And I suddenly realized that maybe we should be grateful for the fact that the only thing wrong with it was the plot.
That may sound odd, but consider: It wasn’t all that long ago that the TV version of Daredevil had no horns because of concerns over devil imagery and his costume was black instead of red. And Thor wasn’t allowed to be a god for fear of offending the religious right.
Just consider the studio notes that they COULD have gotten for “Ghost Rider”–
“Okay, we’ve gone over the script and we have some concerns. First of all, he can’t be ‘Satan’s bounty hunter.’ This is our hero, and he simply can’t be connected to Satan. We’ll get killed by various conservative Christian organizations. So find a way to make him work without the whole ‘Mephistopheles’ thing. Also, does it have to be a blazing skull? We don’t understand the need for his head turning into a skull. We’ve got Nic Cage for this, who’s a name star: Why are we making his face disappear? It means we can’t have him in action as Ghost Rider on the poster. Kills maketing. Let’s have his face visible even when he’s in action as Ghost Rider. And he can’t have his head on fire in any event. If any kids set their heads on fire in order to imitate him, we’ll get a butt load of bad publicity. So just have Nic Cage’s head glowing a little, maybe, suffused in light. Oh, does it have to be ‘Ghost Rider?’ Technically it’s not even correct since the protagonist isn’t a ghost. Plus ghosts get us more flack from the religious right because they don’t like the whole concept of dead people walking. Plus we tested the name ‘Ghost Rider’ and it’s confusing: People think that it’s about someone who rides ghosts. We’ve taken the liberty of testing various alternate names and have found that “Death Rides a Cycle” is the best.
Please implement these changes and we’ll talk later.”
All things considered, we may have gotten off lucky.
PAD
• 
Well, I have to admit, there is a point about him not being a ghost.
I agree it could always be worse, we almost ended up with a Joss Wheson Wonder Woman.
It wasn’t all that long ago that the TV version of Daredevil
Hmm, apparently I missed something. There was a TV version of Daredevil at some point?
Btw, Daredevil did about $44.5 million at the box office with $16 million on Friday. A bit surprising for a movie with no media screenings allowed.
Daredevil (played by Rex Smith, as I recall) guested in a tv-movie, “The Trial of the Incredible Hulk.” He wore a black quasi-ninja outfit. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much.
And, yeah, I’m surprised that nobody has raised a fuss yet over a hero who sells his soul to the Devil. Maybe this film just flew beneath the radar of the Religious Right?
Still, I’m not counting on a SON OF SATAN movie anytime soon.
Long story, involving a series of Hulk-derived TV movies.
They won’t call it Son of Satan. They’ll call it Hellstorm if they call it anything at all.
For what it’s worth, I snuck a reference to Daimon Hellstrom into the GR novelization, along with some other Marvel Mysticism in-jokes. My favorite was giving Johnny Blaze a copy of “The Darkhold for Dummies.”
I was amazed that Sony let me keep that line in!
Well, like I said in the last thread, I think there’s a lot more wrong with Ghost Rider than just plot. The action scenes could not have been worse. And really, was anyone actually cool with GR whistling for his bike and yelling yee-haw?
Posted by Brian Douglas
Well, I have to admit, there is a point about him not being a ghost.
And Poltergeist (among the other lies it told the audience) turned out to be about ghosts, not poltergeists.
Your Point?
They won’t call it Son of Satan. They’ll call it Hellstorm if they call it anything at all.
I don’t know. There have been several films called Son of Satan or Daughter of Satan or some variation therof. A bigger problem will be having someone mince around in that costume holding a big fork.
I think the point Peter makes is that the idiots in Hollywood tend to give what they think the religious right is far more power and influence than is deserved. Yeah there will be a few complaints about ANYTHING you do. there’s a guy down here who complains about teh Duke Blue Devils mascot. He is regarded as a fool even by diehard Baptists (who, I might add, take this basketball thing almost as seriously as they do the Risen Jesus. Afraid of the religious right? I’d face a thousand of them rather than one pickup truck full of basketball fans who think I took their parking spot.)
