Poll: Does ignorance of source material annoy you?

[BNguyen]

About one of the few situations pertaining to this OT is when I read this thing (I'm sure most people have) that had a girl say that Twilight was ripped off by the Wolfman movie for not being "realistic" in terms of what a werewolf is and that apparently Twilight predates both the Wolfman and Harry Potter

 

[Combustion Kevin]

annoy me? ANNOY ME?

it inpires homocide in me, though the worst perpetrators in my opinion are specific music artists as of late.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

You know, it's funny. I just came across something like this today. Cracked.com has a short article up about the My Little Pony movie that's coming out. It basically treats all bronies like they're creeps and maybe pedophiles, and I must admit that I was slightly offended, but I'm rather used to people being weirded out by the fact that I watch the show. I just shrugged it off. What bothered me though was that they were using the wrong banner for the movie. Some changes have been made to the appearance of the characters, and the author seemed to have missed that. It sort of threw his whole article into doubt for me, and gave me the mental image of a troll just trying to get a rise out of someone because he hadn't bothered to check his info before he start mocking people. It would be like if someone was talking about Star Wars Episode VI and had a picture of "Revenge of the Jedi" up all over the place.

Anyway, I don't normally mind stuff that goes against the source material, unless it REALLY goes against the source material. The Resident Evil movies? I enjoy those very much and have each one on DVD. Yes, they have butchered the storyline from the video game series, but it still works because what they carry over still stays true to the video game series in my eyes.
Now, the biggest thing that come into my mind is what happened to the Madalorians and their culture in Star Wars: The Clone Wars t.v. show. The Madalorians are ruled by a pacifist? No. No no no no no no! I'm sorry, but they are a culture built around war, that thrive in battle, and hold combat ability at the highest level of honor. And the show is trying to show that, "No, look, there are still Madalorians out there who believe in that way of life!" but it's not working. The fact that you are reminding us that the Madalorians are a warrior people (not race, because anyone can become a Madalorian) while still having them being ruled by a pacifist is just a joke. It looks like they're trying to fix that, but we'll have to wait until the next season to see if it works out.

Oh, and Wesker is still alive. No, seriously, he somehow survived a small nuclear bomb that completely vaporized him, because he's back in the newest movie. I smell a clone!

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Wait, so is this poll about annoyance with the fan base, or about the film or other modern adaptations of such material? Or both? If so, I might have answered incorrectly, because the people don't actually bother me...but that's more probly because I haven't come into any actual contact with them. Other than my close friends, who I am very grateful that no posers exist among them.

If you are talking about the movie producers who don't respect the original material, then this annoys me to no end. One of the biggest is Hitman. What the hell was that movie about. Hardly any stealth, no disguises, no real Hitman in it other than a very slight semblance of some of the scenarios he gets into. The actor was ok, the movie though might as well have been about something totally different. THEN what annoys me, which is no fault of the people not familiar with the source material, is that the majority of people who watch the movie who have no idea what kind of game Hitman is, will just think it's an action shooter, and think it's another one of them "mindless shooting video games". So yeah, something like that annoys me.

The other thing that annoys me but I doubt I'm alone here, is the many atrocious video game adaptations, of potentially excellent and rich source material, such as the movies done by the famous Uwe Boll.

 

[White_Lama]

Well, some time yes, and some times no.

One damn good example that has bugged me since the first trailer for it.

World War Z.

AWESOME book, I've read it quite a few times along with the Zombie Survival Guide, great reads.

Then along comes the trailer aaaaand, nope, fuck you moviemakers.

I will watch the movie because I like zombies, I will not however refer to the movie as World War Z, that's not World War Z.

 

[Lionsfan]

I think if they can create their own interpretations or expand on things a little more, I don't mind too much. But if it reaches the level of M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender, we've got a problem.

I've never watched TLA or the movie, what was so bad about it? What did M. Night Shymalan change?

Well besides the horrible acting, it was a lot.

