Mother Jones: How Clean Energy Ruined "Watchmen"

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.motherjones.com/riff/2009/03/how-clean-energy-ruined-iwatchmeni

Mother Jones

How Clean Energy Ruined "Watchmen"

— By Dave Gilson | Sat March 21, 2009 8:38 PM PST

I just saw Watchmen and—spoiler alert!—it kind of sucked. But not just for the obvious reasons (it's based on an http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/03/pop-culture-watch">impossible-to-adapt comic book; it's terribly acted, pointlessly violent, and infuriatingly shallow; and it ruins a great http://1heckofaguy.com/2009/03/08/leonard-cohens-hallelujah-mood-music-for-watchmen-superheroic-sex-scene/">Leonard Cohen song). It was awful because it turned an unnecessary subplot about clean energy into a major plot point that's the foundation of its unsatisfying climax. Bear with me: In the original Watchmen book, we learn that atomic demigod Dr. Manhattan (owner of a http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/03/dr_manhattan_wang_reviews.html">hard to ignore, http://current.com/items/89869414/dr_manhattan_s_penis_offends_conservative_critics.htm">possibly offensive, http://www.motherjones.com/riff/2008/07/watching-watchmen-trailer-little-too-closely">glowing blue penis) has figured out a way to make mass quantities of efficient lithium batteries, and as a result, by the 1980s, electric cars have made gas guzzlers obsolete. Goodbye climate change! Yet in the movie, electric cars are nowhere to be seen, though we learn that Dr. Manhattan is working with impossibly skinny crimefighter-turned-tycoon Ozymandias (AKA "the world's smartest man") to come up with some new form of vague yet CGI-intensive clean energy. And that's where things start to get really dumb.

About halfway through the movie, Ozymandias meets with Lee Iacocca and other automobile executives (see image). He berates them for their dependence on fossil fuel and informs them that a new day is coming. (Iacocca then gets shot in the head by an assassin.) None of this is in the book, and the anachronistic mini-rant about the evils of fossil fuels feels like typical Hollywood agenda-stuffing. Director Zack Snyder could have left it at that, but no. Instead, in his biggest digression from his source material, he ditches Ozymandias' plot to bring about world peace, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/movies/moviesspecial/02hobe.html?_r=1">The Day The Earth Stood Still-style, with a fake yet devastating alien attack. Instead, Ozymandias uses the clean energy doohickey to kill millions, framing Dr. Manhattan along the way. The world steps back from the brink of nuclear armageddon to unite in harmony against the naked blue dude. The clean energy device, it seems, was an elaborate hoax, a doomsday device masquerading as the solution to all our environmental woes. I imagine this would give alternative energy sources a pretty bad name. After all, who's going to want to invest in solar energy when it's just going to kill us all? Which means that in addition to being a mass murderer, Snyder's Ozymandias is a clean-energy huckster who's just doomed us to a slow death by fossil fuel addiction. Nice going, genius. (And you even ticked off http://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/03/02/lee-iacocca-is-alive-and-well-and-not-looking-forward-to-watchmen-movie/">the real Lee Iacocca, who's alive and well, thank you very much.)

[madrchsod]

1. looks like i`ll take a pass on this film....

[Javaman]

10. I thought it passable. it's a good rental. beyond that, meh. and I am

a huge watchmen fan.

[qb]

2. I enjoyed the movie - plot & all. The reviewers are overly concerned with the penis.

Dr. Manhattan was very nice to look at, but his CGI penis was the focal point only for those who are obsessed with such things.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Just Curious…

Have you read the book?

I haven't seen the film, but I've read the book (and highly recommend it.)

[qb]

5. I've not read the book but it is now on my list. Thanks.

:hi:

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

4. Wow, talk about taking little to nothing to extremes.

The clean energy aspect was a very small part of either the book or the movie, and neither depicted it in an unpleasant light. I doubt anyone would even come to the conclusions of this article without making a major leap in logic augmented by either an existing pre-disposition against clean energy or paranoia. I'm guessing the author had the latter helping him out.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Why Watchmen's Alan Moore Hates the Movie Industry (And Who Can Blame Him?)

http://www.movieretriever.com/blog/278/why-watchmens-alan-moore-hates-the-movie-industry-and-who-can-blame-him

March 3, 2009

Why Watchmen's Alan Moore Hates the Movie Industry (And Who Can Blame Him?)

Posted by CoolerKing in Features

"I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying. 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." - Alan Moore, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/09/alan-moore-on-w.html">Los Angeles Times, 9/18/08.

There may be fanboys everywhere counting the days until Zack Snyder's Watchmen hits theaters, but the man who wrote the original masterpiece is not remotely interested. Comics legend Alan Moore has been burned once, twice, oh hell, EVERY time he's had to watch one of his works adapted by Hollywood. Even Moore films that arguably worked - V for Vendetta being one - have been absolute production nightmares for its creator. Regardless if the final product is great or awful, Watchmen fits the Moore pattern of projects that were incredibly difficult to get to the big screen. Lawsuits, massive changes to the source material, pre-release controversy. They can pump out High School Musicals like Kisses at a Hershey factory, but adapting an Alan Moore graphic novel is apparently like climbing Mount Everest - it might be worth it, but it's going to be painful and not everyone is coming back in one piece.

