Watchmen

[Watashi]

Pictures have finally surfaced online:

You can check out what looks to be Rorschach here.

[Henry Gale]

Wow, I definately like the look of that.

Any more pics?

[megladon8]

It definitely seems to have a good look to it.

[Sycophant]

Hmmm... I haven't declared on this incarnation of the site how I feel about this project.

The book is unfilmable. This project is doomed.

[

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I'd be thrilled to be proven wrong, you know. Of course, that won't happen, because I am right.

]

It does look nice and expensive, though.

[Sven]

I don't think it's unfilmable so much as it is doomed to be inferior to the book. I mean, as a straightforward plot translation, an adaptation should be pretty simple.

[Grouchy]

I don't think it's unfilmable so much as it is doomed to be inferior to the book. I mean, as a straightforward plot translation, an adaptation should be pretty simple.

Yeah, but plot for plot's sake is nothing. Watchmen is nothing without its retro-active storytelling and complicated assembling of plot lines in different scales. There's not enough room in a movie under 8 hours to make the adaptation it deserves. You could make a good film by simply aiming lower, of course. No doubt about that. In short, they should've done the miniseries.

That pic looks good, by the way.

[megladon8]

More pics...

[Sven]

Yeah, but plot for plot's sake is nothing. Watchmen is nothing without its retro-active storytelling and complicated assembling of plot lines in different scales. There's not enough room in a movie under 8 hours to make the adaptation it deserves. You could make a good film by simply aiming lower, of course. No doubt about that. In short, they should've done the miniseries.

All this gets a big "of course" from me. I'm just retorting to the "unfilmable" adjective. But I think, more and more, I can see a film adaptation being successful. Tell me, what is it about Watchmen that could not translate into cinema?

[Grouchy]

All this gets a big "of course" from me. I'm just retorting to the "unfilmable" adjective. But I think, more and more, I can see a film adaptation being successful. Tell me, what is it about Watchmen that could not translate into cinema?

Basically, everything annotated on this page, which is one of many dedicated to the way in which Moore/Gibbons use the sequential art and the structure of a comic-book panel. In Issue 5, Fearful Symmetry, for example, the page layout is the same in the first and last page, in the second and the page before last, and progressively so until the end of the issue. It's a feat of storytelling, because the panels actually make dramatic sense beside the gimmick, and the structure mirrors the story and themes of the issue. In another issue, there's a pirate comic within the comic being read by a boy and it paralells the larger events occuring in the larger, umbrella fictional universe. Or the progressively faster way in which non-linear time jumps allow you to see a lifetime's story simultaneously, just as the protagonist of the issue, Dr. Manhattan, sees it.

I'd be hard-pressed to turn stuff like that into cinema. Basically, Watchmen is a masterpiece because it's a story that has been told perfectly in the medium that fits it best. Masterpieces should never be adapted or remade. It's pointless.

[number8]

My favorite aspect of the Fearful Symmetry chapter is the awesome symmetrical panel of an egg being broken and [

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Moloch's death.

] Foreshadowing at its utmost finest.

[Grouchy]

My favorite aspect of the Fearful Symmetry chapter is the awesome symmetrical panel of an egg being broken and [

Show Spoiler

Moloch's death.

] Foreshadowing at its utmost finest.

I just looked that up in the trade. Fucking amazing. You can't do that with a movie.

[Sven]

Without a copy of the book in front of me, I'm afraid those annotations are fairly useless as an explanation. But what you're telling me, basically, is that the reason it will not be a success is because of structure of the comic panels themselves?

Now, I'm in no way saying that I expect the movie to be great (I don't) or that the comic is not a masterpiece (it is). But I still am not sure what you can do with panel layout that you can't with the frame and editing of a moving picture. Editing and structure and composition are all composites of film, and are able to complement thematic issues very adeptly. There are examples of stories told within movies that mirror and comment upon their "umbrella world".

To me, what seems like the most untranslatable element is going to be Doctor Manhattan (the Mars stuff especially). There's no way the CG is going to be satisfying.

