Comparison of the movie and Volume 1 of the comic

[silverr]

 I've made some notes about the differences between the movie and volume 1 of the comic!

Notes under the cut. These were things I noticed while reading; comment with things I've missed. Small differences that were equivalent -- e.g., the room in Sudan has a videocamera on a table, rather than surveillance cameras on the walls -- I didn't note. 

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Issue #1
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• Overall Andy is more sexualized, and the team's interactions with her reflects that.
• Andy smokes almost constantly; so does Booker.
• No baklava scene in the comic :(
• Copley seems to be white (though at times he is shaded slightly darker than Merrick)
• During the mission in Sudan they don't die before taking out the attackers.
• Dizzy is about the same; the other female Marine is Stacey, a freckled ginger. (movie had Jordan, a WoC with the nearly-shaved head)
• Issue ends with Nile waking up

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Issue #2
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• Only a single page about Noriko (Japanese in the comic; renamed Quynh in the film and now Vietnamese)
• No iron maiden or witchcraft story in the comic; Noriko "fell overboard off the Horn"
• Lykon is white 
• Lykon and Andy are together for 200 years; he dies during the Renaissance
• The airplane pilot is named Wei; he's Asian (Chinese?), not Russian.
• Merrick is a tattooed muscleman, much more thuggish
• Merrick only wants one immortal  -- "the woman's hot; she'll do"
• There is no fight between Andy and Nile on the plane in the comic; no drugs, no shooting the pilot
• Andy smashes Nile's phone during the flight.
• The safe house in Paris is a semi-abandoned apartment building
• No adorable dinner scene in the safe house in the comic. :(
• Andy and Nile arrive back from Nile's retrieval to find Booker splatted (most of his head gone) and Nicky and Joe gone.

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Issue #3
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• Andy's fight is in the apartment building stairwell, not a church
• THE SPEECH IN THE VAN is nearly the same (there's one extra line; after "his kiss thrills me" there's something about "his body" and passion).
• Book tells the backstory about his family in the car on the way to the Baussenque mine hideout.

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Issue #4
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• Issue opens with the story of Andy and Achilles. Achilles was an escaped slave who fought in the Civil United States Revolutionary War (circa 1770s), then went to England, fell on hard times, and was deported to Australia. He met Andy when she was collecting bounties; they were together for 50-60 years (?), until he got old and told her to move on before someone asked questions she couldn't answer.
• Nile geeks out even more over Andy's " antiques" because she was planning to go into art history after her service.
• Note that the painting in the movie was probably meant as Andy and Achilles.
• No pharmacy first aid run with Celeste in the comic. :(
• Merrick's office is in Dubai, not the UK (was it UK in the movie?)
• Merrick is into hedge funds as well as pharma
• Merrick's doctor in the comics is a white guy, Doctor Ivan[ov]  (Movie had Dr Kozak.)
• When first presented to Merrick Joe and Nicky briefly get the upper hand, and get Merrick at knifepoint, until Ivan[ov] shoots Joe in the head.
• Merrick does the stabby thing in the comic as well, but he stabs a lot more, with manic sadism (to the point where even the guards start to side eye), and stabs both Nicky and Joe.
• Nile does not make noise about not going on the mission, and so accompanies Booker and Andy when they go to Copley's office
• Nile (revealed here to be 27) puts the security in the building on "test mode"
• Nile has figured out that Booker is taking advantage of Andy's lack of tech knowledge, because of his claim to have got his info from the "internet" from inside a cave raises a red flag. (This survives in the movie in her line asking about satellite hookup?) -- she tries to tell Andy that Booker is up to something, but isn't able to convey this before they go to Copley's office.
• Copley's entire motivation and research/conspiracy board are absent from the comic.
• In Copley's office, Booker shoots both Andy and Nile.

