Do you think Alan Moore would like the "Watchmen" movie?

[Judson Caspian]

If he watched it, and tells the public his opinions, he'll say he hated it. But I know deep down he actually liked it, a bit.

That's why he's a dick, yeah.

 

[El Payaso]

No, because he's Alan Moore

Exactly. There's no way he'll like it.

 

[sdc10]

I doubt Alan Moore would even take the time to watch this movie, let alone form an opinion. Even if he did watch it though, I'm sure he'll tear it apart to justify his belief that the GN is near impossible to be adapted into the film medium.

And after seeing it im pretty sure he would be right

 

[Keymaker]

It's funny to read that old Moore interview from the 80's where he's all for a Watchmen film...
''I believe that he will try his best to make the film as faithful to the experience of reading Watchmen as he can. I believe he's got a lot of respect for the material, and that's all that I can ask for, really, and I'm prepared to sort of stand by what he does.''
Zack Snyder anyone? t:

 

[I Am The Knight]

Tell me about it.

 

[AdWolF16]

i started reading this again today, and it really struck me this time around how completely cinematic the story is. nearly every written word in the entire story is dialogue, and the parts that aren't (Under the Hood, the Black Freighter, the newspaper clippings) can easily be translated for film (as a supplemental documentary, inter-spliced cartoon, and news reports); and the art simply reads like a storyboard. aside from the length, i really don't even understand what about Watchmen Moore (or anyone else) thinks is unfilmable. more than anything, it feels like it's an ideal novel to turn into a film

 

[SuperFerret]

i started reading this again today, and it really struck me this time around how completely cinematic the story is. nearly every written word in the entire story is dialogue, and the parts that aren't (Under the Hood, the Black Freighter, the newspaper clippings) can easily be translated for film (as a supplemental documentary, inter-spliced cartoon, and news reports); and the art simply reads like a storyboard. aside from the length, i really don't even understand what about Watchmen Moore (or anyone else) thinks is unfilmable. more than anything, it feels like it's an ideal novel to turn into a film

Moore said it was unfilmable because he doesn't want it to be filmed.

 

[Bubastis]

I'm gonna skip reading all of the useless posts calling him crazy and pessimistic to say that he'd definitely say NO, and for entirely valid reasons.

Alan Moore has gone on record stating how skeptical he is of film as a medium. He doesn't hate all films, he just doesn't like what he thinks the majority of them are doing to our culture, saying that it is watering down our collective cultural imagination. He thinks that the amount of people working on a movie and the amount of money tossed at the filmmakers has an inverse relationship with imagination and quality. He also thinks that it's a bullying genre that takes stories told much better in other mediums and waters them down, compromises them, and re-tells them in a way that isn't very literate.

On that note, everything he doesn't like about most films is represented there in Watchmen. It took a story that was flawless in the comic-book format, where we got all the time we needed to see all the characters develop, breathe, and have complex psychological profiles and cut it down, watered it down, dumbed it down, contorted it, compressed it, and compromised it into a 2.5 hour movie. I appreciate the lengths Snyder went to as far as typical movies go, but he made a movie that didn't need to exist.

And if you guys think than Alan Moore wouldn't have any problem with the ending (Y'know, the one where Dan sees Rorschach's death and screams a big hollywood "NOOOOO," Sally and Dan don't sex at Karnak, and Sally doesn't kiss the photograph, all in addition to removing the squid and all that that implies) then you're nuts. The fact is, Alan Moore is a wayy better storyteller than Zach Snyder, and he was the one that created Watchmen. He knows why everything was put in there. The film would upset him even if it wasn't based on his work, but the fact that it gets a lot of his baby very very wrong would understandably make him furious.

I hope he never does watch it. And I can't wait to see what he writes next.

 

[Temple Fugate]

would jesus like the passion?

 

[SuperFerret]

would jesus like the passion?

Probably not, but then Watchmen isn't about Alan Moore being tortured and killed. No matter what he'll tell you.

 

[Max Shrek]

Moore is being talented, but yea, he is crazy and pretty annoying. Bottom line is he hates everything that is not written or done by him... or so it seems.

