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sultrybutdamagedI just finished reading The Old Guard, Book One: Opening Fire and I have thoughts.
Spoilers for both the movie and the book below.
So I first watched The Old Guard when it came out back in July (or August? I forget) and I've watched it several times since then. I love it more each time, and I needed more in this universe, so I picked up the two volumes of the graphic novel series that have been published. I just finished the first one, which is the basis for the movie, and I'm going to start the second volume later today. I'll probably have thoughts about that one that have more to do with where the movies can go (please Netflix gods greenlight a sequel), but for now I'm mostly thinking about how the movie made changes to the graphic novel, and how those changes were (almost) always for the better. I did do a review on goodreads that mostly ignored the movie and tried to review the graphic novel on its own merits.
So, comparing the two. There were a couple of things in the graphic novel that were better than in the movie, a few I feel ambiguously about, and then a whole lot where I thought the movie improved on the books. I'm just going to list them out.
Things that were better in the book
- That one scene in the movie where Nile grabs Merrick and swan-dives with him out a skyscraper window? The one that looks really cool but makes no sense at all when you consider that Merrick had Andy's war axe halfway through his neck and was pretty obviously going to die whether or not he crashed onto a car? That scene is inspired by one in the graphic novel where Andy, Nile and Booker jump out of an even taller building to escape some bad guys. The main difference in the book is a) it actually makes sense that they would do this, and b) it's really funny, with Nile telling Andy off the whole way down. It's one of the best Andy/Nile interactions.
- On a similar note, the scene where Andy and Nile find Booker all blown up after Nicky and Joe are kidnapped is basically the same, but in the books Andy and Nile were away from the safehouse, not just outside the door, when the attack happened, so it actually makes sense that they didn't get back until Nicky and Joe were gone.
- There are a few more flashbacks in the book than there are in the movie. Mostly these don't add any information we didn't already know in the movie or see in the little background video Netflix put together, but there is one sequence where Andy relates how she fell in love with a man and lived with him until he was old. It's the only Andy flashback in the book that isn't about war (or meaningless sex), and it serves to not only give more nuance to Andy as a character, but to show how she relates to the situations both Nile and Booker are in. So that's nice.
Things I'm Not Sure About
- The big change between the books and the movie is that the whole subplot about Andy losing her immortality doesn't exist in the books, or at least not the first book. I think I actually like that? I get the purpose of that subplot in the movie - it adds tension in the big fight scene at the end, becomes a metaphor for her general exhaustion with her long life, and brings a lot more poignancy to Booker's exile, since she's unlikely to be around a century from now when he's allowed back in. (In the book, it's hard to see what's so bad about what happens to Booker, since it's clear from the flashbacks that the Old Guard spend entire human lifetimes separated from each other. Presumably this isn't the first time one of them has spent a century without the others?) But in the movie it also had the effect of drawing the curtain on Andy's story right at the point when we are meeting her. Yes, there's the passing of the torch to Nile, and Andy's renewed sense of purpose at the end of her life, but I do like that the comics, at least at this point, still leave Andy's future open to adventures. Of course, a lot will depend on what they do with that future.
- The other change I'm not so sure about is to Noriko/Quynh's backstory. I... loved is probably not the right word, because it's horrific, but I thought the backstory for Quynh in the movie was powerful. Maybe it's just that being trapped like that is my worst nightmare, but her fate really managed to turn immortality into a horrible curse, and the guilt Andy felt knowing that Quynh was dying over and over and she couldn't do anything about it really came across, as did the reasons why Quynh might feel vengeful towards her friends for not saving her. By contrast, though I've heard this will be dealt with more in the second volume, the first book makes Quynh's drowning look like a total accident. She just gets swept overboard on a ship, she isn't trapped in a coffin. So it's both less horrific and less the fault of her friends (or anyone.) It's still terrible, but the others don't know for sure that she's trapped underwater, drowning over and over, especially since the books also don't include Nile's dreams about her.
Now for the big stuff:
Things That Were Better in the Movie
I'm tempted to just put "everything else" and leave it at that, but seriously... every other thing was an improvement in the movie over the books.
But those are minor things. Where the movie really improved on the book is in the characters and relationships. Those, for me, were the best parts of the movie, and it was disappointing to realize that they were almost totally absent from the book.
