Why differences between the comic books and the film matter..
May 1st is going to disappoint a lot of Wolverine fans. It’s going to enrage a lot of every single Deadpool fan. Gambit and Emma Frost fans are going to feel slighted. Hell, the three Blob super-fans out there are going to have to commiserate over a bucket of fried chicken skins after seeing Wolverine: Origins. To a Marvel comic book reader, the movie is that bad.
To non-comic book readers, the movie might be a mindless, action-filled romp, which is apparently all Fox wanted this movie to be. To fans of the comic book characters, the movie will be yet another example of why Fox should keep their hands off of Marvel properties.
Think about it. The most successful comic book movies have been films that, above all, stay true to the characters they are representing from the comic books. The Dark Knight takes enormous liberties with the details of how Bruce Wayne manages to be the caped crusader, but the movie never falters on the reasons why he does what he does. The first two Spider-Man films might diverge from the stories as presented in the comics, but they don’t infringe on who Peter Parker is, who Spider-Man has historically been (and even the third can only be faulted for how poorly the symbiote’s influence on Parker was portrayed). And the first two X-Men films, while not presenting the exact stories from the books, get the characters right.
Even with Storm's bad hair, you can still recognize each character
Look at the failed superhero movies: Daredevil, while not a complete bomb, tried to make the Man Without Fear into a Spider-Man/Batman hybrid. He’s not. It should be the simplest thing in the world to make a solid Punisher movie, but it hasn’t happened yet. Elektra might as well not have been about the Marvel character. The Fantastic Four films chose to go cheap on characterization, heavy on the campiness, and any sense of these characters beyond cartoons is never allowed. The casting wasn’t all that great, either (note: when re-booting, keep that guy who played Johnny Storm, can the rest – yes, including Jessica Alba – and make the Thing CGI).
Shouldn't The Thing look more physically imposing?
Wolverine: Origins commits the same damn mistake that those latter films do: it’s not true to the source material. Listen, I could care less how Ryan Reynolds character becomes Deadpool, so long as the figure called Deadpool is a mouthy killer who’s good with all kinds of weapons. He shouldn’t shoot Cyclops’ beams out of his eyes nor should swords the length of his arms come out of his forearms, AND HIS MOUTH SHOULDN’T BE SEWN SHUT! And it follows that if a prior film suggests that Wolverine has a dark past (you know, like X2 – and all of Marvel continuity – suggests), I’d expect to see some dark times rather than a character that is utterly heroic and noble throughout his entire life. As the tagline suggests, what Wolverine does isn’t very nice.
FOX studio's version of Deadpool - I'm not kidding.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the most successful comic books films remain true to the source material. There’s a reason these characters have remained popular with readers for decades, and when a studio disregards these qualities in favor of a chance to dazzle with some meaningless special effect, they are not creating a Wolverine movie, a Marvel movie, or a DC movie, but a _______ studio movie.
And that’s not what comic fans are paying to see.
