(no subject)

[learnedax]

Friday new_man and I went to see Constantine. It was, well, sorta ok, if you forgot about the comics.

I would have been happier with a choice other than Keanu, but he actually wasn't too bad at playing the stone cold non-reactive guy. He was basically decent.

Now, I don't have a real problem with filmmakers changing the character and backstory of comic characters, because it's the nature of the comic medium that different authors do different things. This is especially true of JC, because his personality has always varied quite a bit. However, it does kind of bug me when someone starts off with a rich, interesting character or story and tosses out major parts of it without really filling the void with anything. For instance, John is half dark, caustic rogue and half quirky British guy. It's a big blow to make him an American, but it might be alright if you made him distinctively New York, or distinctively LA. It would clearly be a different take on the character, but at least you wouldn't be taking something away without replacing it.

It's a little bit annoying that they streamlined the myriad weird things that go on in John's universe into almost exclusively Heaven v. Hell weirdness, but I can understand that in the context of the story they wanted to tell, which was all about demonic issues. There were some other problems (Lucifer was lame lame lame, John's powers (which were pleasantly vague) were more Sixth Sense than Hellblazer, seeing John as a kid was just embarrassing), but the core "you're a guy hated by all sides and doomed soon to hell" essence was decently well done.

There was really just one other major problem (beyond it just not being better): they turn John into a good guy. He's not doomed to hell because he's a bad guy, he's doomed to hell because as a troubled teen he tried to kill himself. That really sucks the life out of the character. They made him into a warrior for heaven, who's only doomed to hell on a technicality. He's still a jerk on the surface, which is good, but ultimately he's a good guy, which is bad.

Oh, well, there's a reason we only paid matinee prices

Comments

[umbran.livejournal.com]

It's a little bit annoying that they streamlined the myriad weird things that go on in John's universe into almost exclusively Heaven v. Hell weirdness, but I can understand that in the context of the story they wanted to tell, which was all about demonic issues.

Perhaps more important than the context fo the story they wanted to tell would be the issue of time. In a comic, they've got many issues in which to multiple stories. On the movie screen, it's two hours, one story, that's all. Stories on the screen are generally much more focused than those in print media.

[new-man.livejournal.com]

I agree generally about comic vs. film. yes, movies have a finite time and comics have an effectively limitless time to reveal their stories. However, then when making a film, part of the art is to select a story that will fit appropriately in your time frame without feeling like you've rushed it or crushed it or sucked the life out of it to fit it in.

Yes, there are arcs in the Hellraiser comic which taek a year or more to unfold. There are also many, just as effective stories, that take only one, two, or three issues.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are arcs in the Hellraiser comic which taek a year or more to unfold. There are also many, just as effective stories, that take only one, two, or three issues.

Yes. And the same can be said for just about any comic book. But the movies generally stick to one story, no matter how long it took (or would take) in the comics.

And there, I think, lies some of the difference - a comic is a serial entertainment, but a movie is not.

[new-man.livejournal.com]

I clearly didn't communciate my point well. Part of creating a good movie adaptation is selecting material that will adapt well to the movie format. With comic books, the movie makers often have the option of selecting a long story or a short one. The creators of Constantine selected a story that was much too long for a two hour movie. Rather than select shorter source material, they chose to strip out many of the elements that made the original story appealing and, by doing so, made it less appealing. What a good filmaker does is find and story which is both appealing and can be told in the confines of a movie (or makes multiple movies to tell one story).

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Rather than select shorter source material, they chose to strip out many of the elements that made the original story appealing and, by doing so, made it less appealing.

That may depend upon what you consider to be one "story", I suppose. It seemed to me (and he may correct me if I'm wrong) that learnedax was talking about the possible inclusion of things that were not part of the story at hand - the question raised seemed to me whether they should display the myriad weirdness seen in the full comics run while trying to handle the plot of one particular piece of weirdness.

Do the stories with Constantine in the comics not focus on one weirdness at a time?

[jducoeur]

Do the stories with Constantine in the comics not focus on one weirdness at a time?

Actually, typically not. There have been some runs like that, but the story tends to be many-layered -- that's part of its charm. At any given time, there's usually a deep backstory that plays out over the course of a fairly long time, with several overlapping "A" stories running semi-serially in the foreground. The plot structure is typically pretty messy.

Of course, I'm not sure any of that could really translate to film, so I'm not going to complain if they left that structure out. It just illustrates that Hellblazer is a relatively difficult topic to render well to film...

[new-man.livejournal.com]

My impression as someone who has read Hellblazer since day one (as opposed to learnedax, who hasn't read much (any?) of that actually Hellblazer comics, but has read a bunch of the other material in which he appears: Swamp Thing, Books of Magic, &c.) was that the makers of the movie looked at the two hundred plus issues and picked and chose the things they liked, added in some stuff of there own creation just because, and changed things that existed... because they could. I don't know why.