Peter, could I ask an opinion? You’re absolutely right about how badly Marvel TV and movie treatements blew back then. What made the difference? Is there someone who has been in charge of making sure that the rights are sold to peple who have some clue about the properties? Even the worst of the lot–Electra, Man-Thing–are masterpieces compared to Albert Pyun’s captain America. Who do we thank for this?
The religious right isn’t the only pressure group. Commercial sponsorship has a lot of influence on the movie, too. I’m certain that if the film were financed from Ohio, where a former boss of mine had herds of certain dairy animals, and if he was the primary investor in the film, the character would be called Goat Rider.
And he’d conquer his enemies by throwing feta cheese at them.
Come to think of it, Goat Rider would probably be more kid-friendly, promoting nutrition and kindness to animals. And it’d make an animated series even Disney would accept. I’ll get to work on the script right away.
The religious right isn’t the only pressure group.
You can say that again. From the IMDB–This was Captain America’s only animated series. There was supposed to be one in the 1990s that was set in World War II, but due to pressure on Marvel to not use Nazis on the series, it was abandoned.
Nazi’s have an advocacy group? What next–we can’t use robots? If white middle aged unscrupulous businessmen ever band together there will be nobody left to use for villainy.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan
Nazi’s have an advocacy group?
Nah – That’s the poeple who think that if you show it to kids they’re gonna do it – the ones that want to ban smoking in films set in the 30s and 40s, the same types who make Holocaust denial or possession of Nazi paraphernalia a prison offence in some countries.
True stories:
At Tor, I was once asked to remove the word “paranormal” from a book cover because Marketing feared it would hurt sales in the Bible Belt. In some quarters, apparently, “paranormal” = occult = satanic. I changed “paranormal” to “unexplained” and the book hit the bestseller list. Go figure.
Along the same lines, we once had to remove a skull from a Halloween display because, you guessed it, skulls = satanic. We replaced the skull with a jack-o-lantern, which was apparently less offensive.
And, yeah, Marvel once asked me to remove an evil Nazi from an IRON MAN novel because they didn’t wish to be associated with Nazism in a licensed product. (This was a few regimes ago, I should add. Marvel gave me no grief over GHOST RIDER.)
Since the “sells his soul to the devil” plot is a helleva lot older than Ghost Rider, I imagine that is why the religious right isn’t running to ban the film from the multi-plexes. Plus it’s a comic book movie, which they do not worry much about. And the movie doesn’t promote making deals with the devil either. It’s treated as a curse. Satan is still one of the bad guys of the film. Just a few reasons why.
Are you sure they didn’t want to offend Nazis by having an evil one? I always loved the arguement that simply depicting something, even in a clearly negative light, means you support it.
You can use that logic to prove that Steven Spielberg is a Nazi (he’s made what, 4 movies with them?). Also, an alien.
“Even the worst of the lot–Electra, Man-Thing–are masterpieces compared to Albert Pyun’s captain America. Who do we thank for this?”
At a guess? Avid Arad.
PAD
Oh yeah, the Hulk TV movies, boy what (well you know), I guess garbage would be a more PC word.
The look of Thor, bad costume and an annoying guy who could not act.
Same with Daredevil, although to be honest, the Hulk really was not in that second TV movie as much as you would think.
The thrid, the Hulk died in a badly acted death scene. TV guide at the time said, that Spock in Star Trek II; The Wrath of Khan was more believable.
This was also the era of the low budget Punisher and Captain America films, it is an era that seems like 100 years ago now.
Thanks, PAD.
I think Mr Arad has earned a Christmas bonus.
That would be a Hanuka bonus. Avi Arad is originally Israeli.
hëll, they can pay him on Arbor Day for all I care, as long as we keep getting decent adaptations.
Daredevil (played by Rex Smith, as I recall)
Why does that man keep showing up in things where I don’t want him? Although to be fair, I have no intention of tracking this down and watching it, so the only reason I don’t want him there is that I really don’t like to hear about him in anything.
