SF Bias

by Kevin Ahearn

“Nobody knows anything” is the mantra of the entertainment business, and certainly I am no exception. Moreover, the unpredictability of Hollywood success or failure is further enhanced by the indelible and seemingly permanent biases we all have in one form or another.

Before reading War of the Worlds or hearing the Welles’ broadcast or seeing the “classic” movie, I had read the Classics Illustrated version and in my young and impressionable state, that faithful and beautiful comic book remained unsurpassed even by H.G.’s 1898 original work. (Yes, the first graphic novel has been republished. Grab it!) No matter how good or great the Spielberg/Cruise adaptation may be, it’s not going to change my biased opinion.

(Surely there’s somebody out there who saw past Pal’s FX to Gene Barry, a second-rate TV actor, screaming, “Sylvia! Sylvia!” at the movie’s climax. “Classic?” In a pig’s eye!)

Which brings us to the latest Hollywood remake of a property that’s been a movie so bad it went unreleased, a series of comic books going back more than forty years and a variety of cartoon shows. Yet another uninspired “reimagining” on its way to the dustbin of trivia?

The Fantastic Four had been through more writers, directors and actors than any other comic book movie in history. And don’t ask about the property lawsuits! The buzz on the film was poor and early reviews on the net were awful. Then the network, newspaper and magazine critics trashed the film. But the most scathing reviews were those by FF purists who condemned the movie as an outright desecration of their beloved superhero team.

So how come the movie did $56 million in its opening week, nearly double what the studio that released it thought it would gross?

Well, it seems the audience, the vast majority who had never read an FF comic or seen an FF cartoon, went into the theater UNbiased and liked what they saw. The paying customers did not compare this FF to any other. “Virgin” eyes saw a newness that we experienced fans had long since lost, forgotten or had never seen in the first place.

Sorry, but that’s their problem. For me, the FF peaked in the mid- 1960s with Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott at the peak of their collaboration — that FF was my FF, “the world’s greatest comic magazine!” and no movie or cartoon or comic book thereafter was going to challenge my bias.

It’s almost like “imprinting.” That image just adheres to your consciousness and doesn’t let go. That’s what great SF&F is supposed to do!

Robert Deniro has won two Academy Awards and his appearance as Frankenstein’s monster was the most faithful to Mary Shelley’s creation. Therefore, Deniro is the definitive monster? Only to those who have never seen Boris Karloff’s portrayal. That soulful image will never leave me.

Then again, I’m biased and always will be.