Providing that all the legal fighting gets worked out, the film adaptation of Alan Moore’s Watchmen should be coming out next March, and millions of fans around the world can’t wait. Why all the fuss over a 20-year-old DC Comics series? Simply because it’s probably the best ever made (though Craig Thompson’s Blankets is a close second, IMHO). As might be expected, there’s a number of Watchmen fan films out there; I last wrote about them almost 18 months ago, so let’s take a look at a new one that came out in August: .
Written and directed by Nic Collins under his shingle, the flick is a spin-off/what-if tale that introduces new characters, diverges in a big way from the original story and introduces a Sin City-like visual style to the Watchmen world. Here’s what Collins posted over at SuperPass before the film was online:
Loosely adapted from the graphic novel Watchmen. It takes the the character Rorschach, Daniel, Edward Blake, Moloch, Dr. Long, and Veidt, and it also uses the the “detective story” of Rorschach. There are some major differences.
I have included new supporting characters: Det. Grayson—He has a personal vendetta against Rorschach, and Ray Logan/The Prophet—a CIA agent with a past as a vigilante. Anyway, the film follows its protagonist, RORSCHACH. The main plot is RORSCHACH’S detective story to find out who killed his friend, and retired hero, EDWARD BLAKE. He accues the retired more BATMAN-esque character, DANIEL. Daniel is an insurance salesman who is bitter towards ADRIAN VEIDT, because of VEIDT is the government’s puppet, and the number-one supporter of the Anti-Vigilante Act. VEIDT is a SUPERMAN-esque character, is all over the news, and is the country’s only LEGAL and official HERO or VIGILANTE.
NOT in this movie are: DR. MANHATTAN, THE COLD WAR SCARE AND 70′S POLITICS, SILK SPECTER or any other supporting characters that I haven’t mentioned. The plot is not the same as the novel, and the villian’s motivation is also not the same.
Now I am aware that this IS the greatest novel ever (not opinion; fact), but I am nothing but a lowly filmmaker with a very small budget. I really would like people to accept this movie for what it is, not an attempt at a Watchmen film, but a noir detective story involving a few plot points and characters. This is a loose adaption, with my own spin.
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