And I’m back. New computer and time to blog.
So, even though the film isn’t out until next year, the first Watchmen trailer hit the internet. Empire has even done a trailer/comic comparison. They certainly made their mark.
Watchmen is a masterpiece of superhero comic books, and I love it dearly. I know that the film, no matter how closely it sticks to the book, will not be as good.
However, I can’t help but have a big geeky thrill at seeing panels of the comic book turned into a film. I know this is a weakness of mine, but it doesn’t stop the smile from crossing my face seeing the Owl Ship ascending from the river, Jon being blown apart and reforming in the canteen, Dan in the prison riot, the Comedian being thrown out the window, the Mars palace, the fluidity of Rorshach’s mask. I still know it won’t be as good as the book, but I will enjoy the process of watching it when it comes out. Does that make me a bad person?
Entertainment Weekly interviewed Alan Moore and he said some pretty strong stuff that inferred that if it were up to him, his work would never have been adapted. Whether it turns out well or not, it seems a bit unfair that his work is being taken by others and used in movies without his permission.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20213004,00.html?iid=top25-20080718-Q%26A%3A+’Watchmen’+creator+Alan+Moore
I have the deepest respect and admiration for Alan Moore, but he doesn’t half whinge when given the opportunity. I don’t know the full legal details, but I don’t think that Moore completely owns Watchmen (possibly due to the fact that it started out as ideas for using the recently acquired Charlton characters for DC), so it’s shaky ground when talking about ‘permission’.
Moore’s work has been treated badly by film adaptations in the past, so I can understand his scepticism, but he is not the first writer to have his work butchered by another medium and he won’t be the last. As Raymond Chandler so famously replied when asked about the films that ruined his books, ‘they’re not ruined, they’re on the shelf exactly as I wrote them’.
Watchmen the book will always be there; the only difference after the film will be that Alan Moore didn’t make any money out of his intellectual property for the sake of an artistic principle, which I find rather sad.