If I see one more article about Alan Moore being “swindled” by DC or how Hollywood has destroyed his graphic novel, I’m going to go on a vendetta of my own.
Most recently was an article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune which ended with the following quote from a retailer:
“If he had been doing novels that were this successful for this long, they’d probably take more care with making movies out of his products. But it’s only comics, you know?”
Aw, c’mon. Putting aside the insanely faithful adaptation of “Sin City,” it has nothing to do with comics and everything to do with Hollywood. I suspect the name “Nathaniel Hawthorne” will be remembered long after Alan Moore, and I, and every other comic book writer are forgotten, and they STILL gave “The Scarlet Letter” a happy ending. Popular movies such as “Oh God,” “Kramer Vs. Kramer,” and even underrated great films such as “The Mighty Quinn,” have huge differences from the novels on which they were based. Disney’s people haven’t met a classic that they couldn’t transform into something else entirely (have you ever actually READ “Pinocchio?” He steps on the cricket and kills it in, like, chapter 2. And P.L. Travers’ “Mary Poppins” is an acerbic, middle aged woman, not the chipper, youthful, dancing Julie Andrews.)
Film adaptations are just that: Adaptations. They often bear little-to-no resemblance to the source material. The benefit of them is that the successful ones put copies of the books into the hands of customers who otherwise might never have heard of the work, much less purchased it.
Alan Moore can refuse all the money from the Hollywood versions he wants, but I daresay he won’t be turning his nose up at the increased royalties such films generate for the books.
PAD
• 
I’m glad someone finally is taking a position different from the unabashed Moore worship that goes on. Well said!
I agree with you about the nature of film adaptation… it’s absurd to expect a movie to be exactly like the source material unless it’s a very long, very boring film of someone holding a book open and turning the pages.
That said, according to all his interviews, Alan has already foregone all his royalties from movie and book and passed them on to David Lloyd, hoping to distance himself from his personal issues… I suspect that most of the “how dare they” rhetoric comes from interviewers and others who are offended *for* Alan, as he seems to be pretty much resigned to having lost his battles.
As someone who’s offered to forego your own monies in favor of making a point (before the sentiment was perverted into the three-ring U-Decide), I suspect you can sympathize that sometimes the money isn’t the only issue.
I read in one interview, tho I’m afraid I forget where, that Moore even demanded that DC remove his name from reprints of his various works. Dc refused to to so.
JAC
You know, I wrote a fairly long response, then deleted the whole thing. I’m just so sick of this subject.
At this point, I just want to say that I agree with PAD, and at this point I am only interested in opinions on the movie from people who didn’t read the book. It’s not that I don’t think other opinions are valid, I’m just tired of hearing the same “they changed stuff” debate again and again.
It isn’t that they changed his stuff, it’s that they turned his stuff into CRAP.
And Moore himself has stated he’s being irrational on this, he’s tired of having his work and turned it into crap.
Hollywood has taken numerous Moore babies and turned them out, dolled them up with Keanu Reeves, Johnny Depp being ironic and foppish and Sean Connery doing Sean Connery and they’ve whørëd his children out.
I wouldn’t like it either.
And I see nothing different in V For Vendetta, they’ve taken a work written at the height of the cold war, that was never meant to be applied to current political situations and turned it into a thinly veiled attack on Bush.
And c’mon Peter, you wouldn’t be happy if Fallen Angel was taken from you, without you having a say, turned into a stupid T&A Pam Anderson vehichle, so get off your dámņëd high horse.
He doesn’t like what Hollywood has done to his works. No one with any taste does. They haven’t even tried to make GOOD movies out of them, they’ve tried to make quick bucks and they’ve made crap movies.
It might be different if any of the Moore based movies were in anyway close to being good. But NONE of them have been.
And V For Vendetta doesn’t look any better.
I know I risk being pilloried by the Moore purists, but I liked LoEG. I know it wasn’t the same as the book, and I didn’t mind – it was still a heck of a lot of fun to watch, even though some of the characters differed.
I mean, did anyone complain when the encounter with Shelob was shifted from the end of The Two Towers to the first part of Return of the King for dramatic purposes? Or when the location of the second monolith was changed from the light side of Saturn’s moon Iapetus to Jupiter orbit in 2001? So why whine because Quatermaine is retired instead of being an opium junkie, or because the Cold War background of V has become outdated and a replacement was needed?
