<![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> Reading drafts of all three, I'd have to agree that Hamm's script is a complete trainwreck and that Hayter and Tse's versions are actually pretty good. Hayter did the seemingly impossible by creating a structure that is actually both faithful to the original story and that works as a filmic narrative.

I think a lot of the naysaying comments here are pretty reactionary. The links are right there and the Tse script isn't hard to track down either, why not just give them a read? You might be surprised.

I'd heard a lot of negative things about Tse's version, but I found myself liking it the best - the dialogue and other tweaks really improve the tone and characters and ditches a lot of the hokier stuff that carried over in Hayter's draft. I find the progressive move closer to the original source material all good signs (and as a continuing trend, especially w/ Snyder's decisions to make it a period piece, bringing it back to the original setting).

The only thing I can really fault is the hokey Veidt/Dreiberg fight. I'm not sure why "comic" movies always have to end with ridiculous fist-fights (remember the Sandman script?) where things get wrapped up in a bow no matter how antithetical it is to the whole point of it all. Other genres of films don't seem to be hamstrung by this. Did anyone say to the Coen Brothers "yeah, No Country For Old Men was good, but why not have Tommy Lee Jones go mano a mano w/ Javier Bardem and knock him out at the end."

Since Snyder has made other changes and at least from the visual production angle has been extremely faithful to the source material, I'm hoping the final cut drops the some of the silliness at the end.

Anyway, chalk me up as a skeptic who's now pretty excited to see how the movie turns out.

lhl

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> Well,I only read the Sam Hamm script. I didn't find it awful, except for his depiction of Veidt. The ending idea about Manhatten is arguably better than Moore's comic. Moore's idea of a mutant invented monster bent on invasion would have only worked for about 6 months before it would have collapsed. Sam Hamms solution made more sense in a lot of ways. The airship chase was fun, but he didn't get rorschach quite right, and I don't understand what the big reason for giving Laurie cancer or the momentous cure. It seemed uneccessary. But not horrible.

spudzill

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> RHorseman: It's been shooting. Writer's strike won't kill it, it will just kill a guild writer from re-writing it as they go.

The art direction and photography will be fucking amazing no doubt. So was LOTR's. Film still sucked.

aspiringexpatriate

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> @Tiger_Tanaka: Yeah, the photos do look great. Believe me, I want this to rock. Let's just hope it does.

Kevin Kelly

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> The pictures of the set from the website are amazing. The level of detail is taking me back to the hours spent poring over the original artwork. Snark all you want, but this tells me the folks involved are giving it their all.

I am IN.

Tiger_Tanaka

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> God these sound awful. I don't want any of them to get made. Why not just go whole-hog into the shit barrel and cast Schwarzenegger as Rorschach who will shoot dozens of villains in the face while making terrible quips like, "The thing about inkblots is that you can never predict what they will be." And Dr. Manhatten can be Woody Allen. And Ozymandias can be a coked-up Jack Black and Nite Owl can be a CGI Peter Sellars.

Why not?

Poormojo

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> God I hope the writer's strike kills this thing dead. There's a good chance too: if ever a movie was going to need a million script doctors and re-writes this is it.

rhorsman

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> No matter how many times they revise the script, the movie will just suck. It was made to be a comic book, and to turn it into anything else would destroy the story. Sure you could fit in all the major plot details, but if you cut anything at all out from the original book you'll lose the character developement that makes it so excellent. It doesn't help that Zach Snyder, who obviously doesn't understand anything about subtlety (fucking bone-saw arms in 300) is at the helm of a project this complex. He speciallizes in stupid, over-the-top action movies, and that's just not what Watchmen is. Of course, movie studios would not buy a drama about superheroes, so that's exactly what his Watchmen will be. Hell, on the movie's official website they describe it as "A complex, multi-layered mystery adventure." If you could possibly describe Watchmen like that, then it is obvious to me that you have never read it.

DrWest

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> He's probably been driven crazy because of his reputation as box office poison. Except that prior to Lost In La Mancha, only one of his films failed to make back it's budget. And he's branded as unmarketable. Disgusting really. And Weinstein butchered, froze, and re-butchered whatever Brothers Grimm might have been.

aspiringexpatriate

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> Le sigh. Sounds like Batman and Robin, with the radiation offa satelites and all. And the whole "Why a bat?, er owl?" bit.

cde

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> @IntoAshes: I'd watch it.

Kevin Kelly

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> I say they can this and make a 12 part TV miniseries of Lost Girls instead.

IntoAshes

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> @ex_ea_slave: We hadn't seen anyone comparing all three versions of the different scripts, so we decided we'd do that, pulling out some of the major things that set them apart. We've talked about Watchmen casting already, plus the Heroes/Watchmen similarities (at least from Season One).

Maybe we'll look into the Lost/Watchmen connections, that's a good idea. Thanks for the feedback!

Kevin Kelly

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> @princessstacey: Seconded, it's a 12-part comic for a reason.

SuperUnison

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> Other than rehashing very old news, I'm confused at the point of this post. If you're going to tell us things already known and revealed by countless other sties, how about the latest casting news? What about the fact that Gibbons is onboard with the Tse script? Or, my personal vote, tell us all about the Lost/Watchmen similarities. If this site is going to stick around, the criteria for what makes something worthy of writing about must be raised.

Trust me, I'm a doctor

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> @extracrispy: Of course the crazy man who can't get financing is the ONLY ONE who understands what it would take to make this into a film. Poor Terry. How I love the big-mouthed genius.

JennaW

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> Part of me is glad that Snyder is including the Black Freighter bits, for completeness sake, and another part of me is worried he is including things like that just as fan service and not because they will make a good movie.

I think so much of Watchmen is based around the fact that it IS a comic book that a movie that is 100% faithful might not work. The BF is a comic book because there are real superheroes so you can see them on the news. In a movie, even a movie geared towards comic book fans, I am not sure how he will handle that.

In my head it somehow works if the kid is addicted to a pirate serial in a movie theater, or even a cartoon.

I hope this movie doesn't suck, that is all I can say.

ElijahDProphet

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> @princessstacey: Couldn't agree more. And let's face it: even a miniseries would probably turn out disappointing, although it /would/ open up the possibility of a Rorschach spin-off show...

squonk

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> I interviewed Terry Gilliam, gosh, like ten years ago. He told me a Watchmen movie would be impossible to make. That it might work as a mini-series.

extracrispy

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> Right. Can't be done in three hours. A 12 hour miniseries for British TV like Terry Gilliam proposed, quite possible. But Joel Silver's a bastard. And Zak Snyder appears to be a hack. I've yet to see Dawn of the Dead, but 300 had maybe three good moments, all provided by Michael Fassbender. And while many claimed it was a great adaptation of Miller, I disagree. In Miller's, the camp was in the drawings, but the subject matter was deadly serious. In Snyder's the camp was in the subject matter and the visuals just failed to be as epic as he wanted them to be.

aspiringexpatriate

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> As much as I'd like a good movie of Watchmen, part of me would like to see a movie of just "Tales of the Black Freighter" as an antidote to PoTC.

N__B

]]> <![CDATA[io9 Analyzes Three Leaked Scripts for Watchmen]]> Isn't there some way we can vote this movie off the island? Some movies just don't need to be made.

Princess Stacey

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