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To date there have been 4 adaptations of Alan Moore's comics (Not including 2005's 'Constantine')...
From Hell (2001)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
V for Vendetta (2005)
Watchmen (2009)
...of these the long cut of 'Watchmen' is probably the best and most faithful, with 'V for Vendetta' also being a fine film (Although far from faithful to the source). All four have done decent business at the boxoffice but despite that the first two movies were pretty dire, deviating wildly from the source material and pandering to a mainstream Hollywood audience.
Although I'm considering an edit of LOEG, I'll first be tackling 2001's 'From Hell' (I just need to upgrade by DVD to the Blu-Ray). 'From Hell' is without doubt Moore's finest work so it stings that it begat the worst adaptation. It suffered from many problems including; Johnny Depp and Heather Graham's inflated roles; terrible "Apples and pears guv'nor" accents; A laughable plot device about Depp using psychic powers to solve crimes; some pop-video editing tchniques; cartoonish cinematography; and I also suspect that it was cut down heavily at the last minute on the insistance of the studio. Since the 15-20 minutes of deleted scenes appear fully finished and are presented cut into the film on the DVD. Almost all of these scenes depict more violence, horror and sexual imagery. So the fact that the film recieved an R/18 rating anyway makes their removal seem like carelessness.
With this edit I shall be fixing as many (But not all) of these problems. I want to bring the film closer in tone to the source but I won't be trying to make it match the source in terms of narrative. That would be next to impossible as you'd need to reshoot 90% of the film and extend it to about 8hrs to even come close! I'll be reincorporating almost all of the deleted material. The ending and indeed the whole film will be darker, nastier, colder, scarier, generally more unpleasant and with less likeable characters to hopefully evoke the dark and claustrophobic streets of 1888 Whitechapel. I'll calling this edit...
From Hell: Engraved In Stone
...part of a quote from the comic. I will also be making the film Black & White (Like the comic), aiming for the gritty and foreboding look that David Lynch gave London of the same period in 'The Elephant Man' ('Aiming' being the key word in that sentence). Here are a few "screenshots" of how I intend this edit to look (Click to enlarge)...
No doubt a teaser poster will soon be posted here as I'm quite excited about getting stuck into this edit.
**UPDATE**
'From Hell: Engraved In Stone' is now done and out there. The film is now less of an exploitation whodunnit and more a disturbing portrait of moral and political corruption at all levels of 1888 London society.
It should be noted that ALAN MOORE has disassociated himself from this and all other film adaptations of his work. This edit is a fan tribute to his 'FROM HELL' comic, so I'm not claiming this is "Alan Moore's From Hell".
I will submit later this week. This edit is available as a DVD5 with chapter menus and a bonus 20 minute alternate ending - featuring different footage, different placement of scenes, alternate transitions, the alternate finale restored and a very different outcome for some of the characters. Here is what I wrote for the back of the DVD cover explaining the thoughts behind this edit...
"Writer ALAN MOORE and artist EDDIE CAMPBELL's 1996 comic 'FROM HELL' is, at 572 pages, one of the longest, most detailed, richest and most complex books in the medium. 40 pages alone are dedicated to detailing the extensive research and listing Moore's many literary and historical influences.
So it didn't come as a surprise to many that the two hour 2001 FILM ADAPTATION failed to live up to the source.
To be fair to the film's directors, THE HUGHES BROTHERS, they were faced with the formidable task of adapting something that would be practically unfilmable at a conventional length. To their credit they stuffed the film with as many visual refrences to the source as they could, reconstructed the crime scenes in meticulous detail and constructed a vast set in Prague to portray the WHITECHAPEL district.
The chief problem was that it was too conventional. The comic was a dark and disturbing look into the mind of JACK THE RIPPER, who we knew from the start. But the film was a straight whodunnit with a proxy Holmes and Watson and a romantic subplot tacked on. Some of the casting choices were very poor and HEATHER GRAHAM's accent was at times laughable. However some of the casting was outstanding including the film's lead
JOHNNY DEPP. But his efforts were for nought, as his character Abberline had been given magic powers to see into the future, rendering him a joke.
