OH FRANK MILLER NO.

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

A trailer for The Spirit may be
found here, if you dare.

Quoth a friend of my fiancee: "Will Eisner's zombie corpse should rise from the grave and eat Frank Miller's flesh in revenge, except even Will
Eisner's zombie corpse would be too nice to do something like that."

--Sam

"What? The Spirit isn't about whores."

[Bob Schroeck]

I've never actually read any of The Spirit, so I kind of hesitate to ask what's been screwed up...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Foxboy]

The original Spirit comics were kind of light-hearted "Mystery man" romps. He shared the old Police Comics book with Plastic Man before DC bought both of them.

Admittedly, All I've read of the Spirit were short funny bits the creator, Will Eisner, used in his "how to WRITE comics" book, Comics and Sequential Art.

He used a lot of visual elements that seem trite and corny now, but were revolutionary at the time. I think the Spirit was the first US comic book to use non-rectangular panels.

Sadly the stories ARE a product of their time [the '40s, etc] so there are some embarrassing characters like the Spirit's sidekick, a black boy rendered in then-acceptable fashion.

If you get a chance to seek out Comics and Sequential Art, check out his "Hippie Hamlet" sequence.

In re what's screwed up... Well, making him that GRIM is a start... It's like Plastic Man being portrayed by John Wayne instead of Jim Carrey.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Bob Schroeck]

Ah. Well, in that case he's become the victim of the post-Batman Begins studio demand for "dark" superheroes, then.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Kurisu]

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

---

Quoth a friend of my fiancee: "Will Eisner's zombie corpse should rise from the grave and eat Frank Miller's flesh in revenge, except even Will
Eisner's zombie corpse would be too nice to do something like that."

Your friend's right... He'll need some salt & garlic with a side of brussel sprouts.
_____
DEATH is Certain. The hour, Uncertain...

[Duane Peters]

I've read a *lot* of the Sprit comics. My local library has a *huge* collection of comics and graphic novels.

The only way, from the trailers I've seen, that this could possibly be *worse*, is if they handed the project to Paul Verhoven instead of Frank Miller.

Yes, it is that bad. Frank Miller is making a sequel to Sin City, *not* "The Spirit".

Don't waste your money; find the comics instead.

[Foxboy]

Posit: Is it possible that Miller did a decent adaptation, but the studio decided it wanted a "Darker, edgier" trailer to get folks into the theatre?
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Ebony]

Possibly, but Miller has been going on record saying that this is his tribute to Will Eisner, who he grew up reading. I don't know, personally; I'm
refraining judgement until I see the film.
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

[Epsilon]

Personally I don't care. If its a good movie, it will be a good movie. The existence, or lack thereof, of an earlier version does not factor into it.

If people were't allowed to dramatically change the plot and feel of things they were adapating we would have never gotten Forbidden Planet, which is about
my favorite performance of The Tempest ever.

-----------------

Epsilon

[mephron]

Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:

---

Quoth a friend of my fiancee: "Will Eisner's zombie corpse should rise from the grave and eat Frank Miller's flesh in revenge, except even Will
Eisner's zombie corpse would be too nice to do something like that."

My comment was, "One night, Frank Miller will wake up to find the zombie of Will Eisner standing over him. And because it's Will Eisner,
he'll just sigh disapprovingly and shamble back out, and Frank will wake up in the morning thinking 'it was a dream!' only to find out that the
Zombie Will Eisner actually pulled Frank's head out of Frank's ass."Brazil has decided you're cute.

[Murmur the Fallen]

Just read on wikipedia that it also wouldn't have any Ebony White, good old pickaninny child/short adult cab driving sidekick and possibly the only person
of african descent in Central City.

Oh, if only Hollywood could be true to the source material and include Ebony White in his original incarnation. How respectful of Will Eisner that would be.
Tokenism AND a call-back to America's proud minstrel hall traditions.

ha ha.

