Adapting Alan Moore's Watchmen to the Screen
An Evaluation of the Cast and Crew Set to Produce Watchmen
Jul 31, 2008
The writing, acting, cinematography and direction of the film all have extremely difficult tasks before them.
Writing
Adapting Watchmen to screenplay format presents some unique challenges. The comic was a twelve issue series with one to four scenes per installment. That is already a difficult task. According to Robert McKee, author of screenwriting textbook Story, An average hour and a half movie today will have 30 scenes. Moore’s scenes are also extremely efficient- each revealing several characters, advancing plot and commenting on theme.
The writers selected to adapt the movie are David Hayter and Alex Tse. Hayter has three other features to his credit- X-Men, X2 and The Scorpion King. This is Tse’s first feature. If they are able to pull Watchmen off it will be magnificent, but the fact that the producers trusted one of comic’s most valued gems to such inexperienced writers is troubling.
Acting
The casting is a mix of experience and inexperience, television and film actors. It seems that the more difficult characters were reserved for the more recognizable names (Billy Crudup playing Dr. Manhattan; Jackie Earle Haley playing Rorschach,) and the more accessible characters were given to less experienced or television actors. With proper direction, this could create the divisive world in which the mentally stable are few and far between, and must interact with the epic personalities of the truly committed vigilantes.
Cinematography
The director of photography for this movie is Larry Fong, whose principle credit before Watchmen was 300. This is good and bad, and Watchmen will be a test of Fong’s real skill.
The feel of 300 was very popular and very accessible. The graphic novel was full of the striking contrasts and dark, saturated colors which are popular today. Fong stayed very true to this visual scheme when shooting the film. Watchmen is different, though. It’s not all action and fighting- it’s minutely composed symmetries and imbalances. Its color scheme is subtler and its color palette is richer. 300 was almost all brown, red and black. Watchmen employed a wide range of colors, often set against each other or against a rich black background.
Another difference which will be interesting to see Fong handle is how action functions differently in the movies. 300 was a movie of classical battles, of glory and strength. The slow motion, the shining soldiers, the flapping flags all accented this. Violence in Watchmen is either quick & gritty or slow & disturbing. There’s no glory in the killings except the exultations of madmen. This opens a lot of possibilities for how to shoot the action, and it will be interesting to see what Fong does with it.
Direction
Watchmen is a story unlike anything Zach Snyder has directed before and, like his D.P. Larry Fong, it is a magnificent opportunity which he cannot afford to fumble. The characters he’s dealing with are more complex and nuanced than anything he had to deal with in Dawn of the Dead or 300. The situation is more difficult and elaborate than the scenario for any of his other films, too. Watching Zach Snyder approach Watchmen is a bit like hearing that an actual 18 year old will be cast as Hamlet. You hope and hope that he will be able to tackle this epic feat, but you don’t particularly expect him to.
Conclusion
Watchmen is a difficult story. On the whole, it does not appear that the producers gave it the credit its due when selecting the talent to make it. However, it’s possible this ragtag group of filmmakers will pull off something stunning.
