Alan Moore Refuses Rights to Watchmen

[mexicola]

While I can respect a man with integrity, Alan Moore is an ass. If I understand correctly, Mr. Moore was so adamant that the Watchman shouldn't be made into a movie that he essentially wrote the bizarre ending the comic book had to make it impossible to adapt into a movie. Although I certainly agree that some things shouldn't be taken out of their original medium, his approach to this is so fucking over-dramatic and to betray the story over a minor thing like that is just ridiculous.
This whole "I don't want anything to do with comics" comes off sounding like a whiny child to me. A true storyteller would be more concerned with what's important to the story rather than what people do with it afterward. Hollywood being the factory of broken dreams that it is, you can't dissuade them from doing stupid things and it's rather pointless to try.

I agree with most of this. While I think that some things can be taken out of their original medium (and I heard that the film, which I personally have no interest in seeing, was excellent), he sounds more like a whiny brat than anything else. On some level, I can understand it, but on another, it just sounds like he's stamping his feet and going to sulk in a corner.

Well he doesn't seem to need the money, he has no wish for any continuation of the story and if he accepted the rights he would have been forced to make more prequels/sequels. So the only option besides what he did was to go out of his way to do something he would hate, that doesn't sound much like pouting to me.

 

[Rubashov]

"The comics world has lots of unpleasant connections, when I think back over it, many of them to do with Watchmen," he said.

I don't quite understand what he means here.

Anyone care to elaborate?

The whole DarkerAndGrittier!(InsertSuperheroNameHere) trend started with Watchmen. It got really old and really pointless really fast.

Didn't Moore actually apologize for what Watchmen unintentionally did to comics? If I remember right that's also why he wrote Supreme which took things back to the more light-hearted and less ambiguous moralities of the pre-Dark Age

I believe so. It's not really his fault, anyway; he couldn't have known that every publisher would start jumping on the bandwagon Watchmen started. Anyway, the DarkerAndGrittier thing was what made Watchmen work as a deconstruction of the superhero genre. It was only when other writers started thoughtlessly adopting it that it became a bad thing.

 

[Nouw]

We need more of these guys

 

[dfphetteplace]

good for him
in my opinion it's better to a poor man then a rich whore

Very true.

 

[Orange_Clockwork]

Alan Moore is and will remain to be my idol in terms of how he lives his life and watches things go by.

I can't really blame him for not wanting Watchmen back after all that's happened with it being rather abused from it's original form. I don't think he needs to put out anymore work either as he is mostly a legend in the realm of Comic books and a mysterious figure in the eye of the public.

In his position I find no err of judgment.

 

[Lazarus Long]

As I said when DC first started talking about new Watchmen stuff, while part of me would love the idea of someone like Neil Gaiman telling their own story about new people in the world Moore created, most of me believes in Sturgeon's Law enough to expect something like

Spoiler: this.

 

[duchaked]

uhh hm maybe I should read the comic and watch the film first

 

[cthellis]

A lot of fan's hated the film because it changed the odd thing. Pretty much most of the film is true to the book with odd changes here and there so it fits on screen better. But the endings are completely different. Which is were I think most people drew the line.

Which always seems odd to me, because I think the movie's take was a lot better. Dr. Manhattan always pissed me off in the graphic novel, because he was an arbitrary godhead who could do what he wanted. I find his existence took away from everything else, rather than added to it.

At least in the movie, his existence was required for Veidt to pull off his scheme in the first place.

 

[Sinclair Solutions]

God DAMN, I love Alan Moore. The man is not only one of the world best comic book writers, but a man who sticks by what he knows is right and what is best for his creations. I think all of Hollywood, maybe the entire entertainment industry, should learn something from him. If I ever met Mr. Moore, I would shake his hand. He is my inspiration as a writer.

 

[Prof. Monkeypox]

This all seemed par for the course with Moore until this tid-bit:

"I'm pretty much out of comics now," he said. "I really want nothing to do with it."

What? No! Please don't turn your back on comics, there's already so few graphic novels out there with any talent. We can't afford to lose another one.

Even if he is, at best, insane.

 

[bojak90]

I personally love Didio's comments about how they would only use the characters and setting if the stories matched Moore's quality of writing.

Dan Didio...heh...heh...BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

The guy who approved, strongly guided, and endorsed Countdown, Cry for Justice (as well as the equally terrible Rise of Arsenal mini) and a whole slew of bad books is talking about quality...oh lord, expect a prequel out in three years that was written by a baboon slinging feces at a list of plot points.

