According to a report, Warner Brothers says
that there won’t be any jokes allowed in their DC Comics Supehero movies.
*FACEPALM*
Let me this straight: Warner Brothers doesn’t
want any jokes in their DC Comics Superhero movies.
Er…The root word of comic book is Comic. And
Comics books were originally designed to have jokes in them.
Superheroes come from comic books. And comic
books were originally designed to be FUNNY.
But Warner Brothers wants to make movies because
in the minds of their dysfunctional executives everything has to be “real” and
“serious”.
Good Gravy.
One of the four elements of comic book
storytelling is humor. To take the humor out of an adaptation of a comic book
such as a movie is taking ¼ of the story away from the audience.
And one of the core elements of Fantasy and
Sci-Fi storytelling is humor. Every sci-fi and fantasy series ever produced from
Star Trek, Star Wars The Six Million Dollar Man, Xena: Warrior Princess, Planet
of the Apes, Knight Rider, and He-Man and She-Ra and Transformers has humorous
elements in them. It’s an essential part of the story model for the genre.
Humor is used in Sci-fi and Fantasy
storytelling to give the reader or the viewer a break from the seriousness of
the storyline. To allow them to breathe. To keep them from becoming overwhelmed
by the world that’s being built around them. A laugh allows the reader or the
viewer to relax and not take the reality of the fantasy they’re reading about
or watching too seriously.
I’ve seen fantasy such as Star Wars Episodes
I-III, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (later seasons), Star Trek Voyager Star Trek
Enterprise, and Man of Steel that didn’t utilize jokes and humor in their
stories. And all of them were frustrating to watch because they were so
technical and so focused on presenting the minutest details that they became
overwhelming instead of enjoyable.
I found myself feeling frustrated and even
annoyed watching films in Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. It was just too
serious. It took everything too literally. Same thing with Man of Steel. Just
too serious. In both cases the world being built became so ENORMOUS that the
characters in them became insignificant in them. Instead of us seeing Batman
and Superman, we were drowning in the worlds of Gotham City, Metropolis, and
Krypton.
Good Fantasy storytelling isn’t about building
worlds. It’s about telling the stories of PEOPLE. And part people’s LIVES is
LAUGHTER.
Humor allows the audience to laugh. To have
fun. To find some humanity in the fantasy. To find something real in the
imaginary world that relates what’s going on in the book or the movie to their
lives. When there’s humor and jokes, we see the characters in those worlds as
people. And those people in those worlds become our friends.
Warner Brothers is afraid of “Camp” of the 1966
Batman TV series. Not understanding that the Adam West/Burt Ward Series was
following the spirit of the Silver Age Batman to the letter. It was a faithful
adaptation of that era’s Batman. From 1945-1968 Batman was campy and silly in
the comics. And the show followed that formula to the letter.
Instead of learning from the mistakes made in
the 1995 Batman Forever and 1997’s Batman & Robin that made those films
bad, Warner Brothers is insisting on throwing out the baby with the bath water
and forbidding its writers from using a core element of storytelling that can
make a superhero film adaptation entertaining and enjoyable to the audience.
What’s interesting Marvel Studios uses humor in
all its superhero movies. And all of their movies are hits. They’re literally
comic books come to life onscreen and capture the spirit of comic books in
film.
If one looks at the humor used in movies like
Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers, the laughs made
us relate to Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. It made us see those characters as
people. Instead of us seeing characters, we saw friends we wanted to hang out
with.
I use humor all the time in all my fantasy
novelettes like the Isis series, The E’steem series and fantasy novels like TheTemptation of John Haynes. Even though the stories are serious I make it a
point to put in humorous moments to give the reader a laugh and to humanize the
characters and make them and their stories relatable to the reader. When I used
jokes and humor, readers saw the characters as people and identified with their
experiences and were so entertained by the stories that many came back to buy
and read more stories.
I believe the problem at Warner Brothers is
that they don’t have skilled writers, directors, producers and artists who
truly understand the genres of Comic Books, Science Fiction or fantasy or the
story models used in them. Which is why their movies don’t connect with the
audience the way Marvel Studios do.
If we look at the employees at Warner Brothers and DC Comics currently no one has a clue on how to
produce comic book or comic book related adaptations. Dan Didio has no
publishing experience. And his Co-publisher and Jim Lee came into the industry
during the 1990’s where many comic book writer and artists did not learn the
CRAFT of storytelling in these three genres. And film Producers and
screenwriters like Chris Nolan and David Goyer are so used to modernized
versions of urban characters they have no understanding of the nuances,
techniques or concepts applied in the genre of comic and fantasy storytelling
since the inception of the genres.
As a fantasy writer with 30 years of experience,
and 15 years of experience writing fantasy characters, I know humor has been a
core element in comic book storytelling since the creation of the first comic
strip. I know it’s been a core element of storytelling in science Fiction and
Fantasy fiction since the creation of the genre. And any adaptation of a comic
book, science fiction or fantasy story must have jokes in it for the audience
to connect with the characters and relate to the story. What Warner Brothers is
doing by telling their screenwriters to NOT put jokes in their stories is going
to prevent them from producing the best quality superhero films for their DC
Comics properties and will alienate most of their core audience.
Most of the executives, producers, directors
and creative people at Warner Brothers need to understand that Comic books are
NOT that serious. This isn’t art. This isn’t the great American novel. Or Great
American film. It’s a Superhero movie; entertainment plain and simple. And the
goal of a good superhero movie that entertains the viewer is to get the
audience to connect with the characters in that story, not build a world where
they get lost in it. Sometimes a joke can make the audience see people like
Bruce Wayne, Diana Prince and Clark Kent and see what makes them and their
story special.
I never really got the worldbuilding thing. Whenever I try to write a story, it's about what the characters are going to do in the plot.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it either Ad.
ReplyDeleteBut some fantasy writers say they have to build the world first and put the characters second.
For me the characters always come first. They are who the world revolves around in the story.