I was wondering how in the hell you'd do The Watchmen in a single 2.5 hour movie.
I was wondering the same thing. I took a quick pass at how Snyder could squeeze 12 issues into two hours, and it just doesn't make sense even with the Black Freighter removed.
I wish they had done this as an HBO mini series or something, but alas. The trailer looked pretty, so we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed.
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. I agree with you, but will take it a step further. Books, comics, television, plays, and movies are all fundamentally different methods of storytelling, so an adaptation MUST tell the story in a different way. An adaptation that doesn't try something new will fail. For example, movies are inherently visual, while books can pop inside peoples heads and even take an omniscient perspective. I never appreciated this fully until I tried writing a screenplay after mostly writing prose.
A true adaptation from one medium to another will capture the essence of a theme and convert it to the storytelling method of the new medium. A great example is Silence of the Lambs. Huge chunks of the book are missing from the movie, but they took a solid core theme and knocked it out of the park with the visual implementation.
Comics can transfer to movies better than some books because they are both heavily visual, but there is different pacing and scope that could make Watchmen difficult to do. It might help that there are no "thought bubbles" in Watchmen (Trivia Alert) so what you see is what you get.
I think people seeing these differences between media as a "loss" is where a lot of the hand-wringing comes from when adaptations are mentioned. Personally, as long as they tell me a good story I'm going to be happy, and I'm really looking forward to seeing Watchmen on the big screen.
'Our testers for Grand Theft Auto IV ranged in age from 15 to 75 and included 10 women and five men. Users ran the gamut from upstanding citizens to flat out bitches and thugs. Half had never dropped a cap in anyone's ass before, and a full third had never jacked someone's ride.'
If they started doing video game reviews like their normal reviews, I might just subscribe...
I'm not sure this is a good idea at all, but I think the worst possible people to drive it would be the HW guys, and I'll get the disclosure out right now - I work for Intel*.
Gaming drives a lot of innovation and stress on the marketplace right now. Hot new games and ideas drive greater need for CPU and GPU innovation. If one HW company sets any standards (Intel, AMD/ATI, Nvidia, etc) we're going to see that come to a screeching halt as innovation gives way to "buy us because we're the most compliant."
I was going to suggest that some SW/HW API would be the best way to try something like this, but now I even think that would fail. The bothersome truth of it all is that the incompatibility and churn is part of an ongoing survival of the fittest that will sort itself out. AMD had better products than Intel for a long while, and while I think Intel is in the driver's seat now, only an idiot would count AMD/ATI out.
We all benefit from this ongoing struggle, so let it play out.
*The views here represent my own as a cog deep in the Intel machine, and do not necessarily reflect the Assuredly Important & Wise people I work for.
I thought that Microsoft was withdrawing Windows XP from the market in a couple of months I was debating whether or not to blow a few karma points just to make a joke about this OS being released as Windows XPeee, but fortunately I'm too mature for that sort of nonsense.
To be fair, this often grips some technical support people. I'm fairly technical, and if I go to tech support I've usually tried the first two or three rounds of things they're going to suggest. I figure I'm just saving us both time if I can explain what I've done already to try and reduce the complexity a bit. If they want me to repeat something I've done just a bit differently, I'm happy to do it.
However, often they don't even want to hear what I've done. They are reading off of scripts and have no idea how to actually fix the problem. They are in the same voodoo category, and very rarely end up actually helping. A shame, actually, because they either seem unable or (worse) unwilling to learn what they're trying to support. It wastes everyones time.
I've been using the intertubes long enough that I rarely feel the need to go all Grammarian on anyone, but this one is a peeve for some reason. So I'm going to throw a few karma points under the bus and get it out of my system.
WoW Insider had the chance to sit down with Ed Fries, the founder of the new and highly unique business "unique" means one of a kind, alone, as in singular. You really cannot modify that aspect of it. "Very unique" means "very one of a kind" and makes no sense. It's one of a kind, or it isn't. If it isn't singular, then it may be "very unusual", but it isn't unique, let alone "very unique". Same with "highly unique", "incredibly unique", "commonly unique", "doubly unique", or even "gobsmackingly unique".
