148 Days....
That's all that is left between today and the release of the film treatment of one of my favorite books.
"The Watchmen" has been in pre-production for nearly twenty years. Passed from one film company to the next. Directors signing on and falling off in rapid succession. Casting run amok. It's been worse than a comedy of errors. It's been torture for its legion of fans who have read and re-read well-worn and dog-eared copies until the spines fall apart and must be taped together.
But finally. Finally it's coming.
I was excited when Terry Gilliam was signed on a number of years ago. So when it went nowhere, I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact Hollywood would never get around to this book because it was too big, too deep and way too dark. Actors had to be chosen who got the nuances of the characters. Prop production and set design had to reflect the moodiness of the individual frames of the novel. We're not talking about a few plastic palm trees and a boombox ala Heidi and Spencer. We're talking about exacting shadows falling. Seizing the moment of a scene and recreating it's violence and suspense.
Look, I'm not a Comic Con dork. Shit, I hate Star Trek (although I do admit to actually watching a whole episode on one solitary occasion and it was during sex with this RA I dated in college). I'm not a comic book geek by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just someone who fell in love with one of the most complicated stories of our times.
It encompassed the whole range of philosophical studies. It touches on violence and perpetuating cycles through child abuse. And narcissism and cynicism.... It touches on the failures of middle age and old age and regrets and lies and secrets and past loves still so real one's heart aches for what seems eternity.
It's about parents and children, and cops and robbers and selling one's soul for materialistic and egotistical reasons. Hell, it talks about what a soul is. Is it the body? The mind? Or is it the heart and all it desires?
It talks about trust and government and free will and compromise. It touches on absolutes and though how noble they may be how they can cost you your life.
Anyhow, I doubt the director and actors and stage hands will get this one right, but god I hope they do. I hope it's better than "V for Vendetta" and truer to the spirit of the book.
There are few books that have that much heart and soul and it'd be a shame to see this one fucked up.
Here's the trailer. I think the music works...
"The Watchmen" has been in pre-production for nearly twenty years. Passed from one film company to the next. Directors signing on and falling off in rapid succession. Casting run amok. It's been worse than a comedy of errors. It's been torture for its legion of fans who have read and re-read well-worn and dog-eared copies until the spines fall apart and must be taped together.
But finally. Finally it's coming.
I was excited when Terry Gilliam was signed on a number of years ago. So when it went nowhere, I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact Hollywood would never get around to this book because it was too big, too deep and way too dark. Actors had to be chosen who got the nuances of the characters. Prop production and set design had to reflect the moodiness of the individual frames of the novel. We're not talking about a few plastic palm trees and a boombox ala Heidi and Spencer. We're talking about exacting shadows falling. Seizing the moment of a scene and recreating it's violence and suspense.
Look, I'm not a Comic Con dork. Shit, I hate Star Trek (although I do admit to actually watching a whole episode on one solitary occasion and it was during sex with this RA I dated in college). I'm not a comic book geek by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just someone who fell in love with one of the most complicated stories of our times.
It encompassed the whole range of philosophical studies. It touches on violence and perpetuating cycles through child abuse. And narcissism and cynicism.... It touches on the failures of middle age and old age and regrets and lies and secrets and past loves still so real one's heart aches for what seems eternity.
It's about parents and children, and cops and robbers and selling one's soul for materialistic and egotistical reasons. Hell, it talks about what a soul is. Is it the body? The mind? Or is it the heart and all it desires?
It talks about trust and government and free will and compromise. It touches on absolutes and though how noble they may be how they can cost you your life.
Anyhow, I doubt the director and actors and stage hands will get this one right, but god I hope they do. I hope it's better than "V for Vendetta" and truer to the spirit of the book.
There are few books that have that much heart and soul and it'd be a shame to see this one fucked up.
Here's the trailer. I think the music works...
posted by The Raving Badger at 10:33 AM
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