Patton Oswalt Says People Complaining About The Watchmen Adaptation Should STFU
Patton Oswalt has always been one of my favorite comedians. Career-wise, his appearances on Reno 9/11 have shown he's not afraid to make fun of himself, while his starring role in Pixar's Ratatouille made him the envy of film nerds everywhere. In his stand-up, I love the way he is able to combine nerd/geek topics with a withering righteous indignation. Take, for example, the following diatribe directed at people complaining about the faithfulness of Zack Snyder's Watchmen adaptation, which he recently unleashed on his MySpace page:
Zack Snyder STEPPED UP, motherf***ers. THE WATCHMEN was going to get made, one way or another. And instead of bleating on his Facebook status updates or Tweeting about how shitty the upcoming adaptation's going to be, he TOOK THE BULLET and tried to do it right. Yes, THE WATCHMEN should be a limited series on HBO and blah blah blah IT WAS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN THAT WAY. Zack delivered a 2 1/2 hour, honest attempt, and broke his ass cranking out tons of free extras. Hell, he even animated The Tales of The Black Freighter for you chumps. Plus, he gave you a kick-ass DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, plus 300, plus whatever else he's got coming down the pike. He's the best friend the Nerd Mafia's had since Joss Whedon and Brian Michael Bendis, so everyone please crack the tab on a frosty can of Go F*** Yourself and go see the movie version of THE WATCHMEN...
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL stands as the best Ellroy adaptation to date, and it throws away massive chunks of the novel's narrative. THE BLACK DAHLIA slavishly sticks to its source material and it's almost un-watchable.
Make sure to go to his MySpace page to check out the entire rant.
The more I talk with people about Watchmen, the more I realize that every person has some opinion about how they wish Snyder had done a specific scene a certain way, or added in something that was excised for the purposes of the film's running time. I also often think back to San Diego Comic Con 2008, when Zack Snyder shared that when he was approached to do the film, his first thought was that he didn't want a terrible Watchmen film to be his fault. But, if he let the opportunity pass to another director and they messed it up, then it would, in some ways, be his fault anyway.
Despite the movie's considerable flaws, Snyder has achieved something that was once thought impossible: He made a movie out of a book whose structure seemed to defy the very process of conventional filmmaking. In other words, Patton Oswalt is totally right.
[Thanks to /Film reader Oscar for the tip. And Patton, in the off chance you're reading this, we would still love to have you on the show sometime. Just shoot us an e-mail.]