Some of the stories told in the past 206 issues have taken one issue to tell, and would be too short for a movie. Some have taken a dozen or more and would be too long for a movie. Some have taken 3 to 6 issues and are just the right length for a feature film. So, my question is, instead of the unfaithful, weird hash of storylines and characters, why didn't they just pick a storyline and stick to it? It's like the want to deliberately alienate the existing fan base in favor of (hopefully) creating new customers.

I agree, yet

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

I agree that film and written art are very different (I'm usually the one pointing this out). Having said this, film can compress a lot of things and pay homage to backstory for fans without padding the story (the last Harry Potter installation was impressive at this). I have to admit I saw this in the first Xmen movie and Spiderman 2. There were lots of bits in there for the fans establishing the universe beyond the plot.

Primarily, they kept the backdrop the same and amplified it (in ways) for the screen. Here, it seems they are simplifying the universe. Constantine lives in a world, faces and comprehends many supernatural, natural and superhuman forces. Removing These other ingredients turn the Constantine Paella into rice with mussels. It's good, but not the same.

I apologize wholeheartedly for the metaphor.

Re: I agree, yet

[umbran.livejournal.com]

Having said this, film can compress a lot of things and pay homage to backstory for fans without padding the story (the last Harry Potter installation was impressive at this).

Hm. Mileage varies, I guess. Because I think the latest HP movie was horrendous at it, in that they overdid it. They spent time on the homages that should have been spent on actual development of the secondary characters, or on making the main story comprehensible.

The X-Men movies are probably a better example of it being done well. While I think the Spiderman movies have an even more richly developed world, I don't think of that as homages. Part of the point of Spiderman is that Peter is really just this guy, and the world is a lot bigger than Spidey himself. So, much of that development is actually playing to the one of the main themes, rather than acting as an in-joke for the fans.

Re: I agree, yet

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's an in-joke nearly so often as it's good world development. Having a film without tunnelvision does not mandate lots of diversions; in fact, using scenes for multiple purposes at once (developing character, moving the plot forward, adding background detail) is, I think, a critical aspect of film adaptation. Almost every interesting story is about more than just this one important protagonist, but filmmakers frequently focus in too tightly to see that.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

he actually wasn't too bad at playing the stone cold non-reactive guy

i.e., playing Keanu Reeves. Admittedly, I haven't read all of JC's comics, but I have read a lot of them. "non-reactive" is not a trait I've *ever* seen in him.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Well, in fact, I've only read other books with John in them, rather than Hellblazer itself. Given his origins I don't see that as a real problem, although there are certain runs of Hellblazer that I ought to get around to reading.

However, in my limited observation I thought that him not getting emotionally worked up over anything was a key part of his character, and it is in this sense that I mean non-reactive. Yes, Keanu was playing Keanu, but I thought that it wasn't so bad for this version of John, and I thought that he was more convincingly human than in most of his roles.

[jducoeur]

However, in my limited observation I thought that him not getting emotionally worked up over anything was a key part of his character

This is one of those ways in which "John in his own book" is wildly different from "John in other peoples' books".

Constantine is, at heart, a con man. As such, keeping tight control over his surface persona is absolutely key. So when you see him in other books (especially Swamp Thing), most of what you see is that unflappable surface cool.

What makes Hellblazer interesting is that it cracks that shell -- it's about John the man, not John the persona, and it makes very clear that he is a very *typical* con man. Behind the omnipresent cigarette is a man who is scared *all* the time. He keeps up the surface cool because it's how he copes with the insane world he is immersed in, but he's always hanging on by his fingernails. And it absolutely kills him when his friends get hurt because of him, but he's never found a good way to prevent it.

The result is a character who is probably clinically depressed all the time, just one step removed from being a basket case. It doesn't help that, about half the time, the horrors around him really are his fault. (The current storyline, which has been running for a year or two now, can be traced directly back to him getting suckered by a demon, and the consequences have been horrific even by the standards of this story: death and insanity everywhere, and his life being systematically destroyed.)

So it's kind of unfortunate if they overplay the "cool" card in the movie. Without that fundamental angst, and the absolutely *pervasive* sense of guilt, you're missing half the character...

[jducoeur]

There was really just one other major problem (beyond it just not being better): they turn John into a good guy. He's not doomed to hell because he's a bad guy, he's doomed to hell because as a troubled teen he tried to kill himself.

Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Okay, there's no way I can forgive that one: it guts the spirit of the character. The deep moral ambiguity is essential to the character. This is a man who has damned himself to Hell a hundred times over; the only reason he isn't there yet is that he's smarter than the devils. (In the comic, he hasn't escaped Hell because of any fundamental goodness -- he's done so through dangerous trickery, and he knows that it isn't going to last forever.)

Indeed, I think you can argue that John sees himself as essentially a sacrificial goat. He does a lot of good, but does it in very bad ways. He quite consciously damns himself to help others. And I think he deeply believes that he *deserves* Hell. He just isn't going to let himself get sucked into it any earlier than he must.