In preparation for the March release of its film adaptation, I reread Watchmen this week.  It had been more than four years.  Back then, I liked it, but it wasn’t the time for me to read it.  I hadn’t been exposed to as many “real” superhero comics yet, and the world, while sucky, didn’t seem apocalyptic to me at the time.  This time around, Watchmen hit me a lot harder.  I mean, “Who watches the watchmen?” could be talking about I-bankers, right?  And Dr. Manhattan is the market’s invisible hand?  No?

For years, Alan Moore (the writer of Watchmen) has been saying that his comics are unfilmable.  He has a beef with Hollywood that is easy to understand, especially if you’ve seen the god-awful adaptations of his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and From Hell.  In the late 80s, Terry Gilliam approached Moore, thinking he’d direct the Watchmen film.  Instead, Moore told Gilliam that it was an impossible task, like finding the Holy Grail or filming Don Quixote.  Terry Gilliam agreed.  Watchmen was unfilmable.

But is it really?