AN OPEN LETTER TO HOLLYWOOD

Hey, you.

Mr. Hollywood Producer. Or Director. Or whichever one of you it is that makes gross changes to properties you option for the big or small screen.

Yeah, I'm talkin' to you.

I don't know what it is with you. And it's pissing me off.

Why, in the name of all that's holy, do you feel this...this NEED to change fundamental things about the concepts of the properties you decide to make films or TV shows of? Why?

One presumes you option material that you perceive a future in, a bankroll on, a sure bet as it were. Do you not think that if the property (story, script or comic book) is popular, that there just might be a REASON for it? So why CHANGE it?

All right, you administrative screwheads, listen up.

I just saw the season finale of Warner Bros' Birds Of Prey. I was very excited by this show, in the wake of the successes of X-Men and Spider-Man at the box office, I thought a TV series based on a hot Batman-universe comic series would just be AMAZING.

But no. It was not amazing. It was not incredible. In fact, it wasn't credible at all.

Let me draw your attention to the Harry Potter movies. These books were so hot, elevated to a level unprecedented in children's literature, that everyone involved knew they DARED NOT change anything. Anything different that they added was for visual effect or simply to give devoted fans a little more than just a straight book-to-movie adaptation.

Lord of the Rings. Have you heard of this? This is also a book-to-movie adaptation. And one that again, is so strongly, firmly mired in the minds of its readers that the production team didn't change anything except what was strictly necessary to adapt the property to a new medium.

Ralph Bakshi attempted his own surreal take on it in the early 80's and look how well THAT did. Does this give you a hint? The merest clue? DO NOT CHANGE WHAT IS ALREADY SUCCESSFUL. What a story or comic or plot is when you find it doing well, is doing well because of what it is. Who in God's name are you to fiddle with it?

So. Birds of Prey. It was a HOT property focussing on the women of the Bat-universe-- Oracle (Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl), Batgirl (the new one, the young Asian girl), and Black Canary (Dinah Lance).

And for some reason, you felt you had to change that. You thought that you were smart. You thought you knew what you were doing.

How you believe you think at all is the greatest mystery to me.

You left Oracle alone, I'll give you that. You kept her story and identity exactly as it was in the DC comics. Good for you! That's what makes her interesting.

But then you bring in "Dinah"-- only she's Black Canary's daughter, and she's psychic?!? I can only assume you brought her in because you wanted the High School Crowd. Hey, guess what, moron-- the new Batgirl could be high school age. And she's Asian in the comics-- a cool ethnic-minority main character. Which would ALSO have brought the high-school crowd.

And then there's Huntress. In the DC Universe, Huntress is NOT related to Batman in any way, and is in fact the daughter of a Mafia family who has sworn revenge on organized crime in that area. She's a vigilante, a kind of antihero-- but she works with the Bat-team on occasion. She's NOT some tough-talkin makeup-wearin' METAHUMAN with a tongue piercing and a cockteasing attitude towards handsome cops.

You decided to make Harley Quinn the villain. Actually, that was pretty good. She's often the villain in the "girl-power" Birds of Prey comic. She and Poison Ivy make a good team.

But maybe you hadn't heard: Harley Quinn was created for the Batman Adventures CARTOON. She was a funny, quirky foil for the Joker. And she took over the hearts of the fans with her quirky Bronx Jewish charms. She was born a CARTOON-- and you turned her serious? Still crazy, but serious?

You took away everything that MADE her Harley Quinn (except for your few throwaway references to Mister J) and let her loose as a criminal mastermind. Hey, I'm not saying that character wasn't a good villain. I'm saying she wasn't Harley Quinn, which is who (I can only assume) you wanted for this story.

Also: You had Batman leave Gotham, presumably over his grief at having killed the Joker.

Batman would NEVER leave Gotham. That is a fundamental tenet of his character. He would never abandon it. He's fixated on it. You may have noticed over the sixty-some-odd years the character's been around, that he's a little OBSESSIVE.

So you've invalidated the story, emasculated Batman, and tarted up three sluts so you can have a Warner Bros. version of "Gotham Fashion TV with Superpowers?"

Screw, as they say, you.

Let me show you someone who's done it right: Smallville.

(Yes, Agents, I know I've mentioned Smallville before. That's because it's one of the best adaptations of a popular property that I've ever seen.)

Smallville has all the characters right where they should be, just as they are in the time-honored comic book history: Clark Kent, Ma and Pa Kent, Lana Lang. And they have done a fabulous job of making them modern WITHOUT CHANGING THEIR FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERS.

They put Lex Luthor in Smallville. He didn't come along until later, but Clark needs a counterpoint and Lex IS an accepted Superman-universe character. AND THEY DIDN'T CHANGE WHO HE WAS.

They added two new characters: Chloe, the Lois-Lane archetype, is there to show us Clark's future and to create love interest for Clark and love triangles with Clark and Lana.

Pete is a new character-- but he's fairly seamless. He doesn't exist in any of the versions of Superman I've read, but he doesn't get in the way, relieves some of the Secret Identity tension, and most importantly: NO ONE HAD TO BE ALTERED TO FIT HIM IN.

D'you see where I'm going with this, Mr. Big Shot? Let me reiterate in small, easy-to-digest words for your tiny, tiny brain: If It Isn't Broke, Don't Fix It.

Don't interfere. Don't change stuff. Don't make things DIFFERENT. If something's good, don't screw with it.

Something else I want to say: Never, never go for the quick payoff when you can have something that stands the test of time. Would you put Batman in a giant rubber suit with bulging muscles, nipples and a codpiece endowment the size of a bull's just to attract more people to the theatre to check him out in all his dark, hunky broodery?

...oh yeah, you would.

And look where THAT got you.

Wake up, Mr. Hollywood. If you want to adapt something to the screen, ADAPT it. Don't re-write it. It doesn't need it, we won't like it, and we don't want it.

Posted by Agent M at February 23, 2003 11:48 PM