So I present my attempt to edit the film into something closer in tone, content and emphasis to the comic. Obviously in narrative and structural terms the film cannot be altered enough to make it fit the source, the gulf is just too wide. I have however removed the magic powers, removed the happy ending, toned down the romantic subplot and radically reordered the scenes. This film is now darker, bleaker and riddled with human corruption. I give you...
'FROM HELL: ENGRAVED IN STONE'."
Sadly I've decided not to do my usual "complete" cutlist, as the amount of changes are too numerous and the recutting and reordering of scenes is too extensive to contemplate the time it would take. However, here is a brief list of the major changes...
- 20 of the 22 deleted scenes cut back in (Almost all being of a darker tone)
- Order of many scenes radically re-arranged
- Film converted to high contrast B&W* to render the film more sombre and timeless
- Pop-video-style editing techniques have been removed where possible
- Abberline's magic powers are gone
- Abberline's backstory removed. His depression and addiction is just who he is now and not as a direct result of a personnal tradegy
- Godley's unlikely attack on special branch removed
- Poor performances removed or minimised
- Heather Graham is no longer a primary focus of the film**
- Gull, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria play a more significant part earlier on
- Many of the "Happy" moments have gone to keep the mood dark
- Dodgy dialogue such as Depp saying "Knob" have been trimmed
- Netley is now a more ominpresent spectre of death
- Without spoiling it, the film's ending is now less "picture-postcard-happy"
- The final scene now plays out without dialogue to heighten the unspoken emotion
- Credits music changed to something more appropriate in tone and lyrical content (It no longer features a drum 'n' bass remix of Marilyn Manson...ffs!)
* Due to the soft/low-contrast/high-saturation of the original DVD image, this has caused some visual noise in the blurrirer backgrounds in some shots as I had to be very aggressive with the contrast to get the look I was after.
** She now becomes more important as the film goes on in a natural way, due to the deaths of the other characters and other factors. Kind of like the emergence of Ripley in 'Alien'.
FANEDIT LENGTH: 109 MINUTES
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 117 MINUTES
20 DELETED SCENES RESTORED
TIME ADDED: 22 MINUTES / TIME REMOVED: 30 MINUTES
Here is the final cover...
From Hell (2001)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
V for Vendetta (2005)
Watchmen (2009)
...of these the long cut of 'Watchmen' is probably the best and most faithful, with 'V for Vendetta' also being a fine film (Although far from faithful to the source). All four have done decent business at the boxoffice but despite that the first two movies were pretty dire, deviating wildly from the source material and pandering to a mainstream Hollywood audience.
Although I'm considering an edit of LOEG, I'll first be tackling 2001's 'From Hell' (I just need to upgrade by DVD to the Blu-Ray). 'From Hell' is without doubt Moore's finest work so it stings that it begat the worst adaptation. It suffered from many problems including; Johnny Depp and Heather Graham's inflated roles; terrible "Apples and pears guv'nor" accents; A laughable plot device about Depp using psychic powers to solve crimes; some pop-video editing tchniques; cartoonish cinematography; and I also suspect that it was cut down heavily at the last minute on the insistance of the studio. Since the 15-20 minutes of deleted scenes appear fully finished and are presented cut into the film on the DVD. Almost all of these scenes depict more violence, horror and sexual imagery. So the fact that the film recieved an R/18 rating anyway makes their removal seem like carelessness.
With this edit I shall be fixing as many (But not all) of these problems. I want to bring the film closer in tone to the source but I won't be trying to make it match the source in terms of narrative. That would be next to impossible as you'd need to reshoot 90% of the film and extend it to about 8hrs to even come close! I'll be reincorporating almost all of the deleted material. The ending and indeed the whole film will be darker, nastier, colder, scarier, generally more unpleasant and with less likeable characters to hopefully evoke the dark and claustrophobic streets of 1888 Whitechapel. I'll calling this edit...
From Hell: Engraved In Stone
...part of a quote from the comic. I will also be making the film Black & White (Like the comic), aiming for the gritty and foreboding look that David Lynch gave London of the same period in 'The Elephant Man' ('Aiming' being the key word in that sentence). Here are a few "screenshots" of how I intend this edit to look (Click to enlarge)...
