Marvel Comics Movie Adaptation: Dragonslayer!

I love comic book movie adaptations! Well, most of them. Not all.

But today's example is a prime example of killer adaptationizing (yes, I just made up that word).

When I as younger, before VCRs, DVDs or BluRays, the only way you could rewatch a movie was on HBO or whatever. Which was great and all, but you were subject to the whims of the programming people and you sort of had to hope your favorite movie was coming on. But a great way to "watch and re-watch" a favorite flick was through the magic of comic book movie adaptations.

And one such adaptation I remember loving was the Marvel Comics adaptation of Dragonslayer!

I loved and didn't love this movie as a kid. It was weird. There were things about it that always sort of annoyed me, but that didn't stop me from watching it over and over on cable TV and then, of course, reading the comic book version like crazy.

Unlike the Willow adaptation, this one is beautifully drawn and in full color.

I remember the dragon design int he movie pretty much setting the standard for me as far as what a dragon was supposed to look like. They nailed the look of the beast in the comic as well.

Looking back on this movie, I remember thinking that the main character was the blond friend from Charles in Charge (it's not), that the girl was the hella unattractive (that was the point, I guess) and that the wizard's hat looked like it was a big poop (it may have been).

Still, despite my love/hate feelings toward the movie, the comic adaptation is amazing. I really wish they still did these.

The Willow Movie Adaptation Paperback SUUUUUUCKS!

During a recent visit to my favorite used book store, I came across a couple of movie adaptation paperbacks from Marvel. I'm a total sucker for these. Back in the day, when a big sci-fi/fantasy/adventure movie came out in theatres, MArvel was usually there to knock out a quick 2 to 4 issue movie adaptation in standard comic book format. But often, they would release the comic in paperback form as well, for reasons unknown to me. But I always loved these as they were the perfect size for kicking back and reliving the movie while sick in bed, or under a tree at summer camp or what have you.

I have several of these and am always quick to snatch them up whenever I find one.

But today's movie adaptation paperback is by far one of the laziest, half-assed publications in Marvel's history. Which is a shame, too, because I love the movie Willow...

The first red flag rises to the top of the flagpole of shame when I realized it was in black and white. Seriously, Marvel? Heck, the Red Sonja movie adaptation paperback I have is in color and that thing is horrible. You couldn't spring for a little ink on this release?

Also, one thing that has often bothered me about these paperbacks is that they are often reformatted from the original comic book layout, meaning that each panel has to be cut out and repositioned on the page, which is jolly good and all but sometimes you end up with pages like the ones seen below, with huge empty spaces, which always seemed like such a waste to me...

Also, I don't mean to clown the artist or anything, but his take on Warwick Davis fluctuates wildly. Here he looks like some sort of Elf Quest reject in drag...

Then we have these brilliant takes on the stars of the movie. Yes, that's supposed to be Val Kilmer in the second frame...

In all fairness, not every single panel is a travesty of poor caricaturization. 

And I couldn't help but notice how the majority of the book seemed like it was made up of close ups of faces. But there is the occasional fight scene, such as the below example of how Madmartigan deals with bridge trolls.

Anyway, it's obvious that terrible art and sub-par printing quality is not enough to stop me from plunking down $2 for a book just to make fun of it.

It's too bad, really. I've always loved the movie Willow and have always though that it was a massively underrated film, full of awesome fights, brilliant magic, hilarious jokes and high adventure.\

Not that you'd know it from this book.

But as I mentioned before, I bought a couple of these on my last visit, and the second one is beautiful! But that is another story...

League of Extraordinary Bloggers Weekly Theme: Where Are They Now?

This week's topic: The 80′s and 90′s were filled with kids and teens in the movies. Which movie would you like to see a sequel made in 2012 with the original cast members, who have aged the same as you and me.

As soon as I read this week's assignment, I immediately thought of Goonies. But, then I thought that, chances are, so has everyone else. I mean, come on, how awesome would a Goonies sequel be, with everyone all grown up, perhaps passing the legacy down to their kids, who then go on another pirate-filled adventure in the coastal caves of the Pacific Northwest? So, I decided to find something else.

Then I immediately thought of The Monster Squad, my second most favorite kid's adventure from the '80s, but just like the Goonies, I figures that many others would pick this one as well.

So then I reached back into the recesses of my memories and searched for a movie so beloved to me, one that I could always count on to whisk me away on a grand adventure for two hours, plucking me from my drab reality and plunking me down behind the eyes of the main hero, and one that I never felt got its due credit (much less sequel or merchandising), and I came up with The Last Starfighter.

