Somehow, Matt Yglesias writes about this article on the Watchmen movie and manages not to freak out at this bit:
Over many months, and many meetings, Snyder persuaded Warner Bros. to abandon the Greengrass/Hayter script and hew as faithfully as possible to the comic. The key battles: retaining the ’80s milieu, keeping Richard Nixon (Moore did consider using an era-appropriate Ronald Reagan, but worried it would alienate American readers), and preserving the villain-doesn’t-pay-for-his-crimes climax.
!!!! Changing the ENTIRE POINT was on the table? The hell?? Were they also considering making Rorschach kind-hearted and mentally balanced? (You know, for kids?)
I’d say something snarky about how maybe it would be like doing Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending, but Hollywood’s gone and done that.**
*Stupid Matt Stupid “who watches the $foo” title joke already taken.
**Stupid Hollywood taking my backup title joke.
32 comments
August 16, 2008 at 4:12 pm
bitchphd
Mr. B. is dying to see this movie but it looks absolutely dire to me.
August 16, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Scott Madin
I’m sure I’ll see Watchmen, but considering 1) Snyder’s previous work and 2) Hollywood’s track record, I’m not strongly inclined to expect anything good. I think that Alan Moore books are a prime example of brilliant fiction which is simply unsuited to being made into film.
August 16, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Neddy Merrill
Thanks, Dana, for ensuring that the riveting discussion of propositional attitudes and belief ascription wasn’t the nerdiest thing on the blog today. I didn’t think it could be done, but you really stepped up.
August 16, 2008 at 5:02 pm
dana
Even nerdier: I am sad that it doesn’t look like Nite Owl II is going to be tubby.
I’m not strongly inclined to expect anything good.
Me neither, particularly, though I’ll be satisfied if a) stuff blows up interestingly and b) they don’t destroy the spirit of the story (the plot wasn’t nearly as interesting as the characters.)
August 16, 2008 at 7:14 pm
ben wolfson
In a situation like this, dana, you outclass your opponent by titling your post “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”, or you come up with an entirely new title; the route you’ve chosen, that of eating your cake and having it too, is a copout, and winking doesn’t redeem it.
NONNIHIL OBSTAT
August 16, 2008 at 7:30 pm
dana
I think you are trying to read a wink that wasn’t there. I just gave up on the title.
Everyone knows the original quote, though “Quis custodiet ipsa poetam?” might have been okay, assuming I haven’t botched up the Latin.
August 16, 2008 at 7:34 pm
bitchphd
Everyone knows the original quote
Ahem.
August 16, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Josh
Ahem.
And you were on the tenure track?
August 16, 2008 at 9:07 pm
ari
Yeah, but she flamed out. And now we know why.
August 16, 2008 at 10:09 pm
bitchphd
It’s true. I could no longer face my latin-speaking colleagues without getting drunk first, and that seemed like a bad omen.
August 17, 2008 at 1:08 am
ben wolfson
ipsum poetam. “poeta” is masculine.
August 17, 2008 at 6:03 am
Jason B
Potayto, potahto. Poeta, poetam.
August 17, 2008 at 8:07 am
John Emerson
“Suddenly Last Summer” is a Southern Gothic movie in which crazy rich overacting Katherine Hepburn uses the promise of a large bequest to try to force the administrator of a medical institute (Montgomery Clift) to lobotomize her trashy niece (Elizabeth Taylor), who was the only one who know that Hepburn’s late son had been killed during a homosexual adventure in North Africa. (Not gay, they had no gaiety in the 50s) So far so good — black, evil, and improbable. Loads of fun.
So what happens? The doctor falls in love with Taylor and they get married.
WTF? I can’t believe that Tennessee Williams wrote it that way.
So anyway, you can put a happy ending on anything. There are quite a few heart-warming Holocaust movies out there, after all.
August 17, 2008 at 8:13 am
Walt
I liked the post’s title.
August 17, 2008 at 8:50 am
Fats Durston
It’s true. I could no longer face my latin-speaking colleagues without getting drunk first, and that seemed like a bad omen.
Thanks for the chuckle.
And perpetuating the academics-are-elitists meme.
But seriously, more-or-less started my first tenure track job Thursday, and I’ve consumed about 18 beers since then.
