Why are comic book adaptations so popular?
September 11th 2008 05:07
Why comic book adaptations are so popular is a rather easy question to answer, I think, which is most likely why I am positing it. When we look back through the various eras of film, so as to see what was popular in previous decades and why, it becomes an even easier question to answer.
Popular films are always about people we would like to be, or be like, because they contain elements and traits that we aspire to and do things that we would like to do. It is the heroic that we aspire to be, aspire to see upon the big screen, and their struggles are important to us and inspiring. Their actions, their stumbles, their victories and defeats are the things of legend, a fact that plays out in the hows and whys of movies from previous decades.
Look toward the movies of knights, pirates, escaped slaves, rebels, and those who stand up for the week and you will see heroes, fact or fiction, upon those screens. Robin Hood, a crusader who returned home to an England that he could not fathom, thus the one time noble becomes a hero for the common folk. Or we could look at so many John Wayne movies that it would boggle the mind, but many of them are a hero standing up for what they feel is right.
Superheroes are the myth, legend, and heroes of today, with some pure in action and ideal, while others struggle with mysterious darkness and gritty problems, but they are the heroes to be found in movies today. Fantasy movies have been around for years, slowly growing in quality, on all fronts, with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy being the apex of these films, however superhero films are just now entering this stage.
While not all of these films have been great, they are still a huge step forward from the quality of script, acting, and marketing of hero movies from previous decades. If the Dark Knight is a sign of what is to come, if Iron Man shows us what we should expect, then the next few years will be full of heroic tales of the people behind the masks and what it takes for them, what they sacrifice, to do their jobs.
Every age needs their heroes, be they realistic or flights of fantasy and idealism, but need them we do and they have played out on the big screen almost since the screen rose.
Popular films are always about people we would like to be, or be like, because they contain elements and traits that we aspire to and do things that we would like to do. It is the heroic that we aspire to be, aspire to see upon the big screen, and their struggles are important to us and inspiring. Their actions, their stumbles, their victories and defeats are the things of legend, a fact that plays out in the hows and whys of movies from previous decades.
Look toward the movies of knights, pirates, escaped slaves, rebels, and those who stand up for the week and you will see heroes, fact or fiction, upon those screens. Robin Hood, a crusader who returned home to an England that he could not fathom, thus the one time noble becomes a hero for the common folk. Or we could look at so many John Wayne movies that it would boggle the mind, but many of them are a hero standing up for what they feel is right.
Superheroes are the myth, legend, and heroes of today, with some pure in action and ideal, while others struggle with mysterious darkness and gritty problems, but they are the heroes to be found in movies today. Fantasy movies have been around for years, slowly growing in quality, on all fronts, with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy being the apex of these films, however superhero films are just now entering this stage.
While not all of these films have been great, they are still a huge step forward from the quality of script, acting, and marketing of hero movies from previous decades. If the Dark Knight is a sign of what is to come, if Iron Man shows us what we should expect, then the next few years will be full of heroic tales of the people behind the masks and what it takes for them, what they sacrifice, to do their jobs.
Every age needs their heroes, be they realistic or flights of fantasy and idealism, but need them we do and they have played out on the big screen almost since the screen rose.
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