Oh, yeah, I feel a LOT better. Like I just doubled the fiber in my diet or something. I think I'm good for the next few years.
WTF is with you people? Ever since the Apple made iPhones "bricks", this erroneous use of the term has seeped into our technical vocabulary. Sheesh... way to brick the discussion...
OS carcass on a hard drive this morning, random characters across its boot sector. This internet is afraid of me. I have seen its logins in the clear.
The passwords are in dictionaries and the dictionaries are full of "password", and when the accounts finally are taken over all their mothers maiden names won't save them.
The accumulated malware from all their pr0n and Myspace visits will load up about their processors and all from Tron Guy to Chuck Norris will look up and shout "reset us!"...
Damn - upon further research... There are certain things regular Slashdot readers come to expect from this site, and researched posts or comments is not one of them. Please don't let it happen again.
What about "Blade Runner: The Repli-Cut" from the perspective of the replicants?
Maybe it is something a Fanboy can do on their own now they will have so much good material to edit from. Those fan edits and trailers are starting to get better than some of the Hollywood releases.
He argues that Trekkies are different, but I think after the past few ST movies and "Enterprise" the two camps are starting to feel more alike in how they see their favorite mythos being treated.
Setting a tiny notebook against a tiny Asian woman kind of negates the 'WOW factor' of such a slim notebook. I would have suggested having Ving Rhames hold it, but that's just me. Ving Rhames rather than the ladies pictured? Dude, that's not only "just you", but you might want to get your own self out of there. That subset of the human population should have a membership of zero.
Yea, I was the same. When the helicopter transformed though, I was hooked. "Stop... you had me at chooch chooch chech chech CHOOCH CHOOCH CHEECH CHEECH!"
If you'd even bothered to actually to read the TFA it says this
simply replace my own sample image on my server with a newly created sample on my server Hmmm... maybe the article's author didn't want Slashdot sucking up all his bandwidth, so he replaced the original article with a different article that had all the facts wrong and jumped to half-baked conclusions.
This isn't just a cute parody. This is from an Alan Moore Green Lantern story where they tried to recruit someone to the Corps who lived in a lightless world. The inhabitants had no word for "light" or "lantern", so they translated the concept to that of sound... which these inhabitants were intimiately more familiar with.
Oh, I dunno. I think this could be a great setting for the 2006 Troll Off. Have awards for:
Greatest Troll Deepest Chain Of Competing Trolls Most Liberal Troll Most Right Wing Troll Most Obscure Godwining Best Connection To Microsoft Conspiracy Funniest and Most Insightful Post Still Labeled A Troll By Some Dilweed With Mod Points And No Clue
There is an interesting story behind the Dilbert thread, that is cataloged at the Ex-Googlers blog. They approached Scott Adams as a similiar counter-culture spirit to do some logos, but then his original submissions had to be revamped, reduxed, and taken to the pointy-haired bosses within Google.
A major part of the problem is that CFO types don't like spending money on things they don't see a need for. By the time they see a need for security, it's past the point at which throwing money at the problem will fix things.
This isn't a problem - this is a good thing. Do you want to work for a company where the CFO has priorities other than the best spending of the company's money? Hell no.
The problem here is one of speaking the correct language. Rather than saying "we need X", do a formal ROI. Document the risks you are trying to mitigate clearly in terms of loss to the corporation (the CFO may not understand them). Then do an assessment of how often the loss might occur, and what the likely yearly impact may be to the company. Bring in people from other groups to get input on impact. It may turn out to make more financial sense to just accept the risk and not take action. That's a choice the executives can make, but at least they will be doing it from solid data rather than the perceived subjective opinion of one of the may people asking them for cash.
...the marketing of "Intel Inside" has lost alot of it's luster.