Now, complaining because of the totally unnecessary addition of Tom Sawyer to LoEG is, IMO, perfectly legitimate – that change wasn’t made because the story needed to be modified for a different medium, it was because the producers wanted to stick an American in there.
Well, the producer of LXG, Don Murphy, did comment on the movie on his message board:
“Saw a really terrific film last night, V FOR VENDETTA. I know Alan Moore has disowned it quite publicly, and I know Alan Moore quite well. My guess is that what I always feared would happen has- too many tokes in his isolated NorthHampton brownstone has led to full blown trolley off the rails for Mr. Moore. Hëll, I even read somewhere that he was saying unkind things about the LEAGUE film. This surprises me since he swore to me to never see any of his films AND to top it off, refused all my requests for involvement in the project for years. But he sure took the money. AND, to top it off, if not for the movie and me, being sucha bad businessman, he wouldn’t even OWN the League comics rights like he does. So ignore his rants and enjoy the film- it is great fun.”
“I know I risk being pilloried by the Moore purists, but I liked LoEG.”
I thought LoEG was extremely mediocre. It had some good moments, it had some bad, but mainly it was extremely “just OK” throughout. I was happy enough with the 8 bucks I’d spent, though.
I don’t think that LoEG was one of Moore’s better comics, though.
As others have stated, Moore IS refusing any more royalties from DC. So he’s putting his money where his mouth is.
And I think he has a legitimate gripe. The way the comic industry does business seriously needs to be reevaluated. There’s no way an author should so completely lose control of their work, while they’re alive.
Plus, Alan Moore is a really brilliant writer, and it would just make good business sense to do right by him so he’ll go on writing great comics.
Jonathan (the other one): I mean, did anyone complain when the encounter with Shelob was shifted from the end of The Two Towers to the first part of Return of the King for dramatic purposes? Or when the location of the second monolith was changed from the light side of Saturn’s moon Iapetus to Jupiter orbit in 2001? So why whine because Quatermaine is retired instead of being an opium junkie, or because the Cold War background of V has become outdated and a replacement was needed?
Well, as far as the LOTR reference, YEAH, people did complain. Tolkien purists complained about Shelob, and complained about the deletion of Tom Bombadil (apparently, they didn’t get the idea that the dark, suspenseful mood of Fellowship‘s intro might be ruined by a fat, happy man who skips through the forest and sings to trees).
But, regardless, I don’t think the question is did they get all their facts right, but was the spirit of the source material kept alive? In case of LOTR, I’d say yes, definitely (and anyone who complains about the changes should ask themselves whether or not they wanted to see a 3453453453 hour long movie where in between the non-stop singing, walking, and eating, the main characters occasionally had adventures). Does it matter that the villain from the film Misery used a sledgehammer instead of an axe? Not really. Did the changes in LXG change the spirit of the source material? I’d say yes, definitely. I mean, there’s a difference between moving the giant spider to the third movie and changing a pretty important aspect of Alan Quartermain’s history. One change is just cosmetic, another alters one of the lead characters. I could never look at Connery’s Quartermain the same way I look at Moore’s Quartermain. And as someone who just read The Picture of Dorian Gray for a college course, I’ve got to say that putting that character in an action-adventure flick is stupid on the Greeto-shot-first level of things.
That said, I honestly don’t know how I feel about Moore’s complaints. I’m biased because I have yet to read anything by him that didn’t impress me and influence my work and how I look at comic books, but I don’t know. I’m filing it in the “Thank God It’s Really None of My Business” drawer.
I get the Star Tribune everyday, and though I was happy to see a story about comics, I couldn’t bring myself to read another Moore vs. Hollywood article.
Hëll, whatever anybody may think about Alan Moore, adaptations, or Alan Moore adaptations, I am simply hesitant to give the Wachowski brothers any more of my money.
-Rex Hondo-
>And V For Vendetta doesn’t look any better.
And the next sound you hear is an enormous boulder crashing down on the coyote …
OK, textbook case of “matter of opinion” here, but, though I didn’t care for LoEG, and really loathed what Hokeywood did to Heinlein’s STARSHIP TROOPERS, I’m in the “better in many ways than the source material” camp where V is concerned. And I don’t say that lightly given that I’ve just been making my way through a borrowed DVD of MATRIX REVOLUTION and its cringe-inducing dialogue, and worse storyline. That V is so much better is in itself a sign they were serious in wanting to do justice to the material.
