Between trailers, convention footage and new promotional images, the Watchmen movie has become a big topic for conversation.
Thom Wade is cautiously excited:
Snyder seems to be approaching the film from a much smarter place that some in the comic community are willing to give him. It is interesting to note that the movie went the opposite direction of 300, which was primarily green screen. Here, he had sets built, and it appears much of the computer work is surrounding the one character that requires it(Dr. Manhattan). It suggests to me that Snyder works to remain true to a creator’s vision when bringing something to the screen. 300 is a pretty shallow story and more memorable for Miller and Varley’s artwork than how deep the story is. And he focused on bringing the art to life.
Here, he seems dedicated to bringing the themes of Watchmen to life.
Michael K. Willis gives the trailer credit:
I have not changed my feeling that a Watchmen movie might not be the best idea but after seeing the trailer I have to give them credit for, at first blush anyway, making it look pretty amazing and seemingly very true to the source material (visually at least.)
One might nitpick some little things…Nite Owl is too buff for a character who was presented in the comic as going to seed somewhat and Silk Spectre looks more like “Leather and Rubber Spectre”…but there’s no point in going all fanboy on the thing…well, at least until it actually comes out.
Trevor Dodge believes it’s unfilmable:
The comments thread on this post reminds me of the several times I’ve taught Watchmen in my literature courses over the years, as I’ve made a lot of those same points myself during class discussions about translating Alan Moore’s writing to film. I’ll teach the graphic novel at least one more time before the film comes out next spring, and I’m coming to think of it as probably the last time my students will have a mostly textual relationship with the source material. Once Snyder’s film rolls out, future readers of Watchmen will inevitably suffer from what I’ve come to call The Ed Norton Complex (named, natch, after Mr. Norton’s portrayal of “Jack” in David Fincher’s adapation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club, in which the narrator is essentially erased and unnamed), where the film version of a book skews a reader’s first encounter with the source text. For the large part I have absolutely no problem with this skewing, and I even think this skewing is helpful in appreciating how much we really do read in a consumer culture that–strangely enough–is always telling us that we aren’t reading; Fincher smears the line between his film and Palahniuk’s novel to great effect, and Norton’s voice-overs in the film are lovingly appropriated from the source text.
But Zach Snyder is no David Fincher, and as I’ve noted before here on this humble blog, Snyder seems to revere Watchmen as much as he does filming a Miller Lite commercial. Furthermore, I’ve said it plenty of times before in both class and casual conversation: if Terry freakin’ Gilliam says Moore’s Watchmen is freakin’ unfilmable, well sir, the freakin’ story is freakin’ unfilmable.
So what do you think?
August 2nd, 2008 at 11:53 pm
“if Terry freakin’ Gilliam says Moore’s Watchmen is freakin’ unfilmable, well sir, the freakin’ story is freakin’ unfilmable.”
Tolkien thought that the Lord of the Rings was unfilmable, too.
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:58 am
I hate it when people cite Terry Gilliam as the reason why Watchmen is unfilmable, nothing is unfilmable. I mean c’mon, this is the same guy that gave us Brothers Grimm and we all know how great that film was. What they should be saying is that it can’t be put into a 3 hour film.
andwho, is there any reason why they couldn’t cast Bruce Campbell as Nite Owl?
August 3rd, 2008 at 7:24 am
I think that Watchmen is probably unfilmable, that you will have to lose a lot.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t end up with a good film anyway. V for Vendetta was not the comic, but it was quite well done. If Watchmen is as good as V, I will be happy.
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:58 am
But will it have the whole pirate subplot in it?
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:23 am
the “tales of the black freighter” will be released as a direct to dvd feature right around the time of the movie’s release (i think 2 weeks later, maybe).
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
tralfaz, interesting you mentioned Brothers Grimm, seeing as how it was thoroughly destroyed by the Weinstein brothers and contractual obligations were the only reason Gilliam didn’t quit before filming ever started.
When asked how his script for the movie would have been different than Ehren Kruger’s script, Gilliam replied something to the effect of “first off, I wouldn’t have written this movie.”
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I think it’s pretty funny when people say it is unfilmable, when they obviously have already filmed it. Of course, the film will lose some of things the comic had as it’s strength. In the trailer there’s already a weakness on display when Adrien Veidt knocks the dude attacking him into the fountain. In the comic it’s that awesome double page spread where each page mirror’s the other. In the trailer, he just knocks the guy in the fountain, and it’s pretty whatever. They filmed it, but it loses it’s punch. My nitpicking is calling this movie the Citizen Kane of super hero movies, mostly because I think of all the innovations and techniques used in Citizen Kane, which implies Watchmen will be just as revolutionary in terms of style, but what I think they mean is that it will be revolutionary in terms of content.
August 3rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I threw in my two cents on the subject at my website. I won’t post the long entry here, but I invite you to read it at:
http://scottwilliamfoley.com/2008/07/24/first-reaction-to-the-watchmen-trailer/
Feel free to leave your thoughts.