Zack Snyder is the Stupid Wes Anderson

Post by **Worm of Despite** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 5:50 pm

Both Zack and Wes make the same movies, except whereas Wes makes continually good stuff, Zack is colorblind to quality and does nothing but visually attractive but stunningly stupid and unoriginal comic book adaptations. Great. The zombie movie was good. Good job. But really, push your boundaries a bit... Instead you do a Miller graphic novel, then a Moore graphic novel, and now another derivative piece of bloated schlock that a nerd would get his greasy fingerprints on at the comic book shop.

All right. I'm done.

Post by **sgt.null** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 6:12 pm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zack_Snyder

had no idea who you were talking about. i thought Dawn of the Dead was excellent, 300 brilliant and Watchmen ambitious and great at times.

Sucker Punch looks good, and I haven't really liked any Superman film - maybe he can change that.

Post by **dANdeLION** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 6:44 pm

300 sucks; what a pathetic little piece of trash it was. Watchmen was true to the comic, and I really liked it, but it has gotten it's share of criticism. Did he do a DotD remake? I didn't notice. I thought the original was somewhat goofy, mostly crap.

Post by **Worm of Despite** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 8:31 pm

sgt.null wrote:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zack_Snyder

had no idea who you were talking about. i thought Dawn of the Dead was excellent, 300 brilliant and Watchmen ambitious and great at times.

I gotta agree more with dAN. Watchmen was too ambitious in all the wrong places. The only part I really liked was the title sequences and Dr. Manhattan's back-story, which was true to the comic but also had its own gravity and promise to it that I'd have loved to seen extended to the rest of the movie.

The Comedian scenes were great as well.

300 was dumb. Well-done dumb, I guess, but I'd rather have a well done steak while watching a brilliant adaptation of Gates of Fire.

Post by **sgt.null** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 10:41 pm

300 was good at what it was. i prefer to watch the Station Agent truth be told - but not every film has to be smart.

Post by **dANdeLION** » Sat Mar 26, 2011 11:45 pm

I didn't need it to be 'smart'. It went beyond stupid, however. It went 'full retard', to quote Tropic Thunder.

Post by **Orlion** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 12:01 am

I kinda liked Watchmen when I first saw it, then I read the graphic novel, which blew it away.

300 got waaaaay too ridiculous for me (and I like Shoot 'Em Up!)

Dawn of the Dead was a terrible movie IMV.

Post by **sgt.null** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 1:25 am

Watchmen could never hope to be as good as the comic book series. a two hour movie vs a year long series?

you lose way too much back story, side stories, depth.

though i did think the movie did well with the flashbacks and the Rorshach character.

it would have been better served as a miniseries - but no one could afford to make it.

it did much, much better then Moore's League of Extraordianary Gentlemen. that may be the worst comic adaption of all time.

Post by **dANdeLION** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 2:39 am

No, there's a Man-Thing movie that went straight to video. That's the worst comic adaptation ever, right along with the 1st attempts at Captain America, Punisher and FF ( Not that any of the Punisher or FF movies were all that good.....). I will grant you that LXG had nothing to do with the comics plot-wise, featured characters that didn't appear in the comic, and characterized Mina completely different from thee comic. That being said, I still think the Swamp Thing movies were a worse adaptation of an Alan Moore comic than either LXG or Watchmen.

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 2:55 am

Dr. Strange is the worst comic movie ever.

Watchmen was great. No, it doesn't match the comic. The biggest disappointment being what was left out of Rorschach's story. Still, great movie.

300? Well, the comic wasn't even close to Miller's best work, so the movie wasn't likely to be great. Still, a fun flick.

Post by **Worm of Despite** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 4:37 am

sgt.null wrote:Watchmen could never hope to be as good as the comic book series. a two hour movie vs a year long series?

you lose way too much back story, side stories, depth.

It is/was a challenge, no doubt, but the parts they got right convinced me of this: why not do the rest that way? Plus, the LOTR films did a heck of a job with something that took more than a decade.

Post by **sgt.null** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 5:12 am

foul - not sure there was a demand for a Watchmen trilogy. but that would have been the way to go. you are right, much of what they did was great. just not enough time.

fist - i saw Dr. Strange when it came out, I was 10 so I remember nothing about it. not a good sign for it being a quality flick.

dAN - did not see Manthing. (did not even know about it), Captain America i found dull not wretched. Punisher would be with Kilmer? did not see that one. the one with Jane I thought suffered from Travolta being the bad guy. I've seen the FF movies, they are bad...

but i thought League missed on out on characterization all along the board. Connery was simply awful - not at all like Quatermain should have been. Mina was terrible. and whil eI liked the idea of Sawyer and Grey - they too failed. and the car? what the hell were the film makers thinking?

it's been a while since I've seen Swamp Thing, but was it based on Moore's handling of the character? I remember it being campy, not gothic at all.

Post by **dANdeLION** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 10:02 am

There was another FF movie, one that makes the other two look wonderful in comparison.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fantastic_Four_(film)

Post by **sgt.null** » Sun Mar 27, 2011 12:32 pm

dANdeLION wrote:There was another FF movie, one that makes the other two look wonderful in comparison.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fantastic_Four_(film)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fantastic_Four_(film)

In a list of the "50 Top Comic Movies of All Time (...and Some So Bad You've Just Got to See Them)," Wizard Magazine ranked this film higher than Batman & Robin, Steel, Virus and Red Sonja, all of which were released in theaters, but had rather poor reviews.