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Issue #5
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• Andy reveals that she's 6732.
• Copley is much more of a coward; Andy has coerce him to give them information. He doesn't come with.
• Andy, Nile and Booker jump from the 34th floor to escape.
• Comic then cuts back to Nicky and Joe; happily, we get the Malta exchange. :).
• In the desert, Andy and Booker shoot the shit out of each other until Nile shoots them both.
• Copley is on an airplane. He calls Merrick and tells him to go fuck himself, and then disappears from the rest of the comic. (i.e., he has no part in the wrapup).
• Booker, Andy and Nile infiltrate the building in disguise, with Booker wearing a kufiya (?) and the two women in niqab.
• Joe and Nicky tell Doctor Ivanov that if Andy finds them restrained and such it won't go well for him, so he should let them out of restraints... and then Joe snaps his neck because he hurt Nicky.
• Haha, the watching the door thing is exactly the same.
• Joe drops "Keene" (sorry, can't recall his name in the comic? it's something like Killer maybe?) out of a window because "I remember you -- you shot Nicky."
• At the end Merrick is cowering in a whirlpool bathtub; he's shot by all 5.
• The coda with Booker's banishment takes place in Malta, not Paris.

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Also, I grabbed a few fun screencaps while I was reading the comic: if any icon makers want to perform their magic on them, DM me and I'll get a ZIP file to you via GoogleDocs, Discord, or email.
_

Comments

[out_there]

Huh. Interesting how little got changed.

[silverr]

Yeah, the main plot and narrative events are very similar. The changes are all character based: the biggest one being the comic's presentation of Lykon and Achilles as Andy's two most significant relationships being swapped out for the movie's presentation of Andy's relationship with Quynh, and the overall characterization of movie!Andy as more austere and less male gaze-y. Movie!Copely was also much better characterized and motivated, imo.

[out_there]

the overall characterization of movie!Andy as more austere and less male gaze-y

Which I am all for. Because you do not need the male-gaze view to show Andy as incredibly hot. ;D

Movie!Copely was also much better characterized and motivated, imo.

And I love that actor, so I'm glad he's set up to be in future films, if they're made.

[kore]

Chiwetel Ejiofor, HELL yeah. My husband thought he was going to die ("He's a brother in a scifi movie!") but we were so happy he didn't. He also had a much better motive than the Not-Zuckerberg CEO, the pain of seeing his loved one sicken and die, which was the same as Booker's.

[out_there]

Oooh, that's true. I hadn't noticed that his and Booker's motivations mirrored each other, which I'm guessing is how Copley reached out to Booker in the first place. Hmmm.

[silverr]

Regarding Booker's motive -- I'm surprised that the movie doesn't lampshade the additional reason that Booker, as he showed up 300 years after Quynh went into the sea and thus never "met" her, must have been having nightmares of her since he awoke.

[kore]

AUGH.

I am a bit confused on the nightmares (haven't read the comic in full yet!) -- they start dreaming about Nile before she dies, and she dreams of them? And then she dreams about Quynh's drowning? (LOL, I can already tell if Quynh is a villain in the sequel she will be my "YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND HER" woobie a la Faith Lehane.) So do they all dream of each other dying, or does that only happen sometimes?

[silverr]

The nightmares are in the comic as well, but explained a bit better in the movie, I think? the way I understand it, once a new OG awakes, the others will dream of them until they meet in person. (I believe that the scene in the boxcar, with the 4 dreaming of Nile, happens after she dies?)

[kore]

I shall just have to watch it again! What hardship!

[silverr]

Also, the comic does not have the scene of Nile waking and talking about dreams of Quynh, because Quynh is movie-only. Noriko has only the one-page mention in volume 1 of the comic. (I have not yet read Volume 2.)

[kore]

Wow, this is all really interesting! (We JUST saw it tonight, it was GREAT.) I love the detail of Nile being into art history, she'd probably bug them all for details of what they have seen.

[goodbyebird]

The most noticeable difference to me was how much more angry Andy was, and how much the team bickered. No smiling and hugging. Really happy they changed that around in the movie. So so tired of teams that mostly seem to scratch at one another.

I did really like the detail of Nile's plan to go into art history. Hoping that bleeds into the movie fandom.