That is an incorrect assumption. The Interbrand survey for 2004 for top global brands put Intel at #5 with a brand value of $33.5 Billion. This is pure brand value completely apart from any product sales.
Saying "Intel Inside" still has enormous value in the marketplace.
Dammit! I am employed by Paramount in the year 2154. The newly enacted Truth In Television Act in combination with this time travel model is going to force refilming of 95% of all Star Trek episodes in our archive (all series are impacted).
I traveled back in time to try and prevent this story from being posted on Slashdot so the discovery would stay unknown. I thought I made a big enough BackJump(tm) but for some reason I couldn't quite manage to stop the post.
Now the best I can do is hope to prevent the same story from being reposted in three days... another futile task...
Slashdot Mirror
I think the TFA details should be worded:
Just no word yet on whether "Kirking Alien Women" is a skill class you can take.
I was wondering how in the hell you'd do The Watchmen in a single 2.5 hour movie.
I was wondering the same thing. I took a quick pass at how Snyder could squeeze 12 issues into two hours, and it just doesn't make sense even with the Black Freighter removed.
I wish they had done this as an HBO mini series or something, but alas. The trailer looked pretty, so we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed.
A true adaptation from one medium to another will capture the essence of a theme and convert it to the storytelling method of the new medium. A great example is Silence of the Lambs. Huge chunks of the book are missing from the movie, but they took a solid core theme and knocked it out of the park with the visual implementation.
Comics can transfer to movies better than some books because they are both heavily visual, but there is different pacing and scope that could make Watchmen difficult to do. It might help that there are no "thought bubbles" in Watchmen (Trivia Alert) so what you see is what you get.
I think people seeing these differences between media as a "loss" is where a lot of the hand-wringing comes from when adaptations are mentioned. Personally, as long as they tell me a good story I'm going to be happy, and I'm really looking forward to seeing Watchmen on the big screen.
'Our testers for Grand Theft Auto IV ranged in age from 15 to 75 and included 10 women and five men. Users ran the gamut from upstanding citizens to flat out bitches and thugs. Half had never dropped a cap in anyone's ass before, and a full third had never jacked someone's ride.'
If they started doing video game reviews like their normal reviews, I might just subscribe...
I'm not sure this is a good idea at all, but I think the worst possible people to drive it would be the HW guys, and I'll get the disclosure out right now - I work for Intel*.
Gaming drives a lot of innovation and stress on the marketplace right now. Hot new games and ideas drive greater need for CPU and GPU innovation. If one HW company sets any standards (Intel, AMD/ATI, Nvidia, etc) we're going to see that come to a screeching halt as innovation gives way to "buy us because we're the most compliant."
I was going to suggest that some SW/HW API would be the best way to try something like this, but now I even think that would fail. The bothersome truth of it all is that the incompatibility and churn is part of an ongoing survival of the fittest that will sort itself out. AMD had better products than Intel for a long while, and while I think Intel is in the driver's seat now, only an idiot would count AMD/ATI out.
We all benefit from this ongoing struggle, so let it play out.
*The views here represent my own as a cog deep in the Intel machine, and do not necessarily reflect the Assuredly Important & Wise people I work for.
Nearly.
...but his theory just doesn't fit with the established base of thinking here.
Maybe he should try rotating it 90 degrees to the right before dropping it into place.
To be fair, this often grips some technical support people. I'm fairly technical, and if I go to tech support I've usually tried the first two or three rounds of things they're going to suggest. I figure I'm just saving us both time if I can explain what I've done already to try and reduce the complexity a bit. If they want me to repeat something I've done just a bit differently, I'm happy to do it.
However, often they don't even want to hear what I've done. They are reading off of scripts and have no idea how to actually fix the problem. They are in the same voodoo category, and very rarely end up actually helping. A shame, actually, because they either seem unable or (worse) unwilling to learn what they're trying to support. It wastes everyones time.
Oh, yeah, I feel a LOT better. Like I just doubled the fiber in my diet or something. I think I'm good for the next few years.
