“MY FACE! GIVE ME BACK MY FACE!”. The panel from the quintessential graphic novel is one of the first things that come to mind when I see another mysterious character in television and film stripped of said mystery with an act so simple as removing their helmet, mask, or any similar stimulation for once was fans. Why exactly does it work when it happens to Rorschach, Batman, or Iron Man and virtually no other character? Because these men behind the mask push forward the stories they live in with equal strength and perpetuity to the larger than life heroes they pilot.
So why is it assessed as a failure and in a way, disrespect when the same thing happens to such characters as Master Chief, Michael Myers, and The Mandalorian? Because it doesn’t serve the story and thus turns these windows to the soul into another focal point for our anger and disappointment. Who exactly do we blame when these shows/movies strip off the masks and or prosthetics in favor of these “sexy” actors that lie underneath?
The knee jerk answer is more times than not the writing. I can see how some of the writers for projects like Halo and Mando might have read Watchmen or seen Iron Man and be motivated by the idea of two characters being represented in one body. But then when you get into it, how could they be so inspired by such an idea yet still find it in themselves to completely miss the point?
While another thought could be that it’s the actor’s fault and they made the demands to get face time, that would most realistically be half of the answer. I remember reading an article upon the release of either X-Men: First Class or Dark Phoenix that went into the details of Jennifer Lawrence’s contract with the trilogy. Apparently it outlined how much face time JLaw herself would be guaranteed outside of Mystique makeup as arranged by her agent.
This segways me into the third most common answer to this whodunit which entails production companies themselves. I shared my thoughts about the above with a friend over drinks the night before writing this and he reminded me of one of the earliest Hollywood practices that still persists to this day. Studios would create deals specifically for talent that would make them poster-children for the companies they were bound to for as long as they signed on for.
As much as I wish we knew which exact email address to flood for all of the problems I see in things, the truth of the matter is that whoever decides what intellectual properties to ruin in this way is very much on a project by project basis. The hands always change but the root of this evil is very much the same. If you find yourself calling shots for a project that represents a story beloved by fans that revolves around a masked person of mystery, ask yourself this question.
Would removing this person’s mystery service the story I’m trying to tell?