by GhostMachine » Fri Jul 25, 2008 10:12 pm
It seems the Shadow knows more than just what evil lurks in the hearts of men!
I like to forget the second season of the Filmation cartoon even existed. But the first season was indeed fairly close to the original comic strip, aside from some of the character designs.
The biggest problem I had with the 1980 movie was casting; rather than getting someone who could actually act, they just settled on someone who only looked the part for Flash, and I think that hurt the movie some.
The more recent cartoon series and the live action series on the Sci-Fi Channel changed things too much and therefore suck. Making Flash a teenager who rides a hover board (ripping off Back to the Future Part II right there....) and Ming a straight up lizard man in the cartoon was a severely bad idea, and there are SO many things wrong with the live action series:
1. Making Flash a Soccer star who lives with his mom = horrible decision. Changing him from a Football player to a Soccer player might help appeal to younger viewers slightly and may help syndicate it internationally, but I'd wager that most Americans don't give a damn about Soccer, so him being a Soccer star instead of a Football star would actually make him less popular in his own country.
2. I understand the desire to be PC (*spits on being PC*) and not offend orientals, but making Ming look like an evil CEO who just happens to look like an almost ideal Aryan was a tremendously bad idea. Why not take a page from the last cartoon...sort of....and make Ming part lizard? All they'd have to do is slap some scales on him (just a few at the temples and on his neck and hands), maybe toss in some contact lenses, and alter his skin color in post-production.
I could go on about why the live action series sucks, but I'll stop right there.