Adaptations, Reboots, and Sequels

There has been a lot of chatter lately about adaptations, reboots and sequels.  As there should be, it's 2016 and it seems that every film released this year can qualify for one of those descriptors.

A small sample

The most recent hoopla is over the announcement (read: rumor) that Zendaya will be playing the role of Mary-Jane in Spider-Man: Homecoming.  For those of you unfamiliar with the source material, Mary-Jane, traditionally, is a white woman with red hair. For those of you unfamiliar with Zendaya, she is neither white nor red-headed.  This has caused a stir in the fanboy community.  It's the same stir that was caused when it was announced that Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four would be black, the new Ghostbusters would be women,  and that Iron Fist would star a white guy.

ADAPTATIONS

Most times we are wrong about adaptations.  It's not because we're stupid.  It's because we are in love with the source material and have problems understanding what an adaptation is.  Johnny Storm being black didn't ruin the film. It was handled within the story just fine.  I review the film here. (New Window.)  The movie was a reboot and an adaptation. To adapt something is to take the source material and convert it to a different medium.  The problem with Fantastic 4 isn't that he's black.  It's that they took very little from the source material save the title and the names/powers of the main characters.  Is it really still an adaptation at that point? The movie was a good movie but a bad Fantastic 4 film.  That's to say that if I knew nothing about Fantastic 4, I would have enjoyed it more than I did.

A different yet equally disturbing stir came about when Iron Fist announcements were being made on Netflix. People felt like an Asian actor should play the Iron Fist and this time they are wrong because they're unfamiliar with the source material. The whole point of the Iron Fist is that he IS a white guy learning the ancient arts and using the Asian ways.  That's what drives him.  He is a fish out of water. This was a case of people complaining because they didn't bother learning.

Now we come to Spider-Man: Homecoming and the Zendaya issue.  Again, this is an adaptation.  (FYI: Any time a movie has characters from a comic book in it, it's an adaptation.) The directors can do whatever they want. If you want a red-headed white girl, read the comic or watch the 2002 film.  The trick to watching a comic book adaptation is to go in without attachment to the source material.  Sometimes, the comics are faithfully adapted and sometimes they're not.  Sometimes the end results of faithful adaptions are great and sometimes they're not just like sometimes looser adaptations are fantastic. Just look at the MCU, DCEU, Sony and Fox offerings...

X-Men and X-2 along with Days of Future Past are fantastic.  The Last Stand and Origins: Wolverine are not. Most of the MCU is great but that doesn't mean they didn't make changes either. Let's look at the major changes to Ant-Man or the fact that a certain Captain has a different fate in Civil War. People had a meltdown at the darkness of Batman V Superman but you know what?  The Ultimate Edition is fantastic! There are huge differences between the flawless Spider-Man 2 and the forgettable The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

The point being that we will either love the way our source material is adapted or we won't. A bad adaptation does not make a bad movie.

REBOOTS

People (read: assholes) were up in arms that Ghostbusters was doing a gender swap. Why?  Because they love the original Ghostbusters and you cannot mess with something people love.  Unfortunately, the fact that this particular reboot was also doing a gender swap brought even more hate.  Hate came from fanboys and sexists alike.  Much like adaptations, I encourage you to go in without knowledge of your source material.  I have not seen the new film yet but I pose this question:  If the original Ghostbusters didn't exist, would you have liked this film?

People get mad when things change and that's especially true in film.  They hated the Terminator reboot/sequel/adaptation. They hated when it was announced that Ben Affleck would be playing the role that Christian Bale brought to life.  It was the same hate that was spewed when it was announced that Bale was replacing Clooney was replacing Kilmer was replacing Keaton.

Who cares?  Can't the original and the reboot coexist? Can't you love the original but respect the reboot?  I am not saying that every reboot is good.  Some are awful.  Some aren't needed or wanted.  But to hate just because it's a woman instead of a man, a black instead of a white, a Colin instead of an Arnold?  That's just pathetic on your part.  A reboot isn't meant to be an exact copy of an original.  It is meant to be a fresh start.

SEQUELS

Sequels are especially difficult in that they must continue a story without just retelling the same parts of it.  They have to live up to the expectations their predecessor set. Bad sequels don't necessarily mean bad movies.  Take Jurassic Park III.  It's a terrible Jurassic Park film but if you knew nothing else about the series, it's a pretty scary dinosaur action flick.  The Matrix is a wonderful film but the sequels weren't.  As a trilogy though, they hold up.  The same thing can be said about Star Wars.  Episode V built on IV but VI was a let down.  Episode I was terrible but II and III improved and lead to IV.  VII is a great continuation.  Even with the bad entries, as a complete sage, they are needed.

Sequels are made strictly because the first one earned money.  It has nothing to do with meeting your expectations. The movie business isn't about art, it's about money.

Either way, sometimes, you're going to get a dud in a series but it's not neccessarily because the movie is bad.  It's because it didn't fit into the world you wanted it to.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Adaptations, Reboots, and Sequels are not what you want them to be.  They never will be.  Studios adapt products they think will make money, they reboot products that made them money before, and the produce sequels to products that made them a lot of money.  If you want an all male cast of all white actors in a faithful adaptation of your favorite source material that nets billions and spawns sequels of equally high quality, become a producer.  If you don't like what other producers are creating, don't bitch on the internet about it.  Instead, don't spend your money on the product.  Money talks like sex sells.  Whatever you do, don't judge a product without first using it.  Moaning about Zendaya playing Mary-Jane without any knowledge of how she handles the role makes you the absolute lowest form of scum on the planet.