These days, comic book adaptations get the A-list treatment. Major directors get attached to them early, big-name stars camp it up for big paychecks and their budgets are massive. They're either summer blockbusters like Spider-Man or they're arthouse films like Sin City and Watchmen. Even when they bomb they're given a fair shake in the initial marketing push. Such was not the case back in 1995 when Rachel Talalay decided to adapt the British punk comic Tank Girl for the screen. Back then comics got the same treatment as video games in the film industry. The result was a huge box office flop (grossing roughly $20 million less than the budget) and possibly even the derailment of an otherwise promising career for star Lori Petty. So, what was wrong with Tank Girl and what could have been done to fix it?

The first and biggest hurdle was its source material. Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett created the Tank Girl comics for Deadline magazine, a publication that rose out of the highly political pop culture scene of England in the 1980's. While the comics themselves aren't exactly mature or well thought-out, they have an anarchic appeal that's pretty thrilling in the context of the counter-culture in which it was born. It would be no small task even today to adapt Tank Girl properly. The first issue alone features a gang of mutant kangaroos, a tank parked upside down and a barbecue transformed into a bloodbath. Each panel is downright claustrophobic and there's really nothing cinematic about the text. Talalay took on a project that simply couldn't be done in 1995 and then made the mistake of bringing it to a major movie studio where its last spark of creativity would die a predictable death.

The other major problem with the Tank Girl adaptation is that it's at war with its own sense of time and culture. The comics and the style they promoted were inextricably tied to the punk art of the 80's. All the outrageous forms, busy panels and cavalier ultra-violence came out of a real sense of youthful anger and rebellion. Rachel Talalay aimed for something else entirely. Hers was a very 90's Tank Girl, a tech-obsessed and baldly optimistic celebration of style that doesn't even begin to earn its R-rating. It was meant to be as fun and inclusive as possible, which ultimately killed any chance it had at being a big middle-finger to, well, anything. In the end, Tank Girl has more in common with Spice World and Hackers than it does with Mad Max or Surf Nazis Must Die.

Tank Girl might have been saved if it had been 100% animated instead of being a mix of live action, animatronics and a brief, film-closing cartoon sequence. It still would have been a hard sell, though it probably would have thrived on the home video market along with other, equally irreverent movies of the era. It might have even been half as hip and clever as its soundtrack, a veritable who's who of alternative music in 1995. As a live action film, Tank Girl was destined to fail. It took Deadline magazine with it and ended Lori Petty's streak of high profile roles. This is what happens when you try too hard to be cool.