Visually it shouldn't be a problem, not with today's special effects. But it's at the level of story that The Watchmen poses problems. The story told covers a couple of generations, sometimes at once, with key information not actually given away in the midst of the action but in supplemental information which take the form of variously: psychologist notes, a comic in a comic and a autobiography, with many other things included in the background. The level of detail this gives you surpasses what you might ordinarily have in a film, book or ordinary comic.

It's kind of like filming a day in the life of anybody: think about the levels you're operating on: interaction with other people, thoughts, things you're reading, remembering, seeing on tv, hearing at the bus stop etc etc. How would you go about doing all that so it makes sense?

I read it once a few years back myself, and I've always understood the label 'unfilmable' to refer to the sheer volume of story and detail involved in it, and the fact that a straightforward translation (a la Sin City and 300) wouldn't necessarily make a very watchable film.

Volume of material didn't stop people producing versions of War and Peace.

Some sections, like the sequence where Dr Manhattan is on Mars, strike me as being near-impossible to convey accurately on screen. It's a pivotal part of the story, so you can't exclude it, but the way it leaps from 1985 to 1962 to 1959 and back, from frame to frame, can be reasonably easily told on the printed page, but I literally have no idea how you'd do it smoothly on celluloid.

There's so much jumping back and forth in the original comic that replicating it frame-by-frame in the way that you suggest, and retaining any kind of coherent flow at all, would be an impossible challenge.

It's quite common to think that comics are merely a poor cousin of movies but they're not actually the same as the storyboards one sees in DVD extras.

In fact, comics can do technical things that neither of the other two mediums can. It's waaay too complicated to get into here, but if you're interested, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is well worth a read. There's a detailed summary here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Creative_Writing/Comics

Watchmen - as noted above - was particularly adept in its use of technical flourishes.

The other point to make is that the plot to Watchmen is not really particularly strong or what's particularly important, focussing on character studies whereas for a movie to work, it will necessarily focus more on the plot.

and been a big fan of the comic, I think that just as a series of images it looks like the most accurate transfer of a super hero comic to the screen to date. Of course, the actual film could be bobbins-apparently they've "changed the ending". Alan Moore's a bit cursed in the adaptation stakes-the less said about From hell and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen the better. V For Vendetta was ok, although massive chunks of the story went missing, which will probably do for Watchmen too. Roll on the film of Marvel(Miracle)Man, it's what the kids want!

...the entire Pirate Comic backstory? Now if Terry Gilliam had directed it as a TV mini series, I'd be interested, but as a film? I'm less than hopeful.

So much of what makes Watchmen great is in the way the story is told, rather than the story itself (in fact, one of the main plot threads is half inched from an old Outer Limits episode, which Moore directly alludes to in one chapter).

There's a symmetry in some of the chapters that comes across on the page but wouldn't on the screen. And the bit where the kid is reading the comic and then you're reading the comic in the comic (which has been animated as a DVD extra for the movie, which seems to be missing the point somewhat), and then you're reading them both at the same time... er I guess I'm not explaining this very well. Best just read the book and then you'll get it

I don't think 'Watchmen' is unfilmable - but then, I don't think 'Watchmen' is as awe-inspiring as some seem to believe either. I've spoken to some who find the idea of altering or cutting *anything* from the original comic to be tantamount to heresy, but I found it quite a flabby read in places. There's nothing there that's without purpose, but there's plenty that could be cut without having a massive impact upon the plot - the Mars sequences mentioned above could be trimmed down quite a bit.

'Watchmen' the film needs to work as a film first and foremost - not as an adaptation of the comic. So, if a few sacred cows need to be slaughtered along the way, so be it.

...is that the film always becomes the definitive version to the public. That's ok for the Godfather, because the movie's ten times better than the book. But I've said to friends "read V for vendetta, it's great" and got the reply, nah, I've seen the film and it's rubbish. I think in a few years Watchmen may end up defined by the film. I agree with Chris G-it's a comic first and foremost.

A lot of adaptations of comics seem to miss the best elements of the originals.

One of the most notable things (if you were going to be unkind, the only notable thing) about Frank Miller's Sin City was the histrionic chiaroscuro of the artwork, which is of course the one thing you don't get carried over into the film version. It just ends up as a bunch of actors shot in grey tones. The characters and stories weren't much cop to begin with, which is why I never bothered watching it. Similarly The Spirit was all about Will Eisner's quirky and inventive approach to storytelling, page layouts and generally mucking about with the form, whereas the film version just redoes Sin City.

As I somewhat snootily stated above, the best thing about Watchmen is its structure, and the canny tricks Moore and Gibbons used in their storytelling. Luckily enough it has good characters, some fairly complex themes and a good story, so a film version should at least be watchable and might even be great.

That pirate comic will never work as a cartoon though. Should have just left it out. It's like Tom Bombadil!

Some of the appeal of Watchmen for comics fans are the explicit references it makes to superhero comics (and American adventure comics in general). When I first read it I didn't know any of the history, and on rereading it a lot of the layers became more apparent.

Of course, to a mainstream audience who don't know their Charltons from their Gold Keys, that stuff is meaningless, and the superhero genre is a fairly recent cinematic thing, but from the looks of some of the trailers for the Watchmen movie, Snyder is creating associations with past superhero movies. The redesign of the Nite Owl costume makes its links with Batman even more apparent, and Ozymandias seems to have been reborn in the mould of Joel Schumacher's rubber nippled greek god fantasies.

http://www.capnwacky.com/rj/watchmen/

Anybody wondering about the level of detail should cast their eyes over this site....

...When Raymond Chandler was asked how he felt about his novels being ruined by Hollywood, he pointed to them sat on a bookshelf and said something along the lines of "don't worry, they're quite safe".

I recorded this on Friday night and have now watched it twice. I thought it was brilliant. Really atmospheric, and superb in the way it captures the earlier 30s era Minutemen stuff as opposed to the main plot in the 80s. I haven't read the book but intend to now, though I've read lots of stuff on the web about the multiple layers etc. Fascinating piece of work. I haven't read any graphic novels as an adult though I loved comic books as a nipper. A whole new world of stuff to explore opens up to me!

also see, effing the ineffable

/coat