Watchmen

[batzilla]

Have you seen it yet? What did you think?

I was blown away, riveted the whole time. It was beautiful and badass and really, really well acted, costumed, special effected, etc. I thought that Rorschach and Nite Owl were especially well portrayed.

I also LOVED the sex scene -- I thought that it was very genuine, believable and hot... and the song was perfect. I've had two friends say that they thought it was too much, though! Not too much skin, but too much time... they thought that it was gratuitous to spend a couple of minutes on the sex scene when plot points from the book were left out. But, interestingly, they didn't seem to think that the violent scenes, like when Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are kicking ass in slo-mo in the prison, were gratuitous. Whatever guys.

[Aza]

I thought BOTH were gratuitous, but I could go on several rants about the outdated and clichéd "slow-mo shot." They should do away with that so that Hollywood can relearn how to make a fight scene look GENUINELY good. Remember the days of "The Princess Bride," when a fight scene was noteworthy for its choreography? "300" came so close to having that same flare, but they slowed the scenes down too many times, and it just came off as another attempt to copy "The Matrix."

Moreover, the sex scenes were not significant of anything in "Watchmen." They were in fact quite trite... like so many other things about the movie. I'm going to have to read the graphic novel from cover-to-cover (which I would have done anyway) just to learn the significance of the giant flying glass clock mechanism that was barely introduced before it was destroyed, and the lynx-thing that was on-screen for all of five minutes before dying. The pacing was also just shy of horrendous, and the only actors to convince me of their emotional attachment to their character were Carla Gugino (who's always good) and, ironically, the guy playing the nigh-emotionless Dr. Manhattan.

All this taken into consideration, I still can't call it a bad movie. Despite my harsh criticism, I even liked and appreciated many aspects of it. There's no denying that it's beautiful, and I'll always be impressed by Zack Snyder's ability to beautify bloodshed. Even the ending left my mind so wrapped around which of twelve-or-so different "lessons" I should take away from the film that I can't help but thank it for its deliberate attempt to confuse my sense of morals. (It didn't work, but it was a semi-commendable effort.)

I give it two-and-a-half stars out of five... well, three to be fair. For the "unfilmable" comic that I guess it's supposed to be, it was probably done as well as it ever could have been. I'm hoping the Director's Cut clears up a FUCK of a lot of shit though... if I don't get around to reading the thing first.

[inox]

Moreover, the sex scenes were not significant of anything in "Watchmen." They were in fact quite trite...

I think you are, in fact, quite wrong. Double wrong. Wrong kissing wrong's butt.

Night Owl had rejected his superhero persona, but it was the only fragment of his personality that allowed him vitality and will. Exploring that is certainly not unoriginal. Plus, it was well choreographed with an amazing Leonard Cohen song.

If you're going to be that blasé, why even go to the movies?

[Morning Glory]

if you are going to be impressed by tits and a cliched song, why don't you just stay home and watch porn instead?

[batzilla]

if you are going to be impressed by tits and a cliched song, why don't you just stay home and watch porn instead?

Ooh, nice. Wait, I can play too. If you were going to be impressed by fight sequences, why not stay home and watch Mortal Kombat? If you were going to be impressed by people talking, why not stay home and listen to talk radio? If you were going to be impressed by heroes, why not stay home and read old issues of Superman? The point is that it was WELL DONE.

[Buster Friendly]

Fuck the Watchmen.

Zak Snyder's a hack. 300 was one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen.

Haven't seen it, won't see it, and fuck that movie with a gasoline filled glass dildo then break it off in the ass.

[malcolm]

sounds kinky.

[Amelia G]

I will NOT be going to see that movie. Not even on a press junket for free with free food and drinks would I see that **** of the best comic book ever created.

If Alan Moore feels strongly enough against the project that he turned down all the money his creator contract would normally give him in this instance, then that is reason enough not to see it.

I'll grant that 300 was pretty, but I fell asleep while watching it. Twice.

Fuck the Watchman movie.

Read the graphic novel if you have not already.

[Aza]

Dude, ALAN MOORE condemned it?!? Well, that sells it for me; I'm officially pissed that I spent so much money on that thing! I've sworn that the books I'm writing shall never be movies; otherwise I they'd be screenplays. If someone comes along and makes them into movies, even without me on board, much less with me condemning the project, I swear that blood will flow! I'm in the process of reading the graphic novel, as much to make a private apology to Moore now as an attempt to understand the story.

