I think there is a problem with a film trying to appeal too much to its source material. They are too very different mediums afterall
The man never even read a Batman comic.
But the comic book form is very different to that of a film.
This is something that I've noticed when classic literary characters are "adapted" to other media. Someone on another forum asked the question, "John Carter vs Conan: Who would win?" You have three different versions of each character, the ones that Howard and Burroughs created, the ones that were depicted in the comic books, and the ones that we saw in the movies. Compare Schwarzenegger with Kitsch, and there is no doubt, Arnold would walk all over Taylor looking for a fair fight. Compare comic book Conan with comic book Carter, and the scales are more equal. Compare Burroughs' Warlord, the greatest swordsman who ever lived, with Howard's brute with a cleaver, and Conan is toast.
The movie characters simply aren't what the REAL characters, the ones who the old fans grew up with and loved, were, and we don't recognize them as "our" heroes. This Superman is a jerk, this Batman is a psychopath, and neither one bears more than the slightest resemblance to what their creators originally envisioned, and even that isn't what they evolved into over decades of writing. The movie John Carter is a mere shadow of Burroughs' ultimate civilized hero.
In trying to lure in new fans by depicting more modern versions of the characters, whether Batman, Superman, John Carter, or Tarzan, you take the very real chance of alienating the people who made those characters immortal in the first place. That's one of the things (not the only one by a long shot) that kept "John Carter" from becoming the first blockbuster of the summer and "Batman vs Superman" from being the success that, obviously, it was hoped to be.
My sincere hope is that, by going back to the original material in spirit, if not in script, "The Legend Of Tarzan" manages to avoid the curse that "JC" and BvS" succumbed to.