Thanks for listening!
Rorschach's Journal. December 5th, 2007:
...and I'll look down and whisper "NAK!"
OS carcass on a hard drive this morning, random characters across its boot sector. This internet is afraid of me. I have seen its logins in the clear.
The passwords are in dictionaries and the dictionaries are full of "password", and when the accounts finally are taken over all their mothers maiden names won't save them.
The accumulated malware from all their pr0n and Myspace visits will load up about their processors and all from Tron Guy to Chuck Norris will look up and shout "reset us!"...
R.
Bonopoly?
What about "Blade Runner: The Repli-Cut" from the perspective of the replicants?
Maybe it is something a Fanboy can do on their own now they will have so much good material to edit from. Those fan edits and trailers are starting to get better than some of the Hollywood releases.
Oh sweet mama pajamas... a nine-hundred-reply thread of Slashdot ubergeeks engaging in a contest of "my tool is smaller than yours"?
You just know eHarmony is farming this thread for user names and banning them on the fly.
There's a great article on why "Star Wars fans hate Star Wars" that has some sadly valid points.
He argues that Trekkies are different, but I think after the past few ST movies and "Enterprise" the two camps are starting to feel more alike in how they see their favorite mythos being treated.
In loudest din or hush profound
This isn't just a cute parody. This is from an Alan Moore Green Lantern story where they tried to recruit someone to the Corps who lived in a lightless world. The inhabitants had no word for "light" or "lantern", so they translated the concept to that of sound... which these inhabitants were intimiately more familiar with.
The story appears in the collection DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore. Highly recommended.
Oh, I dunno. I think this could be a great setting for the 2006 Troll Off. Have awards for:
Greatest Troll
Deepest Chain Of Competing Trolls
Most Liberal Troll
Most Right Wing Troll
Most Obscure Godwining
Best Connection To Microsoft Conspiracy
Funniest and Most Insightful Post Still Labeled A Troll By Some Dilweed With Mod Points And No Clue
Could be fun!
There is an interesting story behind the Dilbert thread, that is cataloged at the Ex-Googlers blog. They approached Scott Adams as a similiar counter-culture spirit to do some logos, but then his original submissions had to be revamped, reduxed, and taken to the pointy-haired bosses within Google.
Part I, Part II, and Part III.
It may be the reason Dilbert took numerous pot-shots at Google in some recent strips.
A major part of the problem is that CFO types don't like spending money on things they don't see a need for. By the time they see a need for security, it's past the point at which throwing money at the problem will fix things.
This isn't a problem - this is a good thing. Do you want to work for a company where the CFO has priorities other than the best spending of the company's money? Hell no.
The problem here is one of speaking the correct language. Rather than saying "we need X", do a formal ROI. Document the risks you are trying to mitigate clearly in terms of loss to the corporation (the CFO may not understand them). Then do an assessment of how often the loss might occur, and what the likely yearly impact may be to the company. Bring in people from other groups to get input on impact. It may turn out to make more financial sense to just accept the risk and not take action. That's a choice the executives can make, but at least they will be doing it from solid data rather than the perceived subjective opinion of one of the may people asking them for cash.
...the marketing of "Intel Inside" has lost alot of it's luster.
That is an incorrect assumption. The Interbrand survey for 2004 for top global brands put Intel at #5 with a brand value of $33.5 Billion. This is pure brand value completely apart from any product sales.
Saying "Intel Inside" still has enormous value in the marketplace.
Dammit! I am employed by Paramount in the year 2154. The newly enacted Truth In Television Act in combination with this time travel model is going to force refilming of 95% of all Star Trek episodes in our archive (all series are impacted).
I traveled back in time to try and prevent this story from being posted on Slashdot so the discovery would stay unknown. I thought I made a big enough BackJump(tm) but for some reason I couldn't quite manage to stop the post.
Now the best I can do is hope to prevent the same story from being reposted in three days... another futile task...