League of Extraordinary Gentlemen trailer!

[Richards]

Dorian Gray is a guy who has a magical portrait of himself stored in his attic. As time passes, the man in the portrait continues to age, but Dorian himself remains impervious to the passage of time. Of course, if anyone were to destroy the painting...

Johnathan

 

[Michael Tree]

(Resurrecting an old thread because I just read the comic and then the trailer.)

Originally posted by dreaded_beast
i know there are some people out there who are "purists" that would prefer such movies not be made in the first place if the movie will not stay true to the story. i disagree, since i am usually happy to see the movie on the big screen and see how it would be interpreted, along with what actors were chosen to play what roles.

except for cases where the movie was just god-awful (dungeons and dragons anyone?)

I suspect that the latter is what a lot of people are worried about. Changes are inevitable, but when a clever book with interesting characters and an engaging plot is changed into an utterly vacuous action movie with as much depth and plot development as Tomb Raider, then people have a right to be upset.

In summary: Changing a book to make it a more dramatic or accessible movie is good. Sucking all the life out of a book to make committee-written Hollywood drek is bad.

I might be wrong. I'm hoping the movie surprises me by being of decent quality, but judging by the trailer it isn't going to happen.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I have to say that a Hollywood corruption of LEG almost has a better chance at capturing the essence of the comic than a sincere tribute or adaptation.

When I saw that a movie was being a made I sincerely doubted that it capture the moral complexity and shadiness that exist as the context for the League. Most cinema cannot attain the focus on background and context that comics, particularly Alan's, can. I feared that the number of characters and vigor of the story in LEG would cause the background that contributes so much to the message of the books to fade away.

But since Hollywood itself will provide the moral ambiguity that previously resided in the mock descriptions of the author and murky horror of the background, I am now satisfied that I can watch LXG free from the anxiety of worrying that the film I am about to watch will be an uncomplicated homage to the creation of heroism.

Still, it is tragic that the Mina is made weaker by making her stronger, and that Quartermain is just retired as opposed to an Oppium addict.

 

[Michael Tree]

But since Hollywood itself will provide the moral ambiguity that previously resided in the mock descriptions of the author and murky horror of the background, I am now satisfied that I can watch LXG free from the anxiety of worrying that the film I am about to watch will be an uncomplicated homage to the creation of heroism.

Still, it is tragic that the Mina is made weaker by making her stronger, and that Quartermain is just retired as opposed to an Oppium addict.

I'm not sure what you mean about Hollywood itself providing moral ambiguity. Judging by the trailer, the movie will be about unambiguously good but cool good guys against unambiguously evil bad guys and mooks.

And, of course, it will be completely politically correct.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I read in an interview with Alan Moore a couple of weeks ago that he
is boycotting the movie. That every script he's been handed has been
worse than the one before it and he doesn't like the director and his
ideas.

At least something good will come out of the whole thing though, he
said, he'll be gettin' royalties and he'll probably get to meet Sean Connery.

Of course, that does not mean the movie will be bad, just that it doesn't
follow the vision he had in mind. For him, it'll be From Hell all over again,
another comic-to-movie based on his work where the whole meat of the
story got thrown away for a more Hollywood-ish thriller.

.

I got to the interview through a link at www.ComicBookResources.com
which I haven't been able to locate again yet. It's probably somewhere in
the Pipeline columns.

 

[Michael Tree]

That every script he's been handed has been
worse than the one before it

That seems to be a pretty common occurence in Hollywood. Neil Gaiman has some horror stories about potential Sandman movies. He tells about the last Sandman script he saw, which was about the battle beteen the Sandman "the lord of good dreams" vs. the Corinthian "the lord of bad dreams". The first line in said script was "Foolish mortals! Your puny weapons cannot hurt me, the Sandman, the lord of dreams."

 

[Viking Bastard]

Urgh!

I've heard that story before, [brag mode on] told to me by Grant
Morrison [/brag mode off]. Have you read Brian Micheal Bendis's
Fortune and Glory (IIRC). It's a book about his tenure as a movie
script writer before he really turned his full attention to comics
(great, yet horribly frightening, stuff!).

BTW, lOOOve your sig.

 

[CCamfield]

And there's the story about Hollywood execs (or someone) telling Terry Pratchett that they wanted to make a film out of Mort but they didn't like the fact that Death was in it. Or something like that. (It might have been Good Omens and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse... the story seems to grow in the telling)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

As far as I know it was not a real story, but it is what Prattchet expects to happen if someone from Hollywood would decide to make a Discworld movie.

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Ah, well I'd heard that the story is true, but that Terry Pratchett thought that the really funny thing was that Bill And Ted's Bogus Journey came out around a year later...