I LOVE comic books. I LOVE movies. But comic−book movies? Here's the way I look at 'em: They are like scratch tickets. You throw down some money, do a bit of gambling, and you are either slightly surprised or you just feel swindled. "Iron Man" (2008)? AWESOME. "X−Men: The Last Stand" (2006)? I had to take a shower to wipe off the grime.
This year, we have a lot of big−budget comic−book movie adaptations coming our way; "Thor" is hitting screens in May, the X−Men prequel movie is due out this summer and Captain America's movie is right behind. Now, these are three different comic−book franchises that I adore. I heart them. I have a Captain America shirt, I got Straczynski's run of Thor on my bookshelf, and you don't want to know the depths of my fanboy love for X−Men. But I'm really nervous.
Thor, the Norse god of thunder, son of Odin and the (disputed) leader of the Asgardians, has an air of authority, to say the least. He's a big deal. But how can you throw that on a movie screen? Heck, when Thor and other Asgardians talk in the comic books, their speech bubbles have a special font to show how awesome they are. The "Thor" movie production team has its work cut out for it. They will need to have some really sweet costumes, big sweeping sets — think more "Lord of the Rings" (2001, 2002, 2003) than "Chronicles of Narnia" (2005, 2008, 2010). But in essence, the movie will have to use the Norse iconography and storylines to immerse us and spin one hell of a yarn about a proud and upstart son finding his place in the universe, not just show us some awesome battles and explosions (see the 2005 "The Fantastic Four").
Kenneth Branagh (the director of many acclaimed Shakespeare film adaptations), Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins and Captain Kirk's dad? That's a good pedigree, and I'm hopeful. But … that's the way I always feel before I hit that lotto ticket. I can promise you this: I will be hooting and hollering in that movie theater the same way I was for "The Punisher" (2004, 2008) movies because we comic−book nerds ride together and die together.
And the Captain America movie? Sheesh, I'm very worried. Captain America has been an established character in the Marvel mythology for more than half a century. His origin story has been told so many times over that it's assumed the reader knows it by now. But hot dang, they are gonna make a whole movie about Cap becoming Cap? Captain America is the literal embodiment of America: the voice of liberty, the shield of justice and the furious fists of awesome. The transformation from wimpy Steve Rogers to awesome Nazi−destroying Amurrican will be a difficult one to see because I want to see the Cap I've grown up with. Does anyone want to see another Superman origin story? Or the new Spider−Man reboot? I want to win the lotto without playing.
In all of this, I guess Marvel has a lot to learn from Pixar — an animation studio that waits for the right script and the right story before pushing ahead to make a movie. Once that happens, it goes into production, not the other way around. Pixar could've made a boatload of money from a crappy version of "Toy Story 3" (2010), but instead it waited for a heartbreakingly excellent movie because that's how much it loves its franchises. I offer the example of that steaming mess "X−Men: The Last Stand" to show the difference between Marvel and Pixar — I think it speaks for itself.
NERD OUT.
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