NutJobJim said:
He seems to see an attempt at turning his comic into a movie as a personal insult. From the sounds of it the whole point of Watchmen was to prove that certain stories can only be told through comic books thus making a movie version impossible. I haven't even read the comic but I already disagree with him. Comics, books, movies, TV, painting, photography, music, computer games, they can all tell stories in different ways. Each method has unique qualities, but that doesn't mean that the stories should be confined to just the one medium.
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I disagree completely. All mediums have strengths and weaknesses. Film has 3 essential things going on for it that other mediums cannot do:
1) It shows action much better because it moves
2) Sound
3) Emotion can be shown more naturally because you can show it happening without beating someone over the head with it.
Comics have the ability to do a few things that movies cannot. Comics can hide details in images that movies cannot... because you can stare at something for as long as you need to soak it all in. Comics can throw shit in the background like a flyer or a newspaper headline and leave it up to the viewer to find it.
Books have a similar ability to describe things in great detail, and in doing so tell you alot about the charachter mindset. Thats one of my chief complaints about the Lord of the Rings movies. The books are more about traveling, commraderie and the journey. The movie glosses over all of this (because it has to, you cant have a movie that is 2 hours of people walking). In the books there is less stuff going on and more time waiting for the next thing to happen. In the movies small action scenes that take 2-3 pages now take 30 minutes or more. Movies have advantages sure, but it doesnt mean everything can be well adapted.
Timeline: Comic books can literally jump between 3-4 different subplots at once. Movies can try and do this with cutting back and forth, but you still spend 4-5 minutes in each scenario. In the watchmen you get different stories and different timelines from panel to panel. One might be set in the 50's, the next in the 80's. Hell, some panels tell the story of the pirate comic book while advancing the main plotline at the same time. Mannhattan's story jumps all over the place and lets you piece it together. You can't do it the same way in this movie, and you are going to lose something when you try and tell the story in a straight timeline.
Inner voice: There is something lost when an inner voice becomes a voiceover. Its no longer an inner voice. Its now dialouge. The stream of conciousness that most of the charachters in Watchmen, especially Rorchach is going to be too disjointed to leave as is, it will have to be changed.
As to your point about TDK: Its not an adaptation. It is an original story written for the screen featuring charachters that came from comic books. Hardly the same thing at all.