August 17, 2008 at 9:03 am
dana
You’re falling behind, Fats! Pick up the pace!
August 17, 2008 at 10:37 am
ari
I’m curious about the more-or-less part. How many beers have you had, Fats?
August 17, 2008 at 11:11 am
dana
I’m hoping ‘more-or-less’ modifies ‘started’ and not ‘tenure track.’
August 17, 2008 at 11:21 am
Fats Durston
Hee-hee. Y’all are just tickling me left and right.
More-or-less means sitting through the series of “What it means to be part of the U” pep talks, earning the free* lunch, and then being subject to a whirlwind of reasons why the online software isn’t quite up and running yet.
When I saw “gravity” on the official list of single words for what makes a good teacher, I giggled, and then wondered if I should be there.
*And by free, I do not mean calorie-free, as the dressing** was on the heavy side. That fat alone probably required at least an extra beer to get the alcohol to work.
**Not just on the salad.
August 17, 2008 at 11:34 am
bitchphd
I skipped my college’s (required) orientation (not my fault! I swear! They forgot to tell me where it was!) and classes start tomorrow and I have to finish my syllabus and dear god I hope that I manage to include all the required language about learning objectives and stuff. AND last night I had my first “being late for class or maybe just missing it entirely and Getting in Trouble” dream.
So fun.
August 17, 2008 at 11:45 am
dana
Ugh. I still have to figure out the rest of my syllabus. I have plenty of time! Honest! Damn students should teach themselves.
August 17, 2008 at 12:00 pm
ari
Damn students should teach themselves.
They do. If you’re a good enough teacher. You’ll get there.
August 17, 2008 at 12:03 pm
dana
I *am* a good enough teacher. I should revise that to ‘Damn students should create their own syllabus’, which is something, unlike the teaching, that the administration says I cannot farm out to the undergrads.
August 17, 2008 at 12:10 pm
ari
Oh dear. I was totally kidding. Every sentence of that comment was a joke. Sorry.
August 17, 2008 at 12:24 pm
bitchphd
Ari’s mean.
August 17, 2008 at 12:44 pm
ari
Only to people who deserve it, B.
August 17, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Fats Durston
They do. If you’re a good enough teacher. You’ll get there.
I think Ari must’ve been the author of two of those “What it means to be part of the U” pep talks I
sat throughenjoyed.August 17, 2008 at 3:22 pm
andrew
I dunno. Coast Guard?
August 17, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Iron Lungfish
Were they also considering making Rorschach kind-hearted and mentally balanced?
Based on the trailer, it looks like they’ve decided to go ahead and make him “badass,” which I’d say is worse. The Rorshach of the book is by turns ridiculous, unsettling, and horrifying, and his narration always read more like Travis Bickle than Batman to me. But that one line of his from the trailer – which is from his great, loopy “dead dog this morning, tire tread on burst stomach” opener – is delivered with the tough-guy growl of an action hero, not the bitter quaver of an unraveling schizophrenic.
The most disheartening thing about the movie is how CGI clean it all looks. Dave Gibbons’s New York looks retro and grimy at the same time, like somebody rubbed grease and garbage all over it; the buildings in that trailer look like they’ve never seen the outside of a computer processor. This is a common complaint about CGI-heavy movies, I know, but given that this is a movie based on a graphic novel that was groundbreaking in part for its realism, is it too much to ask for visuals that look a little realistic?
I’m not going to see this movie, and I hope (in vain, of course) that it bombs at the box office. I long ago learned to dread film adaptations of movies I like, let alone film adaptations of Alan Moore comics.
August 18, 2008 at 3:28 am
Martin G.
You could probably squeeze a few extra drops of nerdyness out. Maybe a bad Star Trek joke or something? “I prefer Juvenal in the original Klingon”?
August 18, 2008 at 5:52 am
dana
Based on the trailer, it looks like they’ve decided to go ahead and make him “badass,” which I’d say is worse.
Indeed. Rorschach is the anti-Veidt, and he has to be someone you’re not supposed to cheer.
August 19, 2008 at 11:10 am
rosmar
Dana, that happened to me. I got the letter telling me where my college’s orientation was the day after the orientation had happened.
Good luck with your new job!