I think there is enough interest in this to justify it's own thread, so here it is!

Alan Moore slams 'Watchmen' director.

Sounds like he's a bit of a gumpy ole git to me!

I seem to remember reading that he's a bit of an odd fellow. Was it him who claims to have met one of the characters from his comics in real life?

As for the movie, the trailer looked really good to me. Like people were saying in the Coming Soon thread, you can't really form a good opinion from the first trailer. It certainly looks like the graphic novel to me, it was nice spotting certain bits from it.

The only thing I didn't like was Rorschach's voice. It was too stereotypical gruff American, and that's not what the character is like. Especially as in reality he's just a nobody, can you imagine Kovacs talking in that voice? I really hope they have him putting on a voice when he's Rorschach and that he doesn't talk like that all the time

Even so, it's still not how he "sounded" when I read it. The other characters look good, but we've not really seen/heard them properly yet. I'm still excited for it, though they could never fit anywhere near everything into 1 film so a lot of it's going to be cut out.

The entire "comic in a comic", Tales of the Black Freighter isn't going to feature, I seem to remember. Which is a shame, because it was really good.

EDIT: Oh, and you'll have to just imagine the blood stain on my smiley at the top.

Not strictly about the film, but found this and there seems nowhere more appropriate to put it.



I thought it was funny anyway.

Apparently it will feature as either an extra on the DVD or as a seperate DVD on it's own, last I heard.
I think the trailer is good & as much as I understand peoples concerns & criticisms of it I still haven't heard a good suggestion about what he should have done instead.

Basically for me, it doesn't look shite & that'll do for now.

Yes, I heard that too.

I seem to remember hearing they'd make them, and decide at what points in the main feature they'd be placed, and insert them into a special edition DVD. Which means that it might be like the Extended LotR, and have the movie be really long and split onto 2 discs.

Which is fine with me.

No, that was Grant Morrison, who seemed to believe he had not only met but was having a relationship with the character 'Ragged Robin' from his series The Invisibles, until he wrote her out of the series. Alan Moore is odd enough: to quote his Wikipedia page, 'Moore is a practising magician who worships a Roman snake deity named Glycon'.

As I understand it, he has been badly burned by Hollywood in the past (look what they did with The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), so his position on people who want to adapt his work for films is they can do it as long as they pay him, he has nothing to do with it, and they do not credit as being in any way responsible for the result.

As for his remarks on 300, well, let's just say he and Frank Miller have rather different philosophical and political assumptions.

He doesn't even get any payment for it. He's said that any and all royalties due to him from adaptations of his work should go to the artists he worked with, so on Watchmen all of his royalties will go to dave Gibbons.

Edit: In terms of what Snyder could have done with the trailer instead of what he ended up doing, I would have done a fairly linear trailer in which Rorschach details the murder of The Comedian, essentially offering an introduction for new people without showing their hand too early. This would also have allowed them to show glimpses of the other characters.

I do like the trailer a lot, I've rewatched it a fair few times now, and think that it offers a great first glimpse for fans, just not for new arrivals and I still think it's not the most effective opening gambit for the film.

No, what I'm thinking of was a male character who he encountered in the street one night. I'm sure it was Moore...

You're quite right: I forgot about that bit.



Well, I did assume that a comic book writer claiming to have met one of his own creations was so bizarre it would only have happened once, but I could well be wrong!

Maybe they're all loons...

As did I, Señor Hobbes.

I think that will come in time though Ed. Remember this is really nothing more than a teaser (a long one), it's just under a year before release.

There's a long way to go.

I think you're totally right. I'm thinking of it as a trailer, rather than a teaser, and I'm probably judging it by the wrong criteria.

For all my criticisms, I have watched it more times than any trailer since first The Dark Knight one, so it has had a huge impact on me.

I really don't think I've been as childishly excited as this about a film since The Phantom Menace.

Same here. I'm really very jazzed about seeing it. I never use the word ''jazzed'' usually, that's how jazzed I am about it.

Brilliant, Luke!

I am excited about this film. I've only really learned a bit about Watchmen before but the cast seems pretty good and hopefully, Snyder has the strength of imagination to pull it off. Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup and Carla Gugino are all great performers.

And all the above (including Snyder) are so darn pretty!

Not only that, he was sued over it. The producers had inserted characters in to the film that weren't in the books. Tom Sawyer, Dorian Gray, and a Hollywood script writer, who had written a work claiming that, essentially the producers of LOEG had stolen his script and had then had Moore write the comics to cover their tracks. Unfortunately one of the producers had written e-mails during the court case, as a joke, saying that he knew for a fact that Moore had stolen his ideas from the screenplay, thus leading to them settling out of court and infering that Moore stole his incrdibly detailed and well researched work from some Hollywood clot.