Like this for instance

But really, here's a list [http://www.racebending.com/v3/general/the-last-airbender-film-changes-from-the-cartoon-series/] of the things that were changed/redone.

OT: I don't really mind that much, since movies are usually an adaption of things, and not meant to be 100% accurate, but as long as the changes aren't too much, I don't care

 

[RevRaptor]

Really doesn?t bother me. Unless we are talking about the movie makers themselves, one would expect if you are making a movie about a comic you would at least get some basic background info.

Personally I think people that go on about how knowledgeable they are on a subject just because they watched that one film are just plain stupid and most likely don't even like the movie that much anyways and I don't pay attention to idiots.

I don't know about the rest of you but whenever I find something I like I always do a google search to find out exactly what it is I'm liking.

Although the reverse is also true some people just get into the cannon too much. Star wars is a good example of this, I have some friends that get into it too much and keep correcting everyone because they know the expanded universe and blah blah blah. It gets pretty annoying real quick.

In the end though It doesn?t make much difference to me, we all like different things in different ways. As long as they are not acting like a know it all jackholes I really don't mind.

 

[Squilookle]

See I thought this would be about film/game makers and the like ignoring the source material/previous versions of the source material when making their version, such as the makers of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy film not even bothering to watch the TV show to dissect what it did right, or the XCOM and Syndicate shooters that just flipped the bird at their respective sources.

THAT definitely annoys me. No end. There is no excuse for it. You should explore every resource. Better to know the old material and discard it than not know it and miss out on the elements it does better than your version.

What you describe, where a fanbase is ignorant of something's heritage, doesn't actually bother me. It actually the people that call it out that piss me off. I'm a pretty massive James Bond fan, and I'm sick to death of idiots comparing every single aspect of Craig's films to the books. Unlike everybody else, those idiots don't seem to realise that the films have grown into a seperate identity altogether from the books.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Not really. If someone just wants to watch a movie based on something without getting into the actual source material, that is fine. The mediums should exist separately. People shouldn't need to do homework prior to it and no one should really give them shit for treating movies as their own thing.

 

[uchytjes]

First of all, it doesn't really matter. This is really the biggest problem we have in "geek culture" right now. The whole "YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND IT BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW THE SOURCE" sense of entitlement that makes people think that every new media form a franchise goes through should emulate the original stuff to the dot. I always view new visions of old IP as their own new "thing". Its the main problem that is occurring with the newest star trek movie. As viewed alone without prior knowledge of star trek, it is a pretty damn good movie with some very emotional scenes and surprising twists in it. But, when nostalgia goggles come into play, it is seen as a movie that tries fanservice in all the wrong ways. Fanservice is a whole 'nother world of "urrgh", but thats for another day.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

A little, but I'm mature enough to treat source from adaptation as two different things. Especially if the adaptation is crap, which happens a loy.

 

[ninjaRiv]

Sometimes it's funny. Remember when everyone went ape shit over Ryan Reynolds being cast as Green Lantern? "Green Lantern's black! Grr" And they refused to listen to people who have read the comics.

Other times it's annoying, yeah. Like when X-men first came out, I spent a disturbingly long time trying to convince a friend Wolverine has bone claws under the metal. This guy knew I read comics yet he just would not believe me. But yeah, maybe these people are just fans of the film and don't give a shit about the game/comic/book. Maybe. Unfortunately, sometimes it just doesn't seem that way.

 

[lacktheknack]

Of course not. Ignorance of the source material means they don't know a thing. There's NOTHING wrong with that.

What DOES get my goat is:

A. Ignorance of the source material, but insisting that you are right, or

B. Ignorance of the source material, and you're the one making a new addition to the source material's universe.

 

[Mrkillhappy]

I said a little honestly because their are some cases such as the Star Trek reboot that the writers clearly don't grasp the source material correctly and just make stupid decisions that only piss off fans.