“Hëll, whatever anybody may think about Alan Moore, adaptations, or Alan Moore adaptations, I am simply hesitant to give the Wachowski brothers any more of my money.”
Come on Rex, Give it a chance. It’s got to good, v for vendetta 2 and 3 on the other hand…..
(And between 2 and 3 the ani-vendetta)
JAC
1>>> As others have stated, Moore IS refusing any more royalties from DC. So he’s putting his money where his mouth is. >>>
And Yet various people who are in the position to be in the know, (including the producer of LXG quoted in another post), have pointed out that Moore still cashes the checks. True he may instantly send the money on to other sources for all we know but still, it’s a contridiction.
>>
You’re kidding right. Aside from the fact that there isn’t a screenwriter alive who hasn’t had an original screenplay re-writen by other hands into something completly different there’s also hugely sucessful authors like Steven King, (who is about 100 times more famous then Alan Moore will ever be), who’s work has been turned into bad movies that bare no resemblance to what he wrote save for the title. This has nothing to do with the way Comic Book writers are treated, and everything about the way Hollywood treats writers in general.
1>>
I agree, in fact I’ll go you one better I liked LoEG better as a movie then as the comic. Was it a great movie, no, but then how many movies are. As a fun way to spend 2 hours on a Saturday night it worked just fine and I really couldn’t see what all the sniping was about. At least it was a movie that tried to have fun. The books were depressing and seemed to be all about tearing down the characters and being overly cleaver about how everything fit.
Jonathan (the other one) Writes:
I mean, did anyone complain when the encounter with Shelob was shifted from the end of The Two Towers to the first part of Return of the King for dramatic purposes?
As stated elsewhere, Yes, many times.
Or when the location of the second monolith was changed from the light side of Saturn’s moon Iapetus to Jupiter orbit in 2001?
Oh, here, we get into tangled knots of causality. The book and movie of 2001: a Space Odyssey were created simultaneously, each reflecting the other. There’s no single canocal version that was adapted into the other.
PAD wrote:
If I see one more article about Alan Moore being “swindled” by DC
In one internet mailing list I’m on, several posters muttered darkly about what a sleazy move DC had made by keeping V for Vendetta in print for fifteen years, thereby keeping the rights, rather than allowing them to revert to Moore.
The comics pro that list is devoted to — himself no stranger to being scrweed by publishers, and crying “Foul!” — quickly responded that he should be so persecuted.
Alan Moore can refuse all the money from the Hollywood versions he wants, but I daresay he won’t be turning his nose up at the increased royalties such films generate for the books.
I suppose the true test of his convictions will be whether or not he allows those books that ARE under his control to be made into film adaptations. All signs point to him saying no.
Every writer has their own level of tolerance for letting people screw with their works. I saw a comics panel once where Stan Lee joked about how enthusiastic he would appear to producers who came up with incredibly STUPID ideas for Marvel properties– “Spider-Man is ana actual spider! GREAT idea, Mr. De Laurentis!”. That’s pretty much how I’d be too. Once it’s out of my hands whatever, just make sure the check doesn’t bounce.
Harlan Ellison routinely took his name off of shows that changed his scripts. Moore takes it even further. I see no reason to critisize the guy, he seems to be pretty sincere and one of the few writers who seems to actually regard the artists he works with as actual partners.
That said, he seems to share with his political opposite Steve Ditko a certain black and white view of things. My understanding is that once you get on his bad side it’s over.
“Hollywood has taken numerous Moore babies and turned them out, dolled them up with Keanu Reeves, Johnny Depp being ironic and foppish and Sean Connery doing Sean Connery and they’ve whørëd his children out.”
Oh yeah. Yeah, with that mindset, you’re the go-to guy for an impartial assessment of the movie version of “V.”
“And c’mon Peter, you wouldn’t be happy if Fallen Angel was taken from you, without you having a say, turned into a stupid T&A Pam Anderson vehichle, so get off your dámņëd high horse.”
Wow. What a ridiculous statement. Was Sylvester Stallone cast as V? No. Was Dolly Parton cast as Evey? No. Were changes made? Yes. That’s Hollywood SOP. The story and characters are still recognizably Moore’s, and the film of sufficient quality to draw new readers to the source material. If a “Fallen Angel” film achieved that, I’d be ecstatic.
And if they screwed up “Fallen Angel” completely, then like Liberace, I’d cry all the way to the bank.
