Comment: Incredible Journey

The most successful original superhero story of the year didn't come from comics. It happened at the multiplex. Bulent Yusuf looks at what Brad Bird's THE INCREDIBLES could mean for the future of comics in Hollywood.
27 December 2004

It's been a good year for animated movies. In the summer we had the fairytale larking of SHREK 2 (box office takings: $436 million), followed some months later by superhero satire with THE INCREDIBLES ($236 million). Not far behind was another film, THE POLAR EXPRESS ($123 million), whose technical brilliance betrayed its lack of heart, but it was still a considerable achievement.

All three will be contending for the Best Animated Picture Oscar in 2005, but a fairer ceremony would allow them to compete with their live-action equivalents in the main category. And they'd probably win hands down.

All of the films listed above are digitally animated, while their predecessors, the pen and ink animations, have been consigned to that great drawing board in the sky. Walt Disney Studios announced this year that it would be closing down its conventional animation division to concentrate solely on the production of computerised animation.

That's a dramatic turnaround in their company strategy in a very short time - the first digitally animated movie was TOY STORY, and that was only released in 1995. The reason for the closure, one suspects, is because Disney will be parting ways with Pixar studios in 2007, and is now scrambling to fill the gap in its revenue stream.

Of the three, THE INCREDIBLES is the most relevant to comics, because it's inspired by standard tropes of comic books and sequential art. It's an excellent movie, to be sure, and one that is most definitely of the moment, pulling together several strands of popular culture to weave a story that appeals to audiences (and critics) of all ages. There's an element of good fortune to its success, too; taking three years to make, there was every chance that fickle viewers would have grown tired of the current superhero boom before it had a chance to reach theatres.

The Pixar brand name is a major factor; with a pedigree like TOY STORY, MONSTERS INC, and FINDING NEMO, Pixar has built a reputation for quality entertainment. Significant too is that it was written and directed by Brad Bird, whose IRON GIANT (1999) is often touted as one of the greatest animated movies of the 90s. Transplanting Ted Hughes' modern fairy tale to 50s America, complete with Red Scare paranoia and pulp sci-fi trappings, was a brilliant idea, but it never found an audience because Warner Brothers didn't support it with a proper marketing budget.

A tribute to the film (of a sort) briefly emerged in last year's Marvel Tsunami line with the title SENTINEL. Writer Sean McKeever replaced the Iron Giant with one of the mutant-hunting Sentinel robots familiar to any readers of the x-books, but Bird's story of one boy and his mecha remained at its heart.

Bird originally planned to make THE INCREDIBLES using 2-D animation, but was approached by Pixar to make it their next project. His affection for the superhero genre is clearly evident in the way that he gently satirises the cape and spandex brigade. The notion that a superhero could be sued by the very people whose lives he saved, and thus forced into early retirement, is a subtle dig at the compensation culture of modern society.

It also underlines the implausible and outdated nature of the entire superhero concept - if super-powered beings ever walked this earth, it's doubtful they would adhere to the laws of mere mortals. More likely that they would become domineering tyrants, a theme explored in a more visceral fashion by titles like SUPREME POWER and THE AUTHORITY.

But Bird treats his subject with nostalgic affection rather than disdain, and it's no coincidence that the four central characters of THE INCREDIBLES, the Parr family, bear something of a resemblance to Marvel's very own first family, the FANTASTIC FOUR. The powers have been reassigned to different members (and speed has replaced fire as one of the powers), but to all intents and purposes they are digitally animated analogues of their comic-book cousins.

It's surprising that Marvel Comics hasn't slapped Disney/Pixar with a lawsuit; they've done the same before with less provocation - CITY OF HEROES, anyone? But if they're not angry about it (though perhaps the House of Ideas lacks the funds to take on the House of the Mouse), then we might assume that Marvel is flattered by such a loving tribute. The theme of family unity in the face of adversity is a key plank in the FF mythos, but it also happens to be a perfect fit for Uncle Walt's own philosophy of profitable entertainment that reaffirms traditional family values.

Yet the success of THE INCREDIBLES begs the question - is there any point to making a live action FANTASTIC FOUR movie? Due for release in summer 2005, one suspects that the FF film is going to be a redundant exercise and a waste of millions of dollars, since audiences have already been treated to the exciting adventures of a similar family of superheroes. Although chronologically the FF were created first, in the cinematic arena they're going to seem like Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny-come-lately by comparison to the Parr family.

This also raises another point; live-action superhero movies have been very popular in the past couple of years, providing studios with a source of ready made intellectual properties and concepts that can be repackaged and fed back to the masses. But only a select few of them have been any good. THE INCREDIBLES has shown to great effect that superhero stories (or any kind of comic book story) are perfectly suited to digital animation. It's the bridge between comics and live action.

Let's take another forthcoming comic book film as an example; CONSTANTINE. Based upon the Vertigo series HELLBLAZER, it stars Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz and Tilda Swinton. I haven't seen the film, so I'm in no place to fairly judge it, but just on the evidence of the trailer it seems there's very little that bears any resemblance to the source material. The name of the film has even been changed, and Keanu Reeves lacks both the wit and the devilish charm of John Constantine as he's portrayed in the comics.

With a comic book movie, or indeed any kind of adaptation, there are expectations to satisfy, a fanbase to appease, people to avoid disappointing. On those counts, CONSTANTINE has already failed. It might be a great film in its own right, but it's not HELLBLAZER.

Now, if HELLBLAZER were made as an animated movie, things might be different entirely. Imagine if the work of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon was transplanted to the screen, literally, using the same artistic style and authorial tone from the comics. How cool would that be? In fact, take any crappy comic book movie of the last several years, be it FROM HELL, LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, HULK, DAREDEVIL, and imagine what they could've been like if animated and scripted in the style of the people who originally gave them life. Imagine how future disappointments like WATCHMEN or BATMAN BEGINS - and they almost certainly will be disappointments - could be avoided if they were animated instead of going down the live action route.

And the thing is, it's entirely possible, but the powers that be may be too short sighted to give it a shot. DC Comics has a healthy animation programme going with series like BATMAN, JUSTICE LEAGUE and TEEN TITANS GO, but they're aimed squarely at the kids. Perhaps we need to look elsewhere for inspiration, like the example laid down in 1988 by Katsuhiro Otomo and AKIRA. As far as adaptations go, AKIRA is the most faithful and accurate transfer of comic to screen yet made, simply because Otomo had a hand in both.

That's not to suggest that comic book professionals should immediately rush off and learn how to make an animated movie, but the two disciplines share a lot of common ground, and there's a niche in the modern entertainment industry that has yet to be properly explored.

When it is, the results are going to be... well; they're going to be Incredible.

Bulent Yusuf is a freelance writer based in London.

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