Alan Moore on film....

Gorgo · Post by **Gorgo** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 7:28 pm

*Raises hand*

(Prefers not to say more)

minkwheel · Post by **minkwheel** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:59 am

I'll raise BOTH hands here.....I agree with Alan Moore, Gorgo, and Robotman in the sense that HOLLYWOOD DOES dumb down things for a core audience to enjoy....but until a moral majority of the "masses" actually CRAVE "smart entertainment" .....Hollywood will only churn out a retread of what made money BEFORE.... This past year has seen a huge boost in movie revenue ...mostly due to THE DARK KNIGHT movie, and IRON MAN among others ... if THE WATCHMEN does well, and I think it will do wonderfully for the first three weeks, call me out on this if I am wrong, but John and Jane Meatball really don't know the Watchmen characters, they know SUPERMAN, BATMAN and Spidey.... they'll only see it with word of mouth adverts from their comic reading buddies..... Go and see WATCHMEN, and show me that it isn't close to being a frame by frame retelling of the graphic novel with only a slight Hollywood-ish change to the ending....... This proves to me that the guy who directed this movie doesn't have much of a vision of his own, just wants to totally please the fanbase.... he did so with THE 300 and will so with WATCHMEN.... that's not a BAD thing, but it's also "THE SAFE ROUTE" when dealing with characters that only a FANBASE knows..... they'll bank on repeat business from word of mouth...... NOT ART FOR ART'S SAKE, like ALAN MOORE would like......and with the success of the film, HOLLYWOOD will once again tell investors that THE SAFE ROUTE will bring in money........ When you can have a guy like TYLER PERRY put on a dress for the millionth time, and still call him an original, as he rakes in another $30 MILLION for the SAME OL' ....and comedies (???) like BEVERLY HILLS CHIUAUA (I KNOW IT'S SPELLED INCORRECTLY) and PAUL BLART ---KEEP MAKING MONEY despite how lowbrow and dumbed down the material is...... Hollywood will take the low road every time.........using the excuse that "it's what America wants to see" .....there is NO MONEY in taking a chance until some INDEPENDENT guy takes that chance....................BET ON IT that next summer, you will see more BOLLYWOOD style movies just because CORNDOG MILLIONAIRE made some money and earned a statue of a golden nude guy..... oddly enough, the statue's full name is OSCAR GOLDMAN, if only to keep this note ON TOPIC. --minkwheel ---Yeah, I've mentioned that I've worked on HORROR movies before, and the ones that I help with aren't everyone's cup of tea, but dammit.... each and every TROMA feature that comes out of the house itself is LOADED with inspired stuff, and things that have never been dared before.... and it's done without ONE dime from Hollywood.

AK · Post by AK » Wed Mar 04, 2009 5:31 am

[POST REMOVED]

visceralpsyche · Post by **visceralpsyche** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 6:05 am

Troma rocks minkwheel! Toxie forever!!!

As for Alan Moore's comments, I think that he is too close to his chosen artform to realise that the needs and requirements of cinema are not the same as that of graphic novels or comics. Like it or not movies run for around 2hrs and fitting novels and all their nuances into such a timeframe is nigh on impossible. Even "Lord of the Rings" book purists weren't satisfied with the movie adaptation and that had extended editions (which I own and love btw!) specifically designed for them!

Though I think that it is fallacious to say that different mediums can be directly compared (such as graphic novel/comic to screen adaptations), I too think that Hollywood has a lot to answer for these days!!

It's the reason I became a filmmaker - to create intellectual films that don't dumb it down and actually require that you think about the movie during and after viewing.

One of the reasons I love science fiction as a genre (and robots within that) is because it allows me to tell interesting stories where I get to make up the world rules.

Remember, all good stories are essentially boiled down to man vs man, man vs nature and man vs himself (generic 'man' used). It's the journey the characters take and the emotional arcs that keep us watching. We go to movies to meet interesting new characters and see how they change based on the three overarching storylines above. All the bits in between like fancy effects, explosions etc are for naught if we don't get the basics right.

So I tell my stories via the use of robots as mirrors of ourselves and how we feel in today's society. Regardless of plot specifics, if I do this right you enjoy the movie on an intellectual level as well as a visceral one. Best of all is when you finish watching one of my movies and you think about the actions and motivations of my characters and what they might have been thinking. AI and robotics, blended with the right amount of emotional resonance gives me a powerful way to make you, the viewer, think about your own circumstances and the wider world around us. That actions have consequences, sometimes unexpected.

Good discussion!

Rotwang · Post by **Rotwang** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 6:12 am

Kishin wrote: You'd think with writing cred like that, Hollywood would just shut the fuck up and make the films as he wrote them.

A straight adaptation is something "creative" types hate, they only like the soup if they pissed in it.

Aside from changes to fit the format etc, they constantly tweak and change things because the top suits pay them big money to make such changes and call it creativity.

Hollywood is a business and the current business model means involves a lot of previews and audience reactions. So any ground-breaking ideas in works like Moore's are likely to cause a negative reaction in the audience and the Hollywood people rush in to file off the edges, perform endless rewrites until Joe Public says they got it right, turning it into yet more neutered paint-by-number prepackaged stale popcorn flicks.

Korby · Post by **Korby** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:25 am

visceralpsyche wrote: As for Alan Moore's comments, I think that he is too close to his chosen artform to realise that the needs and requirements of cinema are not the same as that of graphic novels or comics. Like it or not movies run for around 2hrs and fitting novels and all their nuances into such a timeframe is nigh on impossible. Even "Lord of the Rings" book purists weren't satisfied with the movie adaptation and that had extended editions (which I own and love btw!) specifically designed for them!

