PeterDavid.net

Movie adaptations

January 31, 1992

I recently received a letter that carried a new wrinkle to the old question, "Where do you writers get your crazy ideas?"

I don't want to give the name of the letter writer, because he asked this question out of sincere curiosity, and I don't want people to think that this particular guy is the author of extremely stupid questions. Why hold him up to public ridicule?

Basically, he had read a recent book of mine, and asked, "How did you come up with the idea?" The trouble was, the book he read was my novelization of "The Rocketeer," published by Bantam to coincide with the release of the Disney film.

This is one of those instances where the answer is quite easy: I came up with the idea when I was sent the script and asked if I would be interested in novelizing it. It's the purest form of work-for-hire there is.

I don't know how the letter writer could have missed this rather pertinent point. The film was in wide release. It was heavily advertised. The names of the script writers were right on the cover, in type size the same as my name. Yet he was unaware of any participation or incarnation of "The Rocketeer" beyond my connection with it. He probably thinks "Dave Stevens" is a shortstop for the Astros or something.

Now the vast majority of readers out there who believe that an idea is everything--the kind who come up to you and say, "I have an idea. Lemme tell it to you, you write it, and we'll split it 50/50"--probably think that doing a novelization (book form) or adaptation (comic form) of a movie has got to be the easiest thing in the world. Heck--the story is already told! All you have to do is stick "He said" and "She said" at the end of the lines of dialogue, and boom, you got it. Easy money.

Uh uh. Taking a script and converting it into a novel or comic is one of the biggest pains in the neck of all time, if you're someone who's of a mind to try and do a good job of it. The money's generally pretty lousy, and the success or failure of the final product usually depends entirely on how the movie does. In fact, it's a no-win proposition: If a movie flops, interest in the comic or novel versions is nil. If the movie is a tremendous success and much beloved, the audience will then read the book or comic and be annoyed by the differences. "They got it wrong," will be heard.

The existence of novelizations made sense in the old days, when people left a movie and wanted a tangible reproduction of the film that they had just enjoyed. A novel or comic was the closest they were going to be able to come to "owning" the film. Now, of course, with videotapes and CDs, you can own the film. The initial concept is obsolete. Nowadays, the only point of telling a movie story in some other form is to try and do things the movie can't or did not do...and, oddly enough, the worse a script is, the better chances you have to do precisely that. But in comics, babe, forget it.

Unless you've got a spectacular artist on the book (like Russ Heath on "The Rocketeer," or Al Williamson's spectacular work on "Blade Runner" some years back) that makes it a unique comic package, then it's a waste of space. From a writer's point of view, it's more trouble than it's worth--not writing so much as creative typing; the literary equivalent of a jigsaw puzzle. The only reason a writer has to get involved in a comic adaptation is if he's reaaaaaallly interested in the movie and is anxious for some sort of inside track or knowledge as to what's going on. It's certainly the only reason I've done it. This, of course, can be a double-edged sword: I think I would have enjoyed "Star Trek VI" far more if I hadn't read the script first and realized how full of holes it is.

Herewith my handful of participations in movie adaptations:

"The Return of Swamp Thing." The initial scuttlebutt that I'd heard about this film was somewhat positive. The costume was supposed to be much less "rubbery," Abby was supposed to be introduced, and there was going to be an attempt to be faithful to the Alan Moore version of Swamp Thing that was currently running in the comic. Berkley Books wanted me to do the novelization based on my comics experience and several other novels that I had written for them, which got about as much distribution as blood in a corpse. I agreed to write it without having first read the script.

Big mistake. Never, ever, do this, especially if you've never heard of the director or script writer.

They sent me the script and I started reading it. By a third of the way through, I was having intestinal cramps. By the end of the script, I was bleeding out my eyeballs. I knew beyond a doubt that there was going to be a major problem. The script was as arch and campy as anything out of the 1960s "Batman." The only resemblance to Moore's Swampy was a re-enactment of the tuber-eating sequence...undoubtedly the single most difficult moment in all of Moore's run to try and pull off on screen, unless you have the entire audience on hallucinogenics before the film.

And I was supposed to try and turn this thing into a book. And I didn't have a lot of time in which to do it.

There were two ways to go: the easy way or the hard way. The easy way, maybe even the smart way, was to stick to the script, do the best I could to make it read smoothly, and put a fake name on it so that I would not be associated with such a lousy work of fiction. The hard way meant doing whatever needed to be done to make it work as, not only a story, but a story that was going to be acceptable to those fans who were currently enjoying the Moore work on the comic.

Ultimately, I couldn't bring myself to risk disappointing the fans. I didn't want to turn out some thoughtless piece of hackwork. The result was a novel that bears almost no resemblance at all to the film.

I restructured the entire story, built in framing sequences, changed the order in which things happened, added entire backstories, put Alan Moore in as a character (why not?), restored the stilted speech pattern to Swamp Thing (as opposed to the rather avuncular manner in which Dick Durock spoke), restored the general horror comic feel, and completely changed the ending, directly lifting the climax from the Moore two-parter with the town of vampires wherein Swamp Thing basically becomes a mountain. I liked to tell people that the movie had a budget of $3 million, but the book had a budget of $53 million.

To the credit of the producers, they loved everything I did with it and didn't change a thing, which was of tremendous relief to me.

So what happened? The film was poorly received, and virtually no one (if I'm to believe the Berkley royalty reports) bought the damned book. Apparently my name on the cover and eight pages of poorly reproduced, cheesy photographs on the inside were insufficient to entice people to part with four bucks. The only real compliment I ever got on the book was when Bob Greenberger, when asked by fans about the "Swamp Thing" movie, would reply tersely, "Skip the movie. Read the book."