[silverr]

"Really happy they changed that around in the movie."

Oh yeah, seconded hard. I loved the "found family" vibe.

And I loved how well Theron communicated the utter weariness.

[aurumcalendula]

This! (and I liked that Nile got to meet everyone before they got captured)

[aurumcalendula]

It was neat to see how much dialogue was directly from the comic!

I think the changes that were made worked really well. I'm glad they decided to make the movie Andy and Nile's story.

[havocthecat]

I have not actually read the comic yet, but I'm excited that someone has done this for when I do read the comic. Thank you!

[schneefink]

Interesting, thanks!

[castalie]

I've never read the comics (actually only found out it was inspired by comics after watching The Old Guard, ahem) and I don't think I will but I was curious so that was a nice a post to read, thank you :)

Overall, it seems the changes from the comics to the movie adaptation were in our favour, that's pretty cool to know! And should we get a sequel (or several? One can only hope) I hope we'll get to know about "that time in Malta" too #FingersCrossed

[silverr]

Hehe, and if not, there's always fanfiction!

(Considering the explosion of Nicky/Joe, I'd be surprised if there isn't at least one fic with that premise already.)

(Also, I love your icon!)

[castalie]

It's not just one, indeed lol The fandom is growing so incredibly fast, too! Such a joy to witness ;)

(Thanks! I remember a time when talented icon makers shared their icons with us all over LJ/DW and now, alas, I wouldn't even know where to go to find them, if they still exist, so I made this one myself.)

[sixthlight]

Thanks for this! Sounds like the changes considerably improved the treatment of the female characters - and in fact almost everybody's characterisation - which is great, normally with adaptations it's the other way around. The screenshots I've seen of the comic art have been...not promising.

[silverr]

I like that the writer of the comic (Greg Rucka) wrote the script; it's as if, having had time to think about the story and the characters, he made some adjustments.

I sort of like the style of the comic; at times it reminds me of Yumi Tamura's Legend of Basara, and at other times of woodcuts, but it's not for everyone.

[sixthlight]

I hope Greg Rucka deserves some credit but I think the involvement of female creatives producing/directing is probably also relevant!

TBF I'm picky about comics art but in particular the depiction of Joe ends up way too close to xenophobic early-20th C Western art for me.

[silverr]

Oh, absolutely! Given Gina Prince-Bythewood's other films, it's a safe bet that she especially had a large influence.

Yeah, I can definitely see what you mean re: Joe.

[starwatcher]

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I only just saw the movie a week ago, and was very impressed that both women were allowed to be competent badasses, and no one around them treated it as anything other than ordinary, like "of course women are skilled and capable leaders and fighters; why wouldn't they be?" As I watched the credits, and discovered that both the producer and director were women, I thought, "Ah-HA! Should have known; it takes a woman to show women as people instead of love interests!"

Thanks so much for this detailed comparison. Right now, I'm in the "grab every scrap of information possible" mode, and this is just very satisfying.
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[silverr]

You're welcome!

I have the comics in electronic format: if there are any pages you'd like to see, let me know and we can arrange something.

[starwatcher]

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Thank you for your offer. With that hint, I found issues 1-5 online. Gotta say, I am NOT impressed by the art, which makes the faces look like caricatures instead of people. However, I did enjoy the info I learned, like Andy was married in Australia, and Nile has had -- and is competent at -- a number of jobs. But I couldn't ask to see specific pages because I didn't know what information I didn't have but would like to know -- a definite Catch 22.

LOL, I am not comic-savvy; several times I wouldn't have been able to figure out the gaps in storyline/pictures if I hadn't seen the movie. They're interesting, but I feel that the movie definitely enhanced the story's impact and accessibility. I'm glad I got to see it, and that it's generating so much marvelous fic.

Thanks again for offering to share the digital pages; that community fellowship is one of the best parts of fandom.
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[silverr]

I agree; to me the movie improved on the comic in every way.

(The best thing about the comic is that it provided the foundation and springboard for the movie!)

