Text 3678, 69 rader
Skriven 2006-07-08 01:01:00 av Robert E Starr JR (4151.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: a kind of sadness
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"Verb" <Daren@verb.org> wrote in message
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> >
> > I really love 'Unbreakable' and watched it again only the other night,
> > as it happens. I still think that Mr. Glass should have escaped at the
> > end though. :)
> >
> > Neil B
>
> I remember being disappointed in "Unbreakable", but it may be time to
> revisit it. Too many people I respect speak well of it.
>
> But an alien attack foiled by a pantry door? Puh-lease.
> (If you've not seen Signs, this isn't much of a spoiler. There are many
> things in the film that will spoil it worse than that for you. In fact,
> Signs was so spoiled that I've been unwilling to slouch toward "The
> Village". )
>
> If you like the human foibles aspect of superhero movies, pray to the
> great maker for Watchmen to finally get made. In fact, that's the
> script I would like to see JMS take a crack at.
>
>
> OK, there's my perfect world. JJ Abrams is too busy making extra
> episodes of  Lost to work on Trek, they throw $$$ at JMS to reboot that
> series, and while he's at it, he writes the script for Watchmen, which
> Terry Gilliam agrees to direct(he was signed for it in the early 90's).
> Oh yeah, world peace and an end to hunger, too. And also, someone would
> refund the $7.50 I spent on that ticket for Signs.

I'm with Alan Moore with regards to a film version of Watchmen.  The story
was specifically written for the comic book medium, and even more
specifically with characters that are drawn from the golden and silver ages
of super-heroes.  The reason why Watchmen is so damn good is that it is
probably the pinnacle of the comic-book medium in the way it rips up time
and motion and arranges it on a page.  It also requires quite a lot of
background knowledge of the super-hero genre, and how it ties in with
American society from the 50s up to the 80s, in order for you to fully
appreciate the subtlety.  It is such a dense graphic novel, you can
constantly reread it and still find things you missed the previous time
around.  The unfortunate thing is that if you convert the story to a film
medium, you have to heavily shear the graphic novel, and you are left with
just a mystery story about who killed a super-hero.  And as well as that,
the story was written in the 80s when immanent nuclear war was a real fear;
terrorism, whilst an obvious replacement, doesn't have the same power, nor
would it make sense in the context.  Of course, I suppose it could be
deliberately placed in the 80s - which would allow us to have the golden age
super-heroes still alive.

Having said that, if there was a Watchmen film in the pipeline, the two
writers I would get to convert it would be JMS and James Robinson, because
both are people who understand both comic book (and indeed super-hero) as
well as movie sensibilities.

--
Mark Bertenshaw
Kingston upon Thames
UK
                                                             
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