In a last minute decision, I decided not to see the Watchmen movie at all. Nope, I would like to preserve the good memories of a good "graphic novel" and no sublimely stupid filmmaker is going to ruin those for me. Like I've said before, I find something very wrong with the slick and "cool" look of the characters, costumes and overall film. And the fact that Zack "Fucking" Snyder seems to think the best way to adapt a comicbook is to copy every frame and every visual detail. That, to me, is just fucking stupid.
There was a press screening this morning, which I decided not to attend. There will be no review here. However, here's a superb interview with Alan Moore in Wired magazine.
When we did meet—which was mainly just because I thought it would be really good fun to meet Terry Gilliam, and so it proved—Mr. Gilliam did ask me how I would go about translating Watchmen into a film, and I said to him, "If anybody had asked me, Terry, I would have advised them not to." I think Terry is an intelligent man and came to that conclusion himself.
Moore addresses several issues, but basically:
1. He thinks that adult comic readers are either "hopeless nostalgics" or "cases of arrested development."
2. CGI and huge film production budgets are killing imagination and creativity.
3. Watchmen was intended as a work that would open new possibilities in the comics medium but instead, kickstarted a whole trend of morose superhero comics.
He also wonders why superheroes only originate in America. As does this local reviewer in his Superman Returns review.
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