What is it about the works of beloved writers that often leads to such crappy movies? Is there something about Stephen King or Alan Moore that simply doesn't work on the big screen? Show me one good King adaptation and I'll show you four or five awful ones. Is it just bad luck? Moore has had to watch as his films have struggled through horrific behind-the-scenes turmoil, most of which has negatively impacted the final films and, as a result, this brilliant writer has declared himself done with the Hollywood scene. As he told the LA Times in the interview quoted above, he will be "spitting venom all over (Watchmen) for months to come," and you won't see his name anywhere on the advertising. I bet half the audience for Watchmen thinks it was written by "that 300 guy". It's just sad.

How did we get here? Four titles - From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Constantine (based on the comic Hellblazer), and V for Vendetta. All are WELL worth your time in their original form. All were strangely altered on their way to the big screen and, understandably, infuriated their original creator. Granted, V for Vendetta is an underrated film and there are design elements of From Hell that work, but Alan Moore's movie track record proves a rule that critics have been repeating for decades - READ THE BOOK FIRST. Even if the film version of Watchmen is absolutely amazing, READ THE BOOK FIRST. That way you'll know what you'll be missing.

…

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

7. It's not bad luck that most adaptations suck.

It's Hollywood trying to half-ass something that has a built-in audience to maximize profit. While that wasn't done (in my opinion) for either V for Vendetta or Watchmen, it is a very common practice.

Still, Moore's a bit eccentric - to say the least. I certainly wouldn't (and didn't) take his lack of approval to mean all that much. I read the book to the point where I could practically recite the lines in the movie before they were said - and thought it was rather well done (only criticism was that it could have been more edited - a serialized book needn't be taken word for word as was done).

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. I've just never understood how the book could possibly make it into movie form

Given the layers upon layers (ex, the pirate comic embedded in Watchmen, the pages from Rorschach's journal, the pages from "Behind the Mask") and its nonlinear nature, the best you can hope for is a "good parts version" which (as in the Lord of the Rings movies) would tend to be terribly violent.

When I saw the previews, I said, "Well, I recognize each one of those shots, it's as if they were lifted directly from the page." (I didn't know Gibbons had helped with the filming.) Clearly, they've aimed this preview for someone who has read the book. I've been hesitant to see the movie, expecting to be disappointed, as I have been with each of the previous movies made from Moore's work.


One of Moore's points is that a movie moves relentlessly forward. You cannot examine a frame, looking for all of the detail, nor can you turn back a few pages to review what a character has said or done before (at least not in a movie theater.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/16/alan-moore-watchmen-lost-girls

…

Nobody quite believes Moore when he says he doesn't care about the movies made of his work. For most writers of any shade, a big-budget Hollywood adaptation of their work is a form of validation, not to mention a pension fund, but Moore puts his money where his mouth is – or rather isn't. He has had his name removed from anything to do with the Watchmen movie. He's also demanded that his share of any profits from it go to Dave Gibbons, the original artist of the comic book (who has co-operated with the movie production). Assuming there are any profits, that is. Despite being expensively made and exhaustively hyped, the movie has not taken the box office by storm. It adheres to the comic with slavish reverence, transcribing whole chunks of dialogue verbatim, and using the pages as a storyboard for the expensive cinematography and production design. As a comic, Watchmen was a cultural event, "the moment comics grew up"; as a movie, it's a star-free, 18-certificate proposition with a labyrinthine plot, silly costumes and offputting levels of violence.

All of which only goes to prove Moore's long-held contention that it is impossible to make movies out of his work. "There is something about the quality of comics that makes things possible that you couldn't do in any other medium," he says, with just a hint of the exasperated schoolteacher. "Things that we did in Watchmen on paper could be frankly horrible or sensationalist or unpleasant if you were to interpret them literally through the medium of cinema. When it's just lines on paper, the reader is in control of the experience – it's a tableau vivant. And that gives it the necessary distance. It's not the same when you're being dragged through it at 24 frames per second."

…

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

9. I understand Moore's point.

It's the preference of one medium over another, but I certainly wouldn't call it a flaw.

As for the layered nature of the book - basically, they filmed the non-pirate comic frames and left the journal, "Behind the Mask" excerpts, and other such "extras" out. The comic was made into a stand-alone anime. Honestly, as a huge fan of the book, I was just fine with this. Though all those extras did add something to the story itself, I never really felt like they added enough. Even in initial reading, I barely found them worthy of inclusion. I likened it to the DVD extras - great backstory, great additional info, but the book moves along just fine without it. Kind of akin if the Silmarillion were infused throughout LOTR instead of being stand-alone. Just my opinion, of course.