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Watchmen (no Thread Yet?)

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I'm kind of relieved they seem to be doing a shot for shot version of the comic. If they did make changes to the film version that were in keeping with the original's spirit or that improved on it (the way Nolan improved the Batman universe) I'd be happy, but I'm still pretty wary about any "interpretations" Hollywood does. For every Dark Knight there's a Fantastic Four. I'd rather they play it safe, especially since I don't think there's much that could improve The Watchmen (aside from cutting out a lot of that stuff with the newspaper vendor and that pirate ship comic that I've forgotten the name of ...).

 

Also, I get the impression the director is under a lot of pressure to prove that Alan Moore was wrong to be pissed off about this film adaptation ... if that makes any sense.

 

Anyway, maybe this adaptation is unimaginative, but I'm still excited. ;)

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I'm kind of relieved they seem to be doing a shot for shot version of the comic. If they did make changes to the film version that were in keeping with the original's spirit or that improved on it (the way Nolan improved the Batman universe) I'd be happy, but I'm still pretty wary about any "interpretations" Hollywood does. For every Dark Knight there's a Fantastic Four. I'd rather they play it safe, especially since I don't think there's much that could improve The Watchmen (aside from cutting out a lot of that stuff with the newspaper vendor and that pirate ship comic that I've forgotten the name of ...).

 

Also, I get the impression the director is under a lot of pressure to prove that Alan Moore was wrong to be pissed off about this film adaptation ... if that makes any sense.

 

Anyway, maybe this adaptation is unimaginative, but I'm still excited. ;)

suit yourself. i just don't think there's much point in adapting something to the screen unless you do something interesting with it and make it different than what it once was. why do you need two copies of the same thing?

 

film is different than comics. there are similar elements, but the interpretation of one to the other should not be so literal.

 

but i'll wait to see it to make further judgements.

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suit yourself. i just don't think there's much point in adapting something to the screen unless you do something interesting with it and make it different than what it once was. why do you need two copies of the same thing?

 

film is different than comics. there are similar elements, but the interpretation of one to the other should not be so literal.

 

but i'll wait to see it to make further judgements.

First of all, there is no way that this movie will be an exact "shot for shot" adaptation, because in order to make a movie that's less than 4 hrs long, they half to cut out about half the material. And of the material that will be covered? Ya, It'll probably be straight out of the comic, but really.... who was stoked about the way that peter jackson "reinvented" the two towers? Because I was pissed, I would have way rather had a clean translation.

 

You may say it's different because there is no visuals in a novel, but Watchmen is relatively hard to get through for people that are used to "pretty" comics. Not to mention the fact that each "medium" of publication has a different ability to convey something in a certain way, regardless of how similar the content is. Obviously, in a novel the reader is left to their own visual interpretations, but gets a better feel for what the characters are thinking, feeling, etc. In a movie it's almost quite the opposite. A movie and a comic are even quite different in terms of what can be done in the medium. In this respect I can see the validity of a straight translation between any two mediums.

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First of all, there is no way that this movie will be an exact "shot for shot" adaptation, because in order to make a movie that's less than 4 hrs long, they half to cut out about half the material.

try not to take me so literally.

 

And of the material that will be covered? Ya, It'll probably be straight out of the comic, but really.... who was stoked about the way that peter jackson "reinvented" the two towers? Because I was pissed, I would have way rather had a clean translation.

 

so you're contradicting yourself? you just said a clean translation of the watchmen would've been an interminable 4 hours in length, therefore the finished product will not be an "exact" representation of the comic, and yet you'd prefer a more literal adaptation of lord of the rings? those films are long enough already, thankyouverymuch. you just proved my point that some interpretation needs to be done in order to adapt a story from one medium to another.

 

You may say it's different because there is no visuals in a novel, but Watchmen is relatively hard to get through for people that are used to "pretty" comics.

 

where did i say that?

 

Not to mention the fact that each "medium" of publication has a different ability to convey something in a certain way, regardless of how similar the content is.

correct. a film is not a comic book, even if their content is similar. and this "ability" you speak of, that each medium has to convey the same thing, but differently, speaks to exactly why i think that the film should not be a literal shot-for-shot interpretation, which it is trying to be. that is the approach that director zak snyder takes when adapting comics to film, and should not be over-looked. he did it with 300 and he's doing it again with this film:

 

watchmen objections

http://io9.com/326662/first-look-at-watchmens-bleak-nyc-sets

http://io9.com/5029469/six-new-posters-for...omic-book-cover

 

i think there should be MORE of an effort put forth to make the film a departure from the comic. especially since its own creator thinks it's unfilmable:

 

I would rather not know [anything about the movie. Snyder] may very well be [a nice guy], but the thing is that he's also the person who made 300. I've not seen any recent comic book films, but I didn't particularly like the book 300. I had a lot of problems with it, and everything I heard or saw about the film tended to increase [those problems] rather than reduce them: [that] it was racist, it was homophobic, and above all it was sublimely stupid. I know that that's not what people going in to see a film like 300 are thinking about but...I wasn't impressed with that.... I talked to [director] Terry Gilliam in the '80s, and he asked me how I would make Watchmen into a film. I said, ''Well actually, Terry, if anybody asked me, I would have said, 'I wouldn't.''' And I think that Terry [who aborted his attempted adaptation of the book] eventually came to agree with me. There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can't.

