“Did you hear My Chemical Romance’s pop punk cover of Dylan’s ‘Desolation Row’ over the film’s end credits? It illustrates the same point. Each version follows the same chords and same lyrics, but as done by Dylan, the song is a classic. As done by My Chemical Romance, it’s a disposable piece of junk.”
“Pop punk is as different from folk as film is from the graphic novel, as animation is from live action, etc. The chords and lyrics that resonate in one form won’t in another. Play Moonlight Sonata on a piano and its beautiful. Play it on a clarinet, not so much. In a similar way, an ink brush and a movie camera are different instruments. Snyder tries to hit most of the same beats and uses the same words that work in the graphic novel, but they don’t resonate on screen.”
A pair of insightful comments from a guy calling himself Kyle_D at Hollywood Elsewhere, perhaps indicating how “Watchmen” misses the mark a bit more succinctly that I did yesterday.
Also, from Geoff Boucher’s September 2008 interview with Alan Moore re: the then upcoming “Watchmen” adaptation:
“Moore said that with ‘Watchmen,’ he told the epic tale of a large number of characters over decades of history with ‘a range of techniques’ that cannot be translated to the movie screen…”
A week ago, I’d have said “bullshit” to that.