Could Computers Save Comic Movies?

By FoxxFireArt January 24, 2010 7 Comments

New Age of Comic Movies

 
For those of us who follow the site, we all now know that the Spider-man movie series we have known since 2002 is no more. Creative differences came about and it's now time for a reboot. Feels about time when you consider how ridiculous the movies series were getting. It seems to be a trend with comic book based films. The first in the series does a half way decent job, but as they start to make more and more. Everything goes to hell very fast. They saved the Batman movies by rebooting and making them far more reality based and serious. The previous Batman and Robin movie was an utter mess. The story was silly, the cast was too large, and the dialog was a complete joke.
 

With the reboot boot of the series comes the questions all us fans have. Who will play what role?  It's something we pretty much fixate on till we get the official list. All that ever seems to end up doing is starting another heated debate (Not to mention the standard Megan Fox bashing.). Here's something though that always gets under my skin. All I ever hear is discussion about who LOOKS like the character. There are many actors that may look the role, but could never play it. It is a valid statement to worry some about appearances. What's the point of making a movie based on a character if they don't resemble their original origin to some degree? On a few rare occasions we have gotten lucky with actors like Robert Downey Jr. in the role of Tony Stark. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. For balance, there were fans who were utterly against Daniel Graig, a blond, taking on the role of James Bond. What we got there is a man who plays the role very well.
 
What I can't stand is when people are so caught up on only how the actor looks that they don't even seem to care about personality or acting ability. For female characters people often name singers or super models. If there is anyone who seriously considers someone as pointless and vapid as Kim Kardashian to take on the role of a prominent character such as Wonder Woman. I'm going to have to ask you to step out side.
 
I listen to the podcasts and read the great articles on Comic Vine about the movies and what is going on. While I'm going through and reading these stories about how they are deciding on actors to look right. I never notice anyone ever asking what seems to be in front of us all. Why do the movies need to be live action? Why does the actor need to look like the character? We have had the technology at our very hands for years. Some of you have probably been dealing with it just last night. I believe the answer can be discovered in computers graphics. 
 

Just in the past few years computers have jumped in advancements. What was done last week could of been near impossible two years ago. Take for example the Clone Wars series currently airing on Cartoon Network. Through computers they have been able to produce a 3-D animated series that also mimics quite well the cartoon animated series that this is mostly based upon. In many ways it has even improved upon some aspects. I personally am not a fan of the series for reasons I wont go into here, but I do have a lot of appreciation for the style that they put in the stories they tell.
 
Could you just imagine watching a 3-D computer animated movie that had the characters we enjoy so much that actually have the same kind of style we get in the 2-D comic pages? It wouldn't be the first time comic book creators have stepped out beyond writing or drawing for comics to work on movies or other projects. Comic great Joe Madureira (Battle Chasers) did the designs for the recent video game Darksiders. Hellboy creator Mike Mignola did design work for the Disney animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

 

If computer graphics and technology were to be put into making computer animated movies for comic books. We would no longer need to fret about what someone looks like. The age, race, or body type wouldn't mean anything. It would just be about sounding right and being able to act the part. Probably the best example of this I could possible think of is the work by the prominent voice actor we all know. The voice of Batman since Batman: The Animated Series, Mr. Kevin Conroy. In all seriousness and no disrespect in the slightest, Kevin Conroy doesn't look anything like Batman. The looks. The build. None of it. Yet, that doesn't matter. He is the voice. Whenever I read something of Batman. I don't think Micheal Keaton's or Christian Bale's voice. It's the Conroy voice I imagine in my head. The same could be said for Mark Hamill's work as the Joker.
 
Some of you may think that a wider audience wouldn't be interested in seeing a series like Clone Wars that looks so cartoonish. You bring up a good point. Still, computers have been making near realistic series in video games for some time. I point you toward the series Batman: Arkham Asylum, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, God of War III, and Resident Evil 5. All of these games made incredibly, near realistic, versions of humans and environments. Uncharted 2 felt like you were playing a blockbuster action movie and it looked like it as well. The level of detail in the Arkahm Asylum game was just staggering. I don't know about you all, but I sure as hell would go see a Batman movie that looked like that.

I even suggest that if the movies were made in computers. The movies could get away with some details that might never pass in live action. Not that I'm suggesting we see a live action Wolverine movie with the bright yellow jumpsuit. Such as some of the points that were brought up in the most recent Comic Vine Podcast about the Thor movie. It is very good reasoning, and one that I strongly agree with, that part of the success of Iron Man and the more recent Batman films are because most of the action is played out in rather realistic settings. When it comes to animation, I think you get a little more wiggle room.
 
An interesting little tidbit. They actually had the actors in Uncharted 2 perform the motion capture for the games and recorded the dialog at the same time. I found a video recently that I think pretty neatly points out many of the pros and cons behind doing movies in motion capture. The cast goes into the little details that they experience in the making of the game and cinematics.  
(Run Time 12min. 20sec.)
 

 
 

  

Some may still think that the larger audience wont be interested in movies that are so animate. Even by computers. Well, try and consider also that about 90% of James Cameron's Avatar was computer generated. That was even one of the selling points for the film. If computers would be considered for the next Spider-man movie, we could easily have a high school setting, but actors in their twenties performing the voices. It's not as if many of the more wild events in the previous movies weren't actually computer graphics anyways.
 
At the very least I hope I can get a conversation going on the prospects of having computer generated movies bringing our favorite comics to the big screen in a 3-D depth. The films could look realistic or even mimic the art style of the creators. The best part. The arguments about an actors look would be behind us.

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