“Adventures in Babysitting” had the best cinematic representation of Thor and has yet to be equaled.
I think post-LotR, the profits from computer-generated fantasy trumps all other considerations. If Peter Jackson had cgi-ed John Kerry into the ent-attack of Isengard, enough votes could have been wrested from the Bible-belt to have altered the outcome of the last election.
You can use that logic to prove that Steven Spielberg is a Nazi (he’s made what, 4 movies with them?). Also, an alien.
As are Berman and Braga, the producers of Star Trek: Enterprise. In fact, they’re time-traveling Nazi aliens!
Do Christian conservative groups really have that much influence on movies and TV? It seems that magic, demons, and gods are pretty common nowadays, and the complaints about Harry Potter’s occult influences seem pretty pathetic.
“as long as we keep getting decent adaptations.”
Weren’t the Batman 1989 movie and the X-Men 92(?) cartoon the first signs that there’s a market for making relatively serious adaptations of comic movies. There was another decline in the seriousnes with which comic and fantasy material were treated, but then another resurgence with Matrix, Lord of the Rings, and X-Men. I wonder when and if high budget fantasy, sci-fi and comics will go out of style?
// Are you sure they didn’t want to offend Nazis by having an evil one? I always loved the arguement that simply depicting something, even in a clearly negative light, means you support it.
You can use that logic to prove that Steven Spielberg is a Nazi (he’s made what, 4 movies with them?). Also, an alien. //
To be totally fair to Marvel in the early 1990’s the company was bocotted by some Jewish advocasy group over a trading card with the Red Skull on it. The Skull was wearing a swastika and the text identified him as the master of the Nazi race, it also identified him as a villian but that seemed less important. The group was bothered with children playing with anything associated with Nazis. Apparently they thought if kids read about Nazi’s they might become Nazi’s. This got a lot of press at the time, most of it didn’t mention that the Skull was a bad guy who was created back in the 40’s when we were actually fighting Nazis and he has never been protrayed in anything even resembling a positive light. Given that sort of PC thought and bad media coverage I can see how Marvel might want to shy away from having any reference to Nazis in licensed material. (In the mid 90’s the Fox Network was developing a Captain America animated show, never came to be but some comic pros like Steve Engelhart worked on it, according to report the show was going to take place in WWII, but the word Nazi could not be used, nor could swastika’s or other Nazi symbols be used. If the show had gotten on the air we would have had a generation of kids who were led to believe that America fought a group of unidentified Europians in WWII).
“My favorite was giving Johnny Blaze a copy of “The Darkhold for Dummies.”
So, if a member of the Russell family read that, would they turn into a stupid werewolf?
// Do Christian conservative groups really have that much influence on movies and TV? //
More then you think and more then they should have.
// It seems that magic, demons, and gods are pretty common nowadays, and the complaints about Harry Potter’s occult influences seem pretty pathetic. //
Yes they are but they got a lot of press, and sadly a significant part of the population agrees with thier views.
Hmmm…I didn’t know that about the original version of DareDevil (always wondered why they made the costume black, didn’t think about the horns).
Now I have the perfect sequel to bring both sides of the isle together: “Ghost Rider vs Bible Man”! ^_^ (don’t believe me about bibleman? : http://www.bibleman.com/)
Wanna have fun? Read Robert Heinlein’s “Job:A Comedy of Justice” in the Bible Belt. Then explain that at the end, the Devil is not a bad guy.
It can almost always be worse. Remember the Doctor Strange made-for-TV movie in the 70s…
I guess it could be worse:
Thor (Can’t be a god for obvious reasons, and we make Volstagg a bit thinner so we don’t offend fat people?)
Warlock (We’ve tot to change the name so as not to offend Bible Belters. And don’t use Him again, because we’ll pìšš øff the feminists.)
The Inhumans (Can Black Belt at least whisper a little bit? Can’t anger the disabled.)