PAD
“Moore takes it even further. I see no reason to critisize the guy”
I do, and it’s a reason that no one has brought up: Concern.
I’ve seen way too many stories about once-famous writers living in one-room, freezing cold apartments because they’re out of ideas, or their ideas are out of style, and bottom line, they’re out of money. Writers having to take menial jobs just to make ends meet. Forrey Ackerman–in his day and in his way, as famous as Alan–had to sell off his entire famed memorabilia collection just to survive. Why else was ACTOR formed if there isn’t a general acknowledgement of this problem?
Alan (whom I’ve never met) is tossing away enough money to guarantee a comfortable old age. It’s easy enough now for people to cluck about the evils of Hollywood and heap accolades on Alan for refusing to take the money. And forty years from now, if you read a story about poor Alan Moore, once famous, now destitute, are you going to sigh and say, “Oh, dear, what a tragedy. How depressing,” and then turn to the sports section? Or are you going to ponder the words of Samuel Johnson: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
Now I don’t know about you, but personally, I’d rather see Alan Moore live a well-deserved long and comfortable life, benefiting from the fruits of his labors instead of uprooting the tree.
Others, of course, needn’t share that opinion.
PAD
it could have been much much worse
(personally – i loved the adaptation)
“it could have been much much worse
(personally – i loved the adaptation)”
My God, that’s brilliant. “B.” I wish I’d thought of it for a masquerade entry.
PAD
Well, I thought V for Vendetta was easily one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. It had everything that I liked in a movie. It had a good plot that I was easily able to follow; good characters, some that I cheered for and others that I hoped to see brought down by the end; good action sequences; cinemetography and directing were excellent too. I have read the comic before, but that was like 15 years ago. Rereading it, they didn’t really change too much except to make it more political for today’s time. for those of you judging it without having seen it, I recommend that you at least see what you’re condemning first.
I also thought that League of Extrordinary Gentlemen was a good movie. Not excellent, but good. But then, I didn’t really care for the comic too much.
PAD, I see what you’re saying and that’s a good point, but I don’t know that it applies here. Moore has said that he’s comfortable. He could certainly make a boatload of money just by coasting on his fame at this point–I doubt that any comics company would turn down the chance to work with him. He has a novel coming out.
Now, as you say, fortunes can change. But if it’s his choice to make his money now as he best sees fit I don’t think anyone should second guess him.
Put it another way. Harlan Ellison could have amassed a fortune as one of the best, most prolific TV scriptwriters of all time. He can (and did) come up with plots for everything from westerns to detective shows, to science fiction,to the Flying freaking Nun. All he had to do was kiss a little ášš and not make such a fuss when the producers and directors and the key grip and the cousin of the Best Boy came up with their brilliant suggestions on how to “fix” his scripts.
Instead he…well we all know what he did. It has undoubtedly cost him many many jobs, a great deal of money. And maybe now he regrets it, though I haven’t seen any indication of this. The point is, all of us make a balance between doing what we want to do and doing what we need to do and it’s up to the individual to decide where that line is. Moores stand is an extreme one but he’s a fairly extreme guy so that should come as no surprise.
At any rate, I want to be clear–just because I think it’s admirable that Moore takes his stand doesn’t mean I think it would be less than admirable if you took a different one. Like I said, I’d grab Hollywood’s handouts with both hands and laugh at how badly they screwed up whatever it is they bought. In fact, it’s kind of funny how one guy with a typewriter can do more than an army of technicians, producers, actors, etc. (and yet the screewriter is the low man on the totem pole. Go figure.)
>>>And I see nothing different in V For Vendetta, they’ve taken a work written at the height of the cold war, that was never meant to be applied to current political situations and turned it into a thinly veiled attack on Bush.
Riiiiiight. The only comparison to Bush is the one the Republicans jump to. I think it’s rather telling of their true feelings about what Bush is doing when they immediately jump on this film and claim it’s an attack on him.
This is just the classic “cutting off your nose to spite your face” syndrome. Has anyone even thought to get the OTHER creator’s thoughts and comments about this movie? You know, that artist guy.. whatisname.
Ok, seriously, David Lloyd is already on record as saying the movie is about 80% true to the original. Which is pretty dámņ good considering.
they’ve taken a work written at the height of the cold war, that was never meant to be applied to current political situations and turned it into a thinly veiled attack on Bush.
Jesus jumping Christ on a pogo stick, I give up.
