If you want to see an alien beat up a predator, go read the ‘90s comics. Want to know what REALLY happens at the end of “The Lord of the Rings?” Read the last book.

Adapting any media into a movie is like walking on a tightrope held by the fans with guard rails provided by the movie studio: The fans may get mad at some executive decisions and shake the rope, but the producers and director have the big wig-guard rails to hold on to. After all, it is their movie and their money. Who says they have to listen to us?

Well, if they stray too far from the source material they end up making a dud that no one can identify with. I’m thinking about the “Doom” movie on this one. Stay too close to the source material, and you alienate your audience. Recent history, however, has started to change that adage. “Sin City,” “300” and “Transformers” pulled it off brilliantly. And two of those three were adapted from graphic novels.

But does every comic, video game and book need to be adapted into a movie? Whatever happened to the good ol’ imagination taking us places instead of some stupid director (Uwe Boll, we all hate you).

Look at “Aliens vs. Predator.” Good on paper, horrible on screen. I’ve read better fan fiction than that. However, the new AVP movie, which is titled “Requiem,” looks to be what the first should have been, an R-rated gore fest with lots of action and humans caught in the mix.

In recent years, movies based on, or loosely based on, other material have been fairly decent, if not blockbuster hits. “Batman Begins,” for example, was slightly based on the graphic novel “Batman: Year One.”

Obviously, “Lord of the Rings” was based on the trilogy of books and those movies turned out great. While they couldn’t fit everything in there, the extended four plus hour editions served the fans well.

On the opposite end you have things like “Doom.” The Rock was pretty bad-ass, but the story was so detached from the main fiction of the games that I just couldn’t accept it. It’s a fun movie, but nothing like it could have, or should have, been.

Even “Resident Evil” was a disappointment. Then there is the “Fantastic Four”….we won’t talk about the “Fantastic Four.” And what about the newest “Superman” movie? He’s SUPERMAN, for cryin’ out loud. Let him punch a super-villain or giant robot or something.

And the adaptations keep coming, too. The “Golden Compass,” part one of a fantastic trilogy of books, is being turned into a high budget movie. A re-imagining of “The Incredible Hulk” is in the works and the “Hitman” movie comes out soon. “Iron Man” is on its way with a new Batman slated for the summer as well.

It seems that everyone is caught up in this mad rush to make adaptations when there may be no need to. Everything you could ever want in the movie you are going to see is right there in the video game, graphic novel, book or comic book.

Instead of the fanboys getting mad about the “Doom” movie, maybe they should go play the game. If you want to see an alien beat up a predator, go read the ‘90s comics. Want to know what REALLY happens at the end of “The Lord of the Rings?” Read the last book.

It’s all there. To quote everyone’s favorite show, “Just take a look. It’s in a book.” Books, comic books and video games win over their movie counterparts.

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