[silverr]

(oh, and as for pages -- if you just tell me what scene you're interested in I can find it; the comixology viewer makes that quite easy.)

[delphi]

Thanks for putting this together!

A tiny correction, which I only bring up because it has implications for where finding Booker fits in the timeline - Achilles fought in the American Revolutionary War, not the U.S. Civil War.

Also (two cents, grain of salt, mileage may vary) but the changes regarding Andy's sex scenes didn't strike me as solely about undoing 'sexualization' or shifting out of the male gaze, and I found it to be an interesting piece of how Andy's arc changed in translation. The first volume of the comic was intended to be a standalone, and while elements from the second got brought into the movie to set it up for a longer run, Andy's arc in the first volume is less about feeling she hasn't done any net good in the world and more about no longer feeling alive. Picking up a stranger every night is presented as part of her futile attempt to pass time and feel something, and it's used to then inform future (or future/past) moments with Achilles, Noriko, and her team.

Dropping this from the movie makes complete sense because it would have been gratuitous in light of the changed arc. The element about the team's influence on the world is brought in at an earlier point, and the changes to Andy's immortal status would have muddled the message if not made it downright unfortunate (on top of the extra issues around filming a bunch of one-night stands as opposed to just drawing them). But I feel like the shift happened primarily because an arc about numbness works a lot better in a comic where all the internal monologue is Andy's as opposed to a more team-focused movie with only one brief voiceover.

[silverr]

Oh excellent points about Andromache: I read volume 1 after watching the movie twice, and I had a bit of a knee-jerk overreactions to how she was initially presented (and the first comment the team has to her) in the comic.

I'll make that correction about Achilles. How would you fit her time with Achilles into the Booker timeline then? (I was thinking of Achilles being in his late 20s or early 30s when he and Andy met, (which would have to be post 1783?) and that he was 70-80 when she left, but the French invasion of Russia was 1812, which would have given then at most 30 years together ( and Achilles would have had to have been older when they met, yes?)

[delphi]

I wouldn't call it an overreaction at all - I think it's 100% understandable and valid. I just wanted to throw my two cents in as someone who read the comics first and kind of appreciated how that played out - although I really liked the changes made for the movie.

I don't think there's a clear picture of how Booker and Achilles' time in Andy's life shake out, only that knowing it was the Revolutionary War and not the Civil War makes it a lot more complicated. :D

So...just talking out loud, if we go off how the story looks on the surface and also assume Achilles was among the first sent to Australia on penal transportation, we could say that he and Andy met in the late 1780s and he was born in the latter half of the 1750s?

I think there are at least three options here. As you say, they could have split up before 1812 and Achilles was a lot older than thirty when they met. A real possibility story-wise, but it would be a misstep in the art considering how young he looks right when Andy is saying how he wasn't even thirty when he landed in Australia. A second option would be that they split up before 1812 and Achilles was a lot younger than he looked when Andy left. He lived a hard life and that could put a lot of lines on your face back then, but again, that would be a misstep in the art considering we see him aging in stages that suggest a lot of years in between rather than a sudden decline.

The third I can think of is pure speculation, but: the fact that Nile namedrops that portrait as a possible Pickersgill makes me wonder if finding Booker could have taken place in the middle of Andy and Achilles' relationship, and if Andy and Achilles could have possibly travelled back once to Europe together around 1812. They sail back to England, she or they go to France to meet Booker, and somewhere in there they get their portrait painted by Pickersgill who probably would have been in London at the time. Achilles would have been in his mid to late 50s in 1812, which lines up with how he looks in the portrait: partially greyed and older, but not the white-haired elderly man we see him as later on. Maybe Nicky and Joe could have done the legwork on tracking Booker down, sent word to Andy who came to meet him, and then Andy actually went back to Australia with the intention of seeing through Achilles' life with him (which could have then influenced Booker to stay in his own family's life).

[silverr]

Ah, yeah, that third scenario makes a lot of sense, as Andy would have stopped having nightmares about Booker as soon as they'd met, and, as you pointed out, Booker is shown with his family after his "resurrection."