"it's easier to make an actor look older than younger".

Ok, fair point. But I'm skeptical of a twenty-something actor's ability to bring the appropriate emotional baggage necessary for most of the story's "present day" action. It's hard to portray a midlife crisis when you haven't had a middle age.

My big concern has always been that this is the guy who made 300. Yes, that was ridiccockulously faithful to the source, but was that a good thing? The lack of awareness of the inherent ridiculousness of source material was it's most unintentionally entertaining aspect. It looks like he's going to be scrupulously faithful here too, but that means it could just end up like the Chris Columbus Harry Potter movies if he doesn't have something to say with the material other than "Faithful!".

My big concern has always been that this is the guy who made 300. Yes, that was ridiccockulously faithful to the source, but was that a good thing? The lack of awareness of the inherent ridiculousness of source material was it's most unintentionally entertaining aspect. It looks like he's going to be scrupulously faithful here too, but that means it could just end up like the Chris Columbus Harry Potter movies if he doesn't have something to say with the material other than "Faithful!".

I don't understand this. What's the point of filming the comic book if you are not going to remain scrupulously faithful to the source material? It's not the director's, or the script-writer's job to rewrite the comic to fit their sensibility or style. I don't want their "say with the material", I want the bloody comic or book that I read and loved. Therefore, they film it the way the original author, and consequently the fans, want it and that inherently means they remain scrupulously faithful to the source. Otherwise, you might as well write your own shit and film however the hell you want.

Because film and comics are different mediums, with different strengths and weaknesses, and successfully transitioning from one to the other requires more than frame by frame reproduction. However beloved any work in any medium is, I think it's a mistake to treat it as sacred text when adapting it for another. I want Snyder to make the best possible Watchmen movie, not the best possible Watchmen book on tape.

successfully transitioning from one to the other requires more than frame by frame reproduction.

See also: Sin City.

Thank you, Jess for articulating EXACTLY what I was thinking (and what I am fearing).

See also what drove me crazy about some of the craxier LotR critics (however the story changes played out as a movie or not for me personally) screaming about being unfaithful to Tolkien.

See also: Sin City

I was avoiding that one, because I hadn't read the source, and enjoyed the movie. But with 300, I kept hearing about how apart from some of the Lena Headey political/waiting at home stuff (which I enjoyed more than a lot of the other parts of the movie), the rest was practically frame-by-frame true to the comic. And I just couldn't believe how horrifically fatuous it all was.

I agree it's a limiting criticism, and not just for comic book adaptations. Would you apply it to the adaptation of the Godfather? Mann's Last of the Mohicans? Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining?* I don't understand the necessity of slavishly reproducing something that already exists.

*Eyes Wide Shut, on the other hand, is incredibly faithful to the source, FWIW.

See also what drove me crazy about some of the craxier LotR critics (however the story changes played out as a movie or not for me personally) screaming about being unfaithful to Tolkien.

I'll cop to being one of the purists with regard to Eowyn's big dramatic revelation, but really, how much more screentime would five extra sentences by Miranda Otto have stolen away from all the CGI of vast armies massing and Legolas surfing down elephants' trunks?

I'll cop to being one of the purists with regard to Eowyn's big dramatic revelation

Sigh, yes. They would have had time if they'd dumped some of Arwen's stuff t still not over my Arwen issues

The most faithful book-to-movie adaptation I've ever seen is Battlefield Earth. Watching the film was exactly like reading the book.