Moreover, I have a question: was this thread actually posted to allow people to express their free opinions of the film, or was it posted so that fans could tell everyone else how wrong they are for daring to attack the film's technical holes? My favorite movies in the last decade were the LOtR films, and I can even take a scalpel to those.

Furthermore what is trite about the sex scenes isn't that they happened; it's that they went on as long as they did, while that long-ass movie could have better used the time to explain a few dozen other more valuable parts of the story. Besides, speaking as an actor, I've seen more chemistry in certain pron films.

[inox]

Alan Moore's gone batshit crazy over the years, and besides, he's never watched any of the adaptations of his movies. He pretty much condemns it all. That was not going to keep me from the movie.

Was the graphic novel better? Sure, in some ways, but the movie was incredibly powerful in others that printed media cannot hope to accomplish.

Also, expressing opinions is fine, but one should generally justify that opinion with reasonable, supportable statements.

You said, earlier: "Remember the days of 'The Princess Bride,' when a fight scene was noteworthy for its choreography?" The fight scenes in PB are deliberately corny and over the top, a hat tip to Erol Flynn and similar swashbucklers of the past. No high degree of fighting skill is ever shown. If I was going to talk about a movie from prior decades where there was excellent fighting choreography without computer modification, I'd pick something like "Six String Samurai" (which was really more a martial arts film).

...besides, a lot of Rorschach's moves were very good.

Also, Matrix-style effects generally refer to "bullet time" slo-mo, where a character moves slowly through incredibly rapid events, with the camera changing angles in ways it physically could not (at that speed). Every use of slo-mo does not automatically make it a Matrix effect.

Again, I think that character development is the important part of this story, not what purpose the crystal structure on Mars served. The world and its doings ultimately matter a lot less than how the characters relate to each other. That IS the story, here, and they did an excellent job of showing their various struggles toward personal redemption.

[Buster Friendly]

Alan Moore's gone batshit crazy over the years,

Funny I find his writing, and commentary as lucid as ever. Just about everything he's written since the watchmen has been excellent- (okay so his stint over at image, or wildstorm or whatever was a bit phoned in) From Hell, Promethea, The League all fucking excellent- Top 10 which almost nobody's read, was one of my favorite Moore creations.

Warner Bros. fucked Moore over so badly with watchmen, and V that he didn't really write anything for almost 10 years, which pisses me off even more than the fact they cheated him, That's almost a decade of awesome stories I could have been reading. They then proceeded to fuck him at every turn with each succeeding project that came out. The list is long, and involved.

Some folks would have just bent over for the corporations and let themselves get fucked up the ass, Moore told them to fuck off, and doesn't want to deal with the bullshit. An artist owning their own creation? Batshit crazy, yeah.

They pissed Moore off so much that he demanded they remove his name from the watchmen graphic novels... which they'll never do, since they know his name sells books. A fact testified to by the number of "Alan Moore DC story" compilations they whore all over the place. Ever single thing he ever wrote for them they whore out.

I would amend Amelia's "Read the book" to "Read the book at the store, or get it from the library" since Time Warner will get the cash if you buy it.

[Buster Friendly]

Also, Matrix-style effects generally refer to "bullet time" slo-mo, where a character moves slowly through incredibly rapid events, with the camera changing angles in ways it physically could not (at that speed). Every use of slo-mo does not automatically make it a Matrix effect.
.

Also, it should be pointed out for the sake of fucking pedantry that "bullet time" is a John Woo staple that Yuen Woo Ping was imitating for the Matrix movies.

John Fucking Woo.

[malcolm]

didnt they use a lower grade of bullet time in slc punk for the moshfight scene?

[inox]

Funny I find his writing, and commentary as lucid as ever. Just about everything he's written since the watchmen has been excellent-

Lots of batshit crazy people produce excellent art.

An artist owning their own creation? Batshit crazy, yeah.

I was thinking more the sock puppet worship idea, but hey, if you want to set up strawmen just so you can do that Fark-worthy eye rolling thing, have at.

[Aza]

Lots of batshit crazy people produce excellent art

.

But apparently their being supposedly "batshit crazy" means they don't get to decide how their excellent art is transferred between mediums.

The point isn't even Moore's support or condemnation of the film; that he didn't appreciate the way it was put together, and that they ignored his protests about the handling of HIS material and produced it anyway (much like how they screwed over Ursula K. LeGuin) just adds to my distaste of the situation. (I tend to sneer at anyone with the audacity to assume they can realize an artist's vision better than the artist himself.)

