Best Comic to Movie Transition
 

Figured this thread would be better suited here than in the general ol` media forum. Basically, of all comic book originating movies, which do you feel stayed the most loyal to the source?

Due to lack of experience in this area, I`ll play it safe and say the original Spiderman... Mainly because it was pretty much the same as the cartoon series and I heard the cartoon series was pretty accurate.

Also, for fun, what movie totally fucked off the original comic?

Sin City, I guess. Very well made, and a refreshing alternative to *yawn* Spiderman and Batman.

I'm pretty sure that Sin City takes this pretty easily. Actually, A History of Violence might also be a faithful adaptation. I've never read the comic though.

Most faithful? Yeah, probably Sin City.

Best? Batman Begins. I just adore that movie.

And Spider-Man 1 wasn't very faithful/accurate at all =(

Sin City was quite good, though.

The first Batman was really, really damn good. Jack Nicholson as The Joker? You can't do much better than that. Batman Begins was a really good movie, but as far as acting goes, gimme Kim Basinger over Katie Holmes any day.

I don't know if it really counts, but American Splendor was a really, really good movie. I guess it was more about the creation of it, though.

On a somewhat related note, Hajime no Ippo produced the most faithful manga to anime series that I've ever seen. The movies were also very accurate portrayals of stuff from the comic.

Sin City... hands down. Used pretty much even the same dialogues. About the one that totally f*cked up the cartoon, how about V for Vendetta?

Spiderman were the best really, fresh breeze and many people enjoyed it. Then Batman Begins, god ive rewatched parts of that movie so many times.

My three favorite comic book movies are X2, Spider-Man 2, and Elektra, in that order. Out of those, I'd say Spider-Man 2 was truest to the comics. I haven't seen Sin City to say if it is or not.

The 1st Batman movie with Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton. And that movie got Catwoman RIGHT-ON!

I said this somewhere else recently. If they got Catwoman "RIGHT-ON" then why is she blonde?

I thought Spawn was a rather nicely done adaptation :P

Spawn was nicely done for an adaptation. I actually found it to be a pretty good action flick. I might be alone on this one.

I liked the first Spider-Man movie, but Green Goblin was never one of my favourite Spidey villains.

Batman Begins was another good movie. I just watched it again earlier today.

Batman Begins and V For Vendetta. Can't wait for The Dark Knight though :ninja:

Sin City for most faithful and Batman Begins for best transition to the medium movie. Some people argue the Burton-Batman was better/best, but they're plain wrong. Not that the Burton Batman was bad in any way, but Begins is the much better movie.

Batman Begins and Spiderman (1 & 2) are great transitions. As for the WORST, I would say the Fantastic Four wins hands down because of what a wuss they turned Dr. Doom into. Doom is supposed to be one of the greatest villains of all time, and they made him a joke!

I have not seen Superman yet (the new one) but I have heard it stays faithful to the book.

I'm going out on a limb to say that "300" will probably be the best after it's released. Right now, I'd have to say Hulk...okay, I'm lying. Sin City. Worst? Hmmmm...yeah, Fantastic 4 easily. Ruin Doom, and you've ruined the team and the movie. Not to mention Mr. Reed Richards himself being somewhat of a complete moron, despite the fact that he's ridiculously smart.

Immediate disqualification for reasons of fucking awful taste.

Spiderman, Sin City, Punisher (I thought) and soon enough 300. Hopefully after Sin City it means people might actually treat old Miller stories like they deserve.

Disqualified for adding nothing to the thread.

Having had little exposure to the character, I would say that Punisher was a good representation of the character, despite being a little over the top.

I can tell from this thread that there are a lot of Frank Miller fans, what with all the Sin City suggestions and the few 300 guesses.

The Phantom.

Of all the comic book movies ever made - and we can all admit it's been a pretty iffy bunch - not a one has hit the nail on the head as well as this underrated gem from the 90s.