Well, with one exception. The Nicky/Joe relationship in the book is pretty similar to the movie. All the best scenes with them in the movie - the dramatic love declaration in the van, the Malta exchange, "you shot Nicky" - all of those were taken directly from the graphic novel, and the last one was even better there, because instead of grossing me out with the sound of a broken neck, Joe threw that dude out a window. So yeah, Nicky and Joe are pretty great in the book... as long as they are alone together. Once they're interacting with anyone else, they fade into nothing. All the time fandom has spent the last few months teasing out the dynamics of their relationship would seem impossible if we just had the graphic novel to go off, because their entire personalities can be summed up as "grumpy, short-tempered, in love" and that's for both of them. If they have anything that sets them apart from each other, besides hairstyles, I can't tell you what it was.
And it's worse for everyone else. Booker is basically the same person as Joe and Nicky in the graphic novel, except a little sadder because of not being in love, so his betrayal has no emotional impact. Copley has no motivation for anything he does beyond money, nothing close to a redemption arc like he gets in the movie. Merrick manages to be both an even worse person than the one in the movie (he sadistically tortures Nicky and Joe for kicks), and yet one whose death is less satisfying because he's so much less distinct of a character. Andy is a stereotypical "Strong Female Character" - totally badass, very sexual (she does a lot of sleeping around with randoms at the beginning of the book, including one scene with a woman which I would like for the on-page queerness except that it feels so exploitive), even more grumpy and emotionally detached than the men. Like I said earlier, there is one flashback that hints at more to Andy, but we don't see much of it. We're told that, like the movie version, Andy has begun to feel like her life has no purpose, but while movie Andy poignantly ties that to a sense that their work isn't helping anyone and the world isn't better for their presence, here she just seems tired and maybe a little bored. (Because of Copley's reduced role, the book is also missing the scene where Andy and the rest find out the ways they have made the world better. I don't want to comment on that specifically until I've read the next book and seen if that version of the story hints at a purpose to immortality the way the movie does.) And then there's Nile, and damn, but the expanded role for Nile in the movie is one of the best things about it. Nile was unquestionably the real hero of the movie, whereas book Nile never moves beyond being a side-kick and audience proxy, there to provide a reason for the other characters to exposit about their lives. In the books, Nile never seriously questions whether she wants to be part of the group; she just kind of joins up with them without explanation. Also, Andy and Booker are never captured, so instead of the amazing scenes of Nile coming back to single-handedly save the group, Andy does all the work and Nile just tags along for most of it. She has some useful skills (there's one scene where she lists out the long list of previous jobs she's worked like she's presenting her resume to join the team), but nothing like the incredible leadership and badassery she shows in the movie. Very disappointing.
And because the characters are so much less, the relationships in the book are also weaker. The biggest improvement the movie makes over the books is by turning the group into a found family, and making their affection for and attachment to each other so clear. The baclava scene at the beginning of the movie is new, replacing a much more generic scene where the group gathers at a cafe and grumbles at each other about taking Copley's job like they're disgruntled co-workers instead of friends, and the later scene (one of my favorites) where Nile has dinner with the group in the old church and learns their stories and slowly becomes one of them is also new. In the books, Nile doesn't even meet Joe and Nicky until she shows up with Andy to rescue them. We don't even get the cute little "Sao Paolo, '34" moment, which, yes, that sort of thing is a cliche (a la Black Widow and Hawkeye talking about Budapest), but it is a cliche I love. Near the end of the book, Andy abruptly declares that she's doesn't want to die, she's just been looking for a purpose in life, and now she's decided that it's going to be her friends, and all I could think was... okay? But do you even like them? I was never convinced that she did, whereas no matter how gruff movie Andy got, she didn't stop being the group mom for even a second.
So yeah, the books are fine, I'm glad I'm reading them, and I hope the second one will give me some backstory for the characters and maybe a few plot bunnies for fics, but its always going to be the movie versions of these characters and relationships that I love.
Spoilers for both the movie and the book below.
So I first watched The Old Guard when it came out back in July (or August? I forget) and I've watched it several times since then. I love it more each time, and I needed more in this universe, so I picked up the two volumes of the graphic novel series that have been published. I just finished the first one, which is the basis for the movie, and I'm going to start the second volume later today. I'll probably have thoughts about that one that have more to do with where the movies can go (please Netflix gods greenlight a sequel), but for now I'm mostly thinking about how the movie made changes to the graphic novel, and how those changes were (almost) always for the better. I did do a review on goodreads that mostly ignored the movie and tried to review the graphic novel on its own merits.
