Dave's Fanboy Sermon

By now most of you have seen it. It ominously creeps up and springs upon us from nowhere. Of course, I'm talking about the trailer for the new X-Men movie. Now I know that many comic fans are excited about the upcoming prospect of seeing your favorite mutant team on the big screen (if your local multi-plex has a screen that could actually be called "big"). I, unfortunately, am not one of those fans.

For years, movies about comic book characters have puzzled me. Movies and comic books would seem to be a natural marriage. Comics are visually oriented and packed with action. Somehow, however, when superheroes are translated to the silver screen, something is invariably lost. Oh, there are exceptions; Tim Burtons first Batman movie, the first Superman and The Phantom movie were acceptable. I didn't think that Barb Wire was nearly as bad as most seemed to think that it was. The Matrix and Men In Black were based on obscure comic book properties, but that is a different situation entirely. Ulitmately, it seems that for every decent superhero movie, there are ten awful ones. I think that there is a reason for this, and it goes back to what makes comic books unique as an art form

For those of you who haven't read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics (and shame on you if you haven't), among the many points that he covered were the concept of "closure". Closure is what happens in a comic book between the panels. Each panel in a comic book is a static image, yet the sequence of several images together causes the reader to "fill in" the points between them with the implied action. While comics are still visual, just as a movie is, they still involve the reader on a much more personal level. After all, on the movie screen, the action is right in front of you, with little left to the imagination. Our imagination is much more willing to let us believe that a man can dress up in tights without looking silly. What can look heroic and visually stunning on the comic book page can just look like a grown man in tights on the movie screen.

Despite this, we keep hoping for that ultimate superhero movie, the one that will completely capture the thrill that we feel every time we read a great comic. We also somehow feel that a movie might legitimize the characters that we love. Certainly, even if it is a flop, the X-Men movie will be seen by many more people than have ever read a comic book. Comic fans, stung by years of snide coments about their hobby, would like nothing more that to see a crowd standing in line to see the adventures of their favorite heroes. We could silently laugh and think to ourselves of the vindication of watching non-comic fans shell out $7.50 to slip into our little world. Most importantly, we are salivating at the thought of finally seeing Wolverine and Magneto go at it on the big screen.

So how can I not be excited? Well, first, I've seen the trailer, and quite frankly, it doesn't impress me much. To be fair, it doesn't really give us enough to begin to judge the movie by. It zips along too fast to really get much of a look at the characters. Like most trailers these days, it's unquestionably style over substance. Mostly, however, the thought of an X-Men movie just doesn't excite me because it has several strikes against it before it even goes before the cameras. Most people going to see this movie will most likely have no idea who the X-Men are. The task therefore falls to the filmakers to define the characters for the non-initiated within the film itself. They cannot bank on a viewer being familiar with the large cast of characters because it is a financial neccessity that the film appeal to much more that just comic fandom. If every X-Men reader went to see the film five times, the ticket sales wouldn't begin to justify the cost of the movie.

The filmakers face the unenviable job of attempting to familiarize the audience with each of the members of the X-Men as well as several villains. The limitations of a two hour movie make this virtually impossible. Ensemble movies are a dicey proposition even when they are set in a world that everyone is familiar with. Throw them into a fantastic setting, and you have the recipe for chaos. Even in Tim Burtons hands, the second Batman movie suffered from too many villains and too many subplots. To give each character in the X-Men movie enough screen time to establish a character is simply not possible within a two hour time frame. Their only alternative is to pop the characters in and out and concentrate instead on flash. Now I like cool special effects and dazzling stunts as well as the next fanboy, but without any grasp of the characters, the bulk of the audience is going to be left wondering why they should care.Ultimately, this is just what we, as comic fans do not want. We want these characters to appeal to the public at large as much as they do to us.

The argument that a major movie such as X-Men can serve as a commercial for comics in general is valid only to a point. Invariably, when a movie about a comic book character hits the theaters, someone will ask me how many more comic books I am selling because of the popularity of that film. The answer is invariably; none. Unfortunately, the audience for movies so far outstrips the number of readers, that comparisons are moot. Much as I would love to see otherwise, people just do not walk out of a movie and think, "Wow! That was good. I'm going to start reading comic books now!" I am not saying that no movies about comic characters should never be done. I just feel that the X-Men movie has too much going against it. They didn't consult me, however, and are going ahead and making it anyway. So I hope that they suprise me and actually make a good film. With comic sales falling and new readers needed desperately, the one thing that we don't need is a bad movie with two dimensional superheroes.