Explain To Me…
Why I should give a damn about what Steven Moffat thinks of CBS’s Elementary? Does having a critically loved Sherlock Holmes in modern times fan fic tv show make him some sort of protector of all things Holmes?
Posted in: Television
"I'm a whole lot better and a whole lot worse than you think I am."-The Choir
In One Ear... 
Exactly! He is behaving like he created Sherlock Holmes. I will watch Elementary. All these new versions of Sherlock Holmes and those other characters’ versions are new values for this culture. I think.
The idea that he is needing to try and stake his territory is pretty disappointing. Sherlock is, in my opinion a well done and good show. I would recommend it. But to see him lash out like there is some infringement on his creation here… it hurts his credibility. It would be like Michael Bay decrying Peter Berg for making a movie full of explosions and super models.
(okay…that was a little mean…Moffat is a better storyteller than Bay)
No idea what Moffat said that provoked this but, in general respnse…
Mostly because CBS approached the makers of Moffat’s adaptation “Sherlock” about doing an adaptation OF his adaptation.
Then when they didn’t work out they proceeded to ‘independently’ make their own modernized adaptation of Sherlock.
Now one can very easily make the case it’s an old idea and MANY modern shows could be described as “Modern Sherlock Holmes (Monk, The Mentalist, House & Psych just off the top of my head) but, IMO, if when Raimi’s Hercules show was on the air, someone had gone to him and asked about adapting his show….then went off after discussions failed and made another Hercules show…. Raimi would have been justified commenting on it.
Oh, I am well aware that they approached Moffat first…..here is some of his comments:
“What we did with our Sherlock was just take it from Victorian times into modern day. [Elementary has] got three big changes: it’s Sherlock Holmes in America, it’s Sherlock Holmes updated and it’s Sherlock Holmes with a female Watson. I wonder if he’s Sherlock Holmes in any sense other than he’s called Sherlock Holmes.”
So, first Moffat and the BBC threaten to sue because it is to similar…now he are complaining it is too *different*. That is what is killing me. It is one thing to suggest an uncertainty if it will work, but he has pretty much declared it is not Sherlock Holmes based on the changes being to drastic.
I would rather CBS do their own thing than adapt Sherlock (and I appreciate and agree with Moffat and the BBC’s choice to decline the idea of adapting the series). We already have Sherlock.
Honestly to me that comment just comes off as, well, ‘fanboy rage’ which many fans of various genre have at a certain level of change.
Some fans will rage over smaller physical changes.
Even barring race which is an obvious one people go on about.
Many of Anne Rice’s fans did not like Stuart Townsend being Lestat in “Queen of the Damned” because Lestat is blonde in the books, and tends to be quite verbose on his blonde hair, so a non-blond playing Lestat was “not Lestat.”
Some fans will get upset over other changes.
For example some comic fans, while liking RDJ’s Iron Man movies, view them more as “RDJ as Iron Man” & not a good portrayal of Tony Stark because Stark is not (and never really was) that much of a snarker in the main comics.
I personally do not consider Burton’s Batman movies to really be “Batman” because he’s actually TOO dark and mean, even killing criminals pretty regularly (and smiling about it).
Meanwhile, I personally have no problem with RDJ’s Stark being snarkier, I still view it as Iron Man.
Is Renner’s Hawkeye as snarky as the usual comics version? No, but I still view it as true to Hawkeye.
I think every fan has certain things they consider key features of the character that can’t be changed or “It’s not the character” anymore.
Now, does this make his opinion more important than any other Holmes fans opinion? Of course not.
But being someone famously associated with Holmes of course it’s going to get lots of press anyway.
The same way, if I remember right, everyone wanted to know what Jack Nicholson thought of Heath Ledger’s Joker.
It’s not that Jack created Joker, or that he’s some expert on it…. it’s that he’s a famous person associated with the character, so let’s publish whatever he says.
That was really more my driving post…it seemed fanboy ravish, overshadowing the excellent work he and the Sherlock team managed. I am night Holmes nut… So changes don’t bother me…but it seemed a little off for him to offer to much commentary other than, “Not how I would do it.”