Watchmen out this Friday

Do people who go and watch stage plays get the shits when stuff like Hamlet is turned into a film

How come none of these outraged nerds ever pitch a fit when ALAN MOORE:

- Rewrites, reinvents, or reimagines origins, backstories, and character motives for established characters like say, Batman, the Joker, Swamp Thing, and Superman without regard for the creator's original intentions or continuity

- Reinterprets historical facts and conjecture to suit his personal worldview to "solve" the Jack the Ripper case

- Bases "original" characters- on a practically 1:1 basis- on old Charlton Comics characters

- Bowdlerizes Victorian literature and completely changes characters like Mina Harker, Alain Quatermaine, Edward Hyde, and Captain Nemo

- Retells the stories of Dorothy Gale, Wendy Darling, and Alice as erotica

So it seems to me that Alan Moore is pretty liberal with his adaptation policies...yet there's no nerd rage outcry for fidelity to source materials, is there?

Ebert liked it.

rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar...04/REVIEWS/903049997

Michael Barnes wrote:

How come none of these outraged nerds ever pitch a fit when ALAN MOORE:

- Rewrites, reinvents, or reimagines origins, backstories, and character motives for established characters like say, Batman, the Joker, Swamp Thing, and Superman without regard for the creator's original intentions or continuity

- Reinterprets historical facts and conjecture to suit his personal worldview to "solve" the Jack the Ripper case

- Bases "original" characters- on a practically 1:1 basis- on old Charlton Comics characters

- Bowdlerizes Victorian literature and completely changes characters like Mina Harker, Alain Quatermaine, Edward Hyde, and Captain Nemo

- Retells the stories of Dorothy Gale, Wendy Darling, and Alice as erotica

So it seems to me that Alan Moore is pretty liberal with his adaptation policies...yet there's no nerd rage outcry for fidelity to source materials, is there?

1. When a fiction writer takes existing characters and re-interprets them for his own stories, I consider that the literary equivalent of a cover tune. A note-by-note re-enactment of the original is boring and redundant, but an innovative cover can be very interesting, putting the lyrics and even the notes into a different context to create a new experience. There is less creativity than in the original work, but it's still worth doing when done well. Same with historical facts, as long as the writer is re-working them in the context of a fictional work, it's okay with me.

2. I don't remember which issue, but at least one of the 12 issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths had an early full-page ad for the Watchmen, except that it depicted the Charlton Comic characters. This is very interesting, because it reveals that DC originally intended for Moore to use the Charlton characters, and he was already at least partly done with the story when they decided to use the Charlton characters in the mainstream, post-Crisis DCU. So Moore retrofitted the Charlton characters in the Watchmen into new characters of his own devising who happen to bear an obvious resemblance. Blame the editors for that one, not Alan Moore, who made the very best of a potentially bad situation.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I love Alan Moore and I'd call him one of my favorite writers working in any medium. I like his revisionism and the way he plays havoc with the works of others. I just find it ironic that there is (and will be) outrage at the WATCHMEN adaptation when Moore's been pilfering the works of others for his entire career.

It was his intent to use the Charlton characters. It's probably for the best that he didn't though since what he came up with were iconic characters in their own right.

Shellhead wrote:

1. When a fiction writer takes existing characters and re-interprets them for his own stories, I consider that the literary equivalent of a cover tune. A note-by-note re-enactment of the original is boring and redundant, but an innovative cover can be very interesting, putting the lyrics and even the notes into a different context to create a new experience. There is less creativity than in the original work, but it's still worth doing when done well. Same with historical facts, as long as the writer is re-working them in the context of a fictional work, it's okay with me.

Right and that's the same thing a screenwriter, director, cinematographer and everybody else that works on a movie does when they make an adaptation. It's like a cover song or remix.

And yeah, if it's a "note by note" adaptation like 300 was, where every frame lined up with every panel from the graphic novel, then it's going to be boring.

Same with the first two Harry Potter movies, they are almost line for line taken from the books, and they're pretty boring.

