An Ideal Reboot: How to Resurrect the Character?
Okay, let's preface my remarks with Darth_Ferior's, from the "Don't Understand the Hate" thread:
I think part of the hate comes from the build-up, and eventual disappointment in the look of Howard on the big screen.
Keep in mind, this was pre-internet '80s...so fans had no exclusive set pics, teasers, or updates on the film to balance their expectations.
All we had back then were those posters, teasing us with the "You will believe a duck can talk." tagline.
With the George Lucas seal attached, the imagination of comic book fans went wild with the possibilities of how state of the art the special effects would be.
Then the film arrived, and it was a guy in a duck suit.
... Well, yes. The character didn't look like Howard the Duck, didn't sound like him, didn't act like him. His universe only partially resembled the comic books' Gerberesque tweaking of the Marvel universe, also. (In future posts on this thread, I'll go into detail about just what I mean by all that.)
As I recall, my housemate liked this movie quite a bit, thought it was a lot of fun. I don't know how much of that was because he didn't want to hurt my feelings, seeing as how we were watching the film because I wanted to see it, but I think he really did like it.
But he'd never read the comic books. I, on the other hand, had. And, again on the other hand, I didn't want to spoil his fun by letting on about how big of a let-down this movie was for me.
Oh, I didn't hate it, that's for sure, it had too many redeeming aspects for that. I just didn't like it very much.
On the Petronius Scale, 5 and 6 out of ten represent "a movie worth seeing at least once," with 6 being the better half of that group, 5 being the worse half. I give "Howard the Duck" a solid 5.
Well, I'm feeling very ADD at the moment, so rather than finish this post, I think I'll wait for another day to get around to how I think Steve Gerber's brilliantly conceived comic book character could be successfully resurrected in a decent reboot.
A reboot, not a re-make, of course. A fundamentally different retelling that understands and respects what Gerber was up to in those comic book pages of yore.
In the meantime, if you have any ideas of your own about the reboot fantasy, please post them as you will-- but only people who have read the comic books, please.
"I don't deduce, I observe." share