Hellboy

So. After many many years of maybe, maybe not's, Del Toro's continued involvement with the series has apparently been kiboshed permanently, and the whole thing now set up for an R-rated reboot. Neil Marshall (Descent, Dog Soldiers etc. etc.) is set to direct and David Harbour (Sheriff Hopper from Stranger Things) is our new Hellboy, according to Mignola .

Sounds intriguing. :)

Now here's the bizarre part: The movie is called Rise of the Blood Queen, i.e Nimue. Which distantly implies this will be a loose adaptation of The Wild Hunt. Thing is, The Wild Hunt is basically the gran finale of Hellboy in many ways. It ends with his death.

It's like beginning an adaptation of Superman with "Death of Superman" or beginning a Batman adaptation with "Knightfall".

PS: I will die bitter over Ron Perlman and Del Toro no longer being here, but this does sound promising.

edited 9th May '17 8:39:34 AM by Gaon

Oh yeah, that is a bit of an odd place to start.

edited 9th May '17 8:44:18 AM by Demetrios

Dang, I was considering creating a Hellboy movie thread since we didn't already have one (which was weird), but I guess I got beaten to the punch.

Anyway, Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman are evidently (and understandably) not amused.

I guess there are two ways to look at this:

1) It sucks that GDT and Perlman are getting the boot since they're the guys who brought Hellboy to the big screen to begin with.

2) On the other hand, Perlman's kinda old while David Harbour looks more able for more physical stunts. The director's references indicate that we should expect some big brawls and an R rating does imply more creative freedom, so maybe we'll see stuff from the comics that we couldn't see previously due to the restrictions of the dreaded PG-13 rating. Either that or a take on Hellboy that's Truer to the Text since the previous movies (if I'm not mistaken) took some liberties here and there with the source material (which Mignola was okay with, but still).

Speaking of David Harbour, he seems to be taking the news pretty well.

EDIT: O_O Maybe it'll only take some elements, but not all of it. Kinda like how Captain America: Civil War took some basic stuff from the original event (heroes vs. heroes, Iron Man vs. Cap) while avoiding other stuff from the event like Cap dying.

edited 9th May '17 9:55:35 AM by TargetmasterJoe

Kind of bummed Del Toro isn't involved. I always felt that Del Toro's artistic visions were perfect for the world of Hellboy (though I have to admit his version of the Ogdru Jahad doesn't quite scream "Beast of Revelation" to me). Going to be kind of weird seeing someone play Hellboy after Perlman did such a great job, though I'm going to wait and see before judging the new guy.

This movie, by itself, sounds like a good idea. But Hellboy II is one of my all-time favorite movies, and I can't help feeling a little bitter that I'll never get to see its story concluded. At least not on the big screen.

@Joe: Yeah I'm guessing they'll do a very loose adaptation but it is a weird choice, particularly given Mignola himself is writing it so he knows this better than anyone. As you mentioned Captain America, it'd be like The First Avenger adapted Civil War.

There were other arcs I felt would have suited a first movie more. The first Del Toro Hellboy loosely adapts Seeds of Destruction (Hellboy's first arc), and the second has no particular basis in any arc but lifts bits and pieces from everywhere (our tvtropes page thought not, but our tvtropes page is wrong. The idea of a decadent Fae court being swallowed by modernity is a running theme in the comics. Clockwork nazis stop being villains with Conqueror Worm and Fae take over) and fits the general thematic structure of The Conqueror Worm. Del Toro plays fast and loose with the overall plot but he sticks very faithfully to the themes, atmosphere, characters and feel of the comic book.

If I had to make a suggestion, I'd make a loose adaptation of Wake the Devil, the one arc about a zombie pseudo-vampire undead eastern european man who sold his soul to Hecate and terrorizes the land. It's from this arc that the iconic "Hellboy shatters his own horns as a way of saying Screw Destiny" moment comes from. Besides said man (Giuresco) having potential as an antagonist, Hecate is part of the unholy trinity of Hellboy arch-villains (Grigori Rasputin, Hecate and Baba Yaga).

A friend of mine had the too-good-to-be-true thought that this movie would be a pseudo-sequel and would finish Hellboy's saga somehow, but I rather doubt it.

Mine too. :)

Are the comics as funny as the movies? I've never read them. All I know is that they're Bloodier and Gorier.

I don't mind a more violent, R-rated Hellboy movie if the sense of humor is still there.

I'd say they are but they have different brands of humor. The pseudo horror-fantasy atmosphere of the movies I feel are very close to the comics. The movies have more Pop Culture jokes and it plays the cast itself as being quirkier and more immature (like Hellboy's fixation with cats and chilli) to have more room for jokes.

The comics's sense of humor is mostly situational, with Hellboy & Co being Seen It All Straight Man types dealing with some very weird shit. One of the funniest moments in Darkness Calls (one storyarc) has Hellboy just going for a walk and more or less stumbling in a zombie witch coven conspiracy involving the undead and upon being faced with all of this his only reaction to this snowball of weird shit is a exasperated "Jesus Christ I was just going for a walk.".

Or in an even better moment, he's having a drink in a bar when Hecate arrives and makes Hellboy realize every single person in the bar is actually a ghost and he's been drinking with skeletons. As Hecate comes to gloat Hellboy just points at her and says defiantly, holding a bottle "Don't mess with me lady, I've been drinking with skeletons!"

