Watchmen
My love for Alan Moore knows no bounds. However, this love also makes me nauseas at the prospect of Watchmen becoming a movie. Alan Moore's exceptional writing has been the victim of screenplay adapters several times already. These writers get Alan Moore's stories and dialogue on the table and then eat away at the perfect body of it, much like parasites and bacteria, feasting on the skin and contents until all that is left is the muck - a story decomposed and rotting, ready for the screen.
From Hell - screenplay adapted by two guys, one who had adapted Mad Max 2, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Vertical Limit as well as some others, and another who had done very little other than an adaptation of Les Mis. The book focussed on Jack the Ripper and wove an intriguing tale of the Masons and the Occult. The movie focussed on the cop and a prostitute, inserting a romance and eviscerating all of the intriguing Occult plot devices from the story. It barely resembles the book.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - screenplay adapted by a man whose only prior experience was a movie called Cyber Bandits. He gutted the story of any literary reference, irony, complexity or poetic justice, and replaced the female lead with a man for no apparent reason. It simply has no relation to Moore's story except the fact that he chose to use the same character names.
V for Vendetta - screenplay adapted by the Wachowski brothers who have considerably more experience, but couldn't overcome their own cliches. Again they took a story about abstract ideas and turned it into mainstream drivel. The forced parallel with the Bush Administration and the love story was theirs, and completely blotted out the greater points about will, integrity, sacrifice, the immortality of ideas, and constructive revolution. They made the film contradict the story, and for that, they have only earned my utter loathing.
Watchmen - screenplay adapted by two men - one who has no prior experience in adaptation and the other whose experience consists of adapting X-Men, X-Men 2, and the Scorpion King. Seriously, I feel nauseas at the thought - the one graphic novel consistently recognized as one of the most brilliant in existence, being mauled by these eager lampreys until only the bloodless husk of a story remains.
Can we burn Hollywood? Burn it to the ground? I'll get the napalm.
From Hell - screenplay adapted by two guys, one who had adapted Mad Max 2, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Vertical Limit as well as some others, and another who had done very little other than an adaptation of Les Mis. The book focussed on Jack the Ripper and wove an intriguing tale of the Masons and the Occult. The movie focussed on the cop and a prostitute, inserting a romance and eviscerating all of the intriguing Occult plot devices from the story. It barely resembles the book.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - screenplay adapted by a man whose only prior experience was a movie called Cyber Bandits. He gutted the story of any literary reference, irony, complexity or poetic justice, and replaced the female lead with a man for no apparent reason. It simply has no relation to Moore's story except the fact that he chose to use the same character names.
V for Vendetta - screenplay adapted by the Wachowski brothers who have considerably more experience, but couldn't overcome their own cliches. Again they took a story about abstract ideas and turned it into mainstream drivel. The forced parallel with the Bush Administration and the love story was theirs, and completely blotted out the greater points about will, integrity, sacrifice, the immortality of ideas, and constructive revolution. They made the film contradict the story, and for that, they have only earned my utter loathing.
Watchmen - screenplay adapted by two men - one who has no prior experience in adaptation and the other whose experience consists of adapting X-Men, X-Men 2, and the Scorpion King. Seriously, I feel nauseas at the thought - the one graphic novel consistently recognized as one of the most brilliant in existence, being mauled by these eager lampreys until only the bloodless husk of a story remains.
Can we burn Hollywood? Burn it to the ground? I'll get the napalm.