Film Adaptation is like Science Communication

That's the thought I had this morning, catching up on reactions and commentary from various places to David Goyer's recent comments. I mean, I was also revisiting the ongoing story that the reason DC can't seem to make good DC movies (that aren't Batman) while Marvel is doing gangbusters is that they don't respect, know, or know what to do with the characters.
Its an unfortunately well developed narrative at this point, with a history.



"You want me to write a scene where Braniac is razzalin' polar bears?" (source, image)

But this particular iteration hit me differently, because the bits about Martian Manhunter being goofy or needing to (essentially) be a completely new character to be in their movie  actually reminded me some questions I get about educational games and approaches. Not just because I'm self-centered, but because of the premises.
People ask "how do you make science interesting?" or how you "slip in" "stealth learning" into a design. They ask these questions where there's this tacit, implicit assumption science isn't interesting, and you have to "hide the learning" to appeal to kids.

And that assumption is just friggin' wrong.
Like super, super  w  r  o  n  g.
(And I don't mean that in an insulting way; it super easy to see the stigma attached to educational games and the history of poor quality, and assume it is because they are educational, rather than other factors.)

And rejecting that premise affects my work.
I made a biology game, and I know biology is interesting because I'm surrounded by biologists.
I'm surrounded by people who think its so interesting, they want to spend their whole lives studying it. People who tell me cool things about it all the time, and talk to each other about how to find out even more cool things about it.

So to me its not "How do I make biology interesting?"
Its "How do I show people how interesting biology is?"

Specifically, its usually how do I show them quickly and clearly, since a) what they've been seeing so far hasn't grabbed them and b) I don't have the years to go into it that the biologist have spent seeing how neat it is.

To do that the place you have to start is finding the core of why is this cool, why it matters, why should you care. You have to find those hooks within the foundations of what you're actually looking at, find those things the audience can connect with, and bring those out. You make those clear and get them on board, and from there you can build out wherever complex or crazy place you want to go, be it evolutionary biology or:



...and now that you've got how hes a child trying to prove himself to his parents,
and learning to deal with problems more maturely, as most people can relate to,
let me tell you about how he's a space god in a distant galaxy
who flies and shoots lightning....

If I start from the premise there is nothing valuable or appealing to the audience in the subject at all, that I have to add something completely new to get them to care...why am I even trying to do this other than to make money? And why would I think it would work, even then?
(Also; nothing the audience can relate to at all?
Is the story about friggin' Varelse? Try harder.)

Its self-defeating. If you don't think theres a reason to care the subject, even if there is one, you won't be trying to show it to the audience. And whatever you are getting them to care about isn't from the subject, so even if you do get the audience engaged, they're not engaging with that subject.
Even if its name is in the title, its gonna feel tacked on, arbitrary, and unimportant, because that's what you've communicated.
Its like games where you do the crappy "learning" bit to be allowed the reward of paying the "fun part". It communicates the enduring the learning part is work that you get rewarded for.



The term in some academic literature for this is "chocolate covered broccoli".
That being in peer reviewed journals makes me happy inside. image

Similarly, treating the title character as something you have to shoehorn into the movie you actually wanted to make (or think will sell) both tells new people the character is not interesting and tells fans you don't want their money; whatever they saw in the character is not what you're interested in, so they can just crawl back into their basements or whatever (because being fans makes them socially awkward and their dollars worth less than sex-having 'real people' dollars...somehow).

So yeah, to me the problem that a lot of educational games have is kind of the same problem DC has, and its why Marvel is kicking their ass.

And it comes to the forefront in comments like these where the people at DC explicitly don't think characters that have been around for 60+ years can be appealing. I highlight that number not because  history makes it good, but if a character has been around that long there's probably something distinct there to work with or people would have just forgotten about him. It also means theres a lot of work to draw on to find something you can use, before throwing up your hands that's its not doable.
I'm saying just looking at the surface of it and throwing it out as ridiculous is the easy (and stupid and less profitable) way out.

Yes, I may have just called the convoluted 2003 Hulk the easy way out
compared to the more straightforward 2008 model.
The irony's not lost on me. image

If you don't see anything appealing about the character other than recognition their name has and the spectacle they provide, those are going to be the truest parts of the movie, and thats usually not a good thing. Even if you try to give it depth beyond that, the fact you feel you need to make up deeper stuff means it won't "feel" like its that character to the people who are familiar with it. And that's the best case, assuming it works and isn't just terrible.

Of course if you make a story people can connect with
you don't even need name and spectacle.
And if you want to see how far characters and spectacle can get you,
just look at almost any Pixar film. image

Just to be clear, I'm not saying reboots, reimaginings, new ideas, and so on are bad or you need to be slavishly loyal to source material. I thought the Mandarin was great in Iron Man 3 and even in educational games there tends to be some tradeoffs in accuracy for vastly better gameplay. I'm saying, as other have said before, you have to be loyal to the concept. If you get the core of what a character is about, what they do, and why people connect to them, you can put them anywhere, anytime, and make it work. If you don't get it, it can look as awesome and iconic as ever and still be an existentially depressing level of bad. (Look DC, other people screw up, too!)

You can make money with a spectacle and a name. But you can build a beloved franchise with an actual character that people care about.
The same way you can make an "educational game" slapping quizzes into something fun, and try to sell it. But if you make a concept playable, and show students why they should care, they may actually learn something rather than just memorizing it.


