Moore and the movies - when adaptations dont work

I chose this article because Alan Moore is highly regarded as one of the best novelist of all time and is a rare breed of comic writers who wrote them with adult themes that tackled issues that people seen as taboo and unspeakable of.

The article, written by Neil Daniels and published in 26th of December 2008, is about the differences in themes and messages that come across when Moores graphic novels are brought out as Hollywood movies. And how they are changed by Hollywood to appeal to the mainstream audience. The article comments on all of the movie adaptations that Hollywood have made to do with Moore's work and how they have drifted away from the themes within the graphic novels and how they have been recepted by audiences, critics and Moore himself, and to not surprise the reception is mostly bad.

The main points of the article are how Hollywood have tarnished and changed Moore's work so that it appeals to a wider audience, which has resulted in poor movies, angry fans and an even 'Moore' angered creator. The first movie adaption of one of Moores novels was that of his 572 page "From Hell", in Neils article he states that “There are significant differences between film and book, both superficial and structural” which is back up from a interview with Moore ere he states, "the movie wont be like my book" another quote from the article about the movie is what swayed me to agree with this section "The book is often named as one of the comic book industry’s greatest works; the film has largely been forgotten". This I agree with as although I have not read the novel or seen the movie, the fact that I heard about the novel and the praise it received from critics and the fact that I didn't even know the movie existed, even with a star such as Johnny Depp at the forefront tells me that it is much rather forgotten.

"The poor choice of casting and a convoluted plot meant the critics were less keen – and the comic book fans were not too happy either. Moore refused to have anything to do with the film and asked for his name to be excluded from the credits." This quote from the article, commenting on reactions to Constantine, shows us that both fans and Moore weren't too happy with the movie adaptation of the novel. Although Moore openly dislikes the movie adaptions of his novels, people questions why in the first place he gave away the rights to them in the first place, to which he comment back saying "I never thought the movies would be published, when i first sold the right to From Hell it was for money, but they (the producers and studio behind the movie) kept failing to make and release a movie version so when they offered to buy the rights for my other works, I agreed with the mind frame that they would never end up releasing them as movies". This has made me agree with the article as Moore himself in interviews has expressed the same defiance towards the movies versions of his novels that the article talks about.