Yeah, that's why the only comic he still does is League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a comic that literally puts in every work of fiction or music or art Alan Moore likes and puts them in one universe (and there are THOUSANDS). The difference? It's an *original* story. It doesn't retell Dracula; it just uses characters from it. I honestly believe if someone made a film about the Comedian in Vietnam and was 100% original, set in the comics continuity and had its own point not just "Ooh, Comedian in Vietnam would be cool!", he would accept it. Because that's taking Moore's characters and doing their own thing with them (something he's ALWAYS supported), not just taking what Moore had already done and put it in motion.

Honestly, a good portion of this thread makes me sick to my stomach. It's borderline slander. It's taking your own thoughts and your own opinions on what makes a good film and what makes a good adaptation on putting them on Moore with no valid evidence. Hell, no evidence at all. "Moore's going to secretly like the film..." What proof do you have?! Moore has been very vocal and very elaborate on his feelings on Watchmen, on adaptations, on the film medium, on his role... All giving in-depth reasons for not liking a film version of Watchmen, and on your side...? And even if you like the film and disagree with his opinions, they are valid. The fear that film will become the most dominant medium... the fear that people will read books and comics and their first thought will be, "Ah, man, this would be an awesome film!" not focusing on the work itself (I mean, think about it: Who finishes watching a film and thinks, "Ah, man, this would be an awesome novelization!"). Moore has a genuine concern for pop culture and the state of entertainment and the level of quality of material being fed to us... Even if you disagree with that, I don't see how you can deride him for caring. To call him a "dick" or accuse him of lying... It's depressing.

 

[Marden]

I'll give a simple answer: No.

 

[Kane52630]

has anyone heard from alan moore after the movie came out, just wondering

 

[hatebox]

I imagine even if he went into it with a relatively open mind he'd probably dislike it anyway. I can't see him enjoying its bombast.

 

[The_Joker7895]

I'm gonna skip reading all of the useless posts calling him crazy and pessimistic to say that he'd definitely say NO, and for entirely valid reasons.

Alan Moore has gone on record stating how skeptical he is of film as a medium. He doesn't hate all films, he just doesn't like what he thinks the majority of them are doing to our culture, saying that it is watering down our collective cultural imagination. He thinks that the amount of people working on a movie and the amount of money tossed at the filmmakers has an inverse relationship with imagination and quality. He also thinks that it's a bullying genre that takes stories told much better in other mediums and waters them down, compromises them, and re-tells them in a way that isn't very literate.

On that note, everything he doesn't like about most films is represented there in Watchmen. It took a story that was flawless in the comic-book format, where we got all the time we needed to see all the characters develop, breathe, and have complex psychological profiles and cut it down, watered it down, dumbed it down, contorted it, compressed it, and compromised it into a 2.5 hour movie. I appreciate the lengths Snyder went to as far as typical movies go, but he made a movie that didn't need to exist.

And if you guys think than Alan Moore wouldn't have any problem with the ending (Y'know, the one where Dan sees Rorschach's death and screams a big hollywood "NOOOOO," Sally and Dan don't sex at Karnak, and Sally doesn't kiss the photograph, all in addition to removing the squid and all that that implies) then you're nuts. The fact is, Alan Moore is a wayy better storyteller than Zach Snyder, and he was the one that created Watchmen. He knows why everything was put in there. The film would upset him even if it wasn't based on his work, but the fact that it gets a lot of his baby very very wrong would understandably make him furious.

I hope he never does watch it. And I can't wait to see what he writes next.

Valid points. I half agree with him about film, but at the same time, that kind of view that film is rarely ever truly except in certain times of the year (fall oscar season) is exactly what made me want to be a filmmaker. The world of cinema needs better films and filmmakers, and I hope I can be part of a movement as a filmmaker to restore the medium to it's rightful place.

However, depsite having valid viewpoints, Moore is also sometimes a dick for the sake of being a dick, and it's often totally uncalled for.

