If it's meant to be based on something, it should be based on something else it has failed, thus bad. If it's inspired, that's a different matter. Red Sonja was inspired by Red Sonya so differences which go against the whole point are fine. Making an original story using Characters and Elements are fine if they keep to the spirit and point. If they miss that, they fail in there task. The Arnie films weren't based on nor meant to be based on the Books. They were inspired by the books characters and more so on the Marvel Comics version of the characters. Thus is is 'based on characters by'. As Conan, at different points in his life, went though various changes, it isn't too bad a version of the characters, just not of any book or story written by Howard.
I've not read, nor watch either what is meant to be the better Animated Starship Troopers, nor any of the American films.. just looks like CGI messes to me. Might be good but no interest. My Favorite Marvel films are ones that are often flops and seen as rubbish.. But that is because they are far more faithful to the source material then the modern stuff, even though they do changes. The Original Spider-Man movies and series are a FAR better and more faithful version then any of the post 2000 films. Though the best is the fan film based on the night Gwen Stacy died story arc... that is how to do it right..
The meant to be Asimov film was a completely unrelated film which they slapped the name and some very loose elements on.. even the people involved will confirm, which is why it goes against the core of his work.
One of the best films from books is the film 'The Last Unicorn'. It is written by the writer of the book, who was a talented scriptwriter too, Peter. S. Beagle. If you watch the film, and then read the book.. You feel you are just getting 'the bits cut out' and more indepth detail.
The Original 'Total Recall' was not based on the story 'We can remember it for you wholesale'. It was inspired by it. It's not faithful as it extends what is a 30 min story to a whole film. But it's pretty faithful to the ideas and the point of the story (Kinda). That remake (which was a remake of the film).. is.. no.. a bad remake of a film.. If a remake is soo removed, then it can easily just not use the name and would be far more expectable.
In fact, there are cases where this has been the saving grace. They removed the name to stand on it's own and has been far better for it.
Buckaroo Banzai was highly inspired by Doc Savage. If it called it self 'Doc Savage', it would be crap.. but it went with it's own name and stood on it's own feet.. It's seen as a failed flop, but it is its own thing. If the film is MEANT to be something and fails at that? then it's bad. If I drew a picture of say, A cat, but it turned out looking like a really good and faithful elephant, it would be a crap drawing of a cat and it would be bad. It would fail in what it is trying to be and trying to do.
The Solomon Kane film, if it called itself something different and wasn't passing it self of as based on the character or anything, then it would probably be a perfectly good movie. But by it's own admission, it is MEANT to be Robert E. Howards' Solomon Kane.. It completely fails at that. Maybe if they did a modern dub where they renamed him 'Ezra Clarence', (they have done bigger changes) and let it stand as a film that is purely meant to be fun entertainment and not a fun entertaining movie version of Robert E. Howards Solomon Kane character, fine.
There was a old animator (who worked on some designs for the Inspector Gadget Cartoon which was inspired by Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau who once said it is far easier to draw your own character then someone elses, cause if you make bad drawing of Bugs Bunny, its gonna look like a bad drawing of Bugs Bunny, Where if its your own original character, You can get away with it. or words to that effect..
Anyway... Sorry about derailing another topic a bit ^_^