Star Trek V and Star Trek VI: If you ever want to engage in an exercise in futility, try doing a comic adaptation of a Trek movie.

Doing a novelization, by contrast, can be very rewarding. Invariably "Trek" films are filled with technical holes. Why? Because the movies aren't written by fans, that's why. But the novels are penned by people who came up through the ranks, as it were, and Trek fans delight in the novels' innovative explanations to various grievous errors (such as how the Enterprise could possibly have survived the intense conditions of the galaxy's center in "ST V", and the myriad foul-ups, bleeps and blunders that pervade "ST VI.")

But the comic book? Forget it. You get the worst of both worlds doing a "Trek" comic adaptation.

First off, movie scripts are in constant states of flux. Between the time of the script that you're given to adapt, and the final version that goes up on the screen, there are inevitably changes ranging from dialogue to pacing to entire scenes being restructured or added or dropped. For standard movie fans, they will simply observe that there are differences between the comic or novel and the movie. "Trek" fans, on the other hand, for whom the visual depiction is usually the be-all and end-all of "Star Trek," will loudly proclaim, "The comic book is wrong!!!!" Which, I admit, irritates me.

The second, and even bigger problem with doing any comic book adaptation is, unless you're being given an unlimited number of pages, there is no way in hell you're going to fit everything in. In "Trek VI," I was given 64 pages to fit a 130 page script. For "Trek V," I had even less (54, I think).

The trick is that you have to try and second-guess the audience. There are invariably certain lines, certain scenes that people remember very distinctly. If the fan reads the comic and those memorable moments are missing, he's going to feel cheated. So you have to predict what the audience is going to come out of the film remembering. (What really drives you insane is when they come up with lines or bits of business on the set while filming the movie, and these things don't appear in any script. And then the fans complain that you left the thing out.)

With "Trek V," it was actually a bit of an easier time. Not only were there not many memorable sequences, but the script was replete with moments that I was certain people would want to forget. The trouble wasn't finding what to cut; it was finding enough worthwhile material to keep in. Unfortunately, critical reaction to our comic was predictable. The kindest thing that most fans could say was, "Well, I didn't hate it as much as the movie." Now there's a pull-quote you want to send home to mom.

"Trek VI," I was amazed to see, panned out exactly the way I thought it would. I read the script and was struck by how lousy it was. But I thought, "Okay, but Nick Meyer is directing this. With the combination of the directing, the special effects, the acting, and the music...this film might actually be very well received."

It was a much tougher script to adapt. The plot was much more dense than "ST V." Furthermore, there were lots of sequences in it that made me crazy. In a novel, you can explain them, try and fill in the holes. In a comic, you simply don't have the room. So what I wound up dropping were not necessarily the less memorable sequences, but instead simply those that I couldn't stand because they so violated continuity or were obvious contrivances.

For example, a sequence which introduced not only the nonexistent Enterprise kitchen, but also the unprecedented notion that firing an "unauthorized" phaser set off an alarm. This script contrivance was introduced to explain why a pair of incriminating magnetic boots (worn during a murder and stained with Klingon blood) were not simply phasered from existence by the guilty parties. Not only was it forced, but it did nothing to explain why the guilty parties did not simply scatter the boots' molecules all over space using the transporter. That would've gotten rid of them real nicely. So I dropped the whole thing.

Likewise the absurd sequence where Uhura bluffs her way into Klingon space using badly-spoken Klingonese and juggling textbooks. Supposedly the Klingons would have detected if the crew had spoken to them using a universal translator. Okay, fine. But why couldn't Uhura use the translator to understand what the Klingons were saying? What's with the books? I knew it was going to be a funny sequence, but I dropped it anyway because I found it demeaning to the characters.

The results were predictable. Most of the reviews I read of the adaptation said in essence, "A waste of money. Not as good as the movie. They left out all the best parts." Some people even criticized plot points in the comic that had never bothered them in the movie...and deemed it the comic's fault.

At least the photos in the deluxe edition were in color and didn't look cheesy.

The Rocketeer: I've discussed at length at other places. In a nutshell, I wound up doing both the adaptation and the novelization. The former I did because I was interested to see the script and I was also certain that, with Heath on the art, it would be a quality-looking project. The latter I did against the advice of a number of people who warned me that Disney had put poor Max Allan Collins through living hell with the novelization of "Dick Tracy," and I could only look forward to more of the same. But I knew the script inside and out because I'd already done the adaptation, so I figured I had that leg-up at least.

What I did to try and grease the wheels with Disney was put in all sorts of utterly outrageous add-on scenes, so that the Disney folks would have stuff to look at and say, "You can't be serious! Take this out!" And so, I figured, they'd focus on the big stuff and not nitpick the thing to death as they had with Al Collins.

To my shock, the thing sailed through Disney. The Bantam editor had sworn that Disney would not be a problem this time around, and he'd been true to his word. As a result, lots of stuff that I never seriously intended to see print--such as Cliff Secord meeting young George Reeves--went in. It was the easiest time I'd ever had with an adaptation or novelization.

The main thing you have to do with any of these things is try and remember that you're converting from one medium to another, and try and maximize the advantages that the new medium offers. But, frankly, if I'm ever contacted about another one of these adaptations, I'll probably just steer clear of it. They're far more trouble than they're worth...

Unless, of course, it's a movie that I'm reeeaaaaallly interested in...

(Peter David, writer of stuff, is presently spending his spare time engaged in battling "Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp." Having mastered the original "Dragon's Lair" as well as "Space Ace" in his misbegotten youth, he is enjoying this nostalgic entertainment. He's also pleased to see that, apparently after giving birth to nearly a dozen kids, Princess Daphne still looks great. He is presently on level 6 (out of 8). Updates as they occur.)

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