I think that character development is the important part of this story, not what purpose the crystal structure on Mars served.

Then they never should have showed the damn thing in the first place. If you're not going to bother explaining something, and it serves no part in the story as you admit, then something didn't end up on the Cutting Room floor like it was supposed to. NEVER distract your audience with superfluous details if you're trying either to communicate your film's message or tell a good story; that's one of the FIRST rules of good film-making.

ESPECIALLY if character development and relation is the main focus of the story, then DON'T SHIFT THAT FOCUS! All you'll do is lose your film's momentum, which is exactly what happened in the case of "Watchmen." Too many flashbacks at inopportune times, too many pointless objects (or weird hybrid animals) introduced and then left hanging, and too much focus on an all-but-pointless inter-character "romance" (PLEASE explain to me in detail how every last frame of that ten-minute sex scene was furthering to the storyline or to character development) brought the flow of the movie to a screeching halt every time it seemed to be on a roll, like a school bus pumping its breaks and jostling the brains of its passengers.

Also, expressing opinions is fine, but one should generally justify that opinion with reasonable, supportable statements.

Odd stance, since none of the following opinions are supplemented with any justification or support:

Alan Moore's gone batshit crazy over the years.

The movie was incredibly powerful in others that printed media cannot hope to accomplish.

They did an excellent job of showing their various struggles toward personal redemption.

If any of these statements were provable fact rather than personal opinion, I'd have been convinced from Moment 1 and never would have responded to this thread. (Seems I shouldn't have responded to it anyway; it was obviously only meant for the responses of FANS of the film.)

The point is, this movie FAILED to make me (and apparently many other avid movie connoisseurs) care about the world, the characters in that world, or what those characters were trying to accomplish... and I attended it wanting SO BADLY to like it, hence it cannot possibly just be my personal bias. There is clearly too much to the "Watchmen" story and its universe to contain it or explain it in a single film. Perhaps if it had been divided into two films, each about three hours, "Watchmen" might have managed to avoid alienating seventy percent of its audience (an accurate-to-kind estimation based on how many people in our theater alone appeared somewhere between confused and pissed off).

[Amelia G]

I think artists who want to own their work should, ya know, pay for it from their day jobs or whatever, until it is self-supporting. I don't think there is anything wrong with a company making compilations including Alan Moore's work as it was intended. They paid him and they are entitled to get paid for doing so. He did take the money for the books. I guess 99 times out of 100, I think someone whining after-the-fact about a deal they made is a dick. I suppose I want to go with the dick's wishes in this instance because I really feel Watchmen is the best comic ever done. Then again, I don't usually care for movie adaptations of printed matter, Fight Club excepted as it was light years better than the book.

[Aza]

They paid him and they are entitled to get paid for doing so. He did take the money for the books.

I guess he dug his own grave then. I have less sympathy for him than I did... as long as I can keep from imagining the expression that would cross his face should he ever happen to see that film.

[malcolm]

I would amend Amelia's "Read the book" to "Read the book at the store, or get it from the library" since Time Warner will get the cash if you buy it.

well, i'd recommend if you wanna read it that way do it at the library cus the thing is pretty thick, not as thick as like earth x but pretty bloody thick and i can testify from first hand being an ex employee at a comic book shop, most of em don't like it when ya plunk down in the middle of the aisle to read a book that big without paying for it.

[Mr Karl]

I never bought those comics when the series was printed

[Buster Friendly]

I think artists who want to own their work should, ya know, pay for it from their day jobs or whatever, until it is self-supporting. I don't think there is anything wrong with a company making compilations including Alan Moore's work as it was intended. They paid him and they are entitled to get paid for doing so. He did take the money for the books. I guess 99 times out of 100, I think someone whining after-the-fact about a deal they made is a dick. I suppose I want to go with the dick's wishes in this instance because I really feel Watchmen is the best comic ever done. Then again, I don't usually care for movie adaptations of printed matter, Fight Club excepted as it was light years better than the book.

Moore wrote Watchmen under the impression that that was exactly what he was doing.

He thought that he'd signed a contract giving him the rights to his own work. Guess he's just a whiney dick though.

As for the other compilations, and so forth I brought that up to point out that DC makes money off of his name.

He sure owns his own work now. Yep. What a dick.