 

[Space Jawa]

"The comics world has lots of unpleasant connections, when I think back over it, many of them to do with Watchmen," he said.

I don't quite understand what he means here.

Anyone care to elaborate?

Other people have kind of said it already, but I get the impression he may be regretting giving the world Watchmen at all.

If I'm not mistaken, he later wrote a story with the Question that was in part meant to be a shot at Rorshach, his own character. Or at the very least, the publics perception of him. I believe the line meant to spell it out was "Rorshach sucks".

So, Batman should instead be like the 60s show?

I'll be honest with you, as great a movie as The Dark Knight was, I'm preferential to the version of the Joker the likes of which you'll find in Batman: The Brave and the Bold or other more lighthearted versions of the Batman mythos. The kind where yeah, he's still a bad guy, but he's also not so incredibly evil and murderous where Batman comes off as crazy for NOT letting him fall to his death. I was cheering when Joker was on his way to his doom, only to be disappointed when Batman saved him, which was a huge turnaround from the way I'm usually disappointed when the villain of comic book movies have to meet their end.

When I think about it, it leaves me wondering when are we going to get our "Anti-Watchmen"? The comic book that does for the fun, bright, escapist titles what Watchmen did for the grim and gritty.

 

[Vohn_exel]

good for him
in my opinion it's better to a poor man then a rich whore

Money may not buy happiness but I'd rather cry in a ferrari.

You sir, just won the internet, lol. I think I'm gonna use that everytime someone tells me it can't buy happiness .

But yeah, I kind of hope there isn't a sequel to it. The What if's of the comic and even of the movie are good as they let you create your own "extended universe."

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Actually, Moore is still doing comics. He has a new 4 part book coming out called Neonomicon.

It's about Cthulu.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Well good for him then. Although I'm a bit curious that he doesn't own a copy of one of his more notable works. He's really a man who looks to the present I guess.

 

[Styphax]

Love Moore, but he needs to get over himself, and his adversity to DC. I get that Superhero comics have pretty much stagnated (I'm sure I'll jump off the superhero ship in a few years once I've read most everything) But Moore seriously needs to relax his ego. (could go on with why for a while PM me should you like further discussion)

 

[Mr. Grey]

At least in the movie, his existence was required for Veidt to pull off his scheme in the first place.

Veidt still needed Dr. Manhattan to pull of what he wanted in the comic.

Spoiler: And in regards to how they handled it in the film...

... Dr. Manhattan was an American hero. Everyone in the rest of the world would be pointing their fingers at America and blaming America for Dr. Manhattan going "rogue" and causing all of those horrible disasters -- I mean America did create him in the first place and then we let our media hound and demonize him which led to his violent outburst and self exile. Then shortly after that you'd better believe America would become a stain on the Earth.

Best Case Scenario: The Doomsday Clock has gone off and the world is ravaged, but only enough that Russia can be declared the undisputed ruler of the world. Veidt has failed.

Worst Case Scenario: America manages to fire back and takes the rest of the world with it. Veidt has definitely failed.

 

[RatRace123]

Oh come on DC, just leave Alan Moore alone. The man's got too much integrity to resort to whoring out his creative visions... so he's naturally a bad fit for the comics industry, or any industry actually. He's a rare man, unfaltering in his convictions.

And what a sweet ass beard.

 

[WolfThomas]

As I said when DC first started talking about new Watchmen stuff, while part of me would love the idea of someone like Neil Gaiman telling their own story about new people in the world Moore created, most of me believes in Sturgeon's Law enough to expect something like

Spoiler: this.

[/spoiler][/QUOTE]
Oh god too many pouches!

Yeah I've also thought about what would happen if my favourite authors expanded on the watchmen world, but considering what they're like (Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis and Mark Millar), they're probably fill it with random swearing and gore.

 

[Trogdor1138]

Good, I can't believe DC would even try something as stupid as that, it's been known for a long time Alan Moore would never do something like that and you can't bribe him to churn out the same old shit like you can for every other comic franchise.

I don't even consider Watchmen a franchise, it's a true work of art that stands on it's own, nothing else besides the comic was necessary, the film shouldn't have even been made and was a poor experiment to try and recapture the comic rather than truly make something work better for film, the end result was something that lacked any real soul of it's own, it'll just be remembered as another pointless comic film that wasn't as good as it's source material (for the record, i love many elements of the film, mainly visually, but I have my big problems with it).