No doubt a teaser poster will soon be posted here as I'm quite excited about getting stuck into this edit.
**UPDATE**
'From Hell: Engraved In Stone' is now done and out there. The film is now less of an exploitation whodunnit and more a disturbing portrait of moral and political corruption at all levels of 1888 London society.
It should be noted that ALAN MOORE has disassociated himself from this and all other film adaptations of his work. This edit is a fan tribute to his 'FROM HELL' comic, so I'm not claiming this is "Alan Moore's From Hell".
I will submit later this week. This edit is available as a DVD5 with chapter menus and a bonus 20 minute alternate ending - featuring different footage, different placement of scenes, alternate transitions, the alternate finale restored and a very different outcome for some of the characters. Here is what I wrote for the back of the DVD cover explaining the thoughts behind this edit...
"Writer ALAN MOORE and artist EDDIE CAMPBELL's 1996 comic 'FROM HELL' is, at 572 pages, one of the longest, most detailed, richest and most complex books in the medium. 40 pages alone are dedicated to detailing the extensive research and listing Moore's many literary and historical influences.
So it didn't come as a surprise to many that the two hour 2001 FILM ADAPTATION failed to live up to the source.
To be fair to the film's directors, THE HUGHES BROTHERS, they were faced with the formidable task of adapting something that would be practically unfilmable at a conventional length. To their credit they stuffed the film with as many visual refrences to the source as they could, reconstructed the crime scenes in meticulous detail and constructed a vast set in Prague to portray the WHITECHAPEL district.
The chief problem was that it was too conventional. The comic was a dark and disturbing look into the mind of JACK THE RIPPER, who we knew from the start. But the film was a straight whodunnit with a proxy Holmes and Watson and a romantic subplot tacked on. Some of the casting choices were very poor and HEATHER GRAHAM's accent was at times laughable. However some of the casting was outstanding including the film's lead
JOHNNY DEPP. But his efforts were for nought, as his character Abberline had been given magic powers to see into the future, rendering him a joke.
So I present my attempt to edit the film into something closer in tone, content and emphasis to the comic. Obviously in narrative and structural terms the film cannot be altered enough to make it fit the source, the gulf is just too wide. I have however removed the magic powers, removed the happy ending, toned down the romantic subplot and radically reordered the scenes. This film is now darker, bleaker and riddled with human corruption. I give you...
'FROM HELL: ENGRAVED IN STONE'."
Sadly I've decided not to do my usual "complete" cutlist, as the amount of changes are too numerous and the recutting and reordering of scenes is too extensive to contemplate the time it would take. However, here is a brief list of the major changes...
- 20 of the 22 deleted scenes cut back in (Almost all being of a darker tone)
- Order of many scenes radically re-arranged
- Film converted to high contrast B&W* to render the film more sombre and timeless
- Pop-video-style editing techniques have been removed where possible
- Abberline's magic powers are gone
- Abberline's backstory removed. His depression and addiction is just who he is now and not as a direct result of a personnal tradegy
- Godley's unlikely attack on special branch removed
- Poor performances removed or minimised
- Heather Graham is no longer a primary focus of the film**
- Gull, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria play a more significant part earlier on
- Many of the "Happy" moments have gone to keep the mood dark
- Dodgy dialogue such as Depp saying "Knob" have been trimmed
- Netley is now a more ominpresent spectre of death
- Without spoiling it, the film's ending is now less "picture-postcard-happy"
- The final scene now plays out without dialogue to heighten the unspoken emotion
- Credits music changed to something more appropriate in tone and lyrical content (It no longer features a drum 'n' bass remix of Marilyn Manson...ffs!)
* Due to the soft/low-contrast/high-saturation of the original DVD image, this has caused some visual noise in the blurrirer backgrounds in some shots as I had to be very aggressive with the contrast to get the look I was after.
** She now becomes more important as the film goes on in a natural way, due to the deaths of the other characters and other factors. Kind of like the emergence of Ripley in 'Alien'.
FANEDIT LENGTH: 109 MINUTES
ORIGINAL LENGTH: 117 MINUTES
20 DELETED SCENES RESTORED
TIME ADDED: 22 MINUTES / TIME REMOVED: 30 MINUTES
Here is the final cover...