So what do you think?
Now that its written out, I'm  aware how gloriously nerdy it is to see the parallel between how to explain science effectively to the person-on-the-street and how to translate a superhero (or sci-fi or other fantastical tale) into a movie that same hypothetical person-on-the-street would enjoy. Yet currently, both are huge opportunities, and still often mishandled.
Do you think its this failure to respect the subject behind the failures? Some other issue?
Something else behind the successes? (cause we've seen skilled, engaged people with lots of talent and resources hit and miss =P )
Let me know in the comments.

My Favorite Superhero

Lately (when not working) I've been marinating in commentary and analysis of superheroes. I recently revisited the great Death and Return of Superman and found that since then Max had posted the DAROS pitch and Regarding Clark. Then there's been the general ongoing stream of stuff in pop culture on the sites I frequent like Cracked, The Escapist and to a lesser extent The Mary Sue.

So superheroes have been on my mind. And after watching Max explain the appeal behind his clear favorite, I tried to reflect on mine and it wasn't initially clear.

No Sue, I'm not talking about you.

I feel I should preface this with "I did not grow up reading comic books". I was watching Batman: TAS, and Spiderman and X-men on TV, I was playing video games, but I wasn't actually reading the source comics. Even in college when I did get more into it, I was reading trade paperbacks of miniseries, which I still prefer; Watchmen, The Long Halloween, Barry Ween, Sandman, all the previously mentioned Warren Ellis stuff, etc.. I never even tried to get into main continuities. I already knew the characters, and prefer defined stories with them, personally.

Now a little while ago if I'd thought about this, it would've been Deadpool; he's an entertaining and interesting character. But while I enjoy reading deadpool, after Max's more analytical philosophical breakdown of Clark, Deadpool didn't feel like someone I could get behind in that kind of way.

Though I do fully support irreverence, silliness, awesomeness and fun.

It should come as no surprise that after deeper reflection on themes and characters that  I settled comfortably on Elijah Snow. It feels like this has allot to do with both his approach and Planetary's lack of the "the status quo is god" type of thing inherent in so much of superhero comics. That tropes's not a new observation or even a bad thing for those stories, but when I look at what speaks to, resonates with, and inspires me its not going to be that. Its not going to be someone "Healing america by beating people up" as Nextwave put it.

Ah, that old chestnut. Emphasis on the nut.

Its not even going to be The Authority, trying to change the world by beating people up. That proactive rather than reactive approach is closer, but still not right. Its going to be someone trying to do the right thing, which sometimes may involve force but that not the goal; thats in service of the bigger goal.

That's why it has to be Elijah Snow.

The stories of Elijah Snow are not about "fighting crime"; they are about going out into the unknown and finding secrets and discovering new knowledge. Given superpowers he doesn't become a cop, but a scientist and an explorer. Hes a detective, but hes not batman tracking a thief; hes the mystery archeologist tracking the past to unveil it to the present, in order to improve the present, if only through increased knowledge.

(Oh, uh, big Planetary SPOILERS ahead, by the way.)
(Seriously, go read it, its great. If you want spoiler-ific reasons, for all the good I'm saying, he does beat up Dracula and perpetrate other awesomeness. Its a fun ride.)

...like stupidly, over-the-toply, B-movie fun, but also good.

And I know the reasons it can't happen in most comics, that you can only do it in a miniseries, but I love things like the "lifestations" in the 3rd world, that they list in the last issue. For all the problems of post-scarcity, satisfying basic needs like that saves so many more lives than stopping a mugging. And this is a character who will actually do that, and still go on fun adventures.

And he literally kills Reed Richards for being malevolently worse than useless.

And then he kicks him in the crotch.
Its glorious. Go read it.
(Yes, I know this isn't Reed or his expy, but the sentiment is there)

But more than the acts, its that core of the character.

"Its a strange world, let keep it that way."
"Saving him means more than yanking him out of there. It means saving his life."
Or just simply puts as  "He saves things"

Its about protecting the world not from destruction, but from deception. The conflict is not with those who take innocent lives and freedom, but those who do so to so many by making the world a dimmer, less wondrous place. Its not even really about "improving the world" itself; its about showing people how great the world is and how it works (though the tech from that makes the world better for people), and recording it for later.

 Like I said, he's a scientist, trying to understand the world and explain it to others to help them. Thats what resonates with me. That's the right thing I like seeing a hero striving to do.

What about you? What hero resonates with you? Lemme know in the comments.

Quick thought: scientific reasoning and reading

I was thinking about science this morning, and came up with something I wish I had during the previous work for my Masters:

"Scientist aren't the only ones who do scientific reasoning any more than book critics are the only ones who read. Sure the critic may read more challenging material and have a richer discussion of what is going on in it, but reading is something your average person does all day everyday from signs to get around to emails and entertainment. It's something you're doing right now without thinking it extraordinary or uncomfortable. So it is with scientific reasoning too; when defined as 'drawing conclusions based on previous observations and experience' then most problem solving or even wondering if something is true would fall under this label; its why you could say (if pretentious) that you were 'theorizing that X is Y' or 'hypothesizing this author is wrong'.

So when we talking about how people use scientific reasoning, its not about just scientists, but about how people solve problems and make sense of the world they live in everyday."

That would have been a stronger, cleaner introduction to the topic than what I went with at the time, which relied more on examples than a good analogy. I really like the reading analogy to strongly say that this is a common practice, though there are specialized practitioners.

My focus may be more on 'critical thinking' and 'problem solving' now, but its all related. And I still think if we can understand how people do these types of things and how to either teach or help them to do them better, the benefits will more than pay for the effort.

Just a quick thought.