Accuracy Isn't Always Necessary

 After my review of Eternals in January, it was kind of funny that I got two comments that were pretty similar.  First came Rusty Webb's comment on Goodreads

I mind deviations from the comics much less than you. And even when I was an avid marvel reader I couldn’t tell the Eternals apart from the Inhumans anyway.

And then Michael Offutt's comment on this blog:

Thanks for writing all of this. I have no knowledge of how far off the Eternals actually were to their versions in the comic books. I did enjoy the movie. However, your questions and criticisms are valid. In your context, it wasn't good. I guess I'm just glad I wasn't expecting much and was easily entertained. I do think that a stone Celestial sticking out of the ocean presents a great opportunity for a nice set piece in the future, either in a Disney Plus series or on the big screen.

It's pretty much the same sentiment:  I didn't read the comics so I thought it was fine, but you're not wrong.  Which, of course I'm not wrong.  I'm never wrong!  (I might be wrong about that.)

Anyway, I just want to say for the record that I am not the anal retentive type who has to have comic book movies be 100% faithful to the comics.  In many cases I haven't even read the comics a movie is based off of--or at least not many.  Like with Eternals I only read 3 different volumes.  I was just pointing out how the movie was different and in most cases how it was worse than what I read.

I wasn't saying that it was bad only because it wasn't like the comics; it was bad (to me) because it didn't improve on the comics.  Pretty much any of them, even the corny old Jack Kirby ones.  If you're a comic book company making a movie of one of your comics, maybe you should try to adapt it so it's as good or better than the source material?

And I'm not talking about that bullshit "woke" stuff some people whine about.  I mostly don't care about what race or gender the characters are.  Maybe if they tried to cast a blond white guy as Black Panther, I would have a problem with it, but mostly it doesn't matter.  Especially with something like Eternals where I wasn't even familiar with the source material until a few weeks before I saw it.

I don't want people coming away thinking I'm one of those jerks who goes around pointing out differences just to sound important.  One thing some people like to do is when talking about Star Wars or Star Trek or whatever to say how there's no sound in space so it's totally inaccurate!  My take on that issue is of course the filmmakers know there isn't sound in space!  Maybe George Lucas and Gene Roddenberry weren't actually rocket scientists, but they weren't morons either.  And going forward, the people who make the current shows/movies aren't stupid either.  The sounds exist for you, the audience.  I mean if you watched a big space battle and there was no sound it would be pretty fucking weird.  You might think you had lost your hearing or something.  You'd have a theater full of people loudly going, "Mawp!  Mawp!" like in Archer whenever a loud noise aggravates his tinnitus.  And as Michael Offutt pointed out about The Expanse TV show, a lot of the noises are those you might hear if you were on whatever ship more than if you were outside.

Take it from someone who has written plenty of bullshit pseudoscience (like Chance of a Lifetime):  you don't need to be 100% accurate with facts in fiction.  It's just it needs to be somewhat believable.  Readers can accept a bunch of technobabble about a drug that could turn a man into a woman, but if I suddenly had Stacey shooting lasers out of her eyes, that would probably be a step too far.  (Or would it...furiously scribbling notes now for Super Chance!)

As for page-to-screen adaptations, sometimes cutting material or rewriting material ends up being a good thing.  I've talked about how in The Cider House Rules and Wonder Boys for instance cutting some of the material from the book was a good idea.  So it wasn't 100% accurate but it worked better for the big screen.  In the case of Eternals, I don't think what they changed worked better for the most part.  Other than liking a lot of fights and shit blowing up and spectacle stuff like that, I don't really know what people would like about it.  To me most of the characters had as much personality as a wet paper bag.  Maybe they'll fix that whenever they do a sequel...or probably not.

Anyway, I've probably just muddled the issue even further.