So, comparing the two. There were a couple of things in the graphic novel that were better than in the movie, a few I feel ambiguously about, and then a whole lot where I thought the movie improved on the books. I'm just going to list them out.
Things that were better in the book
- That one scene in the movie where Nile grabs Merrick and swan-dives with him out a skyscraper window? The one that looks really cool but makes no sense at all when you consider that Merrick had Andy's war axe halfway through his neck and was pretty obviously going to die whether or not he crashed onto a car? That scene is inspired by one in the graphic novel where Andy, Nile and Booker jump out of an even taller building to escape some bad guys. The main difference in the book is a) it actually makes sense that they would do this, and b) it's really funny, with Nile telling Andy off the whole way down. It's one of the best Andy/Nile interactions.
- On a similar note, the scene where Andy and Nile find Booker all blown up after Nicky and Joe are kidnapped is basically the same, but in the books Andy and Nile were away from the safehouse, not just outside the door, when the attack happened, so it actually makes sense that they didn't get back until Nicky and Joe were gone.
- There are a few more flashbacks in the book than there are in the movie. Mostly these don't add any information we didn't already know in the movie or see in the little background video Netflix put together, but there is one sequence where Andy relates how she fell in love with a man and lived with him until he was old. It's the only Andy flashback in the book that isn't about war (or meaningless sex), and it serves to not only give more nuance to Andy as a character, but to show how she relates to the situations both Nile and Booker are in. So that's nice.
Things I'm Not Sure About
- The big change between the books and the movie is that the whole subplot about Andy losing her immortality doesn't exist in the books, or at least not the first book. I think I actually like that? I get the purpose of that subplot in the movie - it adds tension in the big fight scene at the end, becomes a metaphor for her general exhaustion with her long life, and brings a lot more poignancy to Booker's exile, since she's unlikely to be around a century from now when he's allowed back in. (In the book, it's hard to see what's so bad about what happens to Booker, since it's clear from the flashbacks that the Old Guard spend entire human lifetimes separated from each other. Presumably this isn't the first time one of them has spent a century without the others?) But in the movie it also had the effect of drawing the curtain on Andy's story right at the point when we are meeting her. Yes, there's the passing of the torch to Nile, and Andy's renewed sense of purpose at the end of her life, but I do like that the comics, at least at this point, still leave Andy's future open to adventures. Of course, a lot will depend on what they do with that future.
- The other change I'm not so sure about is to Noriko/Quynh's backstory. I... loved is probably not the right word, because it's horrific, but I thought the backstory for Quynh in the movie was powerful. Maybe it's just that being trapped like that is my worst nightmare, but her fate really managed to turn immortality into a horrible curse, and the guilt Andy felt knowing that Quynh was dying over and over and she couldn't do anything about it really came across, as did the reasons why Quynh might feel vengeful towards her friends for not saving her. By contrast, though I've heard this will be dealt with more in the second volume, the first book makes Quynh's drowning look like a total accident. She just gets swept overboard on a ship, she isn't trapped in a coffin. So it's both less horrific and less the fault of her friends (or anyone.) It's still terrible, but the others don't know for sure that she's trapped underwater, drowning over and over, especially since the books also don't include Nile's dreams about her.
Now for the big stuff:
Things That Were Better in the Movie
I'm tempted to just put "everything else" and leave it at that, but seriously... every other thing was an improvement in the movie over the books.
- The action: compared to the beautifully filmed action scenes in the movie, the art for the action in the graphic novel was cluttered and impossible to follow. I didn't even attempt to make sense of what was happening in my head, just jumped to the end of each fight scene to see who'd won.
- The plot mostly made more sense. Other than the dive-out-a-window scene mentioned above, the plot in the movie required a lot fewer convoluted explanations. The book plot depends on the ridiculous idea that Andy is so incompetent with modern technology that she doesn't realize Booker needs access to the internet to track Copley, and while Nile does realize, she waits until they've traveled all the way from France to the UAE to mention it. Compared to that, the plot device in the movie, where Nile figures out Booker's betrayal when she sees the gun he gave Andy has no bullets, is brilliant writing.
