andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2022-08-04 12:41 pm
andrewducker) wrote2022-08-04 12:41 pm
Thoughts before Sandman is released on TV
I first encountered Sandman with, I think, issues 8-12 in a cardboard box in a second-hand bookshop in Medway somewhere. I don't remember which bookshop it was, as it wasn't one I was in often. It was the summer of 1990, and I then set about buying all of the back issues and the several issues which had been produced since, as collections weren't something that was reliably produced for comics, and even when they were they were frequently released out of order. Comics, at that point, rarely produced a single coherent story for many issues, and it wasn perfectly normal to just fine to dip in and out of things, and be able to read things in whatever order you fancied.
All of which is to say that I've been a massive fan for 32 years now.
There have been fan-casting discussions since I first discussed comics online (first on the Monochrome bulletin board, and then on the Rec.Arts.Comics hierarchy), although I never took part in them myself. I did keep tabs on various terrible attempts to make it in the past (in 1998 there was a script which made Morpheus into Lucifer's brother. There was a producer who tried to insist on a fight with a giant mechanical spider, which then ended up in Wild Wild West.) It seemed unlikely, to me, that there could be a *good* adaptation of Sandman into a movie. And, frankly, given the levels of CGI at the time, I think I was right. Also, the chances of any writer compressing 75 issues of comic book into a movie seemed rather unlikely to me. I'm glad none of those got made.
But now they're making a TV series of it. And the level of CGI available today is frankly amazing. And they're putting 18 episodes of the comic into the first series, which means four seasons if they want to get through all of the main story, which feels about right. And Neil Gaiman is heavily involved. There's clearly no barrier to making the best possible Sandman adaptation.
So why am I nervous?
I'm nervous because I'm not actually sure that a great comic book translates into a great TV show, or a great movie, or a great novel, or a great computer album, or a great roleplaying game, any other medium. Things are what they are, and dialogue that works for one may sound awful in another. What works in imagination may not work well when you see it, and vice versa. This is why I've not enjoyed any adaptations of Terry Pratchett, with the exception of Troll Bridge, which doesn't feel like any of the other adaptations.
And so I'm worried not that they'll do a bad job, but that the best possible job will still not produce something great, and that I will be disappointed and left flat by it. I really hope I'm not.
All of which is to say that I've been a massive fan for 32 years now.
There have been fan-casting discussions since I first discussed comics online (first on the Monochrome bulletin board, and then on the Rec.Arts.Comics hierarchy), although I never took part in them myself. I did keep tabs on various terrible attempts to make it in the past (in 1998 there was a script which made Morpheus into Lucifer's brother. There was a producer who tried to insist on a fight with a giant mechanical spider, which then ended up in Wild Wild West.) It seemed unlikely, to me, that there could be a *good* adaptation of Sandman into a movie. And, frankly, given the levels of CGI at the time, I think I was right. Also, the chances of any writer compressing 75 issues of comic book into a movie seemed rather unlikely to me. I'm glad none of those got made.
But now they're making a TV series of it. And the level of CGI available today is frankly amazing. And they're putting 18 episodes of the comic into the first series, which means four seasons if they want to get through all of the main story, which feels about right. And Neil Gaiman is heavily involved. There's clearly no barrier to making the best possible Sandman adaptation.
So why am I nervous?
I'm nervous because I'm not actually sure that a great comic book translates into a great TV show, or a great movie, or a great novel, or a great computer album, or a great roleplaying game, any other medium. Things are what they are, and dialogue that works for one may sound awful in another. What works in imagination may not work well when you see it, and vice versa. This is why I've not enjoyed any adaptations of Terry Pratchett, with the exception of Troll Bridge, which doesn't feel like any of the other adaptations.
And so I'm worried not that they'll do a bad job, but that the best possible job will still not produce something great, and that I will be disappointed and left flat by it. I really hope I'm not.
no subject
So I'll try to remember whenever something about the Sandman adaption annoys me that I still have the story there on my shelves. Absolutely, actually.
There are two movie adaptions of comics that I enjoyed totally, without finding enough small twinges to amount to a paid. The first Michael Keaton "Batman", the first Avengers movie (with the caveat that it wasn't a direct adaption, more a smooshing up of the Ultimate comics and existing MCU continuity). Both left me dancing out of the cinema with the feeling that they'd done it right. There are other comic book movies I've enjoyed more, but none that I thought were more faithful.
I am looking forward to Sandman (I have a link to watch the first episode early, on my laptop, but I don't think I"ll use it). I'll try to adopt, as far as I can, the inscription on Lady Constantine's grave, lifted from Mathew Prior by Mr Gaiman: “Be to her virtues very kind, Be to her faults a little blind.”
no subject
It doesn't matter where the book is, if the movie is in the head.
Testimonies by the dozen from people who say they can't read the book without thinking of the movie.
People who can't remember which things are in which, and write about the book while including things that are only in the movie. (Anybody who says that Oz in the book is only a dream, e.g.)
That's not even counting occasions when the book is removed from the bookstore shelves and replaced with a novelization of the movie.