[malcolm]

well, this is dc we're talking about. they're technically the top comic book company in the united states if you count paper and flex, second if you count popularity and both dc and marvel, the big top two have for the longest time had a nasty track record of taking character rights away from their creators.

just look at super-man. not to mention the foundation of image comics which was created by a group of frustrated artists from both marvel and dc as well as broadsword comics which was founded by catwoman artist jim balent and his wife holly g after years of frustration working for dc.

basically, when you sign up to work for dc, they get the majority of character rights, even if you get a name recognition and some character rights, they get the majority. but that's the way it is with almost every title-even some of the "indy" companies still retain some character rights and i'd imagine moore kinda knew that when he did watchmen and got dc to publish it.

so really,it boils down to he created watchmen, watchmen WAS his but the moment dc comics started printing it out under their name, it was theirs.

dc owns warner brothers btw if anyone didnt know that

[Buster Friendly]

well, this is dc we're talking about. they're technically the top comic book company in the united states if you count paper and flex, second if you count popularity and both dc and marvel, the big top two have for the longest time had a nasty track record of taking character rights away from their creators.

just look at super-man. not to mention the foundation of image comics which was created by a group of frustrated artists from both marvel and dc as well as broadsword comics which was founded by catwoman artist jim balent and his wife holly g after years of frustration working for dc.

basically, when you sign up to work for dc, they get the majority of character rights, even if you get a name recognition and some character rights, they get the majority. but that's the way it is with almost every title-even some of the "indy" companies still retain some character rights and i'd imagine moore kinda knew that when he did watchmen and got dc to publish it.

so really,it boils down to he created watchmen, watchmen WAS his but the moment dc comics started printing it out under their name, it was theirs.

dc owns warner brothers btw if anyone didnt know that

No.

Wrong.

Moore signed a contract that was supposed to give him the rights to the Watchmen, will in fact give him the rights if and when they ever decide to let it work the way it was intended. There was a loop hole that let them keep the rights.

Moore only wrote Watchmen, and V because he thought that they would honor the contract.

He owns his own stuff now though.

And Time Warner owns DC, not the other way around.

[malcolm]

loophole or fine print?

the fact still remains if you sign up with dc, they own your characters. ever see sandman get published by anyone else? army@love? ronin? bite club?

if moore really thought they'd let him retain ALL rights and freedom of will as to how his characters would and would not be handled then he should have just given them the big middle and self published the title himself because when you sign a contract with a company who is known for having their mascot character's creators trudge them through a huge lawsuit over ownership rights and only got as far as a name credit like ten or so years later in the fine print, and expect them to let you keep the rights to your characters?

yeah, you're gonna get screwed.

and does it really matter which way the name is set on the letterhead as far as dc and warner brothers is concerned?

[ROGIZOID]

I think i will read this graphic novel first aye.

::rubs chin::

[inox]

.

But apparently their being supposedly "batshit crazy" means they don't get to decide how their excellent art is transferred between mediums.

Usually it's that they are excellent producers of art, but have varying degrees of trouble interacting with others and/or managing their affairs. Mozart is the quintessential example, but the world's full of such artists.

Anyhow, Moore is very into the world of magick, and that led to the whole sock puppet/Glycon thing. GFE.

on an all-but-pointless inter-character "romance" (PLEASE explain to me in detail how every last frame of that ten-minute sex scene was furthering to the storyline or to character development)

First off, Captain Hyperbole, it was in no way 10 minutes of sex. They didn't even play the whole Cohen song, which has a length of ~4:40. In all honesty, it was probably around a minute or so.

In a movie that's 163 minutes long, I don't think it requires a lot of justification.

...especially since there was obviously a long history between the two characters involved, which was hinted at with the dinner, and with Dr. Manhattan's comments preceding it. Lots of tension for at least a decade plus.

Both Night Owl II & Silk Spectre II had literally put their lives on hold after giving up fighting crime. Night Owl wasn't even able to perform sexually when at his house. It wasn't until they'd reassumed their superhero personas that Night Owl had any presence or will whatsoever. Then, after the prison fight, when they were both feeling vital again, his confidence allowed him to finally be with the woman who he'd wanted in vain for the past however many years.

I am not sure how all that would not work in terms of character development, and more importantly, in the context of the original story.

Odd stance, since none of the following opinions are supplemented with any justification or support:

Ah, but like above, I can support what I say. I'm still not clear on how the sex scene could be considered "trite". As sex scenes in movies go, it was pretty original. It wasn't something that was overused in the movie in general.