Considering that any 15 year old today wasn’t even ALIVE when the Cold War ended, I think your comment, ElCoyote, sums up just about everything silly I’ve seen in discussing this movie.
I mean, for crying out loud, we’re talking about a graphic novel where part of the central point is in drawing comparisions to events that happened FOUR HUNDRED years ago, and suddenly because the Cold War has ended, the story is no longer relevant to the events of today?
What a joke.
Riiiiiight. The only comparison to Bush is the one the Republicans jump to.
Considering that on this very board we’ve had non-conservatives make the same claim, it would appear that you are incorrect.
Every once in a while you get Sin City…a movie made so close to the comic, the creator gets a director credit for essentially doing the story boarding. Or should I say, eventually, if you make enough comic-based movies, you’ll get Sin City. Because, to my knowledge, it’s one of the few, rare times when a movie goes to great lengths to stay not only true, but copy, the comic source.
Hollywood isn’t evil…it’s just full of egos. And when those egos are in the producer and director’s chairs, they’re going to intrude onto the material. And if you look at Hollywood as an extension of stage productions, there’s a long history of tweaking, amending, updating, even changing stage productions over time. Different settings, different costumes, rearranging scene order, experimenting. Theater/acting is art, and it’s going to continue to change, experiment, fall prey to egos.
As a creator, I can understand why you’d want to see your creations represented in the way you see them. But unless Moore turns into an accomplished film director, that’s not going to happen. So the best he can hope for is to have his babies given to people that do make movies, and hope they “get” it. And then hope the audience likes it.
Know what I think? This “controversy” makes good press. It creates a stir. People go see the film, they might want to read the comics, to see how different they are from each other. There’s certainly no bad to be found in that. After each chapter of the Lord of the Rings films came out, I re-read the books, to see what changes were made, and where, and to see how different the versions were. I always felt that, when changes were made, they were minor, and didn’t impact the overall story. In Return of the King, Frodo tosses the ring into Mount Doom before you read about the final battle at Gondor and before the Black Gate. When the Mouth tosses down Frodo’s Mithril coat, the reader already knows that Frodo’s not dead. It totally eliminates any suspense for the reader that the characters are feeling. In this respect the films are superior to the books.
I suspect that many people could find little examples like that with the film and comic version of V. For ever change made, there just might have been a good reason, not just a film reason, for making it. Different doesn’t have to mean worse.
I am glad to hear some praises for the movie. I haven’t had a chance to see it, but I do plan on eventually seeing it. Regarding LoEG, I enjoyed the movie – changes and all. I really disliked the second series of LoEG – it was just too nasty for my taste. I wish I hadn’t read it.
Neil
See, I never understood the fuss about the LXG movie anyway. I mean people are quick to leap to Moore’s defence over how his work was butchered for the big screen. They seem less quick to leap to the defence of H. Rider Haggard, whose creation Moore turned into an opium fiend. Or complaining that Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne or H.G. Wells were badly screwed over by having their creations warped and twisted into Moore’s vision much more viciously than the movie ever did to Moore.
I’d even argue that the movie was a lot more respectful to the CREATOR’S visions.
Moore wasn’t the creator, he just appropriated the characters.
As has been pointed out, there’s such a thing as being TOO slavish to the original text. Case in point: the first Harry Potter film, which was basically a dramatic reading of the book with neat visuals added. No, thank you.
LotR made a few changes, some of which I took more exception to than others (the changes to Faramir and Saruman being the big ones I didn’t really agree with) — but it was absolutely true to the spirit of the books, and there’s a reason that trilogy is likely going to be considered one of the best fantasy films out there even fifty years hence.
I haven’t seen V yet, so I can’t comment on it with any sort of logic, but I wanted to pass along a comment I read in some newspaper review back around the time the first Spider-Man film came out. I’m quoting it as best as I can remember, but I’m probably getting bits of it wrong. Here goes:
“Moviegoers appear to have no problem with Hollywood treating classic works of literature like cheap høøkërš, but change anything about a comic-book character and suddenly you’re being pilloried for being unfaithful to the source.”
I thought that was more than a little true, and both hilarious and deeply sad.
(Oh, and speaking of making changes — I can’t be the only one here who’s read Harlan’s screenplay of “I, Robot”. It’s amazingly different from Asimov, and yet would (IMO) have been true to the spirit of Asimov’s work while being amazingly interesting in its own right.)