 

[sdc10]

It's funny to read that old Moore interview from the 80's where he's all for a Watchmen film...
''I believe that he will try his best to make the film as faithful to the experience of reading Watchmen as he can. I believe he's got a lot of respect for the material, and that's all that I can ask for, really, and I'm prepared to sort of stand by what he does.''
Zack Snyder anyone? t:

Thats before he saw how movie studios pretty much raped his other comic book creations. League of Extraordinary Gentleman was not a good movie

 

[Sawyer]

Even if Alan Moore liked it deep down, he would never admit that to anyone. He's spent too much time and energy hating it to suddenly give in.

 

[DACrowe]

The rationalization that Moore fans parrot about a movie not needing to exist can be made about any adaptation of any work of art, literature, theatre or history itself in film. As it has already happened once, there is no reason for a film adaptation. Conversely, literature based on history or other stories should also be invalid as should theater based on literature. By his standards, though, he has mutilated and butchered the works of Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc. when he wrote his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that takes a multitude of Victorian novels (ALL OF THEM DEFINITIVE AND SUPERIOR TO MOORE'S ITERATIONS ON THEM) and adapted them for his own purposes in his medium and did things that no other medium likely could successfully do (he turned them into superheroes). But if you mean to tell me he was true to the author's original vision when he turned Mina Harker into a divorcée because her husband couldn't stand the thought of her being defiled by a vampire who has an S&M relationship with Alan Quartermane or that Wells would appreciate his anti-hero becoming a pedophile and rapist in Moore's vision, you have another thing coming.

And this is just amplified in Lost Girls, when he took Doorthy, Wendy and Alice and turned them into a trio of swinging bisexuals in turn-of-the-century Europe whose original texts were merely childhood daydreams created to cope with adolescent sexual experiences--such as Doorthy getting gangbanged by three farm hands and her pappy). Do you think Barry meant Peter Pan to be an allegory for the sexual awakening and premature ****tiness of Wendy Darling?

But all of those are just O.K. for Moore to adapt and rewrite how he sees fit. I am sure he is a fan of many great works of literature and the stage, given his literary allusions in his works. Should he be miffed that Hamlet is based on a much older Danish story that already existed and told its tale to the best of its ability in its original medium, folklore? Did it need to be reworked into an English stageplay that also presented Protestant-thinking? In a word: YES. As it gave us the greatest play in the English Language.

I am going to be frank. Alan Moore is being hypocritical. And many tend to agree with his notions because...Alan Moore said them. If we are to infer that the movie is pointless as it has already been told "flawlessly" in its original medium than this entire site is focused on worthless cinema...and that would include TDK for those who are about to say that movie cured cancer or something of the sort.

 

[The Guard]

What DA said.

Still can't for the life of me figure out why anyone cares what Moore would think of a movie in a medium he's clearly indicated he doesn't care either way about.

 

[Max Shrek]

I don't know about others, but that's completely not my point. As I said above, "I honestly believe if someone made a film about the Comedian in Vietnam and was 100% original, set in the comics continuity and had its own point not just "Ooh, Comedian in Vietnam would be cool!", he would accept it." If someone took Watchmen and twisted it into a new purpose, took the Watchmen characters or mythos or ideas and did a brand new story on film or in prose, he wouldn't care. What this is (and what many film adaptations are) is taking the comic and just sliding it over. Snyder lets Moore do the hard work and then just tweaks it here and there. He doesn't sit down and think, "What's MY story that I can tell using THEIR characters?" He just tells their story.

 

[DACrowe]

And I promise you if he had told his story with those characters, as you say, almost every fanboy in the world, including everyone on this board, would be screaming bloody murder. Catch-22, anyone? I agree Snyder didn't make the best possible film, but it was a solid film that bent over backwards to please fans, who simply were never going to accept it (this is a generalization and not aimed simply at you) because Alan Moore told them to.

EDIT:

my post was more aimed at ridiculous comments like this:

On that note, everything he doesn't like about most films is represented there in Watchmen. It took a story that was flawless in the comic-book format, where we got all the time we needed to see all the characters develop, breathe, and have complex psychological profiles and cut it down, watered it down, dumbed it down, contorted it, compressed it, and compromised it into a 2.5 hour movie. I appreciate the lengths Snyder went to as far as typical movies go, but he made a movie that didn't need to exist.