Funky: I completely agree w/your point about adaptations. The one example I always refer to is League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. As a translation of the comic, it’s not very good at all. But as an adaptation of the concept to a different media, I really enjoyed it. It’s not hard (to me, anyway) to see that, since you’re telling a story designed in one medium and moving it into another medium that has different advantages/disadvantages and different limitations, OF COURSE it’s going to be different!

Just good to see that I’m not the only one with this opinion…

The film isn’t the comic, so why get upset if there’s a change?
Especially, if it’s something such as height or hair colour or something that actually makes more sense than in the comic (ie. why bring over continuity problems and fix ups)?
My housemate came back from the film and whinged about some bits that didn’t match up to the comics (he doesn’t regularly read comics by the way, he was into them as a teen and borrows some of mine from time to time) and then questioned me about some other bits to see if they matched up.
He looked at me like I was a fool when I asked why the film had to match the comics.
This annoyed me, but came to a head the other night where we watched (he for the first time) the episode of Entourage where you see a clip of James Cameron’s Aquaman (if you don’t watch the show, all you see is the main character of the show, an actor, walking down a pier in a tux towards an oncoming tidal wave).
I stated that it’ll make him want to see an Aquaman film and he responded, and this is so stupid, ‘I dunno, it just seems wrong that he’s got dark hair. If they made one I ‘d want them to use someone with blonde hair so it’s like the comic’.

Then again, after all the hype about how Watchmen is as close to the comic as they could possibly make it, I guess I’m in the minority for thinking that an adaptation should have some adapting.

My point was simply that this isn’t Saving Private Ryan, or even War and Remembrance. There’s nothing really nuanced about Sahara. It’s about as blunt and gung ho as… well, as a Sgt. Fury comic.

I totally get your point. I just disagree with it. Sometimes nuance can be a great thing. But sometimes you can have too much nuance. Sometimes something calls for being blunt and gung ho. I don’t think nuance is intrinsically or automatically artistically better than being blunt, one-sided or gung ho. On the flip side I also don’t think being gung ho and blunt is automatically artistically better than being nuanced. It’s situational. And in a story about squaring off against Nazis, I don’t really care about nuance. For example Brian Azzarello wrote a Sgt. Rock story a few years back that was incredibly subtle and nuanced, and it was honestly one of the worst Sgt. Rock stories I ever read and was utterly charmless. I’d take a blunt and gung ho Kanigher Sgt. Rock tale over it any time. Similarly, I think Sahara would have not been as good if it was more nuanced.

Not all propaganda is automatically bad, you know, especially when the villains are Nazis for Pete’s sake!

The consensus opinion among most critics and artistic types of my acquaintance, and I generally think this is true myself, is that propaganda — no matter how low-key, no matter whether you AGREE with it or not — makes your story weaker artistically, it’s less nuanced. My point was simply that this isn’t Saving Private Ryan, or even War and Remembrance. There’s nothing really nuanced about Sahara. It’s about as blunt and gung ho as… well, as a Sgt. Fury comic. It was made in 1943 and it absolutely was a propaganda film. I happen to think it’s a really good one and it’s a lot of fun and I even agree with what it says… but it is what it is. Good stuff but not High Art, is what I’m saying.

Also, Alan… I think that’s probably true about Popeye, but my guess is that it had more to do with money than censorship. Same reason the cartoon Planet of the Apes was set in more modern times… it’s a lot easier to move a cartoon jeep across the screen and blur the wheels than to fully animate a horse and rider.

Don’t know if that is true, but it sure sounds plausible.

Filming in color was expensive and very rare. Remember that the first season of Gilligan’s Island was filmed in B&W in 1964.

At any rate, despite all the blatant Allied propaganda, this is a terrific movie for anyone….

It’s awesome despite the propaganda? How about it’s awesome BECAUSE of the propaganda? Not all propaganda is automatically bad, you know, especially when the villains are Nazis for Pete’s sake!

I was watching it just the other day…well, I really mean just watching it. The old TV next to my computer has to be playing something on the screen for the alternate audio source to be playing, and my satellite radio goes through it for that room. So if I want to listen to the radio, I have to have the TV on and rather than have a blank screen on I usually run cartoons from my DVD. I was listening to Howard Stern so I put on the Planet of the Apes cartoon in honor of Baba Booey.

I’ve only every watched the whole thing with sound on while playing City of Heroes. I don’t remember much at all about the storylines but I do recall that the world of the Apes was much more faithful to the book in that they had a more modern society with vehicles and metropolitan cities and the like. For what it was and when it was made, during a time when Saturday Morning Cartoons were cheaply made and churned out quickly, it isn’t that bad at all. There should be a time slot on some channel for series like this, the Marvel stuff of the same time frame, and retro stuff like that. Cartoon Network ran them some times after the [as] lineup years ago and some of it appears on Boomerang, but there needs to be more. Especially series like this which were non HB productions.

Greg, do you know if the late 60’s Lone Ranger Saturday morning cartoon has even been released on DVD?

Only on this set, Perry, and only three episodes as a bonus feature. There are a couple up on YouTube. Like this one.

Also, thanks for the Lone Ranger comments- as you pointed out, he gets mocked a lot today, but he was one of the most inspiring heroes once. I never saw the show but I did read the Spanish comic book reprints. By the way, did you know that Tonto was known as Toro (Bull) in Spanish? That’s likely because tonto is the Spanish word for- fool. And he was no fool!

Greg, do you know if the late 60′s Lone Ranger saturday morning cartoon has even been released on DVD?