*SPOILER WARNING* Watchmen the graphic novel

Media Outlet Comic Book Forum
61

[quote=“goodm0urning, post:60, topic:45283”]

Zack Snyder is attempting the equivalent of turning Singing in the Rain into a novel… no matter how hard he rides the source material, the essence of what makes it what it is will get lost in the translation.

[quote]

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

There’s just too much of an underlying message that you experience when you actually read Watchmen that will get lost in translation.

To me it’ll be just like Lord of the Rings… where the masses loved the movies, but those who read the novels thought was too much missing and the experience was bastardized.

I don’t think the movie will suck though. I think Zak Snyder is a capable director. It won’t be true to the Graphic novel, but even if it is and Zack Snyder pulls this off, I think Alan Moore will still hate it… the man hates everything.

62

Wow… talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.

I’m not trying to make enemies, but guys know that you’re going to watch the movie in the theater and probably buy the DVD as well. So why keep defending? And think about all of those moments growing up when you thought “Man I’d like to see this as a movie.” It’s basically a fan-service. Who cares if it isn’t true to the graphic novel. No adaptation can be. Just be happy that the movie(s) are exposing the graphic novels to a new audience.

And my idea for a TV-Y7 show was purely hypothetical and intended to create humorous discussion.

Good-bye.

63

Actually that’s a very good point because I never actually read Wanted before I saw Movie. I was disappointed in both.

64

But I am not going to watch the Watchmen movie. The only person who could ever convince me to even give the Watchmen movie a fair chance is Alan Moore himself. If he takes a break from his witchcraft and crawls out of his dark, gothic library and says to the world, “I approve of this Watchmen movie and I want everyone to watch it!” then I suppose I will be compelled to try it out.

Otherwise, I don’t care. I will not watch a movie which I know will only piss me off and annoy me. Dr. Manhattan himself could stand in front of me and dangle his large testicles in a shining atomic blue aura, and threaten to blast me out of existence if I don’t watch the movie. Won’t matter. To paraphrase the great George W. Bush, I will not tire, I will not not falter, I will not fail - I won’t watch the movie. To quote Rorschach, “Never compromise. Not even in the face of armageddon.”

And I don’t read comics and think to myself, “Wow, I’d like to see this as a movie.” Comic books are comic books, and I am content with how my own imagination processes the experience of reading. If anything, sometimes when I watch movies, I think, Wow, this could’ve turned out a lot better if it’d been a comic book.

Also, thanks for taking me so seriously. I feel proud.

65

Comics turned into movies are fun

66

Nobody’s making enemies and nobody’s mad at you. Don’t take anything personally here.

I could offer a long, wordy rebuttal to your first point, but it could all be summed up as thus: I have no intention whatsoever of paying to see Watchmen. I don’t want to see it. I don’t need to see it. Many comics fans have the self-loathing mentality that a movie based on a comic is worth seeing just because it’s a movie. I am not one of those people.

And the movie won’t be exposing the graphic novel to a new audience. It will be exposing a basic, watered-down, and possibly skewed version of the story to a new audience. There will be a minority of audience members who will pick up the book after seeing the film, but their perception of the story will have already been colored forever by the film, so they’re still not getting the full deal. And for the majority of the audience, they’ll happily continue to ignore the existence of the book and return to their homes, content that they know what this Watchmen hullabaloo is all about.

I will be happy to see the graphic novel brought to a new audience if it’s actually the graphic novel being brought to them, and (mercifully) the trailer has at least given sales of the Watchmen book a gentle kick in the ass. Nevertheless, the movie, no matter how faithful it is, is not and cannot be the same thing. So no, I don’t feel I have to “just be happy” about any of it.

67

didn’t really read the monologues so i’m not sure if its been stated, but I’m pretty sure the watchmen movie will fall into that category of “Its good if you didn’t read the novel” which is basically what movie makers are aiming for anyway.

On a personal note as i previously stated, it’ll be cool just to see that characters come to life with good colors, not all that orange/purple/green crap.

68

I think the coloring in Watchmen is severely underrated. It has a goal and it achieves it, and doesn’t draw too much attention to itself.