Seriously though, getting the man who directed the dumbest film of the dumbest comic book ever written to direct the film of one of the cleverest comic books written? That really hangs upon the idea that if the medium which the source material was conveyed is the same then the person will be able to repeat their success. By that token the man who directed The Devil Wears Prada (novel) could also have directed Fight Club (novel).

Beyond this is this on going idea that if a comic makes the grade, if it's really good enough, it gets to be adapted into a film. Really? Does it? Can we convert this throughtful innovative medium into a clattering bucket of eye spunk? Can we? Really? Fuuuuuck You.

That's Alan Moore's beef at some level I believe

Fair enough. I can see why it would gall the comic writers and artists as well as the fans. But making a good story (whatever form) more mainstream doesn't mean it will automatically rubbish or lesser. Just different.

Or sometimes film doesn't translate at all - and people go back to the original comic and say "Oh I see". As happened with me and V for Vendetta.

I do worry about Snyder. Dawn of the Dead was a decent enough b-movie that whilst I enjoyed it, it's nothing special. Whereas 300 isn't even a film it's just a series of images with no emotional depth or entertainment.

Then again, maybe he'll miraculously come up with the goods for this one.

Alan Moore claims to have met John Constantine from Hellblazer.

In 1993, he told Wizard Magazine:

“ One day, I was in Westminster in London — this was after we had introduced the character — and I was sitting in a sandwich bar. All of a sudden, up the stairs came John Constantine. He was wearing the trenchcoat, a short cut — he looked — no, he didn't even look exactly like Sting. He looked exactly like John Constantine. He looked at me, stared me straight in the eyes, smiled, nodded almost conspiratorially and then just walked off around the corner to the other part of the snack bar.
I sat there and thought, should I go around that corner and see if he is really there, or should I just eat my sandwich and leave? I opted for the latter; I thought it was the safest. I'm not making any claims to anything. I'm just saying that it happened. Strange little story.
”

He claimed to have met him again later. In 'Snakes and Ladders' he said:

“ Years later, in another place, he steps out of the dark and speaks to me. He whispers: 'I'll tell you the ultimate secret of magic. Any cunt could do it.' ”

I love and respect Moore's work but he is one weird bastard!

That's the story I was thinking of.

I must say, I find myself watching this trailer over and over.

I'm really tempted to blow £50 on Absolute Watchmen too.

My Dad went to school with him. Apparently he's very good at rugby.

To be fair, that's about as much as either of those films needed. You can't make great art from a comic that's completely shallow and empty, so it's little surprise that the film ended up like that as well.

In fact, when you compare the comic and the film, they're very similar indeed.

Which is good if Watchmen will be the same.

I've always been a fan of this one:

^ I forgot about that one! Superb.

I loved the trailer, meself... I've resigned myself to the fact that the film simply isn't going to be anywhere near as multi-dimensional and textured as the comic, and I'm not sure it should be. I didn't adore the choice of music, but I understand why ZS chose it. And I'm still not sure I buy Nite Owl's makeover, but everyone else looks fantastic. Dr. Manhattan blowing the Viet Cong to smithereens made me wee myself... HOLY BURNING RICE PADDIES!!!

In other news, Michele will like this one - Cheesecake artwork of Carla Gugino as Silk Spectre I. HAWT.

Very nice.

I know they make comments about his looks in the book, but it really was a bit of a silly costume he had. Not quite as bad as that moth/butterfly one, but Nite Owl's a main character.

I think his change is a good move, and he's not different enough to make him seem different really. And everyone else looks good too, especially Rorschach and Comedian who look like they've just walked out of the comic.

This is cool.

Can I ask why?

Personally, if the intention isn't to at least try and make it something different from usual comic-book movie fare (as the comic was), then I don't really see the point in making it at all. From the trailer (and I admit, trailers can sometimes be misleading), I'm not seeing much that leaps out and says that this film is different in any way at all.

I do know one way in which it differs.

Adrian is killed by the Owl Ship crashing through into him by Nite Owl using a remote control. I guess Hollywood can't allow the "bad guy" to survive the movie.

I mean 'good' difference, instead of 'shite' difference, though.

You can download the script here, though I've not looked myself.

I might give it a look over.

Comparing the trailer and graphic novel:

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/watch...mic_comparison/

Bought the graphic novel when I was in town today (I'd previously borrowed it from someone).

I wanted the Absolute version, but couldn't justify paying 5 times the price of the regular for it.

