Adaptations and Far Cry (2008)

Movies are a complicated form of storytelling. The audio and visual aspects must come together in a pleasing way that enhances the story. The story should be well thought out and capture the audience’s attention. The performances need to make the audience feel something about the characters. It could be positive or negative. As long as it isn’t indifference, the actors did their jobs. The director should bring everything together into a nice little package.

Sometimes that works out. Other times, there can be major issues in getting those elements to come together. One area of film where that becomes very apparent is adaptations. A story that worked in one form of entertainment might not always translate to cinema. There have been attempts of all sorts. Books are frequently used as a source for movie storylines. Television shows and comic books are also frequently used as inspiration. Video games have gotten their fair share of film adaptations. Even poetry and music can sometimes inspire a movie idea.

In order to bring stories from any of those origins to the big screen, certain elements must be changed. No two methods of storytelling are the same. They each have elements that the others don’t, which require some changing in order to fit the story into the new medium. Video games don’t work in a direct translation to film, and songs don’t work in a direct translation to television. The people behind the adaptation will need to figure out how to properly change the story in order to have it fit the new outlet.

Books were one of the first story forms to be adapted into films. They’re also a form of storytelling that requires a great amount of retooling in order to work in the audiovisual world of film. In order to understand the major changes that must be made, the distinction between the different forms of storytelling being lumped into books must be made. The first, major distinction is between fiction and non-fiction. Fiction involves made up stories and characters, where non-fiction is relaying real world information to the reader. Within fiction, the types of writing can be broken down into novels, novellas, and short stories. Those depend on length.

These more specific categories can be seen in film, as well. There are documentaries. They tell real stories in the real world in a, mostly, factual way. Then there are the fictional movies that tell a written story. The stories might be based on real events. Or they could be completely made up. Real events being depicted may have been changed to better service the story. There might be made up elements of a real story added in to give a better story arc. That’s kind of a historical fiction situation. The length of a documentary or fictional film can also determine whether it is a short film, feature length, or an epic.

Having both books and movies be separated into so many different forms and styles means that there are various types of adaptations when books are translated into films. There can be short stories that get turned into short films (Stephen King’s dollar babies), short stories that get turned into feature length dramatic films (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), novellas that become feature films (The Shawshank Redemption), and even non-fiction that becomes a feature film (The Perfect Storm). The adaptations between books and film are wide and varied.

Some issues arise in the adaptations, however, because of the different ways that stories are told between books and film. Looking at fiction only, there’s much more introspection in books than there is in film. The characters share their thoughts and describe things in much greater detail than they could on screen. Narration can help to bridge that gap, but it could never be as in depth as a book when it comes to sharing a character’s thoughts and motivations. As a reader, you know exactly what the character is thinking. The thoughts can be described. In a film, the audience sees a look on a character’s face, or hears a little bit of narration. But the audience puts their own interpretation into what the character is thinking. Thus, the introspective depth that books provide, as the reader lives vicariously through every piece of the character’s being, cannot be replicated on film.

The trouble with adaptations only becomes more apparent as they branch out from books. When it comes to adapting television shows to film (Mission: Impossible) or film to television (Westworld), there are some big differences in the structure of the storytelling. A film has an hour and a half or, in some cases, three and a half hours to tell a story. That story can flow through that time seamlessly. It can be one long arc for the main character as they go from the beginning to the end. That’s different for television. The stories in television are told episode by episode. A season could have an overall story. The character’s arc could flow through the whole season. It could flow through an entire series. But the story needs to be broken down into smaller portions. Each episode should have its own story that arcs from beginning to end. Within the big series long story there are smaller season long stories that involve even smaller episode long stories. It gets complicated in a way that the storytelling of film doesn’t. And that’s only when talking about the modern, serialized television.

In older, much more episodic television, most of the episodes were stand-alone. There was no real change for the characters throughout the entire series. There was no PVR, no streaming, no home video. If the audience missed an episode, it was gone. Thus, the characters couldn’t drastically change. They couldn’t have big storylines and had to remain stagnant. If the audience missed an episode or two because they had to do something else that night, the showrunners wanted them to be able to come back in and not feel like they missed something huge. Everything was super-episodic and self-contained without much character change.