Then there's things like the pulp hero Lobster Johnson whose symbol is a lobster and who arrives to battle screaming at the top of his lungs whilst firing Guns Akimbo "THE CLAW OF VENGEANCE IS UPON YOU, NAZI SCUM!"

The world of the Hellboy comics is very kooky and weird in a very medieval, fairy tale manner, and the humor often comes from that.

I wouldn't actually say the comics are particularly more violent than the movies, though. They certainly are more violent but not by much. There's just more blood. The first Hellboy movie had people being crushed and messily torn apart on-screen by Sammael, it just didn't have noticeable blood.

One thing this movie could do that the Del Toro movies didn't: The GDT movies are very urban fantasy, whilst the Hellboy comics usually stay very far from big cities (I don't remember if he ever set foot in New York in the comics). Most Hellboy stories are set in very isolate, "primitive" places. Often the deep steppes of Eastern Europe or the gothic English countryside or the deep woods of North America, places the modern world hasn't as much hold and the old rules of magic still somewhat apply. It'd be interesting to apply that to the movies.

edited 9th May '17 5:12:02 PM by Gaon

Which pop culture jokes were those?

Stuff like Hellboy watching Howdy Doody (or whatever that doll's name was), listening to 8-tracks, watching copious amounts of tv, reading his own comic book, seeing Jimmy Kimmel, his general hunger for public recognition, singing "I Just Can't Smile (Without You)" alongside Abe Sapien, his looney tunes-esque "Big Baby" gun, e.t.c

I don't mean like "quipping about Jack Nicholson in The Shining" pop culture jokes, I mean more broadly the humor that derives from more modern aspects. The Hellboy comics have a tendency to be pretty much timeless despite being set in the modern day since he's fighting such outlandish threats in highly desolate places.

If there's something to improve from the GDT films, it would indeed be to go with the seen-it-all straight-man approach, maybe dropping the masquerade from the start. Monsters and mythical beings have existed for aeons, now some of them are on government payroll, fullstop. There's also the naive newbie sub-plot from the first film that was good as an introduction, but isn't necessary now that the character is more popular, and the overall romance which was nice but kinda hogged the story. Instead, I'd go back to basics, with a full-blown pulp feel to it, particularly as the Universal Monsterverse already seems to be covering the dark and gritty horror territory.

Okay, a movie that's more faithful to the comics sounds like something I'd enjoy. It's just too bad I'll never get to see Liz and Hellboy's babies. Hellboy II is actually one of my all-time favorite flicks. The troll market scene beats the Mos Aisley cantina by a mile, and I do not apologize for saying that.

Urge to track down the books...rising.

Out of curiosity, exactly what makes a fictional work "pulpy"?

Well, apart from the themes evident in the link, I'd say the main difference from modern storytelling is a considerable shift away from personal dramas, social and political metaphors, and otherwise "literary value". The focus is on the plot, the main characters are more or less ciphers just strong enough to survive and overcome whatever the story throws at them, and the real treat is the setting itself - it's precisely because the characters are stable and unchanging, that you can throw them in a fantasy kitchen sink and just let them react in an everyman fashion, even though most of them are hypercompetent escapist characters in their own right.

Hellboy is a pulp character par excellence - he's tough, but not too tough; he barely changes over fifty years of monster-hunting, his unique origin is mostly in the background for the vast majority of his career, and most of the time, his goal is to get a job done an a beer after that.

For less obvious examples, just about any airport novel qualifies, though books with one-shot characters usually get some token development or personal sub-plot. Baen books also come to mind. For that matter, is there, like, a dedicated publisher for Tom Clancy-style special forces action books, techno-thrillers and/or Clive Cussler-type adventures? I can get my cheesy romance fix from Harlequin, but there doesn't seem to be a direct equivalent in the macho-action-man department.

edited 10th May '17 12:41:20 PM by indiana404

On the subject of fun adventure comics with a pulpy feel, I heartily recommend Atomic Robo, which is like Hellboy with Super Science in place of Gothic Horror.

Mignola actually talked about this in one interview.

From what I understand he isn't necessarily a huge fan of that kind of setting, the gothic castles and eastern european countryside are where he feels more at home in telling stories.

I've only seen a little bit of the first Hellboy movies but I like the comics so I'll be keeping an eye out for this.

I'm a little "meh" on the first Hellboy, but Hellboy II is one of the coolest fucking things I've ever seen. It's full of really incredible imagery. I recommend it.

I said the same thing. :)

C'mon, the first Hellboy has an undead Clockwork Nazi!

I love both films but I do think The Golden Army in undeniably stronger in various regards. Besides tackling more complex themes on the whole modernity vs magic idea, it also gives more stuff for characters to do.

The first movie suffers a bit from the fact that, up until the third act, the villains just keep rolling sixes so Hellboy & co come across as slightly ineffective. The second movie gives them more stuff to do, and it helps that it gives Abe Sapien a stronger character arc than just having him be the resident nerd.

Johann Krauss and Nuada are also intriguing character.

But the first movie does have a clockwork nazi, John hurt's Professor Broom and the eerie and magnificent Grigori Rasputin.

Johann Krauss was the best.

Especially the way he pronounced "focused." XD