WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

I disagree on both counts.

1) With the LOTR books, Tolkien developed a huge, sprawling world with many different species, dozens of languages, and well over a hundred characters. If that's not enough to convince you, consider this: The LOTR series spanned three books. Each book got a three-hour movie. Let me repeat that: EACH LOTR BOOK GOT THREE HOURS OF SCREEN TIME APIECE TO TELL THEIR STORIES. And a whole ton of stuff still ended up on the cutting room floor.

Does it still seem like an "extremely simple" story? That said...

2) I agree that adapting Watchmen into prose -- while incorporating all the relevant background details -- would result in a mess. However, I doubt that it would be as long as the over-a-thousand-pages LOTR books.

Besides, Snyder isn't adapting a thousand pages -- he's adapting... what, 240 pages? And all the imagery is already there. Sure, he'll have to cut some stuff out, but still.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that adapting LOTR to fit a 9-hour movie couldn't have been any easier or more difficult than adapting Watchmen to fit a 2-hour movie.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

I think we're just going back and fourth here. The difference in our points of view basically boil down to this (I think):

1. Some feel (Vynson for example) the graphic novel is just that. In its original form it is truly "Watchmen." Any film adaptation would be lacking, even "damaging," therefore not "Watchmen;" not good.

2. Others feel (Myself, Curiousity for example) that a film adaptation at its best, is a film adaptation. Not better then the original, not a substitute. But in the right hands, done well, would be very satisfying to a Watchmen fan and. It could be good. Not "damaging" in any way. The best "film" Watchmen could be.

Sort of like a cover song (pardon the example). A Dylan purist might say "All Along the Watchtower" is good when Dylan does it. He wrote it, its his. Others could appreciate Hendrix version, might even say its better than Dylan's on some levels, but respect Dylan all the more by hearing Jimmy's take one it.

Am I close, here?

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Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music - George Carlin

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To Newbie and others:

Hayter's screenplay is 134 pages long, not 239. At the standard translation of one script page equals one minute of screen time, the resulting movie would be 2 hours and 14 minutes long - a little longer than the standard two hours but within usual running time.

Trouble is, Watchmen is very dialogue-heavy. That can throw off the whole "1 page = 1 minute" rule of thumb.

Kevin Smith, for example, is known for writing screenplays that are so wordy that he fudges the margins on his screenplays in an attempt to make them closer to the "1 page = 1 minute" rule.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

Hayter wrote a 326-page screenplay that he eventually turned into Warner. Fearing that the novel would be virtually impossible to minimilize, at least according to Hayter, they asked him to cut it down. (Who better than Hayter? Voice of Snake and fan of comic for decades on end).

New to the board, and must say how pleased I've found it. As for your comment, completely agree. As bad some previous adaptations of Moore's work have been, I still think we have to detach ourselves somewhat from Watchmen as a graphic novel or text when thinking about the film. Is it extreme to say that we'll have to accept it cannot be a match for the source?

One thing that does concern me and it's where the could really come into its own is the symbolism, and the film edit. It could be a great opportunity to bring this to life in a huge way, but that's only if Snyder and the writers understand it comprehensively. Now I view myself as a pretty intelligent guy, but I'm sure I'd be horrified at how little I truly understand about the Watchmen text. Not to discredit Snyder's Watchmen fanboy credentials, but is someone helping him bring out this symbolism? The ostensible story can be reasonably straightforward, just as it is with the LOTR saga, but if you dig even a little bit deeper beneath the surface of Watchmen you're opening up a huge and quite beautiful can of narrative worms.

But then, hey, I'm a guy who'll cringe unless Rorschach jumps out of the fridge just so.....

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This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.

Are you the same Kingmob from the old Paramount board? If abstractnihilist or somnambulating show up, I might break down and cry.



No, not at all, but nor is it extreme to demand that they try. I've yet to get the feeling that that is the case, what with the Dan and Adrian thing.

Wow, I could be the same Kingmob. Not sure how long ago that was, but Kingmob is my usual handle on message boards.

I'm interested to find out why, besides the alien splat thing, the scripters are finding an ending to Watchmen so difficult. Do they want an ending that makes sense or just a happy ending? Because the idea of Dan slamming his vehicle into Veidt's Bond base (because that's what this reeks of) is going to come off as a bit absurd if they nail everything else.