Either of these methods of television storytelling tend not to work in film. Audiences want to see a character struggle and change through the runtime of a movie. That completely rules out the old style of television where there was no change so that viewers could come and go as they pleased. The characters would need an arc that would change them from who they were on the show. As for the newer, serialized television where every episode matters, it would involve condensing a storyline and trying to make it feel like the story isn’t chopped up into its own episodes. Sometimes that involves the movie just being like an extended single-episode continuation of the show. Look at things like The Inbetweeners Movie or El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie for examples of that. Adapting television to film form is all about changing the story structure.

The story structure of comic books must also be changed a bit when being brought to the big screen. First, a distinction must be made on the comic side of things. There are two major sources to get comic book stories. There are the weekly/monthly/bimonthly comics that are ongoing series. Then there are the graphic novels that come out. The ongoing series will have storylines go from issue to issue, but always have an arc for the individual issue. They are similar to television series in that way, with each major storyline being kind of like a television series. That’s probably why The Walking Dead has been able to become such a successful television show after being a successful comic series. Graphic novels are usually, but not always, self-contained stories that might be a part of a comic book’s mythos. They aren’t a part of the main series, though. And sometimes they’re not connected to any series at all.

Most of the inner thought element of typical books are removed for comic books and graphic novels. There’s not enough space for that, in most cases, because the imagery is taking up so much of the page. They are a visual medium with a bit of reading added in. There are writers, editors, inkers, letterers, and all other sorts of employees that get involved in the comic book business. Sometimes there are a minimum of them, and other times there could be an entire team putting them together. They make things highly visual and stunning to look at.

Comics tend to be some of the most adaptable materials. The biggest movies of the past few years have been based on comic books. The visual storyboard already exists from which the story can be based. The stories are there through the storylines that the comics tell. That’s how you end up with Watchmen. Zack Snyder took the graphic novel and replicated the visuals into his own style. He took the story and told it with his own Zack Snyder flourishes. The ending was changed, but most of the story was intact. The characters, their interactions, what they looked like… It came from the graphic novel. Like I said, they’re basically storyboards for adaptations to be made.

Video games are also a visual medium, which seems like they would be easy to translate into films. That’s not the case. There are very few successful video game adaptations. One main reason is to blame for this lack of quality adaptations, and that is the interactivity of video games. Part of what makes video games as big a form of entertainment as they are is that they are interactive. The person playing the game chooses what happens within it. To a certain degree. They fill in the role of the character in the game. The progression of the story depends on the actions of the player. If they defeat the bad guy, they move on. If they don’t, they start the journey over. Or they start from a checkpoint. The experience is completely different for each player because their actions dictate what unfolds.

This can’t be the case in movies. Unless the movie is Bandersnatch. The audience watches a movie. They don’t interact with it. They don’t choose the actions that progress the story. An audience must sit back and let the filmmakers take them on the journey. The writer, director, and editor get to guide a viewer through the world, telling the story. The viewer has no influence on what might happen. There’s a different connection to the characters because of this lack of interaction.

A film must create a reason for the audience to empathize with the characters and be interested in the events unfolding. The audience is a bystander that should feel for what the main character is experiencing. In a video game, the player becomes the main character. The main character is a vessel for whatever the player experiences as they explore the world. A film must give a reason for the audience to live vicariously through the character and their actions.

Far Cry is a good example of this shift in viewer perspective. The video game was a first-person shooter that put the player right into the shoes of the main character. The camera’s point-of-view was through the eyes of the main character as he attempted to save a reporter when the boat they were on was destroyed by mercenaries. The player was the one saving the reporter. They were doing so by controlling the main character. When Uwe Boll directed his film adaptation of Far Cry, the audience wasn’t as involved in the story. Jack Carver was played by Til Schweiger. The audience watched him as he attempted to save Valerie Cardinal (Emmanuelle Vaugier) from the evil Dr. Krieger (Udo Kier). There was no interaction between the audience and the characters. They could only sit by and watch the story unfold. It wasn’t quite the same story as the game, either, which disappointed the Far Cry fans. That’s what happens with any Uwe Boll video game adaptation, though.