It's meant to be a cheesy throwback to the same serials that inspired Indiana Jones, and it does it well with a lot of gorgeous action set peices, a stupid grin from Billy Zane behind that rubber suit and some incredible scene chewing by Treat Williams as Xander Drax. It's meant to be cheap, silly rainy Saturday afternoon fare and it does it in spades.

Yeah, other movies may be better like Spider-Man 2 or Batman Begins, but no other superhero movie has understood it's source material half as well as The Phantom.

Honorable Mentions: Ghost World, Road To Perdition, Batman Begins, Superman, Hulk

Sin City was very well done. Batman Begins was quite good as well. They both make the transition from comic to film look easy.

I don't want to sound nitpicky, but The Phantom started as a comic strip, not a comic book. I suppose that might still count, considering how little difference there is between how he was written in strip form and how has been and is being written in book form.

He was also the first superhero. Whats your point?

One of the reasons that there are so few issues of Action Comics #1 is that they were used as "filler" for newspaper comic strips the year after. They actually cut up the comics and pasted them onto "new" strips, so they'd pay the artist less. Does that discredit a comic book because it was made into a strip? Not at all. Pull your head out of your ass.

As much as I want to vote Sin City for this one I think that the honor is going to go with Road To Perdition for this one. This little black and white noir novel was turned into one of the most beautifully shot and best acted adaptations ever created. Plus... It has a ghostly beautiful soundtrack written by Thomas Newman; you can't really go wrong with this combination.

My vote goes to Sin City because it dares to be different. The last 19 superhero comic movies I've watched in the last few years all have the same plot. Some ordinary dude gains super human abilities and it's his job to fight crime and avenge his mother/brother/sister/father/second cousin/girlfriend/family etc etc. Of all of them, The Punisher was the most enjoyable. I mean, if you're going to use such a recycled plot at least give me over the top violence.

Sin City however is just beautiful. Dark, violent and beautiful.

As opposed to some ordinary dude saving a kid from a child molester, who later seeks his revenge against them both? I mean, one of the big points of Sin City is that it is a gigantic cliche.

Not that I'm knocking Sin City but after the story with Marv, the rest of it is a retread of a retread. The over-the-top violence and attempt to recreate Miller's white-on-black inkwork becomes tiring and stale after about an hour.

This doesn't mean that there aren't other Superhero movies that are stale, tired retreads - but for what it is, the movie is middle of the road.

So, first Elektra, and then, despite little exposure to the character, you say Punisher was a good adaptation? Wow, for a guy with comics in his av/sig, who clearly thinks he knows a thing or two, you're really riding the bus to retard town.

I thought Sin City was the most faithful adaptation from comic to movie, but not necessarily the best movie. Generally you would have enjoyed the movie alot more if you had read and enjoyed the comic first. The first Spiderman movie was pretty enjoyable, and so was "Batman" and "Batman Begins". When I say Batman, I don't mean the franchise, rather, I meant the first movie because I don't know how in the 7 Hells Joel Schumacher managed to fuck up Batman & Robin & Batman Forever so badly. (Campy green flourescent raver bullshit)

Also, in the same vein, X3 was horrendously bad, I felt.

I don't think it was that bad. It just seemed as if it was trying to combine too many X-Universes into one and kinda missed a little. Maybe a lot, depending on how you look at it.

for me, it would be the X-men transition. I thought they did really well with it, suprisingly well with Wolverine. but the best character transition was Patrick Stewart as Professor X

I would have to agree with this, Wolverine and Professor X came out very well. X3 wasn't bad per'se, but it could have been better. If there is a X4, I hope it will redeem it.

there is apparently, and all I need to say is the proposed title by the creators:

X4: Age of Apocalypse

Try understanding it in conjunction to your over-the-top, and in this case unnecessary, style of responding to people instead and you'll get it just fine.

Man, Age of Apocalypse sounds great. I hope they don't take Apocalypse look stupid though. What do you guys think about the Magneto and Wolverine spin-off movies coming up?