Even more than Veidt's, 'up yours, I've already done it' mindblower, we get a great finale for Rorschach (surely the fan favourite and central lead) and that lovely little kicker at the end which suggests everything's going to implode anyway.

A great scripter will be able to give a sense of 'happy' closure, but still give the intelligentsia (and I don't want to sound like a snob there) what they demand.

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This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.

I'm starting to well up...

Wouldn't it be nice if a core group of intelligent and insightful fans could be "drafted" into an electronic focus group.

Imagine a secret bbs where real experts, each with over 20 years of expertise, could provide input that would actually be delivered to the people making this film.

This type of think tank would really need to be stocked with the folks who have brooded over each pane for years, thinking about the symbolism, the charachters, the irony, the nuances, the easter eggs, the political climate at the time-- everything.

I wouldn't put myself into such a group, even though I have thought very much about what makes Watchmen so great. I'd want people on such a team that have far more experience than I. I came to the work quite a while after it was first published.

Mannie Bothans, meet Vynson. Or go to his page at the Vivarium, a great forum, even though traffic has lessened there lately. He's a serious reader of the book, and there are some like-minded people there (of which I'm one, and so is Broken Finger). But as for getting WB to listen to serious-minded readers who've devoted a lot of thought to the book, I wouldn't hold out much hope: even though it would be great to see the adaptors try to engage seriously with the metaphysics of the mask (for instance), I doubt it would ever happen. Nor should it, necessarily: I was just reading an article about the principal director of the Wooster Group; she invited Stephen Greenblatt to give a presentation on Shakespeare's Macbeth and ended by saying, "Yes, the theory's provocative and engaging, but I don't see how it can be translated into engaging theatre." I find the literary dimensions of Watchmen fascinating, but when I think of how they might be directly relevant to Snyder, I start to flounder; I mean, you could build an interesting essay on the allusions to Kitty Genovese in the novel, and the historical basis of Rorschach's "birth," but how would that be relevant to the adaptation?

That said, I would love Snyder to figure out a cinematic equivalent to the play between text and metatext in the relation between the principal narrative and Tales of the Black Freighter; I'd love it if he realized that the novel makes the two fuse at the end in the figure of the calamari. There's a place for someone who's parsed the book exhaustively and with sophistication, and who can give critical insights into the book. So I know where you're coming from.

I wanted to start a thread like this one, but looks like some one beat me to it a long, long time ago.
Anyway, I have to agree with Vynson as far as his opinion on the scripts goes.

The Sam Hamm draft, I've never wanted to finish it. Everytime I try to, I end up failing simply because its so horribly corny.

The Hayter draft I read, the third one, I think, well, on its own, its a fun script to read it and it does a good job condensing the story but the whole solar power thing at the end? It's terrible. The imagery of it could be really powerful if it didn't have such a stupid idea behind it. Also, since the whole thing is so rushed plot-wise, we never really feel the characters as much as we do in the graphic novel. And giving Silk Spectre II superpowers? The memory mirror? Killing Veidt? Ugh

The Tse draft I read, which I think was the first one, because it was still set post 9/11, it was better in developing the environment and the world the characters inhabited but once again, it was hurt by failing to give a true sense of the characters, specially Rorschach who has his speech patterns completely changed for no apparent reason. And the ending? Well, it's not as dumb as the whole solar power thing, but it just feels too convoluted. And oh yeah, Veidt also dies here which I still don't understand how anyone can see it as a good idea. I understand replacing the alien, but killing Veidt?

There goes my outdated rant.

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My unofficial and offical work-> http://www.youtube.com/movieboyandco

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Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste......

Nobody would like to think that more than me, but in all fairness to Zack, I honestly think he was fighting for a faithful adaptation from day one. If anything, he may have shown execs at WB pages from these threads to prove that he wasn't alone, and to make WB fear supreme geek backlash, but he was on our side before this site even launched.

On a related note, I actually emailed Jet from Batman-on-film before I started this site to ask him if he thought WB would give me any trouble. He was a great help to me in the days before launch. I hope I get to meet him at SD Comic Con.

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Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music - George Carlin

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(='.'=)
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Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste......

Trust me, I would love that to be the case. Hopefully we'll find out after the 'ole embargo is lifted.

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Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music - George Carlin