A lot of people are looking forward to the big-screen adaptation of Alan Moore’s “Watchmen.” It’s creator isn’t one of them.
In a recent conversation with the Los Angeles Times, Moore said that his Hugo-award winning graphic novel is “inherently unfilmable” and that he has no intention of seeing Zach Snyder’s faithful translation of the story from comic panels to the big-screen. Moore said that because of the variety of techniques he utilized in telling the story on the printed page, that a film adaptation is impossible and that Hollywood simply shouldn’t have bothered in the first place.
“They take an idea, bowdlerize it, blow it up, make it infantile and spend $100 million to give people a brief escape from their boring and often demeaning lives at work. It’s obscene and it’s offensive,” he said. “This is not the culture I signed up for. I’m sure I sound like Bobby Fischer talking about chess ”
“Will the film even be coming out? There are these legal problems now, which I find wonderfully ironic. Perhaps it’s been cursed from afar, from England,” Moore said. “And I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come.”
Snyder shouldn’t be too offended by Moore’s refusal to see “Watchmen.” According to Moore, he’s never watched any of Hollywood’s adaptations of his popular graphic novels, including “V for Vendetta,” “From Hell,” “Constantine” and “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.” In fact, Moore has nothing good to say about Hollywood.
“I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying,” Moore told said. “It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The ‘Watchmen’ film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I for one am sick of worms. Can’t we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change.”
Moore says the current trend of creating movies based on comic books is poisoning the comic book industry.
“There are three or four companies now that exist for the sole purpose of creating not comics, but storyboards for films. It may be true that the only reason the comic book industry now exists is for this purpose, to create characters for movies, board games and other types of merchandise,” he said. “Comics are just a sort of pumpkin patch growing franchises that might be profitable for the ailing movie industry.”
Currently, Moore is at work on a novel for publication and promoting the release of his movie, “The Mindscape of Alan Moore” on DVD.
Don’t hold back, Moore… Tell us how you *really* feel 🙂
Pretty self-important for a man that draws cartoons for a living. So I guess he’ll just tear up the royalty checks he get from Hollywood?
I do agree with him on the “spoon-fed” comment. It’s one of my big problems with a lot of sci-fi in hollywood; everything has to be spelled out for the audience which can make for some awful dialogue. 12 Monkeys was a good example of a film that didn’t do that. Funny thing is I also felt V for Vendetta was a good movie that didn’t tell you what to think and left to you ponder bigger moral/political questions. Well writers can be a grumpy lot, don’t know how I’d feel but maybe I wouldn’t pre-judge until I saw the finnished product.
as much as i hate to listen to someone fuss… this guy is right on…
“It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms”
totally spot on… and they wonder why people don’t go to the movies anymore….
To quote the article: According to Moore, he’s never watched any of Hollywood’s adaptations of his popular graphic novels, including “V for Vendetta,†“From Hell,†“Constantine†and “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.—
I’m sure if he saw Constantine or LXG, he’d definitely be fuming 😀
I can see his point, but it’s hard to imagine that he won’t be getting -some- payoff for the rights. To me, that makes his argument a bit hard to swallow. You let the rights get sold, then complain about the state of Hollywood? Come on now. I understand artist’s passion and all, but it sounds like sour grapes.
I think this guy is just one of those people who think everything is crap except for what he comes out with. Either that or he’s got some sort of inferiority complex about movies from his homeland. You remember what the Brittish said about us Yanks during WWII, “Overpaid, over-sexed, and over here!”
Granted, Hollywood does pump out quite a bit of crap these days, but occasionally they get one right. I just don’t think that dismissing Hollywood as a whole outright is going a bit far.
Don’t think of Moore as a guy who writes comics, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Neil Gaiman changed that Genre entirely in the 80s. They are the reason that movies are being made today of comics books with such success.
These guys took a genre that was tired and boring and completely reinvented it into something amazing and creative. They opened up the door for many fantastic stories that were told during that era of comics. Truly, they took cartoons and made it into art.
He has every right to blast the movie industry of today. He IS an artist. He wrote stories not becuase someone in a tie thought it would sell or be big commercial successes. He wrote fantastic stories, and told them in amazing ways that no one else had before. The framing along in that comic redefined everything.
But I disagree with him on one thing, if you just take out the pirate bits, that comic really can be made into a good movie. The story is just too awsome and brutal not to be told to a wider audience. Most people think of comics as cartoons and don’t bother.
Oh please. While I agree he did some great things or comic books, you don’t see Neil Gaimon (SP?) coming off all arrogant and self-important–or at least, I haven’t. It just bugs me so much when people who call themselves artists slam and bash everything, just for the sake of doing it. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve to be called an artist, by the way. But in this article, he comes off like a complete ass.