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| Resource type: Web Article Language: en: English Published BibTeX citation key: Smith2011g Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details |
Categories: General Keywords: "Spider-Man", Adaptation, Film adaptation, Musiktheater, Superhero, USA Creators: Smith Collection: Ol3Media |
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| Attachments | URLs https://www.academ ... eat_Responsibility |
| Abstract |
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In 1962, the world was introduced to a character of epic proportions, not because he was as alien as Superman, as technically savvy as Batman, or as patriotically moving as Captain America. He was epic because he was the everyman; a teenage kid with this new super power thrust upon him. His gigantic heart and humble upbringing shaped the superhero he would become. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby combined their writing and artistic talents to create a character whose popularity skyrocketed exactly 40 years later when modern technology immortalized this character on the big screen. This paper explores the danger of increased monetary resources and cutting-edge technology potentially leading to neglect in the area of character development and storytelling. As the expectations for realistic visual effects are raised and artists are inclined to impress visually, they tend to ignore the true essence of characters, forgetting the stories that originally made them popular. As evidenced in the third Spider-Man film as well as the musical currently running on Broadway, an emphasis on the visual element has the very real potential to reverse the relationship between story telling and the elements of production. Rather than utilizing technology to serve the character and the story, this emphasis on the visual leads to the character serving the aesthetic environment created by the artist. In a discussion of the Spider-Man trilogy and the Broadway musical, I will show how these trends are manifest. In addition, I will consider the implications for other characters in the comic book film genre. Are these characters brought to the big screen because they are so beloved or because of their monetary potential? With the power that filmmakers have to expose these super heroes to the world, comes a great responsibility to use the tools available to them to honor the story telling tradition from whence these characters took flight.
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