Dr Seuss Evaluation of Movie Adaptions and word/picture combination notes

Although I am not doing a video project, I did observe some adaptations of existing stories. Although, there are always changes in adaptations sometimes they are extended to fit their medium length. Examples of this are the adaptations of the Dr Seuss storybooks, Although there are full feature length films which had little connection to the originals stories, there were animations back during the 60s and 70s which were more connected the original stories. The reason for why was that the creator himself was involved in the writing for the Lorax TV special in 1974.

Nostalgia Critic:Cat in the Hat

Nostalgia Critic: The Lorax

Doug Walker of Channel Awesome (2014) discusses this approach in his satirical review of the 2012 movie adaptation of Dr Seuss’s The Lorax. He address certain elements about the original that the film adaptation fails to achieve” although there are some humorous elements in the film, it does lack the original spirit of the source material. He even agrees that adaptions are expected to have changes however he goes on to say that “it should be changes that make sense”. He backs this up with showing clips of the film where they make references to popular culture such as the theme of Mission Impossible. In another review about another Dr Seuss movie adaptation (2013), Doug Walker even addressed that the problem of popular culture references in movies can make them outdated. This makes sense if you return to a film or medium many years later. This information is beneficial to anyone who wishes to adapt a story while keeping true to its intent.

Word and Picture Combinations

Sometimes a mix of test and images can work well especially to emphasise a scene. McCloud (1994) addressed many examples of word and pictures combinations such as montage, interdependent and duo specific. In The Goon in Chinatown and the mystery of Mr. Wicker (Powell 2010), Goon is on the verge of leaving his thug lifestyle and is preparing to have a new life a new life with his lover. However she leaves him for unexplained reasons just as he planned to move on with his life with her. The scene building up to this is told with the speech bubbles. After she leaves and the Goon looks at himself in the mirror. Another thing that is quite effective is the gradual increase in size of the panels. They start out small and intimate to reflect the close conversation and the personal space between the two characters but over the pages they gradually increase in size until a single panels covers an entire page. The next few page are one paneled pages of the goon’s head shot showing him gradually and slowly breaking down. This scene is heart breaking and the visuals clearly convey that without any word of dialogue. This will be further analysed in a case study.

The Killing Joke: The Ambiguous Ending

In Kevin Smith’s Podcast, Fatman on Batman (2013), Grant Morrison appears as a special guest and he provides his own interpretation of the ending of Batman: The Killing Joke (1988). In the Killing Joke, written by Allan Moore, the ending of the comics features the Joker telling Batman a joke about two inmates escaping an asylum. Joker laughs at the punchline and the Batman begins laughing as well, they continue to laugh as we hear police sirens appearing the laughing stops but the police sirens continue. Grant Morrison says that the comic was made to be “The ultimate Batman story” and that the ending was intentionally meant to be unclear so that people were uncertain that it was actually the ending. The thing about that ending according to the podcast, it is discovered that the Batman kills the Joker which is why the comic was called the Killing Joke. What is effective is how subtle the evidence but it was so vague it became left for interpretation. It’s because of this ambiguity that the reader is encouraged to come up with their own thoughts about the comic and its story and to provide his or her other interpretation of what the ending means.

Reference

Channel Awesome. 2014. Nostalgia Critic: The Lorax. [video] Available at: http://channelawesome.com/nostalgia-critic-the-lorax/ [Accessed 22 Sep. 2015].

Channel Awesome. 2013. Nostalgia Critic: The Cat in the Hat. [online]. Available at: http://channelawesome.com/nostalgia-critic-the-cat-in-the-hat/ [Accessed 11 Nov. 2015].

McCloud, S. 1994. Understanding Comics. New York: HarperPerennial.

Moore, A. 1988. Batman The Killing Joke. London: Titans Books.

Powell, E. 2010. The Goon in Chinatown and the mystery of Mr Wicker. Milwaukie, Or.: Dark Horse Books, pp.79-88.

The Definitive Batman Resource: Legions of Gotham. 2013. Grant Morrison on The Killing Joke Ending Fatman on Batman Podcast. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OPUsWxYz2U [Accessed 6 Nov. 2015].