"Darker and Edgier" Done Right and Done Wrong
The Blind Eternities forum
Posted on March 19, 2017, 5:25 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
In the past decade or two, there has been a trend of making "darker and edgier" reboots of existing film and television franchises, which have achieved varying levels of success. Typically, "darker and edgier" means having greater violence, less humor, and an overall more serious and somber tone/feel, which usually works, but sometimes may seem weird or jarring in comparison to the previous, lighter, work.
Therefore, this thread is to discuss instances in which "darker end edgier" was done right, and when it was done wrong.
First, I shall mention several examples of when "darker and edgier" worked well.
One of the best-known examples of "darker and edgier," and perhaps the example that started the recent trend, was Christopher Nolan's 2005 film Batman Begins, which discarded the campiness, humor, and bright colors of Joel Schumacher's two Batman films to deliver a Batman film that was (mostly) very realistic and extremely serious. The film was an amazing success, and started one of the most highly-regarded film franchises in not only comic book history, but film history overall. As a side note, the first two Tim Burton Batman films, while not as dark as the Nolan films, were darker than the 1960's Batman series that had preceded them.
Released a year after Batman Begins was the 2006 Casino Royale film, which rebooted the James Bond film franchise, which is actually very interesting in that it has varied greatly between serious and campy in its tone during its long history; the first several Sean Connery films were very serious, but they gradually became more campy as time passed, leading into the Roger Moore era, whose films are often regarded as the campiest of all the James Bond films (but at least that era contained The Man with the Golden Gun, which was easily the best Moore-era film due to having Christopher Lee play the villain). After that, Timothy Dalton played a very serious and hard-edged Bond in a deliberate attempt to deviate from Roger Moore's portrayal of the character, but audiences (and the studio executives) were not quite ready yet for such a serious portrayal of the British super spy, so Pierce Brosnan's portrayal, while not as campy as Moore's, was not as serious as was Dalton's. However, when Daniel Craig assumed the role, everything changed; gone were the fancy gadgets, the super-powered cars, the ridiculous one-liners, and Bond's credibility-straining ability to seduce any woman whom he met; instead, Craig's James Bond was a much more human and vulnerable character who used his own abilities to solve problems and actually felt as if he was in genuine danger, compared to the near-superhuman feats of his predecessors. While the most recent Craig film, Spectre, did reintroduce some campy elements of the pre-Craig films, they were minimal, and hopefully will not become as prevalent as they previously were.
The reboots of Thundercats, Masters of the Universe, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles during the 2000's were all darker and more serious than their extremely campy predecessors in the 1980's. The original incarnations of each series were filled with corny one-liners and villains who were very difficult to take seriously as threats to the heroes, but the new incarnations fixed both of those problems, with villains who felt genuinely evil and threatening and the heroes being in actual danger.
However, there have also been instances where the "darker and edgier" approach has not worked, where it seemed to go too far and made the films and television series too dark and serious to be enjoyed.
First is Batman versus Superman: Dawn of Justice. Just as Nolan's films were darker than the Burton/Schumacher films, the makers of BvS attempted to make their film darker than the Nolan films. The film felt (to me) too depressing and devoid of any excitement or enjoyment, especially with how it portrayed the titular characters. First, Superman is not supposed to be a dark and brooding character; he is supposed to be idealistic and optimistic, always maintaining a positive attitude and inspiring the best traits in everyone. I understand that Christopher Reeve's portrayal of the character was good during the 1970's and 80's, but not serious enough for modern audiences, but the writers went too far in departing from Reeve's portrayal. To this day, my favorite portrayal of Superman is still Tim Daly's portrayal in Superman: the Animated Series, which managed to be very serious while still maintaining the optimism of the character. Second, while Batman is supposed to be a dark and brooding character, Ben Affleck's portrayal of him was simply too excessive in his depressing and gloomy mannerisms, acting as if there was nothing good remaining in the world and simply being extremely paranoid. Nearly every other incarnation of the character has shown that he still can enjoy life, an element that I dearly missed in this film.