 

of course, a comic can't always be tied to its author's own intentions, but he nevertheless makes a strong point.

 

A movie and a comic are even quite different in terms of what can be done in the medium. In this respect I can see the validity of a straight translation between any two mediums.

these two sentences contradict one another, so i won't even bother responding to them.

 

if watchmen is to be a film at all, then it should at the very least make an effort to distance itself from the comic and make itself unique. the fact that it is simply in a different medium does not make it any more purposeful or original. it wasn't only a book about a weird group of superheroes, it was also a comic about comics themselves, and that aspect is a significant part of what makes watchmen special in the first place. to make it into a film, that has to be taken into account and acknowledged, and perhaps toyed-with and changed to make the film its own autonomous experience.

 

that said, i am looking forward to seeing it.

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try not to take me so literally.

 

 

 

so you're contradicting yourself? you just said a clean translation of the watchmen would've been an interminable 4 hours in length, therefore the finished product will not be an "exact" representation of the comic, and yet you'd prefer a more literal adaptation of lord of the rings? those films are long enough already, thankyouverymuch. you just proved my point that some interpretation needs to be done in order to adapt a story from one medium to another.

 

 

 

where did i say that?

 

 

correct. a film is not a comic book, even if their content is similar. and this "ability" you speak of, that each medium has to convey the same thing, but differently, speaks to exactly why i think that the film should not be a literal shot-for-shot interpretation, which it is trying to be. that is the approach that director zak snyder takes when adapting comics to film, and should not be over-looked. he did it with 300 and he's doing it again with this film:

 

watchmen objections

http://io9.com/326662/first-look-at-watchmens-bleak-nyc-sets

http://io9.com/5029469/six-new-posters-for...omic-book-cover

 

i think there should be MORE of an effort put forth to make the film a departure from the comic. especially since its own creator thinks it's unfilmable:

 

 

 

of course, a comic can't always be tied to its author's own intentions, but he nevertheless makes a strong point.

 

A movie and a comic are even quite different in terms of what can be done in the medium. In this respect I can see the validity of a straight translation between any two mediums.

these two sentences contradict one another, so i won't even bother responding to them.

 

if watchmen is to be a film at all, then it should at the very least make an effort to distance itself from the comic and make itself unique. the fact that it is simply in a different medium does not make it any more purposeful or original. it wasn't only a book about a weird group of superheroes, it was also a comic about comics themselves, and that aspect is a significant part of what makes watchmen special in the first place. to make it into a film, that has to be taken into account and acknowledged, and perhaps toyed-with and changed to make the film its own autonomous experience.

 

that said, i am looking forward to seeing it.

just to clarify, When I said "Shot for shot", I probably should have said "scene for scene", as I meant that although the content of the scene may be the same, how it is conveyed would be different because of the aspect of motion, sound, etc (things that would be added to the film medium that aren't present in the original comic form). This would give the same scene something that it didnt have in the original format. I hope this clarifies my point and removes the appearance of contradiction.

 

I also never meant to imply that you said something that you didnt, I said: "you may say" as my own defence to a possible retort to the previous statement.

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They changed the ending to the film, from my understanding and from several reports scattered here and there. Other than that, I'm excited about the amount of detail they have put into the film from the comic book. For instance, there are 51 stars on the flag. Robert Redford makes a cameo. That type of stuff. I think it'll be good, so long as there isn't a dance number.

 

Also, Alan Moore is a tight-assed, overrated snob who really needs to shut the hell up already. The only times he opens is mouth is to eat and bitch.

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Nah. Fox is just going to leech off whatever profit Warner makes. It's an easy win for them, and by far their best option at this point.

 

But they sat on the rights for 20 years and didn't do shit with them. They of course knew the film was in production the whole time and didn't make a peep. Someone else worked hard to make a pie. They now want some pie. I don't really give a damn, so long as I get to see the pie.

 

The pie will be awesome.

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I think this one is going to be so heavily debated and critiqued, that it will have to be damned near perfect for any of us true comic book geeks to appreciate it...in that regard it'll be like seeing the first Christian Bale Batman...where we were all fearful of cheesiness until we saw the first full trailer.

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suit yourself. i just don't think there's much point in adapting something to the screen unless you do something interesting with it and make it different than what it once was. why do you need two copies of the same thing?

I completely disagree. A lot of great stories out there will go unread by millions purely on the basis they can't be arsed reading them - it's obviously much easier to sit and watch a film than it is to read a novel.

 

For me it's always interesting to see how close your envisions of characters and environments to be is to how the author intended.