Spoiler: An example from Into Darkness

The use Kahn as the villain yet don't really give him any motivation to fight the Enterprise simply because the know that fans and most people feel that Kahn is the best villain ever however if you know nothing about him then you don't understand what made him such a threat as he doesn't really have as strong of a presence just being introduced and also he doesn't cause as much damage to the crew of the Enterprise in this movie as he ever had in the past.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

I mean it's one thing to be unfamiliar with the source material, its another to claim that something made based on the source material takes precedence over it or affects it in anyway. Christopher Nolan's batman is a completely different incarnation of the character than the one seen in the justice league and stuff.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

As long as the characters are tonally similar, I don't mind too much. The X-men films are bad examples really. They were just "Let's prop up Wolverine at the expense of EVERYTHING" movies more than they were X-men movies.

As long as they hit close to the mark, I'm OK with the fine details being blurry. Every artist (director, writer, whatever) wants to make their own story. And it's hard to give the continuity too much respect when so many comics break out the retcon brush whenever a plot point becomes inconvenient.

 

[Yopaz]

Considering comics have reboots and different arcs then I don't really think that it's a big deal. You could say Superman is evil and not be entirely wrong. You could say Lex Luthor died from at least two different causes which had nothing to do with each other.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

It does annoy me. Hence we get this.

or if it's genuinely a better idea (Spiderman having web cartridges is dumb).

No. Just no. The organic webbing isn't dumb, but the cartridges are not dumb. They reflect his intellect and give a sensible reason for him to run out of webbing.
___

Raimi's Spider-Man films are a good example of why ignoring the source material annoys me. Every person who I've talked to now believes that Spider-Man is an overly emotional whiny crybaby, because they've seen the Raimi films. You know there's something wrong when the memetic 60s Spider-Man gives a more a accurate reflection.

When the Amazing Spider-Man was released and actually gave proper treatment to the character, everyone is dissatisfied with the new Spider-Man for being different.

Well, some time yes, and some times no.

One damn good example that has bugged me since the first trailer for it.

World War Z.

AWESOME book, I've read it quite a few times along with the Zombie Survival Guide, great reads.

Then along comes the trailer aaaaand, nope, fuck you moviemakers.

I will watch the movie because I like zombies, I will not however refer to the movie as World War Z, that's not World War Z.

And this. I wanted to punch the monitor when I saw that trailer.

The worst thing? The movie was pitched with a script that more closely resembled the book, that sold the movie. Then they decided to use a different script entirely.

These people you bring up are talking about different things. You may not like those things but that doesn't mean they don't exist and can't be talked about on their own.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean he isn't allowed to get annoyed at it when people think they have a grasp of the original story when they've only seen an adaptation.

 

[Waaghpowa]

It annoys me to a certain extent. In the case of "oh, I didn't know that" kind of situations, I'm whatever. Cases like yours is really only with certain types of people, in which case I quickly refer them to something and they feel stupid.

Most recent example of gross ignorance was with the Green Lantern and how they decided to release the new 52 with Alan Scott as a homosexual.

I was at a friends comic store, and a boy and his dad came in.

Boy: Look dad! Green Lantern! (Referring to the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern)
Dad: I wont buy you that, the guy is a fag.
Me: Seriously? Get the fuck out.

Not only is it incredibly bigoted, but it's not even the same Green Lantern.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

If it's not a reboot then I can understand if they try to change the continuity a bit.

If it's supposed to be an adaptation from either comic books or any other sort of medium that has an establish canon then it should follow it within the normal parameters of the story.

Best examples I can give are Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. Walking dead seems to follow the comic books almost to the letter, where as Game of Thrones although following the same storyline implements a few characters that either don't exist in the books or have been either killed too early or not, they will still reach the same path.

Tl;dr Yes, it annoys me. The most recent thing regarding this topic was the Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3. I haven't read the comics but I've wikipidia'd the Mandarin and was expecting much greater things that what they did in the movie.

Guess you can't have everything...

PS: Don't get me started on movies based on video games.