Brandon Vietti Explains Watchmen: Chapter 1's Adaptation Process & Discusses Tales Of The Black Freighter
Watchmen: Chapter 1 follows Rorschach a once superhero turned vigilante as he secretly investigates the death of government-sanctioned superhero The Comedian. As he uncovers more about The Comedian's death it forces him and his former retired colleagues Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Dr. Manhattan, and Ozymandias to face their past and secrets as the world teeters on the brink of war. Watchmen: Chapter 1 is set in a world with an alternate history with costumed heroes having emerged in the 1940s and 1960s which forever changed the trajectory of the world.
This is the first of a two-part animated adaptation of Allan Moore and Dave Gibbons' landmark critically acclaimed comic Watchmen. Directed by Brandon Vietti from a script penned by J. Michael Straczynski the pair used an animation style that brings the comic book panels to life like never before on screen. Watchmen: Chapter 1 features a powerhouse voice cast with Katee Sackhoff, Titus Welliver, Matthew Rhys, Troy Baker, and Rick D. Wasserman.
Screen Rant interviewed Watchmen: Chapter 1 director Brandon Vietti. He broke down the adaptation process and how they approached pieces from the Watchmen comics in unique ways. Vietti praised Straczynski's ideas and how they both wanted to honor the original comics while still bringing their own voices to the movie.
Brandon Vietti On The Adaptation Process & New Approaches To Watchmen Comic Elements
"The best stuff rises to the top, and we make it again and again with different artists."
Screen Rant: Brandon, I am a big Watchmen fan and this hit, this was absolutely fantastic. I felt like this is the truest adaptation that we've seen from the Watchmen yet. I mean, I like the movie and I love the series that Damon Lindelof did, but this is fantastic. What drew you to directing this adaptation for such an iconic and complex graphic novel like the Watchmen?
Brandon Vietti: We were all very excited to create a comic book experience, but try to embrace all of the strengths and the unique voice that animation can bring to it. So I think anybody that adapts anything, I think any artist involved is going to have maybe a slightly different take than any other artist adapting their version of it.
So I think, hopefully that is the entertainment and the appeal of what we are doing is that we have found a different way in through animation, through another amazing cast of characters, of actors that are bringing a performance and all of their expertise to the table to analyze these words that are written on the page and bring these characters to life in a way that maybe you didn't imagine when you read the book originally, or again, the narrator of the Motion comic or the amazing cast that Zach Snyder got in his 2009 movie.
Again, this is what we do as humans making art. The best stuff rises to the top, and we make it again and again with different artists coming forward to do their take. And I think in that is analysis of the original work and entertainment for what new voices can bring to the material that is hopefully surprising and interesting and brings more people to the original book. That's another goal of ours.
Completely agree with you. It's crazy because when I read that original graphic novel, it's wild seeing these characters brought to life on screen and hearing the voices in my head of how I imagine them. Another thing that was really cool about this is the way that you incorporated the Tales of the Black Freighter, because I was very curious to see how that was going to work in the animated form, and this was perfect. It's exactly what I wanted. How do you approach balancing the faithfulness of the original material with the creative freedom that animation allows?
Brandon Vietti: I mean, that's the question that we asked ourselves again and again throughout. That was the challenge of making it since you brought up Black Freighter. I think that's a great place to start. A great example, J.M. Straczynski who did our adaptation of the script, had some really great ideas through the adaptation process, trying to fold Black Freighter in, in ways that are a little different than the book, but honor the spirit of the book.
You'll find a lot of great poetic resonance between what is going on in the book and what is going on at any given time in the world outside of the comic book or with the characters outside of the comic book. So that depiction of the comic book, those visualizations I hope, I think work best in animation. As you're going between the visual of the comic book panel to the visual of our animated character as opposed to a live action character.
I think that transition, the visual back and forth is something that is a great strength for the animation medium that might work in live action. I'm not going to say it's not, in the right hands of the right filmmaker, sure. But I think this is something that just fit best in animation and there were many choices like that all throughout.
Brandon Vietti & J. Michael Straczynski "Wanted To Honor The Spirit" Of The Watchmen Comics"Translating what worked great for 12 individual issues" onto the screen is a difficult task.Speaking of J. Michael Straczynski, he's amazing. He's a great dude and I think he's made one of the best sci-fi shows of all time with Babylon 5. Can you talk about the collaboration process working with him on the screenplay and the adaptation process that influenced your direction?
> Brandon Vietti: I think when we first met, I think our goal was to change less than and we ended up changing. I think as you get into it, because again, we have such a deep love for the material, we really just wanted to be as faithful as humanly possible.
But the process of adaptation, the process of translating what worked great for 12 individual issues, it doesn't necessarily work great for movie format pacing. So there was a lot of discussion upfront of like, Well, how much should we reorder or change for the sake of pacing?
Because we wanted to honor the intent of the book, we wanted to honor the spirit as much as we could, but the nature of filmmaking and movie pacing kind of just required certain re-edits and cutting of some materials so that we could really focus on what we needed to focus on in the very limited amount of screen time that we had.
Watchmen Chapter 1 is available on digital now and arrives on Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD release on August 27.
2024.08.28