[Grouchy]

But I still am not sure what you can do with panel layout that you can't with the frame and editing of a moving picture.

[

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The egg thing that number8 just mentioned. At page 5, panel 4, there's an egg breaking in front of Moloch's terrified face. At page 24, panel 4, at the exact distance from the ending as the first panel was from the beginning, Moloch with the exact same expression and a bullet hole on his forehead. The whole issue is written with that symmetry in mind. Now, in a comic, you can look at both pages at the same time and see the paralell drawings. In a movie, there's no satisfactory way to watch two takes at a related running time at the same moment.

]

[number8]

No, he's saying that the movie cannot have the awe of having the story told so magnificently using said panel structures, because a movie can only show one frame at a time.

The Dr. Manhattan will be the most unfilmable, yes, but not because of the CG. He sees all time simultaneously, as to him they are going on at the same time. On a comic page, this is translated succinctly as we can step back and look at five or six different periods in his life going on at once in a single page grid. How do you convey that in a film?

[megladon8]

I think there are some pretty creative ways that these issues could be translated to film in an effective way which is just as awe-inspiring as the pages of the book.

It's just whether or not the creative team has the drive and freedom to do something totally different and "outside the box" with the film medium.

[Sven]

[

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The egg thing that number8 just mentioned. At page 5, panel 4, there's an egg breaking in front of Moloch's terrified face. At page 24, panel 4, at the exact distance from the ending as the first panel was from the beginning, Moloch with the exact same expression and a bullet hole on his forehead. The whole issue is written with that symmetry in mind. Now, in a comic, you can look at both pages at the same time and see the paralell drawings. In a movie, there's no satisfactory way to watch two takes at a related running time at the same moment.

]

What does that have to do with anything, though? Seems like a neat thing you can do with a drawing, but obviously, you can pull off the same sort of recognition-recall effect in a movie. I ask you, 8, the same question: it's a neat effect that you can capture while drawing, but why is that so essential to its existence? Surely, the gimmick is not what makes Watchmen so memorable and great.

You are right about Manhattan's all-time-at-once thing. That'll be hard.

[Grouchy]

What does that have to do with anything, though?

Well, it's what you were asking for, an example of something you can do with panel layout that you can't do with moving film and editing.

Surely, the gimmick is not what makes Watchmen so memorable and great.

Yes it is. Except it's not just a gimmick, it's a Russian doll storytelling style spread with variants through the entire series. You could do a movie with the same story and themes, and it'd make as much sense as shooting a drama about the Guernica bombing and call it an adaptation of Picasso's painting.

You are right about Manhattan's all-time-at-once thing. That'll be hard.

Try impossible. There's art in time and art in space. Manhattan's mindframe and all-encompassing time view can be done in a space medium, but not in a time one. Even with split-screen, you watch one image after another. You can't see all of them at the same time.

[Ivan Drago]

I think the Dr. Manhattan stuff is my favorite part of the book so far.

That being said, I'm looking forward to this movie.

[number8]

[Thirdmango]

Having literally just finished this book 6 hours ago, it's wacky for me to see it in movie form. I'm interested to see how they'll do it. The parts that I don't see how they will translate to film are the tidbits of information you get in between chapters. The newspaper clippings and the like.

[KK2.0]

I'm sure the film will be immensely inferior to the book, just like V, but i'm dead curious to watch the results. And in the end, Snyder is a competent storyteller, i'm sure it will be entertaining and reasonably faithful.

[bac0n]

All this talk about the movie reminds me that I need to dig up my copy of Watchmen and re-read it. It's been ages.

[Henry Gale]

First Look at Watchmen Characters!!

I guess that's one way of reminding everyone that it's now exactly one year away.

[megladon8]

Looks cool.

I have to say, though, that I imagine the costumes will evoke laughs from a lot of audience members who don't know the comics.

I know for certain my friends will find them ridiculous.

[Skitch]

I am really excited for this...I like Snyder.