Next is the upcoming Power Rangers film. Although it has not yet been released, and I do plan to see it, I cannot help but feel that making it "darker and edgier" is a violation of the original material. While the original series was campy and corny, that is inherent in its nature, which features brightly-costumed superheroes striking flashy poses, fighting ridiculous monsters with fantastic weapons, and piloting humongous mecha that usually imitate non-human animals and combine to form even larger mecha. How can that be made dark and edgy? Also, the series itself did become darker and edgier as it went along: the early seasons are extremely corny and campy, but they became more serious as time passed, with Wild Force being possibly the most serious season of all, albeit still with some campy elements. This film is likely attempting to capitalize on the success of Pacific Rim, which, in my mind, is an example of a film that proves that a mecha/kaiju film can be "dark and edgy" and still be well-made. Rather than make Power Rangers dark and edgy, the best way to make it less corny and campy would be to have greater continuity and less "monster of the week" episodes.
Finally, I shall mention the new Riverdale series, which is adapted from Archie comics. The original comics are a light-hearted series about the random misadventures of a cast of adolescent high school students, usually with much comedy and some romance, but this new series is a violent crime drama that bears little resemblance to its source material, making me wonder why the makers of that series chose to name it Riverdale and connect it to Archie comics, when they simply could have given it a different name and not have it be a darker adaptation of a very light series.
What does everyone else say about this? What are some examples that you can name of the "darker and edgier" trope done right and done wrong? I eagerly look forward to your responses.
Watch Power Rangers RPM sometime, tell me what you think. (It was based on one of the most light hearted and comedic super sentais)
March 19, 2017 5:43 p.m.
I'm of the opinion that basically anything can be good if done well, although I guess I can understand how some people could get frustrated at all their favorite franchises going edgy on them all of a sudden. People complain about stuff like Man of Steel but legit no one hates The Deathly Hollows. The reason? It's cuz the Deathly Hollows were a great book/films and the darker mood of this sequel was entirely justified because it suited the needs of the story.
So is it really that bad we're having a host of edgy stuff in the past decade?
March 19, 2017 6:17 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #5
guessling, that is the opposite of how I feel, as I worry that campiness may be making a comeback, judging by examples such as the recent Deadpool film, the fact that the new Inspector Gadget series is just as comedic as the original, rather than being more serious, and how the new Spiderman film is increasing the titular character's sarcastic attitude compared to the previous portrayals.
LeaPlath, I stopped following Power Rangers long ago, about halfway through Dino Thunder, and I have no desire to revisit it.
March 19, 2017 6:28 p.m.
RPM is a great example of darker and edgier, without losing itself. You've got a world where most of the world is dead and ruled by an evil AI. With 1 city left. A mentor who might be the bad guy. And a lot of lamp shade hanging on the various tropes like why there are anime eyes on the zords, explosions appearing behind the rangers etc.
March 19, 2017 6:37 p.m.
I think camp is another flavor entirely. It seems distinct from both edgy and mysterious.
Flavors can be combined - like mixing spices.I'd say gremlins had corner-of-the-eye questionable reality mysterious unknown and camp.
Edgy does nothing for me. It makes me want to redirect my attention to something that could either be productive or uplifting (or at least something that could hold my attention). I find myself wanting to laugh at it and I'm sure that's "wrong in an edgy way".
One of my old high school friends had a super edgy sister. One day we were just enjoying playing a game of cards and this sister busts out in a way off-balance ripping bitch rant. I lost it and busted out laughing. She shut up because ... actually ... you know it wasn't even that bad. I have grown up since then and I don't react like that anymore ...
... but I want to ...... thankfully the drama corn fills my mouth instead, hopefully masking my sardonic inappropriate grin in the face of totally incommensurate edginess because it's so cool ...
March 19, 2017 6:58 p.m.