The Last Starfighter was a guilty pleasure of mine. One of those movies that I watched over and over again during summer breaks in grade school. There wasn't a single second of celluloid that didn't spark the old neurons in the more imaginative centers of my young, impressionable noggin. The general concept alone was unbelievably enticing to me (proving your worth as an intergalactic space fighter by playing a mere video game), but I loved everything about this movie; Centauri's freaky space car, the weird language they spoke (reeta - reetana - reetana dox-eyla...), the slimy assassin, the pulsating imposter Alex, but mostly this baby right here...

DAT SHIP.

But what could the sequel be like, you ask? Well, I imagine something along the lines of Alex, having served as a Starfighter for many years, eventually works his way up the ladder to becoming an admiral or something. Also his wife, Maggie (who went with him into space at the end of the first movie) is now some big political bigwig in the Galactic Federation or whatever.

But the real story would be about Louis (Alex's little brother now all grown up) having devoted his life to playing the same video game that won Alex his space wings, only to become a total (loveable and hapless) loser who never did beat the game (see King of Kong for several examples). But he's given a second chance when Alex and Maggie's twins, a son and a daughter, now recent graduates of the Starfighter Academy, come to Earth to help Louis become the Starfighter he was always meant to be. I haven't really thought of a reason why they have to do this, but that's the gist. Maybe we can even give Louis an ex-wife and kid who don't really understand his obsession with this video game but end up being all proud of him in the end when they see him fly off to save the galaxy in his own Gunstar. Hollywood loves that crap.

Anyway, most of the actors are still available, most notably Lance Guest (Alex) and Catherine Mary Stewart...

Sadly, I couldn't find squat on Chris Hebert, the kid actor that played Louis (who, quite frankly, I thought had some of the best lines in the original flick). So whether or not he'd be poised to make a comeback is up in the air.

However, all I would really need is to see those Gunstars flying through space, unleashing a hailstorm of laser blasts upon their enemies (some sort of new enemy, though - Let Xur and the Kodan Armada lie where they fell 30 years ago), and of course, this magnificent bastard...

Maybe then, we'd finally get some of those Last Starfighter action figures that never made it off of Galoob's prototype tables...

(Shamelessly stolen from PlaidStallions.com)

Anyway, there's my pick for this week's League of Extraordinary Bloggers theme. When doing a little research (ie. going to IMDB), I found a couple of news blurbs from 2008 about the possibility of a sequel to Last Starfighter actually happening, but, alas, it looks like those dreams were dashed along with so many other ideas that never make it out of the Hollywood whirlpool of death.

Still, one can dream.

Thanks for reading!

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Jumbo Whitman/Marvel Star Wars #2!

I picked this baby up a little while back for a whopping $4 at my favorite used book store, and had intended to put it in a frame and hang it in my office, because a) it's HUGE, and b) the cover art is sooooo dope. Well, I still haven't gotten around to framing it, so I thought I'd at least take some pics and share with the blogosphere.

Now, I don't have my origina;l issues of MArvel's Star Wars adaptation handy (they're boxed away right now, and I'm feeling too lazy to go dig them out), but I just don't remember the artwork being so epic and splash-pagey. This could be a side-effect of this comic being one of those jumbo, bigger-than-LIFE-magazine type of comics.

One of the things that struck me abut this book was how skillfully colored the artwork is. Much better rendering, and printing for that matter, than your usual comic from 1977. 

Of course, this was published way before ESB, so we still get treated to moments like this...

AWKWAAARRRD!

Anyway, I don't have much more to say about this comic because its sheer awesomeness is evident, so I'll just let the lushly illustrated back cover sum it up for me...

Trading Cards! Superman II

I have to admit that when I was a kid, I liked Superman II way more than the first Superman. Don't get me wrong, despite my dislike for the character in the comics, I somehow managed to differentiate the moive version of the Man of Steel and thought the first movie was the bee's knees when I saw it with my dad, brother and grandpa on Christmas Eve of 1978. But it was the second movie that I watched over and over on HBO, even through the stupid moments like him peeling off his S symbol and throwing it like a sheet of red and yellow cling wrap. Maybe I can chalk most of my love for this movie up to Ursa. Yeah... it was all about Ursa.

Read Along Star Wars!

So, I imagine a lot of you readers of this blog have probably seen Star Wars a few times and don't really need to read the massively condensed version found in this vintage read-along book from 1979, but I thought it would be cool to scan in this little gem of a find, if for nothing else than the sheer, unadulterated nostalgia.

Note the killer cover and brilliant line-art illustration in the inside front cover of Artoo and Treepio.