I shall Watch the Watchmen
When I was at San Francisco last year, my friend Vinay recommended a comic book to me that he had just finished reading. They were also going to make a movie based on it, and it was going to be awesome. He even showed me the trailer online.
Watchmen. I had never heard of this cult classic comic book series from the late 80s. That wasn’t a big surprise, because I had never read a serious comic book before, and how should I know? A couple of months ago, however, they started playing promo clips of Watchmen in movie halls, and the visuals looked pretty darn good. They said it was from the director of 300, and the ripped CG abs immediately came to mind. This had to be good.
I wanted to read the book before watching the movie. As luck would have it, my friend Annie’s brother had gifted her a copy of the novel for Christmas, and she said I could have it!
My first thoughts after reading the book were… they are not making a movie out of this book.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved the novel, and could appreciate a lot of elements in it. But it is obvious to anyone that reads it that it’s simply not movie material. Anyone who tries to make a movie out of it is doomed to fail. Unless of course, he changes the story or presentation significantly — which is, of course, ruled out from the word go because the book has such a cult status and its geeky fans would never forgive any changes from the base script.