io9.com reports on the Watchmen screening.
The news can be considered "not good".
I don't think we had any illusions it would be a great movie. But I think we were all assuming it would be a fairly accurate one. Faithful, as it were, to the source.
This... appears not to be the case.
I don't think we had any illusions it would be a great movie. But I think we were all assuming it would be a fairly accurate one. Faithful, as it were, to the source.
This... appears not to be the case.
The movie probably isn't going to have the embedded pirate comic. No pirate comic means no familiarity with the artist's grisly work. No familiarity means that "we captured some folks and came up with this stuff" is even more far-fetched than "Ozymandias manipulated us and used Dr Manhattan's thingee against us." (We can hopefully still presume that the Ozy somehow blocks Manhattan's precognitive "exists simulataneously throughout time" abilities).
On the other hand, the squid raises the spectre of alien or extra-dimensional invasion, bringing people together. "Stuff explodes" seems to indicate that the usual enemy is up to no good, and considering the importance of the Cold War (and it's impending development into a Hot and final War) I'm left wondering how this version will do anything but convince everyone to fire their missiles.
I think the best object lesson for movie adaptations is David Lynch and Dune. It isn't the job of a director to "accurately re-create source material." It's their job to make a movie. We all (mostly) accept that the words "Based on a True Story" imply that the story is mostly fictional. Yet we can't seem to accept that for a movie based on a fictional source.
(Add to that a more viperous den of villains than fans of Science Fiction, Comics, and RPGs does not exist. It's a wonder we enjoy anything).
Doug.
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