Watchmen is often described as the greatest graphic novel ever made, and I would agree with that.

It is a real-world spin on superheroes, how the world reacts to them, and how being a superhero doesn't solve ones emotional problems.

 

[MENTION=108952]HonestAbe[/MENTION],

Hollywood tried to make Watchmen into a movie since it was published back in 1986. Many fans said it was un-filmable until Zack Snyder directed a film version in 2009.

Watchmen's writer Alan Moore, never wanted his story to be made into a film, but as a DC Comics publication, they own the rights to the story and characters. Moore was offered a royalty fee for the film version, but he declined it.

 

Do it! Watchmen was one of the best comic stories ever told, and one of the first to be branded "graphic novel" Both versions have differences, but the core story is the same... there was a lot of panning of the story in theatres, but this was a combination of the family unfriendly rating and a meta-story that went right over most people's heads and sensibilities. It was near perfection for me, as an owner of the original printing and many subsequent repackages over the decades, the movie was sublime--- make sure you track down the directors cut for an expanded story on the news vendor and the kid reading, along with animated scene-cuts from the comic he is reading that parallels the main story in a twisted way.

 

I'm sad to report that Watchmen author Alan Moore, recently confirmed that he's retiring from writing comic books.

"I think I have done enough for comics. I've done all that I can. I think if I were to continue to work in comics, inevitably the ideas would suffer, inevitably you'd start to see me retread old ground and I think both you and I probably deserve something better than that...I know I am able to do anything anyone is capable of doing in the comic book medium. I don't need to prove anything to myself or anyone else...I will always revere comics as a medium. It is a wonderful medium."

- Alan Moore
​

 

The "Before Watchmen" stories written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke look good and respectful to Alan Moore's vision, but the rest, especially the ones written by Brian Azzarello, look like sad imitations.

 

^^Excellent analysis! It is more life breathed into the world (Which was a solid foundation for an intriguing world, more than a one-off tale.), but not as timeless as the original. But it is like saying that Alien 3 (or for trek fans, Star Trek V) was so terrible that it was not considered a part of the story... Like a Gorilla humping your leg, it happened and no amount of denial can erase your memory of it. But I should note that the Before Watchmen experience was nothing like the mentioned sequels or hormonal gorilla.

 

Monty Python veteran Terry Gilliam tried for years to make a Watchmen movie. At one point, he thought a cable TV miniseries was the best route, but as always happens with Gilliam's projects, he couldn't get any financial backing.

 

100% Agreed! The one thing I heard complained about the most, was the denouement to the villians plan. I get the people who wanted purity to the source, but the reality is that the film version of events made far more cohesive sense than the comic path. It highlighted intelligence and planning more creatively than "Random Cthulhu like event", and painted the baddie as a brilliant tactician 5 steps ahead instead of crazed mad scientist with insane ideas.

 

Alan Moore is one of the best

 

THIS.

I agree wholeheartedly. When I heard the film was coming out, I was curious as I hadn't read the graphic novel yet. I bought it at the bookstore and read it in two nights, I couldn't put it down.

Of all of the comic-to-big screens, this I have to say, is the best one that's been done. IMO, this is the one Snyder did right.

I actually liked the film ending better than the novel though, to me for them to have tried to pull that off in the film version would have made it lose something in translation in a major way.