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WIRED Magazine Interviews Alan Moore

Adam Rogers of Wired magazine, has interviewed Alan Moore to talk to him about his opus Watchmen, in advance of the movie's release. Here is the link to that interview. Alan Moore has publicly disowned every filmed version of his graphic novels. Sometimes that seems appropriate (the emasculated From Hell, and the terrible adaptation of League Of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen for instance), and sometimes it seems a bit overkill, (the under-rated V For Vendetta and the upcoming Watchmen) but it is his decision to make and -FUPPETS- respects it.
-FUPPETS- always recommends, if you want to see a film based on a novel/book/comic, to read the novel/book/comic FIRST, for the film will never, no matter how great it is, be as rich and intense an experience as the written text source material. However, watching a bad movie adaptation of a literary work will most definitely color and taint your later reading of the source material, if you get around to reading it at all. Now, this Watchmen comic is so dense, so psychologically rich and visually arresting, that it seems impossible to translate that properly into a movie. So much will be lost. So many things which, when added up and take all together, enrich the experience of reading this comic book but which will not make it past the cutting room floor, if they were filmed at all.
One of the stories-within-a-story in the Watchmen (and there are several) is the pirate comic book, Tales Of The Black Freighter, read by one of the secondary characters in the story. This was filmed, but edited out due to the length of the movie. Warner Bros. has announced though, that 5 days after the release of the movie Watchmen, they will be selling a DVD that will include Tales Of The Black Freighter, as well as Under The Hood, a book written by the original Nite Owl in the story. Read about it here. It is a good thing the director of the film has fought for Warner Bros. to release all this material, which will very likely be spliced into the 160 minute movie for a super-deluxe comic-geek extravaganza edition. Yeah!

Who Watches The Watchmen?

There are less than two weeks until the opening of the most anticipated movie in years. The Watchmen, a 2+ hour-long, heavy R-rated movie, based on the nearly overwhelmingly dense and fabulous 12-issue comic saga by writer extraordinaire Alan Moore (V For Vendetta, Swamp Thing, From Hell, etc.), understated but immensely detailed and subtle artist Dave Gibbons, and masterful colorist John Higgins, is among the top achievements in the field of illustrated story-telling, which is usually called (derisively by many), comic books.
The long and convoluted story of the making of this film is nearly as involved as the story presented on the pages of this book. Entertainment Weekly is doing a series of covers as a promotional tie-in with the movie. They have published a cool article detailing the impressive build-up to this movie's release. It is very gratifying to read that the director fought to make the movie as true to the source material as possible, preventing the studio executives from dumbing it down or softening the edges to make it a more kid-friendly and marketable PG-13 rating. No way, no how! This movie is slated to receive a very hard R rating, and it should, for the comic is not a children's story. -FUPPETS- is freaking out and cannot wait!!!!!

Here is a photo-gallery, provided by EW.com , which contains images taken by photographer Clay Enos, who followed the production of the movie from the very beginning. His portraits of the Watchmen cast — major players and background actors — have been collected in Watchmen: Portraits, from Titan Books, on sale now.
If you have not yet read the story, -FUPPETS- suggests you head to your local bookstore and buy it, or head to your local library and check out a copy. You will not be disappointed, unless you are looking for some soft-ass Spiderman bullshit.

Who Watches The Watchmen?

-FUPPETS- has officially creamed their jeans.
The new Watchmen Trailer has been released. The film looks amazing, and is to be around 3 hours long. There is no way they could do true justice to the depth and insanity and storytelling richness of the original book, but the director is a huge fanatic, and did quite a lot with the movie 300, which, if you have read the comic, was actually quite a feat. ENJOY!