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I completely disagree. A lot of great stories out there will go unread by millions purely on the basis they can't be arsed reading them - it's obviously much easier to sit and watch a film than it is to read a novel.

 

For me it's always interesting to see how close your envisions of characters and environments to be is to how the author intended.

 

do you consider books on tape a kind of adaptation?

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No, cos they don't offer either of the points I said really, do they ?

 

It's just a bloke (or woman - equality whooo!!) reading that same book aloud; hardly an adaptation.

 

I doubt they do anything drastic for exposure either, although it is easier to listen to one, I'll give you that.

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No, cos they don't offer either of the points I said really, do they ?

 

right, but we're talking about a graphic novel here-- there's not much room for "envisioning" characters and environments, especially since in this specific case, the director is using the graphic novel as his storyboard, and even going so far as other films like sin city and 300 by making it a shot-by-shot recreation of what's already on the page. sounds like the visual form of an audio book to me.

 

It's just a bloke (or woman - equality whooo!!) reading that same book aloud; hardly an adaptation.

 

I doubt they do anything drastic for exposure either, although it is easier to listen to one, I'll give you that.

 

i don't consider books on tape a form of adaptation either, and the lazy trend of films being culled directly from the pages of graphic novels is no more a kind of adaptation. even if we were discussing a novel, "interpreting" how a character looks really doesn't take much craft or imagination, nor does it really warrant the making of a film to do so.

film is not simply the visual representation of text (or in this case, the combination of text and images).

 

as i've mentioned several times before, watchmen, the graphic novel, is a treatise on comic books themselves. it's lazy adapting that storyline to the screen without making changes for the medium it's being presented in. the adaptation would be much more creative should it consider the role or depiction of superheroes in film. why not? they have the chance to! it would honour the original book without being a facsimile of it, which would be much more enjoyable in my mind because not only does it treat the medium with respect, but it also show that moore's idea is not simply limited to comic books. i think that kind of film would've had moore's consent, and he probably would've helped pen the thing, too. instead, we're left with some hack's screenplay of a comic book about comic books. why would i want to watch that? so i can see the big explosions? visually i'm sure the film will be quite enjoyable, but i can assure you that the storyline will be lacking.

 

in that sense, the dark knight is probably a better exploration of the question: "who watches the watchmen?" on film. watchmen has been called "moore's obituary for the concept of heroes in general and superheroes in particular," and yet i detect none of that from snyder's interviews, or the trailers i've seen of the film for that matter. sure, they could come around and surprise us, but i think there's very little chance of that. i predict this film will be a machismo cheese-fest that in the end, celebrates heroes rather than critiques them. so what we have then is the general idea of the watchmen, appropriated visually, but not thematically. if you're fine with that, then i suppose that's your prerogative.

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I can;t read this thread because of spoilers. I've had the Watchmen comic trade paperback (its not a fucking "graphic novel") sitting in my comic collection for about 6 years unread (shame on me, i know, but i sorta stopped reading comics not long after i bought it cuz i moved away from my local comic shop).

 

But with the movie coming out i've just started reading the Watchmen comic collection so i'll have it done before the movie comes out and before all the trailers that will have spoilers and shit.

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right, but we're talking about a graphic novel here-- there's not much room for "envisioning" characters and environments, especially since in this specific case, the director is using the graphic novel as his storyboard, and even going so far as other films like sin city and 300 by making it a shot-by-shot recreation of what's already on the page. sounds like the visual form of an audio book to me.

Well, in the sentence I quoted, you didn't make it sound very specific - it read like you thought all adaptations were pointless unless they dramatically changed things. In this case, I take less of an issue with it.

 

even if we were discussing a novel, "interpreting" how a character looks really doesn't take much craft or imagination, nor does it really warrant the making of a film to do so.

There's plenty of interpretation in adaptations of novels. Just because there's a description they can read, it doesn't mean there's no imagination gone into it. Unless the description was so in-depth that there was really no room for imagination. Everyone thinks of a character differently.

 

film is not simply the visual representation of text (or in this case, the combination of text and images).

It's obviously not, no. But it can be. There's no need for a hard-line stance on it.

 

i predict this film will be a machismo cheese-fest that in the end, celebrates heroes rather than critiques them. so what we have then is the general idea of the watchmen, appropriated visually, but not thematically. if you're fine with that, then i suppose that's your prerogative.

I didn't say that ? I generally don't enjoy comic books, or films about comic books so I'm hardly one to be arguing for it. I'm just saying you don't have to dramatically change a storyline to earn the right to adapt something.

 

Apologies if this is a bit incoherent, I'm knackered and I'm just about to leave for uni.

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I CAN HAZ WATCHEMEN NAOW!!!1!!1one

 

ok that aside, I'm very excited and nervous about the film. I know the art direction is going to be amazing. But I'm not sure how much of the story their going to leave in (or out).

 

No matter what happens, this will be the first movie in 4 years that I'm going to go out and pay to see.

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