For Galactus, they should stick with the 'giant humanoid' thing, but there are a lot of friggin cool ways to draw a 'giant humanoid'. Maybe make him look more like a Celestial or a Lovecraftian entity. Or maybe don't redesign him....I think we contantly underestimate what modern audiences will accept.
Fantastic Four reboot-- Casting, Rumors, Pix, ect;
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^But why should we "accept" some cheesy old 1960s design rather than come up with a more innovative interpretation? Just because the comics did things a certain way, that doesn't mean it can't be improved on.
The reason that comic book movies are never as good as the originals is that the studios feel they have to mainstream the magic out of them. Too cheesy, too unbelievable, too colorful. It's a superhero movie, for crying out loud-- do it right. Holding back on imagination and creativity is not the way to adapt a concept based on imagination and creativity.
The only disagreement I have here is that I thought nearly all of MoS was pointless excess.
Oh, I specifically acknowledged your viewpoint on this aspect of the movie, when I mentioned "nitpick".
Well you still have to make certain adjustments for live action, I think. Readers may not think twice about characters wearing skimpy, skin-tight outfits in the comics, but the same thing would more often than not look cheap and silly as hell in live action.
And the same would go for other elements as well, like the villains. Maybe they could have had a comic-style Galactus, but it would have taken a LOT more work to sell the idea, and keep general audiences from rolling their eyes in disbelief.
You're contradicting yourself. How is it imaginative or creative to slavishly copy what Jack Kirby did half a century ago? Come on, Galactus is a vast, incomprehensible cosmic force that's existed since the dawn of the universe. Making him a giant humanoid in a silly hat is one of the least imaginative ways possible to interpret such a thing.
I don't care about "mainstream." I am not a person who would ever favor something just because it was mainstream. I love the unusual, the exotic, the challenging, the iconoclastic. I love ideas that transcend the everyday. And that's exactly why the idea of a cosmic force like Galactus having a humanoid shape is so completely boring to me. The human form is mainstream. It's ordinary. It's familiar. It's a tremendous failure of imagination to envision a transcendent cosmic entity as just a bigger version of a human. There's got to be something more exotic, more creative than that, and I'm sure there's something more creative than the swarm of particles we got in the previous movie. (Although that was inspired by the Gah Lak Tus of the Ultimate Universe, which I think is a very clever reinterpretation.) Something that really says "cosmic force" or "entity so vast it consumes planets."
As I said, something like V'Ger could work for me. Or maybe something like Solaris from the Soderbergh movie. Or a mix of elements of both. Or what if Galactus were something like a sentient black hole? A pucker in spacetime, distorting the light around it, but maybe girdled by bright, complex, colorful energy fields that contain Galactus's consciousness (make them purplish as a nod to the original). Perhaps orbited by some vast Kirbyesque devices which could be interpreted as instruments his heralds have constructed to facilitate his feeding, and which could descend and unfold (or deploy pincers evoking G's helmet) to encircle the Earth and prepare it for consumption. How's that for imaginative?
Maybe the audience wouldn't accept it-- I don't know. Sometimes they surprise you. But to me, being faithful to the source material is important and, while it may be a challenge to make these things work in live action, the payoff would be amazing if successful. And I do agree that it would be challenging, which is why I think the better approach to superhero movies would be to go the route of The Incredibles or Megamind (the best Marvel and DC movies ever made, respectively
).Because Jack Kirby was imaginative and creative, and to take his ideas and water them down for a mainstream audience is the opposite of that. If you don't want to slavishly copy your source material, then come up with an original idea-- if you're going to draw from source material, do it faithfully and respectfully.
I think that everyone could have their cake and eat it too in the depiction of Galactus. Have him first appear as some amorphous, immense, nonhumanoid being, like a giant cloud, but have him assume the appearance of a gigantic humanoid to communicate and get his point across. Not unlike the Borg choosing Picard to be their voice as Locutus.
Frankly, while simply depicting him as a giant cloud might sound more plausible on paper, you're still dealing with an inherently unrealistic concept, and that doesn't change whether he's a cloud or a humanoid. But depicting him at least partially in humanoid form gives them the opportunity to use an actor's performance, gives the characters something to interact with, and the audience something more to hook onto.
Frankly, while simply depicting him as a giant cloud might sound more plausible on paper, you're still dealing with an inherently unrealistic concept, and that doesn't change whether he's a cloud or a humanoid. But depicting him at least partially in humanoid form gives them the opportunity to use an actor's performance, gives the characters something to interact with, and the audience something more to hook onto.
Except, why would Galactus need to communicate with his dinner? There would have to be some special circumstances in the story which would justify him deigning to interact with us, hence my suggestion of Uatu as a mediator (and of course Uatu's own humanoid form would be a projection he assumes for our benefit as well).
