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Dave Gibbons On the Forthcoming Watchmen Movie
An anonymous reader writes "Den Of Geek has been talking to comics legend Dave Gibbons about the upcoming transition of the Watchmen from the comic book to the silver screen. 'There are hardcore fans out there who'll be satisfied with nothing less than a word-for-word, line-for-line, scene-for-scene recreation of the comic book. I didn't believe that was ever going to happen.'" It's a rather short interview, but Gibbons addresses some interesting elements of both the movie and comic-book worlds.
I'm not sure that the only graphic novel to win the Hugo Award could be made into a mass-marketed movie that could do it justice. Already Zack Snyder (director of the upcoming film) has to trim 4 1/2 hours of film down to a puny 2 at best. Can you really cover it all in that short period of time? And BTW - the entire Tales of the Black Freighter will be released separately on DVD by Warner Bros right after the film comes out. Get out your pocket books, people!
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I think it says something that the filmmakers have made an entirely separate feature out of the "Tales of the Black Freighter" scenes from the original work. This is getting released on DVD right after the movie debuts. They are putting a lot of time and care into doing this right, and I don't think it's going to turn out as just another explosion-fest.
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Moore stated years ago he didn't want his name on any movies based on his creations. Whether this particular movie is good or not had no bearing on his decision.
Flamebait? "who will watch The Watchmen?" is a quote from the book. I thought it was funny.
As I understand it, in I Robot's case, the reason the story diverged so badly is because it wasn't based on the book at all.
The studio owned the name "I Robot" and used it on a similar story. The movie that came out under that title would have been called something else if they hadn't already owned that particular name.
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You're missing the point - Alan has distanced himself from every recent film made of his work, he doesn't take the fees offered even. He talked about this quite extensively in an interview on Radio Four a few years ago in the Chain Reaction series.
So Alan Moore not having his name on the credits means nothing at all about the quality of the film.
Dunx
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I disagree. Read the novel again, especially his little "speech" to the statue of Lady Justice atop the Old Bailey where he said that he had once loved Justice, but had found a new love: Anarchy.
Also, remember what he said to Evey about what would happen after the Norsefire regime finally fell, how the people would have the chance to create for themselves a society of voluntary order, or to build another government and let history repeat itself.
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The director has already said that it's a three-hour movie, although he's in a fight with the studio to keep it that long.
As for the story of the Black Freighter, it will be released in its entirety as a separate DVD-only animated film, released along with the Watchmen's theatrical release. More on that here.
I think they are taking extreme steps to make this movie faithful to the comic, and I'm heartened that it will be entertaining and true to the original. But we'll see....
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http://www.cinematical.com/2008/05/26/tales-of-the-black-freighter-getting-dvd-release/