Every time a trailer for a comic book movie rolls around you're going to hear people complain about the film not being the same as the comic book. I bring this up because at this time the trailer for "Captain America: Civil War" has come out and people have their gripes. We've been down this road before, so let's take another little stroll.
Most of the time, viewers don't care if the movie or TV show they are watching isn't completely like the comic book it was based off of. This is because some people don't read comics like other viewers, so they have less attachment to the original source. It's kind of like telling the commercialized story of Santa Claus to somebody who studied German folktales and watching them complain about how the modern Santa doesn't kill children for being naughty. I might be wrong about that one. Point is, comic book readers feel cheated when something they see on screen can't completely be like the source material. However, this bias is totally dependent of the source. People are upset because the characters Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver-who were both mutants and the children of Magneto in the Marvel Comics-are neither mutants or related to Magneto in the Marvel Cinematic Universe because the MCU doesn't own the rights to X-Men material. Mind you, these are the same people who didn't say anything when the first Thor film didn't have the main character having the body of a handicapped human doctor. These are the same people who complained that The Mandarine in "Iron Man 3" wasn't an Asian stereotype, but were totally fine with Bucky being an adult in "Captain America". Some people were upset because Tony Stark created Ultron in the films instead of Hank Pym, but then those people were silent when the radiation experiments used to turn Bruce Banner into The Hulk were in an attempt to replicate the serum that created Captain America, where in the comics it was gamma bomb testing. I know I just said a lot of things that might not translate to some readers, but practically the fans of the Marvel films I am referring to have a selective way of complaining. It's like if the fast food industry changed the way cheeseburgers are made and customers pointed the meat out as the problem, but totally ignored the fact the buns are purple now.
And naturally you can't expect everyone to see the big picture, people want what they think is possible, but never conceive the process. Marvel/Disney can't just buy back The X-Men or The Fantastic Four, the rights to those film franchises have been owned by Fox since 1994. The first X-Men film was in 2000, but 20th Century Fox has owned The X-Men and Fantastic Four for twenty-one years. When something you own has made you millions for twenty-one years, you're not just going to sell it, especially to someone you know can make it better. Yeah, it's a petty game of keep away. Fox pretty much rebooted The Fantastic Four just so the film rights wouldn't legally be passed to Marvel/Disney. Before Spider-Man's film rights were put under "shared custody" by Marvel/Disney and Sony Pictures, Sony rebooted Spidey in "The Amazing Spider-Man" only five years after "Spider-Man 3" just to hold on to the film rights. Fox has announced there will be no sequel to their crappy Fantastic Four film, but in seven years will most likely reboot the franchise again just to keep it away from Marvel. The point is: We can't have what we want. Wolverine and Captain America can't be on the same movie screen because men in business suits care more about money than pleasing fans. The movies aren't even for the fans, they are for everyone who wants to be superhero fans without reading. I'd bet more money came out of movies like "Harry Potter" and "Hunger Games" than any of the books, know why? Because reading is annoying for people. Hopefully not you, of course. I mean if you got this far I'll give all credit to you, I often ramble about this sort of thing. And comic books have been around for decades, generations even! Of course people would rather watch all the Iron Man movies rather than spend time and money reading fifty years worth of comic books. The people who complain are more often the comic readers of the 2000's who are more likely to notice change in the characters they like than characters as a whole. Picking favorites like that is just unfair to the people who try to make the movies enjoyable.
The Civil War movie won't have any X-Men, it won't have any mutants or Thor or Hulk either. It won't have secret identities or The New Warriors or She-Hulk or anything else the comic had that they don't have. 1. Actors cost money and the cast for this film is large enough, not everyone player in the comic story can appear in this film. 2. We're getting Black Panther and Spider-Man in this film, so don't complain if not enough new characters are showing up. 3. And this is the kicker, don't bite the hand that feeds you. See, Spider-Man has his "With great power comes great responsibility" thing, but "Don't bite the hand that feeds you" are the words I live by. In 2000, I would have never even conceived the idea of Iron Man being one of the most popular comic book characters ever and having films. In 2005, I would have never thought anyone would make four movies about different heroes and then a fifth movie about them all teaming up in "The Avengers". In 2010, Marvel's Civil War seemed like an impossibility to exist anywhere else other than a comic book. And now, in 2015-soon to be 2016-it still blows my mind that The Guardians of The Galaxy got a movie before Wonder Woman. You know why all this is mind-boggling to me? Because all the spoiling Marvel/Disney has done to me through their fantastic films hasn't made me jaded or ungrateful, because rather than judging the company by what they can't do I am constantly impressed by what they have done. For every naysayer whining about Ultron or The Mandarine, there is five instances of me going "Seriously!? Howard The Duck!? This two minute cameo is better than his entire one-hour film". Maybe, just maybe, when it comes to comic books I'm optimistic. Maybe I'm realistic, as I see the limitations and appreciate what I get. If more people saw the difficulty of the situation, maybe more people would be less bratty about it. You know, if Marvel/Disney didn't have Spider-Man or The X-Men from the start, everything they have now wouldn't be as good. Cap, Stark, Black Widow, The Guardians, all of the Marvel characters you've come to love through the films would be footnotes in a film franchise dominated by characters we've watched on screen for around twenty years. A piece of coal can be a diamond, all it takes is a little pressure. So be happy that Black Panther is on screen, instead of being bitchy because two characters you saw in cartoon aren't related to Ian McKellen.
Thanks for reading.
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