Clash of Titans - Battle #1
This past weekend I watched both Fantastic 4 movies, saw American Gangster, and then proceeded to watch Spiderman 3 as well. Needless to say... too many movies. And, as a writer, I have to admit that I tend to over-analyze the things that I watch. My writing professor in college told me that it would happen. I denied it, but here I am. A critic. It's a good practice, I think, for writers to analyze other works, because hopefully you can use those insights to write better stories.
Since I write adventure stories, I thought I'd share my thoughts about the comic book movies I watched over the weekend. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.
The Characters
When I watched X-Men for the first time, I really liked it. It mainly focused on Logan's (the Wolverine) story, but branched out into others as well. It worked. But, then, in the two sequels, there were a lot of mutants running around, and no single character was the focal point. In analyzing Spiderman and the Fantastic 4 I draw the same conclusion. Stories need to be focused on just a few primary characters.
Why? Well, let's take Spiderman. We're constantly following him. We see him when he's happy, when he's sad, when he can't control his emotions, and when he rises to the occasion. The character has different sides, different moods, and different postures. Just like us. It's his story, and we can relate to that.
When you take on a story with more characters, I think it becomes very important to concentrate on a single, primary character. Sure, the other characters should be multidimensional, too, but we can really only focus on one. We can really only watch one person struggle. Spiderman does. The Fantastic 4? Well, not really. There's four of them, and for the most part they only show us one or two core emotions. They do grow, but the growth seems superficial.
Winner: Spidey
Action, Adventure, and Storytelling
To be continued next post...
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2 comments:
Yeah, but you have to admit that only someone as smart and sciency as Mr. Fantastic could have had the epiphany that a tachyon pulse would separate some alien they know nothing about from his Surfboard O' Pure Energy.
Who needs core emotions when you can do that?
Especially when said surfer is actually Lawrence Fishburne painted in silver and totally ripped.
That's a pretty tall order to out-smart. Mr. Fantastic also has cool gray streaks in his hair... and hair sort of conveys emotion, right?
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