Go to the EW website for an amusing interview with Moore that mentions his opinion of the idea of this film.
I think the tone is communicated well in the trailer, but I have my doubts about the director being able to deal with the complexities of the graphic novel in the film itself. 300 and Dawn of the Dead don’t really inspire much confidence. If only Greengrass were still making it.
We have what we have, people. I’m personally getting tired of the “too bad it’s not Greengrass” comments.
I, too, wish he’d have been able to go through with the project, but who knows what kind of a clusterfuck the property would have been at Paramount (which clumsily handled it for years), even with Greengrass at the helm.
I like what Snyder has (apparently) done here. The film clearly has an aesthetic similar to “300,” at once beautiful and gritty, but there’s also a unique flavor to the imagery and I personally think it looks like a nice mesh of his work as a director and the dark immediacy of the graphic novel. I’m stoked.
And Moore was never going to like any film version of this property. He’s an infamous dick about these things, and God love him, but he’s not the authority I want to hear from on such matters. Never has been.
Chad
I watched the trailer and for someone who has no idea what the comic is about, I now have no idea what the movie is about. My best guess is some sort of CGI-barraged cross between Dark City and The Lawnmower Man. No thanks.
I never said he was going to like the movie. It would take someone like Kubrick for him to even entertain the possibility of liking it. I do think, however, that his comments about 300 are acute. I know most people enjoyed it but I don’t think it holds up particularly well. Once you get past the technical elements there’s not much to really like.
About Zack Snyder
“He may very well be, but the thing is that he’s also the person who made 300. I’ve not seen any recent comic book films, but I didn’t particularly like the book 300. I had a lot of problems with it, and everything I heard or saw about the film tended to increase [those problems] rather than reduce them: [that] it was racist, it was homophobic, and above all it was sublimely stupid. I know that that’s not what people going in to see a film like 300 are thinking about but…I wasn’t impressed with that…. I talked to [director] Terry Gilliam in the ’80s, and he asked me how I would make Watchmen into a film. I said, ”Well actually, Terry, if anybody asked me, I would have said, ‘I wouldn’t.”’ And I think that Terry [who aborted his attempted adaptation of the book] eventually came to agree with me. There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can’t.”
The trailer confused me a little since I know very well it’s one of the most intelligent comics ever written, like I said before, the trailer misses plot outline.
His complaints about 300 were with the source material. They were amplified by the film, but they were mainly with the book, as he clearly states. Nothing here about aesthetic or filmmaking ability. If anything it seems Moore would rather Snyder had not been faithful to the source.
I have to admit that the trailer was just alright. A mix of neat images, but a little confusing overall. The aesthetic really comes through, but I have to say that the blue men come off a little video gamey to me. I much prefer the real elements being stylized.
Comments
12 responses to “Four reasons why”
One reason why not?
Zack Snyder.
Whatever. I loved 300.
Go to the EW website for an amusing interview with Moore that mentions his opinion of the idea of this film.
I think the tone is communicated well in the trailer, but I have my doubts about the director being able to deal with the complexities of the graphic novel in the film itself. 300 and Dawn of the Dead don’t really inspire much confidence. If only Greengrass were still making it.
We have what we have, people. I’m personally getting tired of the “too bad it’s not Greengrass” comments.
I, too, wish he’d have been able to go through with the project, but who knows what kind of a clusterfuck the property would have been at Paramount (which clumsily handled it for years), even with Greengrass at the helm.
I like what Snyder has (apparently) done here. The film clearly has an aesthetic similar to “300,” at once beautiful and gritty, but there’s also a unique flavor to the imagery and I personally think it looks like a nice mesh of his work as a director and the dark immediacy of the graphic novel. I’m stoked.
And Moore was never going to like any film version of this property. He’s an infamous dick about these things, and God love him, but he’s not the authority I want to hear from on such matters. Never has been.
I watched the trailer and for someone who has no idea what the comic is about, I now have no idea what the movie is about. My best guess is some sort of CGI-barraged cross between Dark City and The Lawnmower Man. No thanks.
Read it before you venture an opinion, Chad.
I never said he was going to like the movie. It would take someone like Kubrick for him to even entertain the possibility of liking it. I do think, however, that his comments about 300 are acute. I know most people enjoyed it but I don’t think it holds up particularly well. Once you get past the technical elements there’s not much to really like.
About Zack Snyder
“He may very well be, but the thing is that he’s also the person who made 300. I’ve not seen any recent comic book films, but I didn’t particularly like the book 300. I had a lot of problems with it, and everything I heard or saw about the film tended to increase [those problems] rather than reduce them: [that] it was racist, it was homophobic, and above all it was sublimely stupid. I know that that’s not what people going in to see a film like 300 are thinking about but…I wasn’t impressed with that…. I talked to [director] Terry Gilliam in the ’80s, and he asked me how I would make Watchmen into a film. I said, ”Well actually, Terry, if anybody asked me, I would have said, ‘I wouldn’t.”’ And I think that Terry [who aborted his attempted adaptation of the book] eventually came to agree with me. There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic, and were indeed designed to show off things that other media can’t.”
The trailer confused me a little since I know very well it’s one of the most intelligent comics ever written, like I said before, the trailer misses plot outline.
His complaints about 300 were with the source material. They were amplified by the film, but they were mainly with the book, as he clearly states. Nothing here about aesthetic or filmmaking ability. If anything it seems Moore would rather Snyder had not been faithful to the source.
Jon: I think that’s because it’s a simple teaser, if a longer one. There will, I’m sure, be a more narrative-driven trailer down the line.
I have to admit that the trailer was just alright. A mix of neat images, but a little confusing overall. The aesthetic really comes through, but I have to say that the blue men come off a little video gamey to me. I much prefer the real elements being stylized.
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