I remain fascinated/very scared by this project. Miller himself, in this trailer, admits that taking it on was a suicide job but that he couldn't allow anyone else to do it. What continues to worry me most, however, is comics fan Samuel L. Jackson as the Octopus. Granted, he was always unseen in the canonical SPIRIT stories but for his striped purple gloves so this leaves a large empty canvas on which to paint your character. Why then paint him like an over-the-top BATMAN villain? "I have eight of everything!" he proclaims. Well, good for you. Hopefully that's not the number of viewers you end up with, too.
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The movie looks incredibly stylish
ReplyDeleteand entertaining in a Sin City way,
but it's not Will Eisner's The Spirit. And the audience for this
movie is the Sin City audience, and
most of them have never read a Will
Eisner Spirit story.
Most of them don't read comics.
They play video games and watch their favorite dvd's over and over.
They will make this movie a hit, or
at least a hit for opening weekend.
Word of mouth, good or bad, will determine its street cred and box office.
And we few aging collectors and
Eisner enthusiasts will sneak in,
just to see if there's a chance in
hell that this movie IS true to the
spirit of Eisner's Spirit, and mutter into our popcorn.
Thumbs up?
Sam Kujava
When the first trailer for this hit the 'net, my stomach got a little queasy. Ditto for the ad campaign ("My city screams", et al. None of that is the Spirit). It bothered me a little that Miller put the Spirit in black, but then I read that black is what Eisner originally wanted but got stuck with blue because of the poor printing technology back in the day. Ok, I can respect that. Black it is then. Then they posted a photo of Jackson as the Octopus and my queasy stomach started doing cartwheels.
ReplyDeleteI went to the panel at the San Diego Comic-Con hoping to find some reason to believe that my fears were unfounded. The panel only made matters worse; prior to the panel, I just thought it was going to be a bad Spirit movie. Now I'm convinced it's going to be a bad movie, period.
And the more I thought about Miller's justification for putting the Spirit in black, the more hollow that sounded. After all, if he honestly wanted to return the Spirit back to Eisner's original intent, he'd get rid of the mask. Eisner only put the mask on him under pressure from the syndicate because masked superheroes were 'hot.' Besides, Eisner had ample opportunities over the years to put the Spirit in black and chose not to. So that choice should be respected as well. And yes, I understand all the arguments that say you HAVE to show the Octopus' face to justify Samuel Jackson's salary. Fine. Then don't hire Samuel Jackson. Seriously, hire some unknown actor. You have an amazing cast of femme fatales that should draw in your audience.
And the fight scene footage they showed at the convention was campy, and ridiculous. More like a Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck cartoon than Will Eisner's The Spirit.
There's one other 'blashphemus' element to the film that I'm hesitant to mention because I try and be sensitive to spoilers, but I will say that I believe that Miller has violated the very essence of the character by tweaking his origin slightly. If you are curious as to what that specific element is, you can check out my blog entry on the subject here: http://walkingtheblog.livejournal.com/57956.html
Sorry to be so long-winded. I thought I got all this out of my system. And for hte record, I really liked Sin City.
This is all just my opinion, of course.
Denny Colt was NOT a COP!!!
ReplyDeleteYesh.
I first encountered the Spirit as a kid thru the old Warren collections (which I didn't get).
I really started reading/collecting the Spirit mags put out by Kitchen Sink (I have a complete collection of them, and I think most of the Warren magazine).
The Spirit has always been one of my favorite characters. I even dressed like him for halloween one year.
But for me, Miller's Spirit isn't the real Spirit. Jackson is NOT the Octopus. The Octopus is supposed to be a sinister, in the shadows, villian. Not the over the top character we see here.
And I think it a waste to toss in, what, a dozen of the Spirit's femme fatale's into the movie!!!???!!! Put in a couple. Save the others for future films.