There is a trend in modern comics to do this out-of-control computerized coloring thing, and it’s definitely colorful. But it’s a loud and caustic sort of colorful that doesn’t do anything important other than grab the eye. Color can be used gratuitously or it can be specifically applied for storytelling purposes, and Watchmen does the latter.

When John Higgins recolored the book for the Absolute Edition, he really didn’t change much. He fixed a couple of mistakes here and there, and the colors are bolder and less washed out, but he revisits the same palette from the original edition and doesn’t really deviate from it.

69

Trivia: If you notice in every so chapter you would see the mention of a “Pale Horse” which is Armageddon… cool how AM just adds that little biblical excerpt… :smiley:

70

Watchmen babies in V for vacation.

71

Guess who just finished!

Great read, although I’m still soaking everything in, so more thoughts may come later.

Considering the fact that sales of the GN have SKYROCKETED since the trailers release, I don’t think the whole “movie doesn’t increase the audience of the book” argument holds any real water.

Although the theater cut may be inadequate, I think the 5 hour DVD release might very well be the closest thing we can possibly get to an accurate Watchmen movie.

I mean, Solid Snake is writing the damn thing, and Moore gave his script the closest thing his ego would ever allow him to give as his blessing, so I think there may be a chance here.

72

I thought that script was scrapped.

Wow, that felt weird to type.

73

People aren’t picking up the book because of the movie. They’re picking it up because of the hype surrounding it. The movie itself could be two hours of lab rats fucking each other and it wouldn’t matter at this point in time.

74

He’s gotta point there, people are just picking up the book because the hype, even myself i picked it up so when i watch the movie i could brag bout what they did wrong and what they did right:confused:

75

Hello, are there any other comics someone could introduce to me on the same level as Watchmen

76

Not many.

For more high-quality Moore, try V For Vendetta. For generally awesome superhero storytelling with a similar level of sophistication, inventiveness, and brain-twistiness, try All Star Superman.

77

So I saw Painy on Saturday and he said he finally forced himself to finish Watchmen. He said it was “good” but his unconvincing tone of voice implied that he was just saying that so I wouldn’t take his eyeglasses and smash them into bits. So instead, I took a dump in his backpack when he wasn’t looking.

78

lol, Doop is in your avatar.

lol.

Read planetary, I loved that shit.

79

I’m surprised at all the movie Watchmen hate.

I’ll be the first to say that comic/book adaption to movies are usually awful. And even when they do turn out okay, there’s often quite a bit missing. But I once heard someone say that in order to translate comic/books accurately to the silver screen, you have to distill the source material down to its essence–what the story’s about, what the character(s) is/are trying to do, the major themes–and work with and around that to make a decent movie.

LotR is a pretty good example. I mean, sure there’s stuff missing, like Bombadil. And there’s lots of random inconsistencies, like Pippin’s blade–in the book, it was forged by the Numenorians as a means to fight the ancient evil of Angmar, which is why it was so potent against the Ringwraith in the Battle of Pelennor Fields. Only that blade could have hurt the Ringwraith, but in the movie, Pippin just used some random blade. Huge omission, I’d say.

But in the end though, it doesn’t matter–because LotR is, when you get down to it, about perseverance, good against overwhelming evil, mythology, all that stuff. And Peter Jackson’s LotR captured that pretty well.

So, when it comes to Watchmen–I know that there’s going to be stuff missing, because there’s no way that they can fit 100% of its amazingness into the movie. I’m going in there with decreased expectations–all I’m really hoping for is that they capture the general spirit of the characters. Rorschach’s single-minded, obsessive objectivism and ruthlessness. Dr. Manhattan’s increasing difficulty in relating to humanity. That kind of stuff.

And hell, it can’t be that hard to portray the characters. They have the source material to work with, after all. It’d be nearly impossible for them to mess up. At least, one would hope so.

If they can do that, I’m fine with it. After all, I can always go back to the actual graphic novel to get my fix if the movie misses certain elements.

80

this is the man who took zombies and made them run…i truly have no faith in zack snyder’s ability as a storyteller or director. especially when trying to translate something so deep. i’m even less confident whenever i see him interviewed…

i’ll watch the watchmen movie(lolz), but i’m not putting any confidence in the idea that it is going to be even baseline enjoyable…