At this point in life, it is not surprising in the least that the good old Alan Moore unleash your fury every time a studio or creative team dares to adapt one of your works. It happened with ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, with ‘V for Vendetta’, with the underrated ‘Watchmen’ by Zack Snyder and, of course, it happened with the fantastic Damon Lindelof miniseries for HBO Max, also titled ‘Watchmen’ and based on the universe of the same comic.
“I’m one of the bastards that are destroying Watchmen”
Although a long season has passed since its premiere, Moore reopened the box of thunder in an interview with the GQ medium in which, among other things, he explained that received a message from Lindelof himself asking for forgiveness and advice at the same time. As expected, things did not go too well.
“[Recibí] an honest letter from the showrunner of the TV adaptation of Watchmen, which I hadn’t heard existed at the time. But the letter, I think it started with, ‘Dear Mr. Moore, I’m one of the bastards tearing Watchmen apart.’ It wasn’t the best start.”
“He went through what seemed to me like a lot of neurotic ramblings. ‘Can you at least tell us how to pronounce Ozymandias?’ I responded with a very abrupt and probably hostile response, telling him that I thought Warner Bros. knew that neither they nor any of their Employees were not to contact me again under any circumstances.”
“I explained to him that I had disowned the work in question, and it was partly because the film industry and the comic book industry seemed to have created things that had nothing to do with my work, but would be associated with it. I said: ‘ Look, this embarrasses me. I don’t want anything to do with you or your show. Please don’t bother me again.”
Alan Moore thinks his comic hasn’t been understood yet
Allan Moorewho believes that “I would be the last person I would want to sit down with to adapt my work” and that, having agreed, “It would have been torture without a very good reason” For Lindelof and his team, he reacted to the resounding victory of ‘Watchmen’ at the Emmys —where he scratched 11 awards, including the award for best limited series— calling into question understanding of the source material.
“When I saw the TV industry awards and that Watchmen had won, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, can a large part of the public believe that this is what Watchmen was?’
“You think this was a gritty, dark, dystopian superhero franchise that had something to do with white supremacism? Didn’t you get Watchmen?’ ‘Watchmen’ is almost 40 years old and was relatively simple compared to a lot of my later work What chance was there that they have understood anything since then? This makes me feel less fond of those works. That they mean a little less in my heart.”
Fully understanding Moore’s position —it shouldn’t be easy to see how others manipulate their own creation—, it is undeniable that, in the case of HBO’s ‘Watchmen’, we are faced with a brilliant expansion of your universe. But good old Alan seems to will never changeAnd I couldn’t be happier about it.
In Espinof | “The infantilization of superhero cinema can be a precursor to fascism”: Alan Moore charges against Marvel and DC fans