The Flash (Wasn’t actually cancelled because of Goyer’s script, but instead because they’ve got to find a new name that doesn’t make him sound like a sexual predator. Same goes for any sequels for MAN THING.)
Howard the Duck (Don’t know why PETA is having a problem with him these days, although they could well have seen the George Lucas film.)
The Avengers (Ant Man or Yellowjacket are okay, but ditch the Wasp- too ethnically devisive Could you just call her Tiny Flying Girl instead?)
You want to see religious protests? Wait until they start working on the planned-for-cable version of PREACHER. “Yeah, God’s a coward, the Preacher kills people and screws his girlfriend, the divinity of Jesus is a conspiracy that led to massive inbreeding, and a vampire is one of the heroes. See you at church on Sunday!”
And what weird editorial decisions led to the Maggia and Zuvembies?
Wasn’t it an explicit part of the comics code that zombies could not be shown? But Zuvembies, they were okey dokey. So were Shmanpires and Shmarewolves and the Smankenstien Shmonster.
Posted by JamesLynch:
“You want to see religious protests? Wait until they start working on the planned-for-cable version of PREACHER.”
Nah,wait’ll they find out about Darwin.
I seem to remember that the whole zombie issue was a holdover from the ridiculous Comics Code rules of the fifties, hence renaming them zuvembies. And if I’m right, one of the reasons for Marvel’s black and white magazines was to bypass the code, which is why they could publish a Tales of the Zombie magazine. But apparently Son of Satan and Satanna were okay, so try to figure that one out.
As for Preacher, I can just picture people from the religious right watching an episode only to have their heads explode into green jelly a la Mars Attacks. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
And what weird editorial decisions led to the Maggia and Zuvembies?
You can blame the Comics Code for the latter one. As for the former…well, there are some groups you don’t want to offend for very pragmatic reasons… (There are also creative advantages to not having to account for real-world events in your fictional setting.)
I remember Gahan Wilson mentioning Harvey Kurtzman blowing off an extortion threat, and Kurtzman losing an entire print-run of a new magazine to a truck hijacking.
I can see “Maggia” being coined to avoid the close scrutiny of the Mafia, if not from direct pressure.
One thing to remember about the Hulk movies–how close was ANYTHNG Kenneth Johnson did on TV to anything in the comics?
Perhaps the suits’ silence is simply because the movie slid under the radar. They released in one of the movie industry’s Bermuda Triangle months, they didn’t screen it for critics, etc. So maybe it’s just that they didn’t think anyone would notice because it wouldn’t do that well.
And if you’ll pardon the off-topic mention (there’s no other relevant thread up right now), as of five minutes ago, it is official (New Jersey time, at least). Let all the LGBT’s in New Jersey and its LGBT visitors rejoice:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/G/GAY_MARRIAGE_PARTNERS?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Hey, there is a legitimate reason for not using Nazis, known very well in the RPG community. TSR has copyrighted Nazi.
This is true! There were these little cardboard substitutes for figures that you were supposed to use on battle maps for TSR’s “Indiana Jones” game. One of them had a picture of a Nazi with the trademark symbol next to it.
Some people claimed it was only a trademark on the picture, but all of us in gaming know better. And now that TSR was purchased by Hasbro, Inc., you can be assured that the same people that produce the Transformers also produce National Socialism.
PAD posted:
“Okay, we’ve gone over the script and we have some concerns. First of all, he can’t be ‘Satan’s bounty hunter.’ This is our hero, and he simply can’t be connected to Satan. We’ll get killed by various conservative Christian organizations. So find a way to make him work without the whole ‘Mephistopheles’ thing.
Have you been talking to Tony Isabella, by chance?
In an interview in CBG #1628 (May 2007), Mr Isabella notes how he’d “written a story wherein, couched in mildly subtle terms, Blaze accepted Jesus as his savior and freed himself from Satan’s power forever”, and he’d intended to slowly downplay the religious elements so they’d “have faded into the background”. In the story, he’d introduced a character named “The Friend”, rather obviously Jesus without the actual name. Unfortunately, an overzealous assistant editor, offended by the story, changed the revelatory story, having art redrawn and copy rewritten to make The Friend become just another demon in disguise.
