On Sat, Dec 1, 2012 at 10:46 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I don't really agree with you Kevin here in general, and in particular I > disagree about Bond - at least in its latest (and, with all due respect to > Sir Sean, the best) incarnation, there has been quite a bit of focus on > Bond and his backstory, to wonderful effect. In Skyfall there is also > quite a bit of attention paid to the villan's backstory, and they have been > quite transparent about trying to make his villainy interior, not exterior. > > I thought I was clear that Bond was one of the few exceptions inasmuch as they rebooted the franchise but they made it work. Same with Batman, and they do so largely by granting the premise the hero will prevail and focusing on telling a compelling story of how he will prevail. I don't care if Bond got beaten up as child or that he never got the bicycle he wanted for Christmas, and I like that Bond doesn't seem to care about those things, either. Not to spoil Skyfall for anyone, but by the end of the film, Bond IS Bond, and if you look at the three Daniel Craig movies, there wasn't all that much origin in there, yet audiences were still able to see him evolve into the ultimate secret agent. They were able to do it without showing Bond's parents dying, or Bond getting recruited into MI-6, or Bond's first clumsy attempt to seduce a woman or thwart a villain. We didn't see Bond's novice angst, though we did see him mature in a more subtle manner. And you can't say the same about Reeve as Superman or Spider-Man or the individual Avengers films or the Burton Batman, where we had to have every moment of vulnerability rammed so far down our throats that we expelled them gaseously.
> I know a lot of folks on this list are real comic book guys; I am not > (when I was 10 I walked to the corner liquor store and bought 5 comic books > with my saved up allowance; my mom threw a fit and forbade me from ever > reading them. Unlike lots of kids I guess, I listened to my mother). I only > ever got interested in superheros when they started paying attention to the > backstory and the psychology (though my understanding is that there is a > lot of that in both the Batman and Spiderman comics anyway?). > > The only reason the comics seem to pay attention to backstory is that whenever a new writer takes over a book (or a character), he seems intent on reimagining the origin. Then there is DC's much maligned reboot of their entire line of comics which has annoyed a lot of longtime readers. In comic world, the best selling books seem to be when superheroes either team up or fight each other, and no origin is needed for either of those concepts. I don't mind looking at the psychology of the heroes, but one doesn't need to start over EVERY TIME in order to gaze into the mind of a hero. At this stage, anybody who needs to know the beginnings of a character who has existed for decades can Google it. To keep rehashing the same moment of a character's life is sloppy writing and not very creative. -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
