Watchmen

[Brendan]

It comes out today. I know lots of people have been looking forward to this, some with a certain degree of trepidation, for a long time now.

Did you notice the New Frontiersman cover on the Metro this morning?

[SeanMacGabhann]

Im off to see it in new york later today. Woo hoo! But all the old cliches about it being unfilmable are probably true and characters that look good on page could well look like bad tights on screen.

And still im excited !

[mockney piers]

Show off ;-P

I have to say from the screenshots and trailers it seems to have got the look, but then we know Snyder can do visuals.

If anything a little too polished? It is supposed to be a rotten and gritty world.

but as Brendan says, definite trepidation, but not a little excitement.

Booked in to see it at the Imax, so have to wait a week.

[Brendan]

Yeah I know there is a lot of etc. etc. and they can?t possibly fit all the themes and subplots into a film. It is 2 1/2 hours long though and considering how true to the book Zack Snyder stayed with 300 I think it is going to be pretty good.

[mockney piers]

Will they have a little film within the film, like the comic within the comic, reflecting the main themes in a dark and twisted fashion?

[Brendan]

Not sure but the mock cover of the metro this morning alludes to it with the headline ?Fears Grow for Missing ?Black Freighter? Writer?

[lozzyloz]

Friend of mine reviews it here

[Brendan]

I like this idea of his, ?In fact, what might have been a more powerful route would have been 12 one hour episodes??

That would be awesome and even temp me to purchase one of those penny dreadfuls of our modern age, the DVD box set.

[mockney piers]

I remember when Dune was made into a film, it was apparently 8 and a half hours long, almost 6 hours of which ended up on the cutting room floor, and it basically made absolutely no sense at all (and eventually got made (completely anew, not with that material) into a mini-series (of dubious quality, with a really fit Princess Irulan as I recall)) and Frank Herbert expressed some wish that there might be a way to release it as a long film/mini series.

This was about 15 years before DVDs existed, so no reason why there wouldn't be a full length Watchmen if that much was cut, the LoTR people did it.

[*Bob*]

I like 'Dune' (the theatrical release). I know I shouldn't, but I do.

[mockney piers]

It was a bit rubbish, but I was most wowed by it at the cinema aged 10 or what ever I was.

[capt_birdseye]

Wasn't Sting in it? I think no more needs to be said on the matter.

[mockney piers]

quite quite.

Although Quadrophenia was good.

[*Bob*]

It is a bit rubbish. Risible on so many levels. And yet..

I heard/read someone else talking about it somewhere who summed-up exactly what I thought about it: they said that despite all its very obvious failings, whenever they thought about the book they couldn't help thinking about the film - in a sort-of companion piece way. I think there's something in that somewhere.

[Brendan]

Luckily with Dune I was young enough for it to just be a film about giant worms and spaceships.

LotR always gives me hope that it is possible to make a film/s that do a book justice.

[SteveT]

Brendan wrote:-LotR always gives me hope that it is possible to make a film/s that do a book justice.

I have seen only one film that could replace the book "A day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch" that movie would have saved you reading the book.

Dune the book I loved and was gripped by, but the movie I yawned.

I loved lord of the rings book too, but have deliberately avoided the film.

They have made some wonderful films of the Dickens classics, but none can replace the reading of the book in my opinion.

[tommy]

Really looking forward to it - am surprised that it got the funding to be an 18 rated and 2? hours film

[beef]

Nearly got excited about the film till I saw the running time. It took me a year to read the book (nothing compared to the wait for From Hell or even Big Numbers) but I begrudge Zac Snyder two and a half hours, I turned off 300 after 45 minutes! The man is really the most anodyne of directors, unable to drive any ideas of his own he takes wholesale from the comic book world, too shallow to realize the comic book is to celluloid as poetry is to the pop video.

On a similair note, what the hell happened to Burlyman Comics? Doc Frankenstien and Shaolin Cowboy were excellant and I could really do with a shot of Geoff Darrow right now.

The only comic book adaptation that worked was A History of Violence. Can anyone think of any others? Cartoons don't count.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/publicenemies/ looks good.

[Brendan]

Really? I think 2 and a half hours is too short.

Surely considering the hard hitting social messages in watchmen someone like Snyder who will ?translate it verbatim? is what they were looking for. Or is that me being naive in assuming that Joe Public is going to have the wherewithal to think about what the writer is trying to say about the world they inhabit?

As for recent adaptations, I liked Road to Perdition and Sin City. I can?t say From Hell did the book justice. Actually all of the attempts to film Alan Moore?s work so far have been a bit rubbish. Not necessarily rubbish films, just rubbish compared to the books.

[????]

Is this an age thing or a...er...*searches for good way of putting this, fails*.."geek" thing? I haven'y a scooby what any of you are on about

[Brendan]

It's a comic book thing Quids. So er, "geek" is the right word i think.

It's also kinda a film thing.

[????]

Thanks Brendan, I know I'm getting old and doddery and my senility is added to buy nappys and Peppa Pig minature figures but I like to keep a bit of a finger on the pulse

[beef]

Yeah, forgot about Sin City, what a great film that was, the flip side of course being The Spirit. And I suppose it could be a geek thing, I prefer to think of it as 'media' thing, or opinion on the artistic media of the 20/21st century. We now have film, T.V., comic books, music, gaming and mobile communications that in the scheme of things are incredibly new and young media compared to the traditional.

[Keef]

Heard ages ago they were doing a follow up to Sin City, but haven't heard anything since. Silence of the lambs is the one film that I preferred to the book.

[RosieH]

I think Clive Owen said on Jonathan Ross last week that a follow up to Sin City was in the offing.