Pragmatic Adaptation / Superhero Films

• In Aquaman: The Cast of the Angler, due to the low budget and difficulty filming underwater, most scenes are on land or told in comic book form. It's not until halfway through that Aquaman suits up and starts swimming, and those scenes are short.
• The Dark Knight Trilogy removes or attempts to justify the more fantastic elements of the Batman mythos, in order to keep the theme of it being "realistic" and happening in a world only slightly different from ours. Most critically, Joker wears make-up instead of being scarred by an acid bath (which also adds mightily to the theme that he has no origin story and is just doing everything himself), Bane doesn't use Venom (he does continually dose himself with a drug, but it's anesthesia for his chronic pain), and Ra's Al Ghul is only immortal in the figurative sense. The films also show some detail as to where Bats gets all those wonderful toys, which most adaptations don't bother trying to explain.
• Say what you will about the Fantastic Four movies, but at least they had a legitimate reason for Johnny and Sue to go out to space; Sue's a genetics researcher, and Johnny's an astronaut. They're also on a space station, not a space ship.
• Spider-Man:
  • Whenever Spidey has mechanical web-shooters, they’re worn on the outside of his costume rather than under his sleeves like the comic. This avoids the problem of the live-action sleeves looking bulky and goofy at the wrists.
  • The Spider-Man Trilogy changed Radiation-Induced Superpowers to Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke in regards to Spider-Man's Super Hero Origin, as it was slightly easier to Hand Wave a scientifically altered spider than a random million-to-one chance of an irradiated spider (and irradiating a spider wouldn't make it do that). The comic book's artificial webshooters were dropped because the movie didn't have time to believably show Peter inventing them (and because they felt that a single teenager being able to invent a wonder adhesive that 3M couldn't strained Willing Suspension of Disbelief). In fact, most of the first two films were this, and so was some of Part 3 in regards to the Symbiote.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man has another nice take on it: Peter simply buys an experimental web formula from Oscorp, which he simply needs to refine a bit and build web-shooters for (based on the already-existing technology) to serve his purposes. Peter Parker does not begin his career with the 'ubergeek' personality. Someone capable of building gadgets^note a talent that we see put into practice with more than just the webshooters, which he can't even take full credit for in this film like him would actually be considered pretty cool, so he's more of a loner here; the only one at his school who really looks down on him is Flash Thompson. Uncle Ben's role is expanded, but this just makes his death sadder. The 'wrestling' bit is left out, too. These changes are all needed to keep the film from being a retelling of the origin story as shown in the first film of the previous trilogy.
• Most comic book–inspired movies are like this, though many fans can't get past a They Changed It, Now It Sucks! reaction. The original example is Superman: The Movie and its sequels. The first half of the film maintains the backstory of the characters, and Supes looks just like he does in the comics, as do many supporting characters. The film makes stylistic changes and alters the backstory (e.g. Clark was never Superboy), yet is still very much in tune with the spirit of the comics up to that point.
• The Watchmen film has numerous changes to the source material, most of them extrapolated from the comic. Two significant changes (Dan Dreiberg seeing Rorschach's death and subsequently beating up Ozymandias, and changing some of the dialogue for the ending) were most likely done to add a sense of Catharsis Factor to an otherwise bitter ending (though the graphic novel leaves the thread open). For the climax, they decided on a device that emulated Dr. Manhattan's energy signature, allowing the world to scapegoat him, rather than the alien squid. People are undecided as to which works better overall, but it's definitely the best they could have done with that ending in film. The moment where Rorschach snaps was changed, mostly to avoid comparison with Saw, but the new scene also allows us to see the moment his mind snaps without an overabundance of narration.
  • Interestingly, the HBO series also has an interesting approach to the graphic novel's climax: unlike the movie, we actually get to see a giant squid in the middle of Manhattan, averting this trope entirely; however, the scene itself is shown as part of a flashback rather than a piece of the main narrative.
• Wonder Woman (2017):
  • While most retellings of Wonder Woman's origin story often update it from World War II to modern times (making her appear around the same time as Batman and Superman's public debut), this film opts to update setting backwards in time, setting it in World War I instead. Having it take place in World War I allows the origin story to retain its World War II's roots ^note like Steve Trevor being on the run from German soldiers. while making the overall conflict more morally grey and ambiguous, fitting with idea of Ares playing both sides as well as the theme of hard truths.
  • Additionally, having the movie being a Period Piece highlights one key aspect that Wonder Woman has to distinguish her from Batman and Superman: Her divine immortality. As a demigoddess, Wonder Woman could still retain her World War II origin story while still be around for present day stories. It's not surprising that new DC adaptations like Justice Society: World War II have taken Diana back to her old roots and with Batman and Superman no longer present,^note Since they're always meant to be in sync with present day. she is able to take center stage.
  • Dr. Poison was originally Japanese, as she was written like an Imperial Japan caricature like most Axis villains Wonder Woman fought during World War II. Because the setting was updated to World War I where Japan wasn't with the Central Powers^note They were actually one of the Allied Powers that time around, and most notably captured the German port of Tsingtao/Qingdao in China, Dr. Poison is not depicted as Japanese in the movie. Instead, she is a Spaniard to accommodate her actress. ^note During WWI, Spain was a neutral power, despite polarisation among its citizens between supporters of the Allies and Central Powers, many of whom volunteered to fight for either bloc.