If I was Zack Snyder...I wouldn’t be doing The Watchman.

Disclaimer: I fully acknowledge that all of this might be proved wrong upon the film’s release. That would be nice.

It’s not because “It’s un-filmable,” nor is it because “it’s not politically relevant.” It’s because Snyder has problems with textual translations to screen. Dawn of the Dead proved us he can cope with an altered vision of an already strong story. However, 300 showed us that his focus was disproportionately on the source material, not the film he was making. Maybe 300 made him realize film scripts aren’t his strongest point. That’s why Hayter (love Scorpion King) and Alex Tse (no idea) are on it. Maybe it will turn out fine. Maybe I should shut up.

But I don’t this kind of speculation is totally unwarranted.

300 suffered from Snyder protecting the source material too much. In staying true to the comic, Snyder left in narration that was overly expositional and obsolete. If we can see the wolf circling the boy, we don’t need narration to confirm it. 300 was a good film, but a weak film. The backbone these wonderful sequences were hinged upon was painfully unnecessary narration that kept the movie stuck firmly in its comic roots. Snyder’s obsessive act of including as much of the original text as he could, left the film with no quiet moments. He never tried to take the lines from the comic and tell us through film language. There are better ways to convey information than David Wenham trying to be gruff in a sound booth.

   Then, after re-watching it, the film is visually flat. Sure it’s bright, has a unique color scheme, but there’s no depth of focus, the environments and action lack a sense of scale and size. The frame is as flat as the paper the comic is printed on.  All of this is irrelevant if he has developed further as a story teller since 300. But this is where I become wary of The Watchmen.

300 was a step back from Dawn of the Dead, for the reasons related to source material above. What we’ve seen from The Watchmen is that Snyder can get his costume department to replicate the comic to the last detail. We also know that he can get his set designers to construct a perfect replica of the book’s pages. He’s very, very proud of it, releasing the set photos with side by side comparisons. And it comes across as ‘Look, I can take a visual cue. I am being true to the source material.’ It’s a shame that the source material is a comic, not a film. When he releases pictures like this, and especially with side by side comparisons, it makes me feel he’s just doing what he did with 300 but with more money to play with. The man is definitely focused on recreating the book’s panels, but is he in danger of not learning from 300? Especially when it was such a resounding success? The main criticisms at the time of its release were more to do with people annoyed at the historical inaccuracies (...for fuck’s sake).

Yes, it seems a tad pointless to criticize the potential outcome for a film no-one’s even seen the trailer of, but there are warning signs there. But, I think more than anything I want a sign that he’s developing as a filmmaker. He didn’t evolve between Dawn and 300, he went backwards and his forth film is set to be another adaptation. Too many directors stagnate, often through their own reluctance to break old habits (no-one’s ever given Brett Ratner any incentive to become a good filmmaker. I’m sure he believes he doesn’t need to. Same for Kevin Smith.)

I am looking forward to The Watchmen. What I am looking forward to more is Zack Snyder with original material. He doesn’t have to write it, so long as he doesn’t already have a set of lines on his canvas to stay between. Zack Snyder, go crazy with your own imagination. There’s a good chance it will kick ass. But right now we have an emerging artist about to make a gamble on a $150 million adaptation when his limited track record suggests he doesn’t have the discipline to cull a book in order to make it a film. It could go either way.