For those who don’t get CBG, the “But I Digress” article in the issue is absolutely great. To ease my curiosity, was “Amazing Spider-Man #262” the Spider-Man cover you refer to in connection to Scott Leva? I remember buying that issue, thinking the guy DID look like a live-version of Peter Parker. (And I would have loved to have been at that con when the Black costume made its first appearance. Sounds like the kind of moment you’d love to have caught on tape for all time.)
You know, I never had any problem with the TV Daredevil’s outfit being black. In the comics, you never really knew if the costume was pure red, heavily shadowed, or mostly black with red highlights. The horns were missed, of course.
But the most idiotic part of the ensemble was that the mask HAD NO EYEHOLES! I recall the explanation was that, since DD was blind, he didn’t need ’em. BUT YOU DON’T ADVERTISE THAT FACT IF YOU WANT TO KEEP A SECRET IDENTITY!
Sorry, but it’s still a sore point.
Another superhero fashion nightmare was Reb Brown’s first Captain America TV Movie outfit. It was so bad that I seem to remember that Marvel actually called in the lawyers to 1) have “official outfit” bumpers inserted in the presentation and 2) make the producers include a scene at the end indicating that next time he’d wear the “real” costume.
Which he did in the following TV Movie. Once you discounted the Motorcycle helmet and the clear plexiglas shield, it was a lot closer to the comics.
Universal, which was doing all of these projects, also had options on the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch, with Johnny Storm – sans the rest of the FF – as a hot-headed race car driver. (I think this option was one of the reasons Mr. Storm was replaced by H.E.R.B.I.E. in the 70’s FF animated series.)
Reminds me of Guillermo Del Toro’s story about the studio’s notes on Hellboy.
“How about if he is just a normal guy who, when he gets angry, turns into Hellboy?”
To which Del Toro replied:
“That’s the Hulk”
Ah yess. The Protectors of the Public Morality and Moral Uprightness and Outrage take all the fun out of entertainment, don’t they?
Aren’t these jokers the same brain trust that gave Gene Roddenberry the choice between a female XO or a vaguely satanic appearing officer?
The same ones who have an aversion to any magazine that displays any image of the human form in any light that might be considered possibly, even slightly sexual? you know, alive and breathing.
Magazines glorifying war, kiling, and fifty ways to kill someone are A-ok.
Just who elected these knobs anyway?
First of, heh. Second – I think we’ve gotten a bit spoiled when it comes to comic-book movies… which is not a bad thing, really – just a thing.
Actually, “Death Rides A Cycle” is a pretty badass title. Would have made a sweet tagline for Ghost Rider, at least.
Posted by Jeff Kapalka at February 19, 2007 02:40 AM
“But the most idiotic part of the ensemble was that the mask HAD NO EYEHOLES! I recall the explanation was that, since DD was blind, he didn’t need ’em. BUT YOU DON’T ADVERTISE THAT FACT IF YOU WANT TO KEEP A SECRET IDENTITY!”
Sorry, nope, having no eyeholes just makes him mysterious, like Spidey…
If you’ve seen a blind perons eyes, it is very obvious that they are the eyes of a blind person.
(Umm, in situ that is, not on a petrie dish…)
I’m probably over-thinking this, aren’t I?
Posted by Dwight at February 18, 2007 04:19 PM
“They won’t call it Son of Satan. They’ll call it Hellstorm if they call it anything at all.”
Or Cinstantone. Mustn’t use the ‘H’ word…
The Marvel TV movies are of their era, just like ‘classic’ Battlestar Galactica.
We was ever so ‘umbly grateful for them at the time.
Cheers.
Jeff Kapalka: But the most idiotic part of the ensemble was that the mask HAD NO EYEHOLES!
Luigi Novi: Neither does Spider-Man’s. So the assumption on the part of the public is that the fabric over the eyes is some type of thin transparent material.