Why would he need a herald?
The problem with superhero movies (and much of contemporary superhero comics) is an obsession with realism. It compromises an inherently outlandish concept-- makes the imaginative unimaginative. Verisimilitude is fine, but realism should be a very low priority.
Galactus was born humanoid in the cycle prior to the Big Bang. His appearance is a remnant of how he looked when he was mortal. Or, if you believe John Byrne, it's how the human mind interprets him. Whatever. A giant humanoid is what he was created to be and that's how he should be depicted. If the producers are afraid to do it right, they should be making a different kind of movie.
Galactus was born humanoid in the cycle prior to the Big Bang. His appearance is a remnant of how he looked when he was mortal. Or, if you believe John Byrne, it's how the human mind interprets him. Whatever. A giant humanoid is what he was created to be and that's how he should be depicted. If the producers are afraid to do it right, they should be making a different kind of movie.
As I understand it, the herald's job is to find planets suitable for Galactus to consume. The actual heralding part is probably pretty much irrelevant to the Big G.
Which is why I always thought the whole "Locutus" thing was a weak contrivance. But I guess in both cases, the motivation is to bring this vast, inchoate threat down to a more comprehensible, personal level.
But Galactus does send his herald ahead to make a big deal about the end being nigh, and he seems to like to set up his apparatus in a densely-populated area, so clearly he likes to be a drama queen about it.
The excuse/justification should take a backseat to the storytelling considerations that I described earlier. This is live action.
The excuse/justification should take a backseat to the storytelling considerations that I described earlier. This is live action.
^But is it really that Galactus instructs the herald to do that, or is it something the herald, being closer to the level of the people being addressed, chooses to do on his, her, or its own initiative?
And slavish accuracy to the source is what should take a back seat. The way to do an adaptation is to take the core idea and reinterpret it; the trappings are secondary. Just because Galactus has communicated his intentions to planetary populations in the comics, that doesn't mean he has to do so in every adaptation. For instance, in the final episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, though Galactus had his standard giant-humanoid appearance, he was completely nonverbal and just went about his business with little seeming awareness of the inhabitants of Earth. Even his heralds barely bothered to acknowledge the Avengers and their allies as people, just as nuisances to be flicked away.
And slavish accuracy to the source is what should take a back seat. The way to do an adaptation is to take the core idea and reinterpret it; the trappings are secondary. Just because Galactus has communicated his intentions to planetary populations in the comics, that doesn't mean he has to do so in every adaptation. For instance, in the final episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, though Galactus had his standard giant-humanoid appearance, he was completely nonverbal and just went about his business with little seeming awareness of the inhabitants of Earth. Even his heralds barely bothered to acknowledge the Avengers and their allies as people, just as nuisances to be flicked away.
^In one FF storyline, Air-Walker comes to Earth and goes out of his way to make everyone think that he's the angel Gabriel announcing Judgment Day, causing a worldwide panic. That herald was an android created by Galactus, so it must have been the big G's idea.
Where did I express a preference for slavish accuracy to the source? I gave a reasoned argument for having it both ways, and several good reasons for why movie-makers would want Galactus to appear as a humanoid in a live action film. I don't see you disputing those points, only trying to marginalize my opinion by making a false generalization about it.
Where did I express a preference for slavish accuracy to the source? I gave a reasoned argument for having it both ways, and several good reasons for why movie-makers would want Galactus to appear as a humanoid in a live action film. I don't see you disputing those points, only trying to marginalize my opinion by making a false generalization about it.
Forgive me for jumping into the middle of a conversation, and I apologize if taking this out of context deprives it of your intended meaning.
The first Thor movie beautifully captured Kirby's aesthetic. There was no doubt in looking at any frame of Asgard that the scenic designers were committed to capturing Kirby's vision.
Sorry, not my intent. But you did cite Galactus's behavior in the comics as precedent, and what I'm saying is that such precedent can and should be discarded if the filmmakers have a better idea. How the behavior of Galactus's heralds is explained in the continuity of the comics doesn't matter here, because a movie would be a different continuity. The advantage of a new adaptation is that it lets you improve things that were silly or flawed in the original. And personally I think the idea that Galactus would bother to speak to his food before eating it is rather silly. I like the way it was done in the A:EMH finale, with humanity being beneath Galactus's notice.
And I have already conceded that there would be reason to portray Galactus as taking on the illusion a humanoid form, and have suggested a plausible way that could be incorporated into the story. So you are incorrect to say that I haven't addressed that issue. I addressed it earlier and now I've moved on to the issue of his behavior.
Well, we won't be seeing the Reed/Sue/Namor love triangle on the big screen anytime soon. Apparently, Namor is with... Universal?