Michael Barnes wrote:

- Retells the stories of Dorothy Gale, Wendy Darling, and Alice as erotica

Actually, there was some pissing and moaning about that.

metalface13 wrote:

Right and that's the same thing a screenwriter, director, cinematographer and everybody else that works on a movie does when they make an adaptation. It's like a cover song or remix.

And yeah, if it's a "note by note" adaptation like 300 was, where every frame lined up with every panel from the graphic novel, then it's going to be boring.

Same with the first two Harry Potter movies, they are almost line for line taken from the books, and they're pretty boring.

The director of 300 is also the director of the Watchmen, so we will probably get something along the lines of a note by note adaptation that will fall short of capturing the depth of Moore's writing but at least following the straight-forward artwork of Dave Gibbons.

As for the Harry Potter movies, I suspect that Rowlings herself was the problem, that she was hovering around the set and micro-managing the adaptation. By the third movie, she got out of the way and let the director do his job.

Barnes

The difference here is that all Snyder changed was the ending (the Black Freighter is going back into the DVD, he filmed it). He isn't changing the characters the way that Moore did/does. He's just trying to turn Watchmen into a movie. Moore never said "oh, let's make Dracula a comic and I'll tell the story as close to the same as Bram Stoker as is possible", no he just took the character and ran with it in typical post-modern fashion.

All this guy knows how to do is turn other peoples stories into movies. He re-made Dawn of the Dead, and adapted 300 and now watchmen. That's his career.

Nobody has mentioned a single comic frame by frame based on a movie that they read and loved yet. Not a different story like the Buffy stories, a frame for frame rip-off. Just one. Citizen Kane the comic!! Brazil the comic!! c'mon, anyone?

Shellhead wrote:

The director of 300 is also the director of the Watchmen, so we will probably get something along the lines of a note by note adaptation that will fall short of capturing the depth of Moore's writing but at least following the straight-forward artwork of Dave Gibbons.

Yeah, I know Synder helmed both. That's why when I initially heard about the Watchmen movies I was worried. Because at the least, Gibbons art (while good and tells a story well) doesn't have the same visual impact that Miller's does in 300.

Then I saw the initial trailer and I had hope. Now I don't know what I have. Just going to go see it with as few expectations as possible.

The AV Club has an awesome interview with Walter Kovacs himself, Jackie Earle Haley.

And, Hitler finds out about Zack's edit...

That picture on the right at the AV Club is stunning. It's Walter Kovacs, in prison, more real than I could have ever imagined. The hair, the face, the scary dead eyes that have seen too much.

hancock.tom wrote:

Mr Skeletor wrote:

You seem really eager to attack a negative nancy fanboy, but I don't think we have any here.

I'm talking in general, no on this site in particular.

While I was at the comic store I remembered how somebody mentioned how nobody reads books or movies adapted into comics. And I realized how utterly false that was. LOTS of comics on the shelves these days are adaptations. Ender's Game. The Stand. The Dark Tower. The Crystal Shard + Drizzt books. Dragonlance books. Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter. Plus lots of classic literature.

And some of them are quite good! I really like the Dark Towier series. The Stand is pretty good. The Crystal Shard and Dragonlance comics were OK.

I really enjoyed the dark tower comics too. I thought the 4th book of the dark tower series captured something special that wasn't in the other books with the fantasy themes and the comics really bring that to life.

metalface13 wrote:

While I was at the comic store I remembered how somebody mentioned how nobody reads books or movies adapted into comics. And I realized how utterly false that was. LOTS of comics on the shelves these days are adaptations. Ender's Game. The Stand. The Dark Tower. The Crystal Shard + Drizzt books. Dragonlance books. Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter. Plus lots of classic literature.

And some of them are quite good! I really like the Dark Towier series. The Stand is pretty good. The Crystal Shard and Dragonlance comics were OK.

All of these are books turned into comics, not movies turned into comics. There are comics that continue a movie series but generally people don't give a shit about movies turned into comics.

Anyone here willing to say that they would be excited about a novelization of Watchmen? Why is that do you figure?