While I certainly agree with you guys who have said Sin City, I'm gonna have to cast my vote for The Crow. While it didn't exactly follow the comic like a road map, it managed to capture its essence quite well.

You just have to forget that they made more after the first one. :P

I think that Sin City was the best as far as getting it dead on the style of the comic but I think as far as interpretation goes I would have to go with V for Vendetta. This movie really captured the series well although they didn't adhere strictly to the comic itself. I thought the way they captured V was extremely unique and quite enjoyable.

Dare Devil :lolsign:

I have a few favourites Fist of the North Star Anime, Constantine, Superman, and I'm really looking forward to seeing Iron Man movie. :edgarrock: I was so hoping he was the new superhero in smallville, but then I remembered he is Marvel :doh:

Small fact: Smallville was originally suppose to be a show about Bruce Wayne growing up, not Clark Kent.

I'm going to have to agree with this one. I actually liked the movies so much that I went back and read the comics later. I found that while Sin City was an artisticly true representation in terms of the movie being captured from the comic in an almost frame-by-frame motion, V for Vendetta was an actual interpretation presented from ink-on-paper to something live-action-motion-picture.

By the way, I am starting to love these comic representation movies; they ARE a lot of fun. :) 'Specially when going to a movie with all sorts of geeks who grew up reading these comics, since I didn't have that pleasure during my childhood. My boyfriend grew up reading good old fashion American Comic books like DC and Marvel while I grew up absorbing a whole library of Japanese mangas. So it's really interesting to go to a movie made from a comic; it's more fun when the people you go with are excited about it.

I don't know, I can think of a LOT of mangas that I wish were made into movies, but I can't think of any that would strike interesting to this community. Possibly maybe Battle Royale, but I didn't read the manga and the actual original creation was a novel, which was made into a movie, then the manga, so I dunno, seems a bit off the subject. :P

V for Vendetta was a horrible transition. Maybe passable as a popcorn blockbuster, but when you look at the symbology, the order of events leading up to the Conservative takeover, and even V's ideology, it just falls flat on its face.

A couple characters were recreated faithfully, but not V. The movie presented V as a character who really was a monster whose ultimate goal was revenge. It leaves the question of Freedom Fighter, Terrorist, or Madman unanswered, but in the book it definitely was.


My vote goes to Spider Man 2. It didn't recycle the old adage to the point of nauseum and it presented Peter Parker the way he should be: a loveable nerd with superpowers.

This might be off the subject a little bit, but has anyone seen the "Nana" movie? It is adapted from the Nana manga. I think that is totally like the manga. The character even look and dress just like in the manga. Plus, one of the characters in the manga is a singer in a band and they got like one of the number one j-pop singers in Japan to play that part. Pretty much ANY Japanese movie adaption is dead-on. It only seems to be the American movies that seem to stray from the comics. I guess the directors want to give the comic their own brand of "flavor". That's why it is such a rare occurance when an American comic-movie is faithful to the comic.

Although, Sin City REALLY was dead-on!

For me it's got to be 'Flash Gordon'. While Sin City was okay, I think the choice to use all the original dialogue meant the film suffered somewhat. The constant exposition may be need in a static comic book, but in the film it felt extremely heavy-handed. I didn't need the charcters to explain everything they said and did when their actions often spoke louder than words.

Sorry, but GTFO now.
Constantine had to have been the best worst transition. Tell me, how does a wiseguy/smartass/cynical British sod go to being a fucking American from California who says "DUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE" a lot? Keanu sadly, was at his best in that film, but a lot of the changes, just to Americanize it, totally ruined it for me.
Still a good movie, but just... ugh.

More like disqualified for not knowing a thing about the Punisher.

The Punisher movie, while amazingly fucking good (for a comic book movies), had some major drawbacks.

