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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.
See ya tomorrow
It will probably have as much to do with the comic book as Starship Troopers had to do with the Sci-Fi classic.
Keep in mind, there wasn't a whole, whole lot of action in Watchmen, & a lot of the intricacies of the "superheroes" relationships will probably be glossed over.
There is a war going on for your mind.
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are almost never 100% faithful - the closest I've seen lately is "No Country for Old Men."
It's not that it's impossible but it's just not necessary or preferable. If a movie gets the spirit of its source material, captures something of its style, and brings something new to it that could only be accomplished cinematically then it's probably a successful adaptation.
Appparently, he agrees.
Uh oh.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Add to this the fact that Alan Moore isnt lending his name to the movie and I am even more skeptical. A dark story with a non-happy ending doesn't sit very well with focus groups. I will save my cash a read the book again.
hear hear.
Watchmen is a classic. It is my favorite classic. I still get it down and read it every now and then and it still makes me shiver.
My instinctive reaction to the film is "Noooooo!", but on reflection I then think of the "V for Vendetta" movie and I remember that it is possible to make a damn good film out of a graphic novel without following it exactly. I know "Sin City" is more or less a scene for scene clone of the book, likewise "300" - but it does not have to be like that. Vendetta showed us that.
Looks like its going to suck. Bad actors, the director is a dweeb, the special effects are going to be laughable.
With production values this bad, who will watch The Watchmen?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Every normal person I know seems to believe V for Vendetta was a great movie. Maybe adapting a good book into a good movie, even at the expense of diverging from the original work, isn't all bad.
"Rorschach's rampant homophobia, for example, or the original Miss Jupiter's deep and abiding love for her would-be rapist, are uncomfortable but central topics in the book."
Seeing as I barely noticed these things, I have to disagree that they are "central topics". It would be exceedingly easy to tell the important parts of the story while leaving most of that out, especially Rorschach's homophobia.
"Jon's gradual shedding of his costume down to full-frontal nudity, as he gradually distances himself from humanity, is also an important progression."
That I agree with. In the case of your previous examples, their absence would change little. This example was not only obvious, but necessary. Without removing the "deus ex machina" that Jon was, the story would have been impossible to tell.
I still think that stupid "tachyon" garbage Veidt used was a major flaw in the story. I lost a bit of respect for Moore for using technobabble and hand waving to get around Jon's immense power.
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.
I agree mostly (V wasn't really an anarchist, he just wanted to destroy the current system so that a new, better one could be built instead). Really, the major difference with "V" can be illustrated by this one key line change:
Original: "There is no flesh beneath this mask, there is only an idea"
Movie : "There is more than flesh beneath this mask, there is an idea"
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.
My mom says I'm cool.
Hollywood will glitz up the story, and gloss over the personal details. IMHO, it's the personal relationships that make the Watchmen such a good story. At its core it is a story about people, not action.
It'll be a shame to watch that take a back seat to special effects.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Granted he has good reason in the past to not want to be associated with big companies as hes been screwed more than once, but the same can be said about a lot of other talented comic writers out there and they have had no issues with playing the game even after being burned in the past. I highly doubt that without Frank Millers help, Sin City or 300 would have been half as impressive as they where.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
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
Converting caffeine into code since 1982
Personally, I nominate for deletion the entire novel-within-the-novel of the shipwrecked castaway. Every time that came up, I found myself flipping forward, looking for the main story to pick up again. In fact, it seemed all the extra characters who we saw passing by the newsstand in New York were just "whales" (q.v. Douglas Adams).
I would be very disappointed if Rorschach's backstory as told to the psychologist were cut. Some amazingly powerful and resonant stuff in there. "Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. Live our lives, lacking anything better to do. Devise reason later."
Really, really good.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
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.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
The only way to do include any of this sort of material be to do it on the cheap and raise independent funding. If you accept Hollywood's fat cash, you accept that they're going to make your movie as inoffensive and audience-pleasing as possible. Those are the strings attached.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
http://www.cinematical.com/2008/05/26/tales-of-the-black-freighter-getting-dvd-release/
I thought V for Vendetta was a very good movie. It wasn't much like the original, but it was a good movie. It needed to change to suit the times, and it did. And it looked good. And it discarded some bullshit that didn't make sense.
The Justice League Unlimited episode based on his Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything," was also excellent, partly because it excised a sort of pointless subplot.
Alan Moore is a good writer, but he also uses other people's characters and ideas, and tosses anything that doesn't suit what he's trying to tell. He's as guilty as anyone of screwing with originals to adapt them to his own taste.
Watchmen was based on old Charlton characters (Blue Beetle = Nite-Owl, the Question = Rorschach, etc.); V for Vendetta was strongly influenced by 1984; Supreme was based on Superman -- and he tossed the character's history to make his own version); Tom Strong is based on various pulp heroes; League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was based on various literary characters, and is not the first such pastiche by far (and it was an awful book); and Lost Girls was a pervy take on fairy tales. Even Top 10, probably my favourite thing he's done, makes innumerable references to other works, and I'm not sure how much it was influenced by Astro City.
Moore really is good, and Watchmen is his most important work, so I hope it's adapted well. (It really came along at the right moment; the world was ready in the 1980s for a serious deconstruction of superheroes.) I've only seen stills so far but they really seem to capture the right mood and look. But his work is not flawless, and it's practically as derivative as the movies it inspired.
As a possible exception, I'd mention A Clockwork Orange. In the movie, Alex ends up being rewarded and pampered by the state. There's no sense of justice or of Alex actually learning anything. Sure the old writer makes him suffer, but that's revenge and doesn't feel like justice (to me at least).
In the book, he ends up forming another gang, but grows tired of it, as he's growing up and wants a better life. It leaves me with a sense of the redeem-ability of even the worst humans.
In neither book or film does he really learn anything up to the deconditioning. Only in the book does he understand that he ultimately wants life to be different. Granted, that movie was made a while ago. If someone tried to make it today, they'd probably turn it into a romantic comedy with Tom Cruise, Kristin Dunst, and Eugene Levy.
They killed Matt Damon and Leonardo de Caprio. Its the happiest ending I've seen since Titanic, which only killed one of the two, but sort of poisoned the festive mood with thousands of people (who weren't Leonardo di Caprio) dying in the background.
Now how is Hollywood going to top that... I have an idea: Oceans 14. We put in Matt Damon, Leonardo de Caprio, George Clooney, and any many who has ever even considered being in an "Oceans #{i += 1}" movie, and then at the end of the daring casino caper we kill them all. I would pay to see that twice, and then buy the DVD so I could skip straight to the good part.
In fact, forget the casino caper, that part tends to drag anyhow. Tell you what -- they break in 2 seconds into the movie, it turns out the pit boss is River Tam, and the next 90 minutes is filled with non-stop star killing.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.