TWL
Oh — and for the record, I think Bram Stoker has a lot less reason to complain about Alan Moore than he does to complain about Francis Ford Coppola. GaaAAAaaa. (I happened to catch the first ten minutes of the movie a few days ago; I’d forgotten how utterly godawful it was…)
TWL
Well, wether or not you consider Moore’s complaints legit or not, you have to chuckle at the advertising for the film.
It calls the film an “Uncompromising Vision.” When in the shadow of the publicity is one Alan Moore, who’s belief in how his work is butchered takes “uncompromising” to whole new levels.
To a certain degree I have to give PAD a nod. We are picking heavy nits. As far as Hollywood adaptations go, this one’s very faithful to the spirit and content of the source material.
Case in point: Exhibit “A”… or should I say, exhibit “LXG”. Yipes.
At least “V for..” attempts to play in the same sandbox. My (and others) criticisms about how it became less about Anarchist philosophy than the book are more about encouraging better of filmmakers.
It may be as good as one could hope to expect from Hollywood, but one can still always hope for more.
I did pay to see the film. So it’s not like I haven’t supported the film in some way.
I forget which famous author it was who was once asked “How do you feel about Hollywood destroying your books?”. This author reportedly pointed to his bookshelf and said, and I’m paraphrasing? “They haven’t destroyed anything, they’re right there” (Think it was Heinlein, but not sure). Thomas Harris put it even more succinctly when discussing the revisions to his novels: “The book is the book. The movie’s the movie”. PAD said it best: The movies, if done well enough, will probably encourage people to pick up the source material. Thus, the original work is still appreciated, after a fashion, and might hook a reader the author may not have gotten otherwise.
Doesn’t stop me from being slightly affronted when unnecessary changes are made. I still remember way back when “Rising Sun” came out and the identity of the perpetrator was completely changed (it bothered someone else more than I, as this person jumped out of his seat and yelled “Fûçk! That ain’t the way it happened!”). At the risk of sounding self-promoting, I have an unpublished novel that’s been written cinematically, i.e. written in such a way that there is no need for “Hollywood tweaking”. However, I’m prepared for it to happen should the novel be published and be picked up for adaptation. The reality of the entertainment beast is such that someone will try to put their own personal stamp on the production. Think about it. A producer’s/director’s bread and butter come from the perception that the work that appears on the screen is their own work. If it was a simple by-the-numbers affair, then what’s to separate DeLaurentis from Speilberg in terms of execution? The egos “have” to put something of their own in the production to make it “theirs”, even though ideologically it is not.
Also, bear in mind, there have been instances wherein such changes actually IMPROVED on the story…at least in terms of execution.
One last thing. I unabashedly admit that I’m becoming a published author to MAKE MONEY. My poetry is my writing for myself. There is nothing wrong with writing for the purposes of wealth. Reportedly, Shakespeare wrote his works to cater to the largest audience possible. His plays contained elements that would appeal to both the high brow elite and the low brow commoners. Why did he do that? I submit that it was to maximize his earning potential.
I haven’t seen V yet, but my feeling about adaptations in general is that there are going to be changes anytime a book is adapted to film. That may be because ideas or plot structures that work on paper don’t necessarily translate well to the screen or simply because that the producers feell it’s necessary to make the film more marketable. The only test for is not how faithful the film is to the source material, but does the movie work on its own merits. Fusing Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane into a single character worked in Spider-man. Putting Tom Sawyer -if you do the math, he should have been the same age as Quatermain- into LXG did not.
As for LOTR, many fans freaked out over every single change, from eliminating Tom Bombadil to putting elves in Helmsdeep. None of those things really bothered me, because the trilogy still worked on its own merits as a film. But don’t bother explaining that to the purits. I gave up on that years ago.
A final thought on Moore: The fact that Moore is still holding a grudge against DC about the Watchmen has caused me to lose a lot of respect for him as a person. It’s over 20 years later, and that’s far to long to still be pìššëd about a dispute that at its heart was about money, not creative control.
TWL wrote “(Oh, and speaking of making changes — I can’t be the only one here who’s read Harlan’s screenplay of “I, Robot”. It’s amazingly different from Asimov, and yet would (IMO) have been true to the spirit of Asimov’s work while being amazingly interesting in its own right.)
I read, and loved, Ellison’s adaption of I, ROBOT. Almost as impressive was Asimov’s introduction, in which he (Asimov) discusses the difference between the mediums of film and literature and praises Ellison’s adaption for keeping the core concepts while making the movie more exciting and emotional.