That’s not to say that there weren’t fun moments in Far Cry. It just wasn’t the immersive, interactive story that the video game was. Uwe Boll made a 30-million-dollar action movie. If there’s one thing Uwe Boll can do, it’s action on a budget. He may not get the best actors. He may not have the best story. But he does manage to make the action fun. Watching Jack Carver dodge, duck, dip, dive, and destroy was fun. As was the genetically enhanced soldier fighting. And the shootouts. If there was one positive about the Far Cry adaptation, it was the action. It just wasn’t interactive action, which the video game had. The action couldn’t connect the audience to the characters. Had more effort been put into the other aspects of the film, particularly the writing and acting, audiences could have connected with the characters on an emotional level and feared for their safety.

Adaptations can be difficult. There are so many things that must change between formats. Books have a character’s inner thoughts. Television have a complicated story within story within story structure. Comics have a visual style unlike most other forms of art. And video games have an interactivity that can’t be matched. When each of them is adapted into a film, changes must be made in order to allow the film to work. Different formats have different requirements, and as such, they must be made in different ways.

The key to adapting something is to find where those changes must be made. That begins in the writing. Then it goes to the directing, the acting, the cinematography, the stunts, and the sound. Finally, it comes to the editing and effects generating to bring it all together. A strong team can make something that was successful in one format become successful in another. A book could become a movie that’s just as popular, if not more. A video game could be a compelling television show. Any number of adaptations could happen. It all comes down to how the people behind the adaptation come together to make the new thing as entertaining as it originally was, now in a new package.

There are a few notes that should be made before we head out of this post:

• Far Cry was directed by Uwe Boll. He also directed House of the Dead (week 59), Blackwoods (week 115), Alone in the Dark (week 152), Blubberella (week 189), In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (week 220), In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (week 220), and In the Name of the King: The Last Mission (week 220).
• Mike Dopud returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Far Cry. He was previously in Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (week 33), Skin Trade (week 146), Alone in the Dark (week 152), In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (week 220), Snow Buddies (week 270), and Space Buddies (week 270).
• Far Cry was the fourth Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance for Michael Teigen, who has already appeared in In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (week 220), Snow Buddies (week 270), and Space Buddies (week 270).
• Jay Brazeau has now made four Sunday “Bad” Movies appearances with Far Cry, House of the Dead (week 59), Warriors of Virtue (week 88), and Snow Dogs (week 322).
• The other four-timer was Reese Alexander, who was in The Marine 3: Homefront (week 30), In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (week 220), and Cop and a Half: New Recruit (week 340).
• Til Schweiger starred in Far Cry. He was also in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (week 20) and New Year’s Eve (week 57).
• Michael Pare also had a small role in Far Cry, after appearing in Blackwoods (week 115) and Blubberella (week 189).
• Emmanuelle Vaugier played the reporter in Far Cry. She was also the nanny in A Nanny for Christmas (week 3).
• Tyron Leitso, from House of the Dead (week 59), was in Far Cry.
• Far Cry saw the return of Batman and Robin (week 138) actor Ralf Moeller.
• Blubberella (week 189) featured an actor named Steffen Mennekes, who was in Far Cry.
• Dion Anders returned from Sharknado (week 190) to appear in Far Cry.
• Jamie Switch was in Far Cry, after appearing in In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (week 220).
• Michael Benyaer made a second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Far Cry. He was previously in Friday the 13th Part VII: Jason Takes Manhattan (week 294).
• Finally, Santa’s Little Helper (week 315) actor Geoff Gustafson showed up in Far Cry.
• Have you seen Far Cry? What are your thoughts about video game adaptations? What are your thoughts about adaptations in general? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments.
• Are there movies that you think I should be covering for the Sunday “Bad” Movies? Let me know what movies by telling me in the comments. Or you could find me on Twitter and let me know there. Either one works.
• Check out the Sunday “Bad” Movies Instagram account if you haven’t already. I’ve been updating it fairly regularly, minus the week I was in Los Angeles (the reason I didn’t have this post done on time), and the holidays. It’s got some fun stuff.
• The post for the week after this one is for the 1994 action movie Ice. I don’t know too much about it, but it’s in one of the bargain bin box sets I have. I’m not sure when the post will go up. I’ll try to get it up in the next couple of weeks. Still need to catch up for that one while keeping the schedule for the upcoming weeks. I’ll see you when I put up the next post.

KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978)

The Beatles were one of the biggest musical acts to ever exist. John, Paul, George, and Pete took Germany by storm. Then Pete was dropped for Ringo, and The Beatles took the world. Beatlemania became a thing, and the music landscape would be changed forever. By the end of the 1960s, the band had gone their separate ways. Their influence would live on, though.

During their time together as The Beatles, there were thirteen studio albums. The songs from those albums helped to shape the music that would come after. The final few albums were pushing the boundaries of what people thought of rock music. There were more complicated melodies, instruments that people wouldn’t normally consider, and an evolution in how the band sounded.

There were also four movies during the life of The Beatles that were based around The Beatles and their music. A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, and Magical Mystery Tour all featured John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr in leading roles. Yellow Submarine was based on their music and had them in a cameo. It was a great form of marketing. The band would become popular for their music. They would tour. They would make money through concerts. But then they would put out a movie with new music. People would buy the album. They would see the movie. They would go to concerts to hear the music from the album that was a soundtrack to the movie. Bigger sales for The Beatles. More money for the band members.

Less than a decade after The Beatles dissolved, there would be another band that was as crafty at how they marketed themselves. That band was another rock band. They were another band that had four members. They were another band where there wasn’t just one singer. Instead of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, there was now Paul, Peter, Gene, and Ace. The band was KISS, and they would become one of the most recognizable in rock history.

KISS’s legacy can be seen in film in much the same way as The Beatles. The Beatles made their four movies before the people who liked their music made other movies about them. The Rutles: All You Need is Cash came out, which spoofed their work. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was a movie based on the Sgt. Pepper’s album they had made. Across the Universe was a musical based on their work. Yesterday was about the legacy of The Beatles and if it could be replicated, had they not existed. KISS had the same sort of film legacy, though not to the same level. Detroit Rock City was about a bunch of teenagers trying to get to a KISS concert. Role Models was about two men who were forced into a Big Brother type of program. One of them loved KISS, and they participated in a LARPing battle where their kingdom was based on KISS. Even Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 got in on the KISS legacy with a recurring joke about Mini-KISS, a KISS cover band consisting of four little people. They were a band that lived on through movies when their new music stopped making an impact.

It wasn’t the music that gave KISS such a long-lasting legacy. KISS was, and still is, a brilliant marketing machine. The members of the band knew how to sell themselves and sell any merchandise that came along with them being them. The first, and most memorable, of the marketing ploys was the look of the band. KISS is known for the makeup that they wore. Paul Stanley was the Starchild. Gene Simmons was the demon. Ace Frehley was The Spaceman, a design that was taken by Tommy Thayer when he later joined the band. Finally, there was Peter Criss, the Catman. He would eventually be replaced by Eric Singer as the Catman. At different points there were also Eric Carr as The Fox and Vinnie Vincent as The Ankh Warrior. The designs stood out and helped the band to differentiate themselves from all the other rock bands that didn’t wear the heavy makeup. It made them unique and memorable.

That memorable look transferred over to toys, shirts, and the fanbase. People who went to KISS shows dressed themselves up like the members of the band. They got action figures of their favourite band members, based on their looks. They bought t-shirts with the band’s faces, their tour dates, and their album covers on them. They bought the albums themselves. They donned costumes. Anything and everything that could have the band’s look had it. They even branched into comics and movies.

By movies, they branched into one television movie back in 1978. It was called KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. The film was produced by Hanna-Barbera. Calvin Richards (Carmine Caridi) owned and operated Six Flags Mega Mountain in California. Business was slow, so he decided to bring in the band KISS for a concert. The engineer of the park, Abner Devereaux (Anthony Zerbe), did not approve of the concert and decided to do something about it. He created animatronic versions of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, and Peter Criss to try and harm the park. KISS would have to fight the robotic versions of themselves to save their legacy and the people in the park.

KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park was a big promotional tool for the band. The concert that kicked the story into motion was portrayed in the movie. A few different KISS songs were featured throughout. Rock ‘N’ Roll All Nite opened the film as the characters floated through the opening credits and came back at the end. Hotter Than Hell was changed to Rip and Destroy for a performance from the evil KISS robots. There was a performance of Beth where the members of the band sat by a small pool of water while Melissa (Deborah Ryan) looked for her lost boyfriend Sam (Terry Lester). And the end credits played with the song God of Thunder. It was a greatest hits for KISS that would leave fans satisfied and hopefully bring in new fans. Plus, a soundtrack could be released to get some more money.

The other big marketing tool of KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park was to add to the mythology of the band members. The makeup already turned the band members into characters. It differentiated everyone and made them toyetic. But the television movie gave them more than just a unique look. It gave them superpowers. The band had to fight off the evil versions of themselves, as well as any other creations that Abner released on the public. Paul Stanley started using a laser eye type of power, while Gene Simmons breathed fire. They subdued their enemies with these powers, turning them from a band to a group of superheroes. They were more than men in makeup.

KISS knew what they were doing when they made KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. They were growing their persona. They were marketing themselves. People would no longer see them as the band that liked to rock and roll all night. They would see the band as action heroes, ready to save the world from imminent danger. People would want to get the action figures and have them fight against any of their other action figures. Could GI Joe breathe fire or shoot lasers from their eyes? No, but KISS could.

Some of these elements were established before KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, but they came to prominence through the movie. Gene Simmons was breathing fire as a gimmick during live shows. The band made a few comic books with Marvel, including one where their blood was mixed into the red ink. The powers were there. But the television movie surely introduced them to kids who couldn’t get the comic and couldn’t go to the concerts. The television show was peak 1970s KISS merchandising.

Peter Criss would leave the band in 1980. After some searching, he was replaced by Eric Carr, who took on the persona of The Fox. Ace Frehley lasted two more years before leaving the band in 1982. He was replaced by Vinnie Vincent, who would take on the persona of The Ankh Warrior. The band would drop the makeup in 1983, go through a few more member swaps, and rock through the 1980s. They had a reunion in the 1990s, then went back to their makeup with a new drummer and lead guitarist that wore The Cat and The Space Man again. It was a marketing choice to take off the makeup and a marketing choice to put it back on. The band was all about making these choices to get as much money as possible.

KISS was one of the biggest bands to come out of the 1970s, and it was all thanks to their marketing finesse. They knew what to do to get people to give them more money. Music, concerts, comics, toys, and even a movie. They had makeup that gave them supernatural personas. People instantly recognized them, much in the same way that they instantly recognized The Beatles. They knew what they were doing and they did it well. Success came to them through their hard work and creative genius.

Now let’s get some notes in here:

• Brion James was in KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. He was previously seen in Cabin Boy (week 173) and Return to Frogtown (week 334).
• KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park was the second Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance of Carmine Caridi, who was previously in Top Dog (week 126).
• Douglas M. Nelson returned this week. His first movie covered was Perfect (week 195).
• Finally, Dorinda Townsend was in KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, as well as Sandy Wexler (week 231).
• Have you seen KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park? Do you like KISS? Do you like any of the movies that involve KISS? Let me know on Twitter or in the comments.
• I’m always looking for movies I might not know that I should include in the Sunday “Bad” Movies. If you know any, tell me about them. You can find me through Twitter, or in the comments.
• There’s an Instagram account for the Sunday “Bad” Movies that you can check out if you want to see some pictures or clips related to the movies that have been covered.
• Now it’s time to talk about next week. In one week’s time, I’ll be taking on one of the most infamous animated movies of the past couple years. That’s right. I’m going animated next week. I’ll be checking out The Emoji Movie, and there will be a post all about it. I’ll see you when it’s up.