Once upon a time, I wrote a post denouncing the Harry Potter movies because they only vaguely resembled the books that they are allegedly based upon. On the other hand, I think it is ok to modernize more ancient texts. If the ghost of Shakespeare were to watch 10 Things I Hate About You, he would just barely recognize the best ever performance of one of his plays. If instead of a ghost, Shakespeare was a zombie, he would be consumed with desire to eat your brain and not watch the movie at all. If Shakespeare was a vampire, he would not sparkle. He would also kill Robert Pattinson, not just because he brought shame upon the vampire name, but also for bringing shame on the acting profession.
I fall in between those extremes when it comes to comic book movies. Most origin stories have been told and retold so many times by different writers that it is sometimes hard to remember accurately how it actually happened. That does not even include all the alternate realities. So when they are made into movies, I give them more leeway than I would a novel. The most recent X-movie does not resemble any previous X-Men story, and some of the movie characters match their comic book counterpart in name only. What bothers me more is that the movie does not hold with the continuity of the previous films. But since I stopped buying Uncanny in 2004, the changes bother less than they might if I was still a devoted reader. After one viewing I rank it second of the five movies bearing the X.
If Shakespeare was a werewolf, he would have been shunned from wizarding society and his plays would never have been performed, and he would have been very shabby indeed.
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