Homura_Akemi says... #8
The Magicians is a great example of darker and edgier done right. I am referring to the television show on SyFy, although I am a huge fans of the books by Lev Grossman as well. The show is about a few students who get into a college for magic and then travel to another fantasy world, although it is so much more mature than Harry Potter and Narnia. The main characters are all dealing with their own problems when they get whisked away to this school for magic, Brakebills, which is not all fun and games, but serious studying and high stakes. There is a strong emphasis on how magic is like an unhealthy drug, addictive and life destroying for the people who use it, and it only ever makes things much more worse than they would be without magic. I don't want to give too much away about the series, but I'll briefly describe a few elements that make it pretty dark and disturbing. In the fantasy worlds that it deconstructs and mocks, Harry Potter and Narnia, the villains are an evil wizard and an evil witch who the protagonists manage to beat. In this show, the first antagonist is a master spellcaster who traded away his humanity and soul for unlimited power in order to escape from the memories and feelings of his childhood sexual assault onto another world. The other antagonist is a cannibalistic, murdering, rapist deity. Just with these characters alone are enough of an example to show how unique the show is. Normally in fantasy you don't have villains that you can empathize with or scare the living **** out of you when you're the kind of person who is never scared. The show is also edgy in that it deals with a lot of issues that most television shows now a days do not to my knowledge. It handles addiction to drugs and alcohol, sexual assault, abortion, coping with mental illness, adult relationships, sexual orientation, adult responsibility, and gender and race inequality. The way the characters deal with these issues make the show edgy in how they make very human decisions instead of the right or best ones. I would reccomend this show if you have a macabre sense of humor like Liliana or like anything on Innistrad, like the fantasy genre, and like the deconstruction of that genre. By the way, you know it's dark when someone's eyes are ripped out, put onto a table, and made into a smiley face with the victim's blood used to paint the smile in the first episode.
As for darker and edgier done wrong, in the first season following the protagonist Quentin instead of the deuteragonist Julia I could definitely see some critiques to the series. All of the leprechaun horror movies on SyFy this weekend are hilarious to watch because they're so cheesy and have that morbid sense of humor as well.
Leprechaun to guy he killed by jumping up and down on him with a pogo stick until, well, he died: You'll bounce back.
March 19, 2017 7:11 p.m.
I cannot help but feel you are contradicting yourself in your post.
"Thundercats, Masters of the Universe, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ... were filled with corny one-liners and villains who were very difficult to take seriously as threats to the heroes, but the new incarnations fixed both of those problems."
"Next is the upcoming Power Rangers film. Although it has not yet been released, and I do plan to see it, I cannot help but feel that making it "darker and edgier" is a violation of the original material."
I do not understand why TMNT does not get the pass on darker and edgier, but Power Rangers does (despite seeing the first one and collective deciding it was a blatant nostagia-based money grab and seeing only trailers of the second)
March 20, 2017 5:40 a.m.
Game_of_Cones says... #10
Ditto for previous TMNT comment, and I'd also like to add that Masters of the Universe was a shoddy rip off of the much more incredible Thundaar the Barbarian animated series ; )
March 23, 2017 9:59 a.m.
Game_of_Cones says... #11
http://www.toonzone.net/forums/threads/did-he-man-rip-off-thundarr-the-barbarian.4356161/
More on THUNDARR(!) and He-Man, kind of relevant since at least one commenter saw He-Man as a less dark + edgy Thundarr.
March 23, 2017 5:59 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #12
Boza, HorseFist, I cannot explain it, but, for some reason, a darker and edgier TMNT simply feels right, while a darker and edgier Power Rangers does not feel right.
As a side note, I am disappointed that the new Inspector Gadget series is just as comedic and campy as was the original series, as that is a series that would be great if it were more serious. I am not saying that it needs to be as dark as Gargoyles or Batman: the Animated Series, but reducing some of the campiness would be great for making it more interesting and engaging, as well as answering questions that the fans have long had, such as "how did Inspector Gadget become who he is?" Or "how did Dr. Claw obtain his robotic arm?"
March 25, 2017 2 a.m.
Who inspector gadget is includes the character trait of being prone to bloopers, accidents, and malfunctions.
guessling says... #2
I question how objective the wrongness could be. I lean toward it all being a matter of aesthetic and my belief about aesthetics is that they are unavoidably subjective.
I don't care for any additional edginess beyond what I would consider a balanced and commensurate dose befitting a situation. I think it fits Batman in Gotham City crawling with criminals with a hero acting violently vigilanty-ish bevause that's the only way, but I don't think many other situations really fit the same amount of edginess.
Edgy isn't my flavor preference. I go more for the darkness of the unknown and shadowy uncertain like M. Knight Shamalan, Twilight Zone, X-Files, and Gremlins (especially Gremlins where you aren't even sure if you should be frightened of laughing).
I am more biased against edginess than most. I can't wait for it to go out of fashion.
March 19, 2017 5:42 p.m.