Then look at the absolutely wretched movie Will Smith movie to see what a train wreck Hollywood can make of something. They completely missed the point of the book, while allowing egos to run rampant. (Anyone out there think Will Smith fought to keep his character low-key but other folks insisted that Will Smith become a mototcycle-riding, smooth-talking cool dude.) Feh.
Alan (whom I’ve never met) is tossing away enough money to guarantee a comfortable old age. It’s easy enough now for people to cluck about the evils of Hollywood and heap accolades on Alan for refusing to take the money. And forty years from now, if you read a story about poor Alan Moore, once famous, now destitute, are you going to sigh and say, “Oh, dear, what a tragedy. How depressing,” and then turn to the sports section? Or are you going to ponder the words of Samuel Johnson: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”
Actually, no matter what his eventual financial situation, I’d respect him for taking a principled stand. He’s not stupid. He knows what the money he’s refusing could buy him. But he puts his work and creative integrity above that. And I can respect that.
It’s ironic, but he’s similar to Steve Ditko in that way, despite their very different political stands. And you can see that admiration for Ditko’s philosophy, for his determination to take a stand, his refusal to compromise even when it would benefit him to do so, in his portrayal of Rorschach in Watchmen.
So yeah, I respect and admire people like that, and I strive to be like that in my own life (though I certainly don’t always succeed). But you try, and that’s what counts I think. So I respect Moore for taking this stand, whatever the consequences.
“Moviegoers appear to have no problem with Hollywood treating classic works of literature like cheap høøkërš, but change anything about a comic-book character and suddenly you’re being pilloried for being unfaithful to the source.”
I’d say moveigoes, in general, don’t really give any thought to whether a film adheres closely to the source material. Or even, in many cases, that there IS a source inspiring the current film. It’s only fans of the source material that care at all. Comic fans, fantasy fans, sci fi fans…we’re all a pretty rabid lot. But take comic fans….being generous, let’s say there’s some 500,000 individual people that pay money for comics. I said I was being generous. According to Box Office Mojo, V pulled in some $25 million this weekend…a really good opening for a genre film that’s bound to turn some off just because it might be critical of our current government. At $8 per ticket, that’s some 3.2 million people. Even if you assume that all of those 500,000 comic buyers went out to see the film, there’s still 2.7 million people more that went to see it. We’re about 16% of the opening weekend take at most. Studios care a little about what comic fans think. But mostly, they’re concerned with making a movie that appeals to a base bigger than just comic fans. They have to. There’s no enough of us to support a big-budget movie. There’s barely enough of us to support a good monthly comic.
All of which makes me laugh a little. Organic web shooters, having Joker kill the Waynes, making tar the key ingredient in making Bizarro Superman…all deviations from the comic, all made for movies. Comic fans can get so caught up in the details, they lose sight of the end product….was it entertaining. I’ll take a slightly continuity-plagued story that entertains over something boring that fits lockstep into canon any day.
Hollywood isn’t evil…it’s just full of egos.
Actually, I’d say the problem isn’t so much ego, as it is money.
Lucas is the ultimate example: he’s paying for the Star Wars movies out of pocket, and thus he gets to do whatever the hëll he wants.
Nobody else really has that kind of freedom.
With Lord of the Rings, it was complete make or break for New Line: if the movies failed, the company would basically go under.
So, with money, comes dabbling. And that’s where so many movies have issues – the studio dabbles, pushes, and prods for what they want because it’s their money.
What you have to realize about the I, Robot movie is that this was intended to be a Will Smith vehicle from day one. They didn’t start with the premise of “we’re adapting Asimov’s short story collection.” They started with, “Well, Will Smith has fought aliens in three movies, let’s have him fight robots. What’s a good title for a robot movie? Didn’t that Asimov guy write a book about robots? Let’s get the rights to that.”
The end result was inevitable. It was a paint-by-the-numbers action movie that was the exact opposite of Asimov’s philosophical point in I, Robot.
Tim Lynch:
As has been pointed out, there’s such a thing as being TOO slavish to the original text.
And there’s being too anal concerning faithfulness to a book.
I give myself as an example — for the longest time, I had a real problem with the movie version of “To Kill A Mockingbird”. Why? Because they cut out *6 to 8 pages* and fasttracked a scene (the one where Scout is whailing on the Cunningham boy, and they left out the flashback to a flashback why the boy wouldn’t take a nickle.)