A) His daughter magically had a sex-change that affected the plot in absolutely no way. Plus, a few series arcs in the Punisher (Especially Volume 5 (MAX Print a la Steve Dillon and Garth Ennis)) dealt with not only the loss of his wife, but his daughter.
B) The fact that they jumbled two (three?) different story arcs from 'In the Beginning' (him killing his family's killers) and Volume 3 (his place of residence/the weirdos he lives with/giving them the loot).
C) The lack of over-the-topness. It's apparent you haven't read a Punisher comic if you think that the movie is over the top.
D) The fact that MOST of the gore was cut out, entirely, to get a lame ass PG13 rating. I'm sorry, but I grew up reading the Punisher, it was not as violent as I had hoped. =/
E) Go read the fucking books.

At least they've greenlighted the sequel and Thomas Jane was saying that it will be much more violent and faster paced than the first movie (since quite a chunk of the plot is now out of the way). Here's praying for an 'R' rating and headshots galore.

Also, take a guess what my favourite comic book movie is.
Hint: Ends with 'unisher'

And sadly, I find myself agreeing with LeHah's movies and points for a change, at least when it comes to The Phantom, Ghost World, and Road to Perdition. However the last two, weren't really "comic books" (super-geekery) so much as graphic novels.

In all fairness, and I hate to bring this all back up, but the Punisher with Thomas Jane has to be infinately times better plot wise, and comic book adaptation wise than the one with Dolph Lungdren or however you spell it.

I don't remember much about the 'original' movie back in the 90's...just the yakuza scene and one where he lives in a sewer (rite?) but while it's funny to watch Dolph mumble all his lines, I think the newer version takes the cake.

That would've made more sense if this post dealt with the original item that was response toward.

I'm not sure why they changed the child's gender either. Maybe it was done to parallel Castle killing Howard Saint's son. But I don't consider it an important enough aspect of the character to complain about it.
How is this a drawback? Because within the confines of the movie, it works, unlike another comic book movie I know that tries to tie together three different story arcs.
I don't think the movie is over the top. I think it's over the top in portions, most notably at the end of the climax.
I don't think the use of gore was necessary in the instances that it wasn't used. I can hardly imagine what I would've thought if they had actually shown all those piercings being removed.
No.

Reznor, if you have a problem with the lack of violence in the Punisher movie, feel free to pick up the uncut version of the movie that's out now. Doesn't add much, only about 15 minutes of footage, but it might be a good taste of what you're looking for.

I'd have to say my favorite comic book adaptation of all time would have to be "Nick Fury" starring David Hasselhoff. The Hoff is the shit in that movie.



I actually liked Ghost Rider. Sure, there were some changes, but after reading a few of the comics, the movie was pretty faithful, minus some Hollywood additions.

It shocks me to see all of these comic fans passing up something as stupid as this. I know LeHah is banned, but I still think he/she reads the forums.

Smallville was not supposed to be about Bruce Wyane growing up because he lived in a mansion on the outskirts of Gotham City. Yet, Clark Kent was found and rasied in Smallville, Kansas. Granted those that make the show are not that bright, they know if they would have dont something like that there would have been alot of bitching.

As for adaptation.

I am gonna go with a top 3.

1. Spider-Man 2 (or the series so far)
2. Sin-City
3. 300

The other super hero movies I liked, but some I wouldnt call an adaptation for the fact of allt he things that where changed or left out. I dont call the theatrical X-Men series an adaptation at all do to Bryan Singer addmiting to have never read an X-Men comic till he started the project. This is probably what makes it one of the better comic/superhero movies to date.


There will be an americanized version of BR coming out in theaters 2008. Hopefully the "hard R" rating is added and that movie gets it. I loved the novel, and the movie was great, the manga actually gave it a diffrent look. It gave more back story to alot of the characters, not so get emotionally attached, but just to see what was ticking in the back of their head while they started to "play the game". Right now I am hoping to find BR2 some where, but thats a hard one.

If the idea LeHah referenced had gone through, it wouldn't have been called Smallville.

I know, I was just trying to figure out why there was no call on that till now. If there was a comics 101 course, that would be in the mid term.