Actually, Moore is perfectly aware that there are deep fundemental differences between comics and film as artforms, and that's the source of a lot of his disappointment with adaptations of his work. He's been quoted as saying that if he'd meant his stories to be films, he'd have written them as such. Watchmen in particular, he says, was written to take advantage of the comic form and all its possibilities. For that reason, he doesn't really think it would work as a film. He seems not to be so much upset about the prospect of film adaptations as he is kind of resigned and disinterested.

That said, I agree completely with your point. And as you point out regarding LotR, it's an issue with adapting any kind of long-form story from another medium; boiling any random given story down to a typical feature-length film is liable to cause something to get lost in the wash.

--k

Trace Venom · Post by **Trace Venom** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:44 am

Moore is a gifted, talented writer. He is also a notorious crank who worships a serpent god.

That being said, I love a lot of his stuff, but I'm bored to tears with his constant bickering about how Hollywood translates his intellectual property to film, especially since the first trailer for Watchmen appeared.

The film adaptation of "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" was atrocious, and in that particular case, he was justified in disowning it, because there was much studio politics involved in the decision making process of the film:

For example, Connery helped ruin it by demanding the script be re-written to make the movie a starring vehicle for him, instead of a character driven ensemble piece, and the Tom Sawyer fiasco, a character written into the script as an attempt to make the film appealing to american audiences.

But I think anyone should be careful with the "HOLLYWOOD constantly shits on my CORN POPS!" whining, and take things on a more rational case-by-case basis.

In the case of the upcoming Watchmen, It'll probably get mixed reviews (I have a friend of mine who attended a press screening and told me the movie was great, but that he worried that most mainstream audiences won't get it), Alan Moore might secretly enjoy it and it will join the pantheon of Sci-Fi classics that were considered "meh" when they opened but are considered masterpieces 20 years later. (i.e. BLADE RUNNER & 2001)

I'd write a bigger rant, but my laziness prevents me. Laters.

Trace Venom · Post by **Trace Venom** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 11:04 am

Kishin wrote:I agree with Alan Moore, and I've been reading his stuff....well...pretty much forever.

Every film adaptation of his work has displeased him to the point he took his name off the film credits. And what a body of film it is:

Constantine (aka Hellblazer)
The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen
From Hell
V For Vendetta
Watchmen

This guy single-handedly changed the face of characters within comics on multiple occasions with his re-imagining of them (Dark Knight anyone?) and inspired a lot of other famous comic writers to give it a go.

Kish, I'm not sure if you did it on purpose, but Dark Knight was a Frank Miller book. Feel free to clarify me on what you were getting at with referencing either the book or the Nolan film in a post about Alan Moore.

And another thing... Speaking of Frank Miller:

At the time he was interviewed about the Watchmen movie, he hadn't seen the fucking thing. What he was displeased about was not the film per se, but the people involved: Snyder in particular, who directed a movie based on Frank Miller's 300. Moore hates Miller (and probably, the fact that they always get lumped together whenever anyone talks about "Greatest living writers in Comics")

So I'm pretty sure his train of thought was, "What, that dude who directed the zombie remake and that Twat's Greek Coloring book is the one adapting MY masterpiece?! Fuck that shit. I HATE it already!"

He'll probably get invited to numerous screenings. Decline numerous times, and then slip out of his house on a monday morning to catch a screening by himself in three months. If he sees it, and likes it, he'll probably take the secret with him to his grave. The End.

Keizo · Post by **Keizo** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 11:24 am

I've also read much of Alan Moore's work and do admire his talent. That said, he really shouldn't knock other mediums/interpretations too much. I'm sure he would feel very insulted if a photographer told him, "Your words could never capture the meaning of this photograph." Art in all it's forms is about getting a message across. Instead of being grateful for the massive interest generated in his original work and subsequent reprinting, he doesn't even give it a chance. Zack Snyder did an amazing job with 300 and actually improved on the graphic novel (in my opinion). This is from an early exchange I had on a Watchmen board when the movie was announced.

There is a third result that you are forgetting and is perhaps the most important one. Of course not every element can be addressed in a two hour (hopefully longer) movie. What this does though, is create interest in the original story. Sells and re-publishing of the original graphic novel will be great.

They say "The Most Celebrated Graphic Novel of All Time" but MOST people have NEVER HEARD OF IT. The purpose of the movie will be served if it expands the audience. So far everything looks great, so if it's not line for line, I personally don't care. I will not join your march because Zack Snyder helped make 300 what it was and it has become one of my all time favorites so I am grateful for that.

What is also important is that the characters themselves are portrayed well and are done justice. The character's motivations and discouragements are a crucial part of who and what they are physically as well. My main argument was just that when trying to bring something to new audiences, especially mass audience, it's a tricky balance in trying to portray something people can relate to or sympathize with... or cheer for.

Since I still remember when this was published in the original comic books (yikes! I've shown my age) I can recall that there wasn't much interest in it at the time because of the look of it. Fortunately, the right people picked it up and gave it the credit it deserved, but it may have otherwise been lost because it still wasn't popular in the mainstream. Now it's getting another chance and I'm glad that a fellow comic book fan is in charge of the project. It may not be what everyone wants but I've had to learn to try not to analyze things too much and sit back and enjoy what I can. Let's hope it doesn't suck!

I'm at least going to give it a chance. BTW, shouldn't this discussion be in the "Off Topic"?

Borias · Post by **Borias** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 8:12 am

Korby · Post by **Korby** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 9:35 am

That image is pure awesome sauce.

--k

Trace Venom · Post by **Trace Venom** » Fri Mar 06, 2009 5:35 am

Good Show on the Dr. Manhattan explanation, Kish.

Alan Moore on film....

Whatevs.