Horrors! Never mind they kept a good 95% of the movie (and with Gregory Peck leading a stellar cast) — THEY LEFT OUT A SCENE! WAAH!
Balance is always the prerequisite in adaptation.
Bobb, your assessment is 100% correct. Dummy Moore got away with tacking on the happy ending to The Scarlet Letter because she was nearly correct when she said no one reads it anyway. The vast majority of filmgoers do not read the source material that movies are derived from.
How many people here read Forrest Gump before the movie came out? Gods and Monsters? Brokeback Mountain?
SF/Fantasy/Comics fans are a very propriority lot in general. It’s not just about movies. Hëll, how many times have we seen comics fans ranting and raving on message boards because of a reboot or a story that contradicted continuity established 10, 20, even 30 years ago. Go to just about any comics-related message board and look for a guy callimg himself “ManoftheAtom.” I’ll guarantee that no matter what the subject being discussed is, he’ll be ranting about how Waid’s Birthright sucked and Byrne’s Man of Steel is the only “real” origin of Superman.
And that’s just one example.
Thank you!! I posted on another blog how I thought Moore was being somewhat petulant and bratty about the whole thing and was lambasted by other posters.
And I agree about your concern for Alan’s future. One would assume he was already quite wealthy, based on his so casually refusing and giving money away. Perhaps he is, but I have my doubts. Hopefully he reconsiders his position at some point in the future.
With Lord of the Rings, it was complete make or break for New Line: if the movies failed, the company would basically go under.
Which makes the fact that Peter Jackson was able to include as much of the novels as he actually did pretty amazing, considering initially the studio wanted the entire trilogy done in two, two-hour movies.
I’m disappointed in a lot of you folks.
Do I think everybody needs to agree with Moore? No.
But I do I think you guys need to calm down a bit. Moore has his grievances, and they are now getting in the mainstream news channels. As much as I love Heidi, The Beat ain’t the New York Times. Most people who go to see movies don’t read Newsarama.
So you are sick of seeing these articles? DON’T READ THEM!
And if you want to tell me the same thing, I’ve beat you to it. I’m tired of reading about what a prima donna Alan Moore is for not fitting your ideas of what a writer should be like, and I’m outta here.
A couple of notes: you left out an important change of ending: Count of Monte Cristo.
Both the movie V quotes on film, and the more recent Jim Caveziel/Guy Pearce versions were given happy endings, where Dantes does not learn how awful a life of revenge is (Even Inigo Montoya figures it out at the end).
Let’s praise a few respectful comic adaptations. Not necessarily 100% reproductions of the original stories, but worth watching, even for the changes:
Spidey 1&2
X-Men 2 (although they wasted Lady Deathstrike’s potential with another silent “Darth Maul” death)
Road to Perdition (yup, a comic book)
A History of Violence (that too)
and away from comics, there isn’t a better adaptation — even though it strays from the written word — than Silence of the Lambs (good for you Jodie, for dropping out of Hannibal).
I’ll give nods to Andromeda Strain (I don’t think Crichton’s been treated that well since), The Princess Bride… I can probably list more, but I should get back to work.
Mr. Moore, if retiring (such as it may be) in the U.K., in the immediate future (which is not likely to change soon, given so many “pensioners” already on the roll), will be taken care of. He will be allotted a pension, paid for with taxes by the working stiffs of the U.K. And medical care is taken care of by a national health system. The pension system has been in place since medieval times, to some degree, so I don’t think he’s going to be starving because he’s not taking credit for works in the past. If money comes into his hands, I’m assuming the government will take a share of it beofre it leaves his hands, thus putting into the system he will later take from.
If anyone should complain about their books being ravaged to make movies, it’s Tom Clancy.
“The Hunt for Red October” is probably the one movie that follows the book best, other than losing one submarine battle and totally changing Jack Ryan’s childhood.
“Patriot Games” starts out well, but totally compresses the story and changes a very intense ending to a Hollywood ending.
“Clear and Present Danger” tries to follow the book, but so much of the book was tossed out to make it a Harrison Ford action/adventure film instead of a political thriller.
“Sum of All Fears” has a character named Jack Ryan and a nuclear blast at a football game. Not the same game, or even city as the book. And the villians of the book aren’t even in the movie.
But, Tom Clancy also realized that he wasn’t going to get HIS books made into movies, so like PAD said, he went crying all the way to the bank.