In all seriousness, the Spirit movie's tone, as seen from the trailers, is probably not going to be either the comedic, caper romps or the precursors to
Contract with God Trilogy urban crime misery stories that the Spirit strip oscillates between. I'm actually somewhat reminded of Warren Beatty's Dick
Tracy movie, though neither in a good or bad way.

-murmur

[mephron]

You might have missed this in the main Spirit comic listing, as well:

Ebony White in perspective




Eisner is sometimes criticized for his depiction of Ebony White, the Spirit's African American sidekick. He later admitted to consciously stereotyping
the character, but said he tried to do so with "responsibility", and argued that "at the time humor consisted in our society of bad English
and physical difference in identity." The character developed beyond the stereotype as the series progressed, and Eisner also introduced black
characters (such as the plain-speaking Detective Grey) who defied popular stereotypes.




In a 1966, New York Herald Tribune feature by his former office manager-turned-journalist, Marilyn Mercer wrote, "Ebony never drew criticism from Negro
groups (in fact, Eisner was commended by some for using him), perhaps because, although his speech pattern was early Minstrel Show, he himself derived from
another literary tradition: he was a combination of Tom Sawyer and Penrod, with a touch of Horatio Alger hero, and color didn't really come into
it."

Brazil has decided you're cute.

[OpMegs]

Well, it's out, and it apparently sucks. A friend of mine who's a big comics fan posted this review at another forum I frequent:

Well I saw it. It's hard to find the words on how bad this film is. I'll just name off my top five issues I have with
the film, and I'll even leave out my issues with the changes that Miller made to the Spirit:




5. Frank Miller has never heard of a storyboard - The movie is so uneven, that it's hard to tell what's going on and where. There's a few
establishing shots, but beyond that, it might as well been a stage play. All I can assume is that he drew a comic of the movie and he assumed that it'll
work as a storyboard. (It doesn't, by the way. No matter what Robert Rodriguez says.)




4. I've seen 1980's anime dub jobs that could recite a line more convincingly - To say the acting is bad is an insult to bad actors everywhere.
There's a very distinct and thick line between "hamming it up to sound cheesy" and "I can't act" and this movie falls squarely
into the latter. I do not know if it's Frank Miller's lack of directorial skill or the actors just walking through the motions. I'm suspecting a
little bit of both.) Sam Jackson is just like every other Sam Jackson character he's played before, except with eye make-up. And Eva Mendez... Look, just
because you look hot, doesn't mean your acting is.




3. The rest of the movie might be on the cutting room floor. - I deeply suspect that this movie was edited to hell and back. There's some moments in the
film (like when a cop gets decapitated) that I had no clue what just happened. Since Miller has never been one to shy away from violence, I can only assume
that such scenes were cut from the film to get the PG-13 rating. I assume. It's hard to be sure, since the editing is so poor and choppy in the film.




2. What the hell was that about? - Characters show up and leave with no explanation. There's this French belly dancer sword chick that shows up, does
some stuff and leaves. There is no purpose to her role. (Other than to stab the Spirit.) She could easily have been omitted from the final cut. And she's
far from the only one. There are scenes that make no rhyme or reason why they were there. There's this scene in the Octopus' lair where you're
not quite sure what the hell he's doing with the background or why. Hell, I can say that about the entire film. I'm not too sure why anything happens
in this movie... The plot is that minuscule.




1. The Sin City effect is done now. - I understood it in the Sin City movie and 300 didn't really have a lot of it. They used more desaturated colors,
than what Sin City and the Spirit did. It got a little distracting, every time we see the bottom of the Spirit's shoes, that they're in this
high-contrasted white, with the movie often switching to a white silhouette on black for certain scenes. It's distracting, jarring, and doesn't
really make for all that good of a movie.




And I'm not even getting into the changes they made to the Spirit concept as well.




I'm sure some critic or fan of the movie will say it bombed because of Marley and Me, Valkyrie or some other movie out at the time, like they always do
when a film bombs. But please... Make no mistake. This movie is a bomb, because this is a bad movie. I did not think they made movies this bad anymore. If
this film isn't nominated for the Razzies, I'll be shocked.

---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."