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Will you watch these Watchmen?
CookedHaggis:
It's more Moore's arrogance that somehow his work is above adaptation. Sure, a direct translation book-to-film is impossible (just like a direct stage-to-screen translation of Hamlet is impossible...changing the medium, even slightly, changes the work), but truly excellent interpretations of great works in other media are possible; it just takes a lot of work and talent. The idea that if anything is changed in the adaptation process then the result is an abomination seems artistically reductive. Yes, Austen, Shakespeare and Dickens were dead, but the point is that excellent films have been made from their work, films that deserve to be called art in their own right. Yes, it's very hard to make great art from great art because many of the things which make it great are often intrinsically entangled with the nature of the medium (Shakespeare's sense of the theatre for example, or, to take something far less film-friendly than Watchmen, Joyce and his linguistic gymnastics), but that shouldn't put a blanket ban on trying. It's just that people should be careful how they try.
Still, you have got a point. The League film was so tremendously abysmal that it put me off reading the original for ages, and the Vendetta film was blandly entertaining. However, I do disagree with much of Moore's criticisms of the V film: the problem wasn't that they changed the central conflict from anarchy v fascism to liberalism v neo-conservativism (which gives the film far too much credit), the problem was that they simplified everything to such an extent that the conflict became meaningless. It was more 1984 (it even had John Hurt! As Big Brother!) rewritten by a slightly slow and extremely optimistic twelve year old (whose edition was missing the last few pages) than anything else.
pilsner:
I'm not sure that Moore believes his work above or beyond adaptation. When Sin City was made, I heard that Frank Miller exercised a dictatorial level of creative control over all aspects of the film. Moore, on the other hand, was merely offered the opportunity to collaborate on a script. Collaborating on a script for studio movie is offering your ideas up as chum in a shark tank -- they're going to look a good deal different when the process is over and Moore is aware of that. It appears that Moore lacks either the rights or the inclination to exercise the level of creative control that Miller did, and consequently declines to participate in the process. Given the quality of V, From Hell, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I can't say I blame him.
Personally, I was so satisfied by the best of Moore's work that a movie felt unnecessary anyway. I mean it's a graphic novel for crying out loud. At best, the movie will reproduce the emotional and intellectual impact of the book by either means. To take the Sin City movie, for instance, as much as I loved it, I didn't feel it added significantly to the ground that the books had already covered.
Johnny C:
Nope, sorry. Love the dude's work but he thinks he's really above adaptation:
--- Quote from: BBC Interview, shortly after the release of 'V For Vendetta' ---Originally I was content to just simply accept the money, that was offered when people had adapted my comic books into films. Eventually I decided to refuse to accept any of the money for the films, and to ask if my name could be taken off of them, so that I no longer had to endure the embarrasment of seeing my work travested in this manner. The first film that they made of my work was "From Hell" Which was an adaptation of my "Jack the Ripper" narrative... In which they replaced my gruff Dorset police constable with Johhny Depp's Absinthe-swigging dandy. The next film to be made from one of my books was the regrettable "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"... Where the only resemblence it had to my book was a similar title. The most recent film that they have made of mine is apparently this new "V for Vendetta" movie which was probably the final straw between me and Hollywood. They were written to be impossible to reproduce in terms of cinema, and so why not leave them simply as a comic in the way that they were intended to be. And if you are going to make them into films, please try to make them into better ones, than the ones I have been cursed with thus far.
--- End quote ---
sandysmilinstrange:
They're so... young. I know there's lots of flashbacks in the comic and I know that what we're seeing in those pictures isn't what we'll see in the movie, but still...
I had a cold chill up my spine when I read the Veidt character description.
Cartilage Head:
The fact that they didn't try to pack the cast with superstar actors helps me maintain a little bit of hope that the movie will not be utter shit.
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