The Accuracy Trap In The Marvel Cinematic Universe

These days pretty much every major movie seems to be some kind of adaptation of this or that preexisting material, and while I don’t necessarily think that’s the end of the world or even the medium it does unquestionably present certain challenges for those of us on the reporting/critiquing end of the system. Pre-existing material means pre-existing ideas and expectations, and if your perspective wasn’t in some way colored by those things (assuming you have them in the first place) I don’t know what kind of human being you’d be. For the most part, adults can generally see past that sort of thing – particularly if that happens to be your job, as it is in my case – but a thing that’s there is a thing that’s there. Let’s face it: The reason to do remakes and reboots and adaptations in the first place is to sell tickets based on people’s fond memories and/or emotional attachments to the material. And while movie studios are always looking to put a fresh stamp or a new “spin” on famous characters (for business reasons as often as for filmmakers’ aesthetic taste – you want people to buy the new tie-in merchandise, not the stuff they might already have) they’ve also wised up pretty quick to the idea that an easy way to turn a fanbase immediately receptive is to match their expectations in some way. The original Iron Man trailer that so famously tore the roof of SDCC did so in no small part simply because it was able to deliver an Iron Man who looked like he’d stepped out of a comic book and onto the screen. On the flip side, while Man of Steel is widely regarded as a disappointment (though hardly a “failure” in the box-office sense,) it’s certainly true that at least some poorly-prioritized fans were predisposed to nitpick it because (of all reasons) Superman showed up sans his traditional red shorts. While the Michael Bay-produced Ninja Turtles do-over has been one of the industry’s most famously troubled productions for a few years now (at one point shutting down completely after the leak of a widely-derided screenplay draft) discussion of its trailers has focused overwhelmingly on whether or not the title characters new human-like noses are an inappropriate design decision. These things happen. This has created a pair of reader/critic/other-critics dynamics that would be sociologically interesting if they weren’t also so practically irritating. The first being The Internet’s impressive ability to redefine rather specific phrases/concepts like “bias,” “prejudice” or “blind spots” as all now meaning “A person has engaged in conscious thought at some point before viewing a movie in question” and that somehow being damning “evidence” either of nefarious intent or intellectual-impairment. Heaven help the journalist who has made publicly known a single opinion about any topic that might even indirectly be connected to the subject of a given criticism, for they will – in the best case scenario – be immediately found “untrustworthy.” The worst case scenario? They’ll be implicated in some kind of shady dealings ranging from simple bribery (“How much did so-and-so’s competition pay you for this hit-job???”) to elaborate conspiracy theory. It’s not hard to see why: Fans are often invested, short-term, in seeing movies based on their favorite characters look and feel as close to the versions that made them fans in the first place. For such fans, the notion that Marvel Studios’ success can be attributed to making sure everyone’s costume is the right shade of the right color is understandably tempting. And to be sure there’s a certain logic in it. It makes sense to assume that a filmmaker who fixates on details like that is motivated by passion that extends, however slightly, beyond just picking up a check. Problematically, though, this has led to an overly simplified strain of punditry seizing hold of online fandom; the now often-regurgitated notion that all an adaptation needs to do is “follow the Marvel route!” and “stick to the source!” in order to please fans and find box-office success. And while my inner child is as happy as anybody’s to have seen The Avengers turn up all looking more-or-less like they’re “supposed to” (well, except Hawkeye, but five out of six ain’t bad) …I’m sorry, that wasn’t the reason that movie worked. After all, if it was, other page-perfect realizations like Ghost Rider would’ve been similarly successful, no? We’re probably going to be finding out Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman will look like in “Man of Steel 2: Sorry About Man of Steel 1”. I’m hearing lots of interesting rumors. If, as has been widely speculated, the various uniforms (Batman’s in particular) embrace a Marvel-style from-the-page frame of reference, I imagine there will be much rejoicing from the fandom – and I imagine myself likely to join the chorus. A Wonder Woman outfit overseen by Zack Snyder? Which gods did I please?? Would I like to see Batman finally ditching, as Ben Affleck himself has hinted, the “Matrix-like black armor?” Of course I would. But it won’t be the thing that tells us whether or not the movie will be good – that comes later.