 Originally Posted by clanglee
I agree to a point. Snyder has yet to direct something of his own. He may not be able to write. That's not something every director can do. But a lot of Spielburgs early work. . hell. . later work was also adapted. Duel was a Matheson story. Jaws was a novel. Color Purple, Twilight Zone, Jurassic part. I would hazzard to guess that most of his work is adapted.
Oh, absolutely...Many, many, MANY great directors didn't write their own stuff...I'm having trouble forming my point coherently...hmmm...I guess what I'm trying to get at is that with other directors, like a Spielburg, or a Hitchcock, Kubrick, Scorsese, whoever, you can see/feel their touch on their projects, their fingerprints are all over it.
With Watchmen, I get no clear sense of who he is a a director.
Not saying this in a bad way or as a criticism per se, but just the strength of the material, faithfully adapted as it was, kinda drowns everything else out for me. I can't get a clear image of who he is a a director from it.
All the visual stuff? I can't decide how much is him & how much is his DP, SPFX guys, etc. The great performances? I can't tell if it's the strength of the actors, the material, or if he has any ability to direct actors or not.
Plus his adapted work is all adapted from a VISUAL medium: comic books. So it's kinda different than taking a novel & adapting it.
I'll say again: 300 & Watchmen, both being literal adaptations of their source material make it hard to get a clear picture of him as a director. They show he's great at taking something & doing a faithful translation, but nothing else (just IMO)
Dawn '04 is the only movie that he's done so far that was an original screenplay, so that's the only one I can go to to try & figure him out as a director. Flashy, hyper kinetic, MTV music video-ish, long on style, short on substance. Decent action flick, not very deep. There WERE some good character moments & touching scenes (Jake Webber & Matt Frewer in particular.)
Originally Posted by clanglee
Now let me be clear. . I don't think that Snyder has Spielburg's ability per se. . but with practice he could. What I meant by the comparisson is that they both were/are Hollywood golden boys who seem to make hit after hit and get money thrown at them. Perhaps Snyder will have the pull soon to do something very personal and heartfelt and near to him (if Watchmen wasn't) and perhaps that movie he gets to make by himself will suck. Who knows. . that's when we will be able to tell wether or not the man has any real chops.
Agreed.
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