I have not seen it - but I can't imagine the Shaq starring STeel has any redeming value.

Post by **Hashi Lebwohl** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 3:10 pm

It is always extremely difficult to translate a graphic novel directly into a movie. There is no way to translate all of the character development or depth onto film and some scenes, if filmed exactly as depicted in the novels, would force the movies to have an X or XX rating for extreme graphic violence.

Also, usually when I see someone trashing a graphic novel adaptation it is because they are a devoted fan of the graphic novel and anything that deviates from what they love is seen as an automatic failure. Even Alan Moore himself hated the idea of Watchmen being adapted into a movie...but I'll bet he didn't mind the residual checks from the merchandising.

I haven't seen anyone mentioning Sin City (novel by Moore, movie by RR) or The Spirit: My City Screams (novel and movie by Miller himself) here yet. What about Wanted? I don't recall the novel writer(s) but I know the movie was directed by Bekmambetov (he also did Night Watch and Day Watch) and has the most cutting-edge ability to display action on the screen I have seen in a very long time.

No, you don't have to like every graphic novel adaptation that gets made. However, just because they aren't 100% like the novel means only that true translation is not possible.

Post by **dANdeLION** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:25 pm

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:I haven't seen anyone mentioning Sin City (novel by Moore, movie by RR)

Miller wrote Sin City, not Moore.

Post by **Orlion** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 4:42 pm

dANdeLION wrote:
Hashi Lebwohl wrote:I haven't seen anyone mentioning Sin City (novel by Moore, movie by RR)
Miller wrote Sin City, not Moore.

Couldn't get into the movie. It bored me. In my opinion, Wanted was a terrible movie (bored me)... haven't seen The Spirit.

My main problem with adaptations of any kind is that whoever is in charge doesn't 'get it' usually. This happened with Watchmen, Beowulf (not a graphic novel, but proves my point) and Dawn of the Dead. Whoever makes these movies miss the point and focus on something that doesn't matter. Zack Synder does this continually. For example in Watchmen, he focused on how when it came out, its grittiness was 'shocking' to the populace at the time, so he was going to one up it so that modern audiences would feel that same shock. As a result, he botched the movie with unnecessary gore and an awkward (and ultimately lame, cliched) sex scene. Hell, how is it that in the book

Spoiler

only one city is destroyed

and I was more creeped out by that than I was when in the movie

Spoiler

every major city is blown up

? Seriously, in the movie my reaction was 'huh, will that's interesting.'

Post by **Fist and Faith** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 5:38 pm

I bumped Sin City for you, Hashi. As far as Wanted goes, it was written by Mark Millar. I haven't bothered seeing it. The comic is at the top of the list as far as seriously disturbed, violent, all-things-evil as I've read. I'm sure there's worse out there, but I haven't read them. Mind you, it's a great comic! But I'm sure they'd never make the movie as extreme as the comic. Not a big-budget, big stars movie.

Post by **Hashi Lebwohl** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 5:53 pm

dANdeLION wrote: Miller wrote Sin City, not Moore.

Yes, indeed. It appears that I made a mistake. Write that down on your calendar because it doesn't happen often.

Post by **Hashi Lebwohl** » Mon Mar 28, 2011 6:05 pm

Orlion wrote:Couldn't get into the movie. It bored me. In my opinion, Wanted was a terrible movie (bored me)... haven't seen The Spirit.

My main problem with adaptations of any kind is that whoever is in charge doesn't 'get it' usually. This happened with Watchmen, Beowulf (not a graphic novel, but proves my point) and Dawn of the Dead. Whoever makes these movies miss the point and focus on something that doesn't matter. Zack Synder does this continually. For example in Watchmen, he focused on how when it came out, its grittiness was 'shocking' to the populace at the time, so he was going to one up it so that modern audiences would feel that same shock. As a result, he botched the movie with unnecessary gore and an awkward (and ultimately lame, cliched) sex scene. Hell, how is it that in the book
Spoiler
only one city is destroyed
and I was more creeped out by that than I was when in the movie
Spoiler
every major city is blown up
? Seriously, in the movie my reaction was 'huh, will that's interesting.'

The destruction of only one city in the graphic novel creeped you out more because of the detailed drawings of all the people killed, piled up in heaps on top of each other. Also, even though you--the reader--knew that it was only a story and the punchline was explained to you in detail before it actually happened you, yourself, still couldn't believe it. How could he be certain that it would actually work without ever testing a prototype?

Also, "shocking" has changed meaning over the years. Go back and look at movies that were considered "shocking" back in the 1950s or 1960s; to us, now, they seem extremely tame and sometimes even boring. Robocop was released in 1987 and Paul Verhoeven had to fight to get an R rating (the MPAA was going to give it an X) because of the violence. Go watch it again--movies that have come out since then are sometimes more violent and get an R or NC-17 rating.

On a similar note, have you ever wondered why so many movies show scenes where the main characters go to a club for some reason and the club is always underground, the people are wearing a lot of leather and have extreme body modifications while dancing to hyper house music? It is because the average audiencegoer never goes to a club like that so it makes the viewer feel just as lost and confused as the characters.

Face it--we are jaded movie viewers. If zombies attack, we all know what to do. The serial killers are never dead, even if you shot them four times in the chest and they fell out a third-story window. We think all cars explode when they impact and flip over. So on and so forth.

I'm digressing, aren't I?

Kevin's Watch

Kevin's Watch

Zack Snyder is the Stupid Wes Anderson

Zack Snyder is the Stupid Wes Anderson