Who's listening for Watchmen? We are. I've made no secret of the fact that I'm extraordinarily worried about Watchmen, the upcoming comic book adaptation from the director of Dawn of the Dead and 300, Zack Snyder. While possessing an incredible visual sense, both of Snyder's previous films have been adaptations of existing work. And neither has been faithful to its original source. So here he is directing what is widely regarded as the single greatest comic book story ever told –- the story of an alternate history in which masked vigilantism becomes a trend and the United States gets the world's only super-powered hero. Right in the midst of the cold war. The result changes everything.

The year is 1985. The Constitution of the United States has been amended and Richard Nixon is still the President. And masked men illegally haunt the night. I don't think there's any doubt that Snyder is going to get the look right. Lord only knows if he's going to get the story right. But the thought swimming around in my head this week is: what is Watchmen going to sound like? Is Snyder going to have a score written? Being that the film is a period film, will he use music from the era? Or will he do something even cooler than that?

A score would probably be the safest bet. Get a high-end composer to work up something dark, brooding and magnificently enormous. Watchmen is a BIG story, with larger-than-life characters. It needs a BIG sound. And unlike many comic book characters, these heroes and villains are incredibly complicated. Dr. Manhattan is powerful, well intentioned, but no longer entirely rational in the human sense. Rorschach, while criminally insane, is doing his best to protect the innocent. Characters like these require complicated themes that really evoke their conflicted natures, which of course could prove to be a delightful challenge to a great composer.

Or Snyder could use period music, pulling some classic music from the 1980s, especially the music referenced in the comic book by the likes of Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan and John Cale.

But what I'd really love to see is an experiment, something strange like hiring some of the greatest bands of the '80s, like The Police or Elvis Costello or Journey or Genesis or Stevie Wonder, with maybe a little help from Quincy Jones for incidental music, and having them write ALTERNATE music for this ALTERNATE earth. I mean, what would music sound like in a world where a 50-ft tall man waded through the jungles of Vietnam and won it for us? What would it sound like in an America where we'd had the same conservative right-wing president for the better part of two decades? Rock has always been the voice of the disestablishment types. What would music sound like in a universe like this? That's what I want to know. I mean, if Snyder is going to take us to another world, why not take us all the way there?

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C. Robert Cargill - - - Email Me

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