Adaptation of a property from one media to another is a funny tightrope to walk. The problem with most adaptations is that they stray too far from the source material, losing touch with what made the property unique in the first place. On the other hand, going too close to the material has it's share of problems to. I'm a huge fan of "Game of Thrones", but the fact that I've read the books beforehand means I know all the major surprises and plot twists (e.g. Remember when Davos took Melisandre into the caves beneath Storm's End and watched as she "cast her spell"? Remember how weird and sudden and freaky it was to see onscreen? I don't).
One of the benefits of adapting American superhero comics is that they're long ongoing serials; creative teams change all the time, so if you're adapting from a comic, you're not tied down to adapting one single story. The details can be tweaked and altered and even downright changed, so long as the core ideas and characters of the comic remain consistent. Unfortunately for the CW, this is not the case for their latest superhero drama that was previewed at Comic-Con: Arrow.
Green Arrow is a character who, for a long time, didn't have much of an identity to himself. Created in 1941, Green Arrow was more or less a cross between Robin Hood and Batman; a skilled archer who fought corruption with no superpowers, neat gadgets, and a plucky teenage sidekick. Still, he was a big part of DC Comics in the Golden Age, but it wasn't until the Bronze Age of comics (roughly the late-sixties to mid-eighties) that he became a unique character. Comic-book legends Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams wrote a now-famous storyline in which Green Arrow and his similarly colored friend Green Lantern traveled across America, solving blue-collar crimes, averting disasters, and arguing politics. Yes, politics. Green Arrow became unique because of his leftist political agenda, something which has stuck with him, even today.
Not in the show Arrow, though, where's pretty much just Batman except he goes after corporate crime instead of bank robbers and supervillains. Also he kills people.
The story is a faithful adaptation of GA's origin: Oliver Queen is a billionaire playboy womanizer with no sense of responsibility and...y'know what? I'm just gonna save time and say he's Tony Stark from the beginning of "Iron Man". Anyway, Ollie is hanging out on his boat, avoiding his father and sleeping with his girlfriend's sister, when sabotage in the middle of a storm destroys it, leaving only Ollie, his dad, and a third guy of no consequence alive, all floating on a life raft. Robert Queen, realizing he's not long for this world, gives his son a list of names of corporate scumbags who need to be taken down. Robert and third guy die soon after, leaving Ollie alone when he finds himself on a desert island. Five years and one unanswered question later, Ollie is found and returned to civilization, where he acclimates to his old life by becoming an archery-using vigilante, targeting the evil corporate people his dad told him about as Green Arrow (or maybe he's just Arrow, his name isn't given in the pilot).
The episode has some good things going for it. The writing is not awful; what I mean is I didn't feel myself actively getting dumber when I watched it (and that's saying something for a drama on basic cable). There are two new characters added to the Arrow mythos who are kinda compelling: John Diggle, an ex-military something turned bodyguard to Ollie and named after GA writer Andy Diggle, and Thea Queen, Ollie's younger sister who turned to drugs as a coping mechanism after her father and brother 'died' (although from the looks of it, she's using cocaine, which begs the question: where did a high schooler at a filthy rich academy get coke? Is she dating Dr. Rockso or do I just not know high school as well as I think? I dunno, I'm just saying Oxycotin might've made more sense). And the action is well shot. It's just unfortunate that the people fighting aren't too interesting or likeable.
If you scroll up to paragraph 4, you'll notice I mentioned our fearless hero kills people. Sadly, I wasn't exagerrating. Twice in the pilot does Ollie take people's lives: the first are a set of kidnappers who capture Ollie and interrogate him to find out what happened during his five years on the island (because apparently that's what the mystery of the first season will be). Those are fairly forgiveable as it was self defense. The second are a crew of bodyguards hired by one the corporate scumbags after GA threatens him. This is actually very troubling because the bodyguards were simply doing what they were paid to do; their boss may be an asshole, but that's not their fault. They're not trying to enforce his evil corporate ways, they're trying to put food on the table or put kids through school or pay off a mortgage or something equally relatable. But no, their paycheck comes from a bad place so they have a take an arrow to the knee (and the chest).
There are other minor things that get to me (Merlyn, an evil bowman, professional assassin, and GA's archenemy, is now recast as Ollie's best friend who's secretly an asshole), but the biggest problem with Arrow is that's trying so hard to be a Batman show. That style of superhero might be what's in now, but it's not true to Green Arrow. Green Arrow has his own unique identity, his own circumstances, and, after seventy years of continuity, his own character. Arrow fails as an adaptation because it ignores that in favor of what's easiest to digest: a bland story of a costumed vigilante that has been reseen and rehashed a thousand times already.
Arrow premiers on the CW on October 10th. I'm going to see where it goes after the pilot, but I wouldn't recommend you watch it. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time.