Perhaps if it had been divided into two films, each about three hours, "Watchmen" might have managed to avoid alienating seventy percent of its audience (an accurate-to-kind estimation based on how many people in our theater alone appeared somewhere between confused and pissed off).

That couldn't be more different from the response at the gigantic historic theater in Baltimore where Abby & I saw it.

[malcolm]

so......was the movie any good? lol

[Bikerpunk]

You know, to lighten the mood:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/485797

[Aza]

Inox, we're obviously not going to be able to agree on this subject. You have your opinion, I have mine... and the only difference between the two of us is that I haven't tried to stamp my opinion as "infallible fact" or resorted to name-calling.

Tell you what; I bow without hesitation to your superior ability to care what people think about a movie! Take it easy, man...

[Morning Glory]

First of all Watchmen is not a graphic novel, it's a 12 issue comic book series. A graphic novel is...a novel with pictures.

"...The problem is that 'graphic novel' just came to mean 'expensive comic book' and so what you'd get is people like DC Comics or Marvel comics — because 'graphic novels' were getting some attention, they'd stick six issues of whatever worthless piece of crap they happened to be publishing lately under a glossy cover and call it The She-Hulk Graphic Novel..."

-Alan Moore, author of Watchmen

Was the graphic novel better? Sure, in some ways, but the movie was incredibly powerful in others that printed media cannot hope to accomplish.

I have to seriously disagree with you on that note.

both the strength and the weakness of a novel is that you have to fill in the pictures yourself. I would argue that a movie could never be as good as your own imagination, because it didn't come from you, unless you were the one making the movie.

But either way I think that we both agree that a movie can add to the content of a written work. The thing about comics is that they are already a visual medium. The pictures that go with the words have been filled in for you. So the only thing that a movie can add to it is sound, which can be emotionally evocative, but takes away from both the words and the pictures because it can't possibly, nor would it want to recreate them in exact detail. So I think that it takes away more than it adds to a comic story.

case in point, where they change the ending of the Watchmen movie.

The bold move would have been to say, "this is the ending, and if the audience doesn't get it, then too bad." Instead Synder chose mass appeal over staying true to the comic, and he really isn't to blame. He had to do it, you can't make a movie for a hundred million dollars that you know that only fans will like and will be a commercial failure.

That is why you could never have a Watchmen movie that did justice to the comic.

Also, Matrix-style effects generally refer to "bullet time" slo-mo, where a character moves slowly through incredibly rapid events, with the camera changing angles in ways it physically could not (at that speed). Every use of slo-mo does not automatically make it a Matrix effect.

That's true and it is a disservice to the visual effects team of the Matrix to compare it to Baywatch. That effect was achieved by setting up over 100 cameras and then digitally editing the 100 different shots together to form a moving picture sequence.

I would amend Amelia's "Read the book" to "Read the book at the store, or get it from the library" since Time Warner will get the cash if you buy it.

In his final deal with DC they consigned that the rights to Watchmen would revert back to ownership of Alan Moore if the book went out of printing for 2 years. This new movie tie-in that they've released is like the 25th edition, and so basically everyone who has bought it in the collected version in the past decade has ensured that it stays out of it's creator's hands.

Moore only wrote Watchmen, and V because he thought that they would honor the contract.

Technically he didn't write V for DC. It was published in a UK anthology magazine called Viking. For whatever reason, I think the company went out of business, it wasn't completed. Moore completed it and re-published the whole series in single issue format when he was working for DC.

I'm sure it was because of that deal and them basically giving him the freedom to do whatever he wanted with Swamp Thing that made him confident in doing the Watchmen for them.

I've talked to Amelia about it before in another thread. I think that maybe you can say Moore was a bit naive when it came to doing business with DC, but that was a totally different time for comics and no one could have imaged corporate mergers and million-dollar movie projects.

[Morning Glory]

PS. there are other things that are unforgivable about the movie as well. Such as the fact that it refers to the superheroes as a group called "The Watchmen". There are no "Watchmen", that is just the title of the book.

[Buster Friendly]

In his final deal with DC they consigned that the rights to Watchmen would revert back to ownership of Alan Moore if the book went out of printing for 2 years. This new movie tie-in that they've released is like the 25th edition, and so basically everyone who has bought it in the collected version in the past decade has ensured that it stays out of it's creator's hands.

Thank you for actually knowing something about the situation.

