adaptation and tie-in discussion (w/ spoilers)

[Dominic]

Movie adaptation (comics):
It is a safe bet that the final movie will deviate in various ways from the adaptation. Comic adaptations tend to be compressed, but also based on early drafts of the script. But, general details are often the same. Sentinel Prime is discovered, (after having been there more or less the whole time). He decides that it is time to end the TF civil war for the sake of all Cybertronians. He betrays Prime and Megatron, and is killed for his trouble.

Barber does a good job of making this adaptation read more like a regular comic than a movie adaptation. He even manages to include a few lines of dialogue acknowledging Mowry's "Reign of Starscream". If one makes allowances for the source material Barber had to work from and the contraints he likely had to work within, this is excellent. Without those allowances, "Dark of the Moon" is passable.

The body count is fairly high and includes

Spoiler

Skids and Mudflap

. That alone makes me anticipate the actual movie.

Grade: B/C


Dom
-is kind of giddy about

Spoiler

Skids and Mudflap getting killed off

and is hoping the scene is satisfyingly messy.

[Onslaught Six]

That spoiler is in the novel, too, but given Bay's words they may have been cut.

[Dominic]

Well, I guess we have to wait until the movie comes out.

[Dominic]

Ah, more dirty pool from IDW.

They released the compiled movie adaptation before releasing the single issues. But, they then put unique content into the single issues, presumably to force sales on the single issues.

The sad thing is that I was tempted to buy the single issue adaptations, even if it meant rewarding bad behavior from IDW.

Dom
-notes that they pulled a similar stunt with "Last Stand of the Wreckers".

[Onslaught Six]

Wreckers at least gave us Bullets and the Mosaic, though. What's the individual movie issues get?

[Dominic]

There is a text story in the back of the single issues.

If you recall, the single issues of "Last Stand of the Wreckers" had character profiles that the compilation did not.

Either way, you had to get both the single issues *and * the compilation (which had "Bullets", a few other profiles, and the 1 page story) to get the whole story.

At least with the movie, it is possible to get everything in one place, (the single issues). I just wish that better format (the compilation) had everything.


Dom
-is simply not going to jumpt through hoops to get a complete story.

[Gomess]

Yet more baffling nonsense that prevents people like me from buying comic books, even if they're based on properties we like.

Also not going to jump through hoops, especially ones being used for dirty pool.

[Dominic]

I have to agree on this point unfortunately. The comic industry as a whole does not seem interested in making it easy to buy the damned product.

If nothing else, by forcing us to buy the same story multiple times, (in order to get the whole thing), the industry effectively doubles the cost to the fans, which means we can buy ferwer individual titles.


Dom
-of course, it boosts short term sales, right?

[Gomess]

Feel free to use me as a spokesperson for arguments about how the comic book industry is a self-consumptive beast. Heck, you could just quote every post where I say, "Yeah, I GUESS I'll read AHM.. gimme a minute to work out how, and where it fits in, and which version, and bla bla bla..."

[Dominic]

Yeah, but that is you being picky. You can just pick up AHM and read it. We have explained this to you.


Dom
-not helping you come up with post hoc justification.