I've read the script, and the film is pretty much a faithful retelling of the comic, until we get to the end.

Instead of the "alien" teleporting into New York, killing many people but stopping all wars as humanity unites in the face of an imagined enemy, there's a new plan that Adrian has. From his Antarctic base, he's set up a machine to use an energy source he was working on with Dr. Manhatten to destroy several cities around the world (as it's not just the US and Russia on the brink of war - China and Tibet and a couple of other tense nations are at each-other too) and impersonates Dr. Manhatten in a voice-over on the news, saying he's watching and will punish any nation that takes up arms against others.

Obviously, it's a very different ending, though the core principle of it is the same. And to be honest, the original plan was a bit silly however you look at it. Even if this is a bit more traditional Hollywood, it makes more technical sense and I don't think it's film-destroying.

Other than that 1 bit, the rest of it is almost exactly the same, right down to word-for-word conversations.

I shouldn't have read it & I don't like it.

eta: You're spoilered quotes I mean, I haven't read the script.

Read the script. I mean, you've had it spoiled for you anyway now, and if you read it you might not think it so bad as when you read my synopsis.

I'm so weak I shouldn't have looked.

I'll drink it away.....or just take your suggestion. Or both.

If it doesn't strike you as such, then that's your impression and that's fine. That's not really what I was saying, though... all I was saying was that it might be a mistake to attempt to make something with as much layering and subtext as the comic and wind up stuffing it too full of great ideas. A lot of adaptations of weighty material do that and are lesser than the sum of their parts for it. (When they try to condense them into a single feature, that is... something like The Stand, obviously, was different because it was allowed eight hours to breathe. Of course, it was also made for television and was limited in its allowable content as a result.)

There is absolutely no reason why an adaptation can't be streamlined in such a way that it work for the cinematic medium, if it's done right - that's my point. If your argument is that that very notion is pointless in this particular case, then you wouldn't be alone - Alan Moore agrees with you.

My argument is that just because it's possible *to* do something, it doesn't mean you *should*, if you're going to have to compromise what made a story mean something in the first place.

If things like From Hell and V for Vendetta have taught us anything, it's that.

I liked 'V for Vendetta'. The mediocre reviews only made it more of a pleasant surprise.

You're still not grasping what I'm saying, though - I'm talking about streamlining a narrative in such a way that the underlying relevance of the source text is NOT lost, simply translated in a way that makes sense on screen, rather than on the page. It might not have as many layers, but it can still be impactful if done right.

Bear in mind, I'm not making any assumptions here. Zacky boy may very well eff this up yet. I'm merely pointing out that he doesn't have to. It's a good omen that the Black Freighter stuff didn't wind up in the film, though he's still shooting it for the DVD; that would have just been impenetrable. (It's sometimes tough to get round in the book, even.)

Also, Alan Moore's point is that he wrote the thing very specifically to be consumed in that medium, at a leisurely pace, and that as such he has no interest in seeing it transferred to another format - which I totally get, and as the creator that's his prerogative.

I'm grasping fully what you're saying - I'm just saying I'm sceptical that it can be done without losing that relevance.

And as Moore himself believes, Snyder isn't up to the task. People waving 300 in the faces of naysayers isn't going to work - it was a good adaptation, true, but a good adaptation of a weak piece of work.

I'm uncertain whether Snyder will be able to deal with the complexities of something like Watchmen. I remain hopeful, yet cynical, if that's makes sense.

I think alot of the backlash is more from people complaining that it's so different from the comics, rather than about the quality, which I guess is the point. They took a book about England of the 80s and changed it to reflect America at the start of the 21st century. That's a large part of what I like about it, so I don't bother thinking about the source material.

Unlike The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which is a terrible adaptation and a piss-poor film.

I've actually heard very, very few of the former... the latter seems to be most folks' general opinion. (And mine.)



I wouldn't expect any less than a loving cup of cynicism from you, m'dear. You didn't sound terribly hopeful either, though... good to know if I misinterpreted that.

I'm Special Agent Tom Sawyer of the American Secret Service.

Tee hee hee

I just found 'V for Vendetta' to be a very entertaining, and unusually well thought out action film. That's all I really wanted from it.

V4V is light-years better than LXG, that's very true. (And that's a lot of acronym action.) Both are flawed but only one is unwatchable.

Also, V is a must see if only for Hugo Weaving giving the all-time most emotionally nuanced performance from behind an expressionless mask. It's astonishing.

Very true. He's great in it considering he has absolutely no way of expressing himself other than his voice and hands.

Portman's English accent is one of the worst I've ever heard, though.