I have argued this up one side of the net, and down the other, and have been trying to restrain myself from a fullbore hellrant rampage.

Point of fact, Moore had every reason to believe that the rights would revert back to him since no comic book in the history of comic books up to that point had ever remained continuously in print after it's initial publication.

Keeping a work in print for over 20 years was unthinkable at the time, and Moore has said that he doesn't believe that the editors he signed the contracts with at DC were wittingly manipulating him. Rather some one later looked at the contract and decided that they could fuck him out of the rights fair, and square. So yeah, what a naive dumb dummy whiny dick.

There were numerous other problems later like DC buying America's Best Comics out from under him, and pulping the first printing of one of the issues of LoEG's second series after they swore up, and down to leave him alone to do his thing. The Warchowski's lying about his involvement with V didn't help much either.

fuck it.

[Toe Cutter]

I thought parts of the movie were cool, but I thought it was way to long. The alternate reality seemed really dated to me. I also thought it was slow at parts too. The good parts were great, but it needed more sizzle for my discriminating tastes.

[Amelia G]

I guess he dug his own grave then. I have less sympathy for him than I did... as long as I can keep from imagining the expression that would cross his face should he ever happen to see that film.

On a gut level, I just feel really differently about them keeping the books in print or doing anthologies than about a movie adaptation. Keeping stuff in print is just doing what the original deal was, whether or not the guy who made that deal still likes it. But an adaptation is just such a different thing and I really feel that the adaptation detracts from the original art.

[Buster Friendly]

On a gut level, I just feel really differently about them keeping the books in print or doing anthologies than about a movie adaptation. Keeping stuff in print is just doing what the original deal was, whether or not the guy who made that deal still likes it. But an adaptation is just such a different thing and I really feel that the adaptation detracts from the original art.

the "original deal" was that Moore would get the rights to his work after they let the run go out of print. It wasn't until later that they figured that they could just keep it in print that they decided to fuck him over for his work. He didn't decide later on that he didn't like the deal, if that had been "the deal" he wouldn't have accepted it, and most likely the editors he was working with wouldn't have left that language in there.

you're not often this wrong headed Amelia, it's kind of baffling.

excusing asshat behavior because it's "business" is fucking repugnant.

[Amelia G]

. . .

case in point, where they change the ending of the Watchmen movie.

. . .

In his final deal with DC they consigned that the rights to Watchmen would revert back to ownership of Alan Moore if the book went out of printing for 2 years. This new movie tie-in that they've released is like the 25th edition, and so basically everyone who has bought it in the collected version in the past decade has ensured that it stays out of it's creator's hands.




Technically he didn't write V for DC. It was published in a UK anthology magazine called Viking. For whatever reason, I think the company went out of business, it wasn't completed. Moore completed it and re-published the whole series in single issue format when he was working for DC.

I'm sure it was because of that deal and them basically giving him the freedom to do whatever he wanted with Swamp Thing that made him confident in doing the Watchmen for them.

I've talked to Amelia about it before in another thread. I think that maybe you can say Moore was a bit naive when it came to doing business with DC, but that was a totally different time for comics and no one could have imaged corporate mergers and million-dollar movie projects.

Sometimes I enjoy a Hollywood ending. I read the original Tarantino script for True Romance and I like the Hollywood ending in the movie much much better.

But I feel like, once something has been created and published, changing the ending just corrupts the whole thing. Like, if the ending could be changeable, is there anything in the story which has any point?

I've personally missed out on a lot of opportunities because I quibbled over stuff in the contract I did not like, even though it seemed like those clauses would never be applicable. Nonetheless, I think the Superman creator guys were kind of assholes who wanted to go back on their promises and who would have been pleased by nothing. Superman was franchised at the time in exactly the way they could have expected, except perhaps for how successful it was.

The way Watchmen is being franchised was really a lot less to be expected. At the time the original work was done, it was somewhat inconceivable that any major studio would want to release an R-rated comic book movie. Watchmen opened on more screens that any other R-rated movie which has ever come out. Nonetheless, without even adjusting for inflation, there are five R-rated movies with better opening weekends, including 300. Although the budgets were similar and I believe Watchmen had a bigger publicity budget, Dark Knight pretty much made back its whole budget opening weekend and Watchmen did not

[Aza]

On a gut level, I just feel really differently about them keeping the books in print or doing anthologies than about a movie adaptation. Keeping stuff in print is just doing what the original deal was, whether or not the guy who made that deal still likes it. But an adaptation is just such a different thing and I really feel that the adaptation detracts from the original art.

