It kind of makes sense. The strength of this system is that it can shine a light on minor works from smaller publishers too. For example, how many people even knew of A History of Violence or Road to Perdition before the films hit theaters? Both are considered all-time classics in the graphic novel medium, but it's undeniable that the movies brought more people into "the know." In 2014, we got two more awesome sci-fi films based on foreign comics. Those films: Bong Joon-ho's incredible dystopian Snowpiercer, and the Tom Cruise vehicle Edge of Tomorrow.
Snowpiercer is loosely based on a French graphic novel by writers Jacques Lob and Benjamin Legrand with artist Jean-Marc Rochette (the art, by the way, is black and white and among the best art I've seen). Told in three books, the basic environment is the same as the film. In the near future, the world has frozen over and everyone has died except for almost a thousand people living on a perpetually moving train called the Snowpiercer. The train provides adequate protection from the cold, but there's still a divide among the front and back of the train. A man named Proloff escapes from the rear of the train and is immediately quarantined by authorities worried that he carries disease and will spread it to the wealthier passengers up front. A woman named Adeline wishes to help him out of humanitarian kindness, but is quickly wrapped up in his schemes.
Unlike the film - in which the main male protagonist Curtis leads a revolution to take the front of the train - the comic follows Adeline and Proloff as they are escorted by guards to the front. The general wishes to speak to them, so we follow them through the cars. Though Adeline is from the "middle cars," even she is in awe with the excess of the front trains. Eventually, Proloff attempts to take control of the engine.
In the second and third books, we are meant to believe it takes place on a completely different train. The leaders are more deceptive, subduing their subjects under the threat of someday colliding with the Snowpiercer. These books contain a lot more in terms of content and themes. There is a big conflict among the "hero" Puig Valles and the military, and religious leaders - the latter who claim they speak on behalf of the Engine. There are more interesting elements added to these books as well. To keep the people content and submissive, they have several lotteries in which people can either win a "virtual trip" or the right to have a child. There's also a humorous cult that believes they are actually stuck on a spaceship and that the leaders are lying to them about being on a train. Suffice to say, these books offer a lot more.
Of course, all three books ultimately pale in comparison to Bong Joon-ho's film. His film takes a few of the basic concepts or plot elements, but really just makes his own film inspired by it. Perhaps this is the best way to make adaptations. Instead of going all Zack Snyder and simply trying to put a comic panel by panel on the screen, make a film inspired by the source material that gives the general feel of it, but is truly designed for the medium of film.
The Tom Cruise summer film Edge of Tomorrow is similarly based loosely on the novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. The book is the story of an unlikely heroic soldier who - while fighting alien invaders - somehow gets caught in a time loop. It's essentially a sci-fi edition of Groundhog Day. The story primarily follows Keiji Kiriya, but also takes some time to follow the character of Rita Vrataski, a woman who had also been stuck in a time loop. Both characters benefited from such loops. Being able to re-live each battle they fought meant they got progressively better as fighters. Rita had become the face of the military, a hero used often as a recruiting tool.
The two strike up an unlikely relationship, although Keiji essentially has to start over from scratch every day. The film isn't too dissimilar from the book in that basic premise. Tom Cruise plays William Cage, a man who has no battle experience, gets caught in that time loop and, with Rita's help, becomes an elite super soldier. The structure is a bit similar too in that where the film uses humorous montages, the book uses extremely brief, paragraph-long chapters to speed up and drive home the process.
(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!)
On the most part, the film does a better job with the basic story than the book. (Is it strange that I prefer the film adaptations of both these stories to their comic/novel source material?) However, it's impossible to compare these two without discussing the ending. They end in almost completely and fundamentally different fashions. So again, be warned that further reading will result in spoilers to both the film and the book:
In Edge of Tomorrow, Cage and Rita appear to sacrifice themselves to destroy the Omega, an alien device that allows for such time traveling in order to better crush their enemies. Even though both get essentially wrecked by the Alpha, destroying the Omega results in one final reset where - for some reason - Cage and Rita are both alive and hadn't met yet, but the aliens are starting to die off. It's very much an "upbeat" ending, presumably because that's how Hollywood blockbusters are supposed to end. After all, you can't kill a main character - especially a love interest - unless it's an old mentor-type. On the one hand, they both survive. On the other, Cage doesn't get any recognition for his role in saving the day.
All You Need Is Kill has a fundamentally different and darker ending. The book has a different set of rules than the film does, so the whole looping thing happens for slightly different reasons. It turns out that although Rita lost the ability to reset, she has - as a result - become an "Antenna." After over a hundred pages of seeing Rita and Keiji come together and form an unlikely relationship, it ends in such a way where they must fight to the death. Rita wants to survive and try to destroy the mimics herself. However, being an antenna means that she will continue to be stuck in the loop. Keiji can only get out of his loop and stop the mimics by destroying the antenna - by killing her.
It's a much more tragic ending. Where the film removes Cage's glory in exchange for Rita's life and the sake of a romantic and upbeat ending, the book sacrifices the love interest. It's a twist that is not only unexpected, but it's also an emotionally paralyzing moment. As a reader, you've spent much of the book watching these two come together and form a strong bond. Now, the only way to save the day is for Rita to die. We realize that all this time, Rita wasn't really helping Keiji improve so he can kill mimics; she was preparing him to kill her. Reluctantly, Keiji fights back and wins. As the mimics start to fall, he is showered in praise by the world and turned into a similarly heroic, messianic character as Rita was before him. We understand it's for the best - the world matters a bit more than the relationship of two individuals - but it still feels like an empty victory.
While I feel that the film is overall better, there's no question that the end of the book is far superior, both in general concept and in execution. The film's ending isn't just typical of Hollywood fare; it's also extremely confusing. The book makes it clear what happened, which also helps create the conflicting emotional response of the reader. It's hard to get a particularly compelling response to the film's ending when it doesn't make any narrative or thematic sense.
It isn't often that one can say the film is better than the source material, but both of these are. However, it is important to note that by no means does that mean the graphic novel and the book are bad. They're both good, quick reads. The films also work as examples of taking the basic premise of a book and making something new. Many die-hard nerds become extremely hostile at the slightest of changes, but sometimes what works in a book doesn't really work on film. I'd recommend checking out both film and comic/book.
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