- In general, the whole thing with technology in the books was eliminated and I'm glad. It was cute in the book when Andy was frustrated about Apple moving the button on the iPhone because we all found that annoying, but the idea that a six-thousand year old mercenary leader completely cannot figure out how the internet works? That Nicky and Joe are implied to be almost as bad? That Booker runs the technology, not just because he's better at it or likes it more but because he's literally the only one who can work a computer, and that Nile's primary role on the team is going to be the kid who reminds the old fogies how to enter their passwords? Come on.
But those are minor things. Where the movie really improved on the book is in the characters and relationships. Those, for me, were the best parts of the movie, and it was disappointing to realize that they were almost totally absent from the book.
Well, with one exception. The Nicky/Joe relationship in the book is pretty similar to the movie. All the best scenes with them in the movie - the dramatic love declaration in the van, the Malta exchange, "you shot Nicky" - all of those were taken directly from the graphic novel, and the last one was even better there, because instead of grossing me out with the sound of a broken neck, Joe threw that dude out a window. So yeah, Nicky and Joe are pretty great in the book... as long as they are alone together. Once they're interacting with anyone else, they fade into nothing. All the time fandom has spent the last few months teasing out the dynamics of their relationship would seem impossible if we just had the graphic novel to go off, because their entire personalities can be summed up as "grumpy, short-tempered, in love" and that's for both of them. If they have anything that sets them apart from each other, besides hairstyles, I can't tell you what it was.
And it's worse for everyone else. Booker is basically the same person as Joe and Nicky in the graphic novel, except a little sadder because of not being in love, so his betrayal has no emotional impact. Copley has no motivation for anything he does beyond money, nothing close to a redemption arc like he gets in the movie. Merrick manages to be both an even worse person than the one in the movie (he sadistically tortures Nicky and Joe for kicks), and yet one whose death is less satisfying because he's so much less distinct of a character. Andy is a stereotypical "Strong Female Character" - totally badass, very sexual (she does a lot of sleeping around with randoms at the beginning of the book, including one scene with a woman which I would like for the on-page queerness except that it feels so exploitive), even more grumpy and emotionally detached than the men. Like I said earlier, there is one flashback that hints at more to Andy, but we don't see much of it. We're told that, like the movie version, Andy has begun to feel like her life has no purpose, but while movie Andy poignantly ties that to a sense that their work isn't helping anyone and the world isn't better for their presence, here she just seems tired and maybe a little bored. (Because of Copley's reduced role, the book is also missing the scene where Andy and the rest find out the ways they have made the world better. I don't want to comment on that specifically until I've read the next book and seen if that version of the story hints at a purpose to immortality the way the movie does.) And then there's Nile, and damn, but the expanded role for Nile in the movie is one of the best things about it. Nile was unquestionably the real hero of the movie, whereas book Nile never moves beyond being a side-kick and audience proxy, there to provide a reason for the other characters to exposit about their lives. In the books, Nile never seriously questions whether she wants to be part of the group; she just kind of joins up with them without explanation. Also, Andy and Booker are never captured, so instead of the amazing scenes of Nile coming back to single-handedly save the group, Andy does all the work and Nile just tags along for most of it. She has some useful skills (there's one scene where she lists out the long list of previous jobs she's worked like she's presenting her resume to join the team), but nothing like the incredible leadership and badassery she shows in the movie. Very disappointing.
And because the characters are so much less, the relationships in the book are also weaker. The biggest improvement the movie makes over the books is by turning the group into a found family, and making their affection for and attachment to each other so clear. The baclava scene at the beginning of the movie is new, replacing a much more generic scene where the group gathers at a cafe and grumbles at each other about taking Copley's job like they're disgruntled co-workers instead of friends, and the later scene (one of my favorites) where Nile has dinner with the group in the old church and learns their stories and slowly becomes one of them is also new. In the books, Nile doesn't even meet Joe and Nicky until she shows up with Andy to rescue them. We don't even get the cute little "Sao Paolo, '34" moment, which, yes, that sort of thing is a cliche (a la Black Widow and Hawkeye talking about Budapest), but it is a cliche I love. Near the end of the book, Andy abruptly declares that she's doesn't want to die, she's just been looking for a purpose in life, and now she's decided that it's going to be her friends, and all I could think was... okay? But do you even like them? I was never convinced that she did, whereas no matter how gruff movie Andy got, she didn't stop being the group mom for even a second.
So yeah, the books are fine, I'm glad I'm reading them, and I hope the second one will give me some backstory for the characters and maybe a few plot bunnies for fics, but its always going to be the movie versions of these characters and relationships that I love.