*nods* I agree; the original agreement must be adhered to, no matter his present-day feelings. Changing your mind after your signature is placed does no good.

I doubly agree that there are few adaptations that do proper justice to their mother-works. The best that most can hope to accomplish is that they'll draw enough attention to the existence of the original as to make the original popular again, or at least to earn it a wider fan base. For example, I don't know if I ever would've gotten around to reading "Watchmen" if the movie hadn't made me so desperate to see the story told properly... "properly" in this case being more than an insinuation of my personal feelings towards the quality of the film. For me, the most proper telling of any story is straight from the storyteller's own lips, typewriter, or camera... because obviously there's no one who can realize an author's creation more loyally than the author.

In the best of cases I can look at an adaptation of a novel (graphic or otherwise) that I think may actually have come close to doing the source material justice, and only imagine the author looking at it and thinking, "Not what I would've done, but close enough."

[Amelia G]

the "original deal" was that Moore would get the rights to his work after they let the run go out of print. It wasn't until later that they figured that they could just keep it in print that they decided to fuck him over for his work. He didn't decide later on that he didn't like the deal, if that had been "the deal" he wouldn't have accepted it, and most likely the editors he was working with wouldn't have left that language in there.

you're not often this wrong headed Amelia, it's kind of baffling.

excusing asshat behavior because it's "business" is fucking repugnant.

As I don't publish books, Blue Blood's contracts don't have a clause about this. However, I have been published in many books and put books together (and admittedly rejected a number of publishing contracts) and I have never seen a single publisher contract which does not have the clause about copyrights reverting to the creators after a certain amount of time out of print. Those clauses were originally added for the creators because it used to be that someone could buy your stuff and go under or deliberately bury it and then no one would ever see what you created. Most work eventually goes out of print and print-on-demand technology will probably require rethinking of those clauses, but that clause is actually really artist-friendly. If a book goes out of print long enough for rights to revert, generally, the first thing the author does is shop it to a new publisher. What would Alan Moore have done with the rights, if Watchmen went out of print? Probably tried to get it back in print. Watchmen is a brilliant work and should be in print and available to new readers. The only rights issue is not that DC printed too many copies of Watchmen but that they allowed it to be adapted into a movie which could not be true to the original art.

[Buster Friendly]

*nods* I agree; the original agreement must be adhered to, no matter his present-day feelings. Changing your mind after your signature is placed does no good.

."

you people are fucked.

[Buster Friendly]

As I don't publish books, Blue Blood's contracts don't have a clause about this. However, I have been published in many books and put books together (and admittedly rejected a number of publishing contracts)

blah blah tl;dr t.

you're so smart you'll never get swindled. good for you.

I generally like you, but you're no Alan Moore.

[Amelia G]

you're so smart you'll never get swindled. good for you.

I generally like you, but you're no Alan Moore.

Alan Moore is a best of breed artist. There are very few Alan Moores in the world. I also don't do what he does, so, even if I were the absolute best at what I do, I would still be no Alan Moore.

I am deeply not so smart that I will never get swindled. I'd love to claim to be, but I have been swindled many times. In the publishing realm, I tend to get swindled by publishers or distributors who simply do not honor their contracts, as opposed to those with unpleasant small print. Or I get swindled by people I have no agreement with whatsoever e.g. a major book publisher who published a bunch of my fiction work without permission or payment (or even allowing me to promote my own work via their affiliate program) and whose lawyers basically told me I could spend $40k fighting them, get maybe $2k in damages, and then I'd never work for them or any of their subsidiaries.

I am not saying the businesspeople are always right. I am saying that almost all writers want to see their work continuously in print. I am saying that the clause which has been problematic for Alan Moore was intended to be a bonus to the writer and not intended to be a bonus to the publisher. I say again, what would Alan Moore have done with the rights, if Watchmen went out of print? Probably tried to get it back in print. That is what pretty much all writers do when their work reverts.

I also am saying that, whatever my general feelings about keeping one's word in business, I am boycotting the Watchmen movie and suggesting that other people boycott it as well. Out of respect for Alan Moore's wishes.

So where exactly do we disagree? You think that DC should have let a brilliant seminal work go out of print, so that some other publisher could have bought the rights from Alan Moore and then proceeded to make an abomination of a movie out of the book?