Ninja Turtles, Before Watchmen: Do the Questions Go Away If They Make Money?

In the course of the passionate discussion of topics like Before Watchmen and Michael Bay's upcoming Ninja Turtles, one of the arguments that you'll come across in virtually every comment thread goes something like this: "Who cares? It's only entertainment and if it makes money, clearly the ends have justified the means." The message, ultimately, becomes "Well, it'll make money, so suck it up--your objections mean nothing." It is, as a critic, an argument that I can't bring myself to agree with; it's essentially like saying that because the Olsen Twins are billionaires, they've contributed more to society than Orson Welles. While some free-market absolutists might believe that, it seems like a preposterous argument to mount when discussing art--even popular art such as movies and comics. The Michael Bay Ninja Turtles adaptation seems to be the one that's generating this argument the most at the moment. With Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans furiously smashing away at their keyboards, Bay's fans and apologists are out there in force, pointing out that the Transformers movie franchise--also based on a beloved children's property, and also dramatically altered to meet Bay's vision of the film--has made more than $2 billion worldwide and been successful enough to justify a fourth film coming soon. his detractors point out that while that may be true, they hated the Transformers movies, too; the term "raping my childhood" seems to come up a lot.

That phrase, of course, gained traction on the Internet following the release of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, a series of movies that most hardcore fans agree were pretty bad, but which made hundreds of millions of dollars each, shattering records at the time and arguably setting the bar for mediocre remakes of great source material. Before Watchmen is somewhat more complex; while many of its critics and even some of its supporters would agree that it probably belongs in this conversation, the quality of the creators attached certainly seems to suggest that quality is at least on DC's radar. Nobody involved has a long and storied history of disappointing or aggravating fans in the way that Bay does, for example, or even Lucas (Howard the Duck, anyone?). The fact is though, that these books will not and probably cannot be considered completely on their own merits and you can be assured no serious critic will have the guts to be the guy to declare them better than the original. That, then, will leave the aftertaste of "Why were these made?" and the answer fans and critics go with--which is likely true but still feeds into a discussion such as this one--will be "becuase it made a ton of money." It's widely accepted that truly great works often have a hard time finding a mass audience; the phrase "too smart for its own good" has been attached to television projects like Twin Peaks, Arrested Development and Community, as well as comics like Marc Andreyko's Manhunter and even Brian Michael Bendis' Alias. That alone--along with the fact that Chasing Amy made less than half of what Jersey Girl (which I actually liked, but you know what I'm getting at) did at the box office--should be enough to discount the argument that the finances justify the means.