Who?" Then I watched The Usual Suspects and thought to myself: "This guy can tell a pretty good story." Then I heard he was putting my favorite characters in LEATHER. I roared. I rampaged. And when I saw the movie, I got bloody satisfaction. Literally, from the opening scenes through the end of the movie, I leaned forward in my seat; slack jawed, staring in utterly rapt attention.
Then I heard about Daredevil. I followed every step of that movie's production. I watched the MTV Special. I read interviews with Affleck and Kevin Smith and Jon Favreau, someone I consider to be a top actor and a pretty good producer/director as well. I absolutely loved everything I was hearing about Daredevil. I even bought a bunch of Daredevil comics, so I'd be prepared for the movie. I went and saw it on opening day.
What an absolute piece of schlock. There were zero transitional scenes, the story didn't feel cohesive. The acting, at least on the part of Affleck, Garner, and Clarke-Duncan, was flat and wooden. There was nothing to like about this movie, except for Colin Farrell's performance as Bullseye. And yet, I'd loved everything that I'd heard about the movie. Weird.
I paid attention to Alfonso Cuaron's work on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I was horrified that he was cutting the movie length from the previous two films, and strip-mining the book. I was heartbroken when Cuaron said that certain things in the book wouldn't be appearing in the film. I nearly flipped when I learned that the kids wouldn't be running around in their Hogwarts uniforms most of the time. And then I saw the movie. Cuaron kept to the spirit of the book. He explored what made Harry tick at that point in his life, and made that the central focus for the movie.
Noticing a pattern here?
Vaughn was not positive about everything the way that Singer was. But he's not Singer. Ratner has been relatively quiet about his plans for the film. I've seen a couple of his movies, namely Rush Hour. While I enjoyed Rush Hour for a buddy-comedy/action-flick, it doesn't inspire me with a lot of confidence that Ratner can handle a cast the size of X3. But then, I've seen another Ratner-helmed movie, The Family Man, a great character-based film (and one of the few where Nicholas Cage is actually a good actor). So I'm waiting. I'm being patient.
You see, characters are what we love. Stories come from the characters, and if we get the spirit of the characters involved, we'll get the spirit of the stories. I am a bit worried about the future of the movie because it's had a number of pre-production stumbles. But we've got to wait for the movie to come out.
We can't judge the directors in advance. We can't say that they're going to make an amazing movie because they've made amazing movies before (look at Ang Lee and The Hulk). We can't say they'll make an awful movie because they've made awful movies before (look at Jerry Bruckheimer and Pirates of the Caribbean).
So to all the fanboys out there, take a look. Take a long, soul-searching look. What makes a movie good? Is it a slavish adaptation of the source material? Is it the director carefully choosing his words to please the fanboys (an admittedly small segment of the population)? Or is it taking the source material, and the established direction, stripping away what doesn't work, keeping what does, and establishing your own tone with the franchise that you have been chosen to direct? When you see a directing choice that you may not agree with, step back from your rage. Do not immediately pass undeserved judgment on a director because they may have had a clunker of a film in the past. Ask yourself what is important to you in a movie, and then start posting your reactions for the entire world to see.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
John Pierson is a college journalism graduate who has collected comics since before puberty, and also wishes that people would use their spell checker before posting. While he hates the Wolverine claws on the poster instead of a number '3', he still likes movie-Wolverine better than the comic version.
<center><hr width=75%></center>
One-Shots is an ongoing, revolving column, ready and willing for your contributions. Please read over our <a href="http://www.comixfan.com/xfan/forums/showthread.php?t=32883" target="_blank">guidelines</a> first, and then send your submissions to Raul Grau at columns@comixfan.cjb.net.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and are not reflective of Comixfan or its staff.