Hello everybody, This week were going to be doing something a little
bit different - we're going to be taking a look at a comic book. How
does this relate to the topic of Masterpiece Cinema? Put your trust in
me, dear reader, and I'll form a connection between the two that will
astound and satisfy you!
Watchmen written by Alan Moore.
If
you've been a fan of comics anytime in the past twenty years, chances
are youve heard of Watchmen. It was a twelve-issue mini-series that DC
published back in the 1980s. Written by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons,
its generally recognized as one of the greatest works in the genre, if
not the greatest of all. This might not mean much to you. You may
consider comics to be something that are just for kids. But Watchmen is
anything but this. Its a dark, complex dissection of the superhero
genre that Steve Edgell of Escape called the first great human act in
superhero comics, and Mikal Gilmore of Rolling Stone called peerless
The
plot is such an intricate thing to go into that to do it justice would
almost be impossible (and also expose my complete inability to
succinctly summarize stories a real problem for someone that writes
reviews). All you really need to know is that the story is set in the
1980s, but that this reality is different to our own thanks to the
emergence of masked men in the 40s. Technology is a little more
advanced, Nixon is still the President, and the world is standing on
the very brink of nuclear war with the USSR well, even more on the
brink than it was at the time in our world.
In amongst all this,
a heavy-set, 60-year-old man by the name of Edward Blake is thrown
through the window of his apartment after being brutally beaten. The
police don't have an explanation for it. But the masked vigilante
Rorschach has a theory. Blake was the Comedian, a brutal hero
sanctioned by the government to carry out assassinations. Rorschach
believes the Comedian was just the first victim in a murder spree
targeting vigilantes, so now he has to warn his fellow masked heroes
while trying to figure out whos behind it all.
That's the
most basic premise of the story it in fact stretches far, far beyond
that. Its a monolith of a piece, with each issue in the twelve-part
limited series further astounding the reader with its level of thought
and detail. It's an ingenious piece of work, something that has made an
eternal impression on the field of comics, but that has never been
replicated in terms of creative success.
So whats this all got
to do with cinema? Well, before it had even finished it's original run
back in the mid-80s, Hollywoods been trying to get a big screen version
of Watchmen up and running. Joel Silver, the producer behind such
Hollywood blockbusters as Die Hard, Predator and The Matrix trilogy,
had his eye on the piece for a long time, as did director Terry
Gilliam.
The problem with adapting Watchmen, however, is like adapting any of
Moores other works; theyre just too dense to bring to the silver screen
at an acceptable running time without stripping the story of all its
nuance and allowing it to be nothing more than a run-of-the-mill
action-adventure film. We saw this problem with The League of
Extraordinary Gentleman, another mini-series written by Moore. All the
character and historical detail of the story was ripped out and
replaced by the generic conventions of a clunky Hollywood movie. It was
a damn shame.
The rumour mill is starting up again on a Watchmen
film being made, with Sigourney Weaver and Daniel Craig being talked
about for roles. Theres also discussion of the plot being significantly
altered, what with the climax of the book too closely resembling the
events of September 11. Of course, changing the climax of the story
would ruin the whole thingso then what would be the point of doing it
at all?
If you want to get a better idea of why Watchmen is the
comic book benchmark that it is (with my clumsy words obviously having
failed you) go out and pick up the trade paperback from your nearest
comic book shop. It collects all twelve issues, so you can read it all
in one sitting, and you can see why bringing this to the silver screen
would be such a grand challenge and one challenge that would probably
be best left unattempted.
bit different - we're going to be taking a look at a comic book. How
does this relate to the topic of Masterpiece Cinema? Put your trust in
me, dear reader, and I'll form a connection between the two that will
astound and satisfy you!
Watchmen written by Alan Moore.
If
you've been a fan of comics anytime in the past twenty years, chances
are youve heard of Watchmen. It was a twelve-issue mini-series that DC
published back in the 1980s. Written by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons,
its generally recognized as one of the greatest works in the genre, if
not the greatest of all. This might not mean much to you. You may
consider comics to be something that are just for kids. But Watchmen is
anything but this. Its a dark, complex dissection of the superhero
genre that Steve Edgell of Escape called the first great human act in
superhero comics, and Mikal Gilmore of Rolling Stone called peerless
The
plot is such an intricate thing to go into that to do it justice would
almost be impossible (and also expose my complete inability to
succinctly summarize stories a real problem for someone that writes
reviews). All you really need to know is that the story is set in the
1980s, but that this reality is different to our own thanks to the
emergence of masked men in the 40s. Technology is a little more
advanced, Nixon is still the President, and the world is standing on
the very brink of nuclear war with the USSR well, even more on the
brink than it was at the time in our world.
In amongst all this,
a heavy-set, 60-year-old man by the name of Edward Blake is thrown
through the window of his apartment after being brutally beaten. The
police don't have an explanation for it. But the masked vigilante
Rorschach has a theory. Blake was the Comedian, a brutal hero
sanctioned by the government to carry out assassinations. Rorschach
believes the Comedian was just the first victim in a murder spree
targeting vigilantes, so now he has to warn his fellow masked heroes
while trying to figure out whos behind it all.
That's the
most basic premise of the story it in fact stretches far, far beyond
that. Its a monolith of a piece, with each issue in the twelve-part
limited series further astounding the reader with its level of thought
and detail. It's an ingenious piece of work, something that has made an
eternal impression on the field of comics, but that has never been
replicated in terms of creative success.
So whats this all got
to do with cinema? Well, before it had even finished it's original run
back in the mid-80s, Hollywoods been trying to get a big screen version
of Watchmen up and running. Joel Silver, the producer behind such
Hollywood blockbusters as Die Hard, Predator and The Matrix trilogy,
had his eye on the piece for a long time, as did director Terry
Gilliam.
The problem with adapting Watchmen, however, is like adapting any of
Moores other works; theyre just too dense to bring to the silver screen
at an acceptable running time without stripping the story of all its
nuance and allowing it to be nothing more than a run-of-the-mill
action-adventure film. We saw this problem with The League of
Extraordinary Gentleman, another mini-series written by Moore. All the
character and historical detail of the story was ripped out and
replaced by the generic conventions of a clunky Hollywood movie. It was
a damn shame.
The rumour mill is starting up again on a Watchmen
film being made, with Sigourney Weaver and Daniel Craig being talked
about for roles. Theres also discussion of the plot being significantly
altered, what with the climax of the book too closely resembling the
events of September 11. Of course, changing the climax of the story
would ruin the whole thingso then what would be the point of doing it
at all?
If you want to get a better idea of why Watchmen is the
comic book benchmark that it is (with my clumsy words obviously having
failed you) go out and pick up the trade paperback from your nearest
comic book shop. It collects all twelve issues, so you can read it all
in one sitting, and you can see why bringing this to the silver screen
would be such a grand challenge and one challenge that would probably
be best left unattempted.
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