I’m not a book snob. I don’t automatically dismiss the movies made from my favorite books. True, the books are almost always better, richer and deeper than their cinematic reincarnations. But there are times when actually seeing your favorite characters on the screen – watching them move, hearing them talk – makes up for the inevitable cut scenes and reduced complexities.

Cinema is dotted with successful movie translations of beloved novels. People still love the movie To Kill a Mockingbird. Even though the book is better, the movie still brings a lump to your throat. Who wouldn’t want to live in the same town as an Atticus Finch?

Of course, there are an even greater number of failed novels-to-movies out there. Why, I remember when I first saw a television movie featuring America's favorite young detectives, the Hardy Boys. I’d read every one of the teen sleuths’ novelized adventures when I was a kid. Now, I admit, The Secret of the Old Mill and The Tower Treasure aren’t exactly Shakespeare. But when I saw the T.V. version of my favorite detectives, I was horrified. The T.V. scripts didn’t even bother to follow the books, at all. And Parker Stevenson? Shaun Cassidy? C’mon, these guys weren’t Frank and Joe Hardy material.

The scorecard, then, is pretty clear: Hollywood can't even get The Hardy Boys right. Studios more often than not screw up literature when they bring it to the screen. I fear that the same thing will happen with Watchmen, the planned 2009 film adaptation of the famous and justly loved graphic novel created by legendary comics writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons.

Originally published by DC Comics in 12 issues from 1986 to 1987, Watchmen helped change superhero comics. The series presented heroes as real, fallible human beings. They made mistakes. Serious ones. The story, despite featuring superheroes, was light on action and heavy on dialogue, drama and emotion.

In other words, Watchmen is deliberately non-cinematic. This is a fact that writer Moore recognizes. He has long been opposed to seeing Warner Brothers turn his story into a movie.

Can you even picture characters such as Rorschach, Nite Owl and the Comedian on the movie screen? I sure can’t. And what about all the parallel stories running through Watchmen? Will director Zack Snyder be able to capture that on screen? Not in two hours he won’t.

Moore created Watchmen as a graphic novel for a reason: His story fits that medium. It wouldn’t work nearly as well as a straight novel. And the odds are great that it won’t work at all as a movie.

Moore, of course, has reason to shudder when facing a Hollywood version of any of his works. Remember the movie adaptation of V for Vendetta? It stripped Moore’s original graphic novel of all its subtlety. Remember the movie version of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman? It was one of the most atrocious movies of 2003. Hollywood has a terrible record when it comes to translating Moore’s works.

Now, my judgment may not be fair. The movie hasn’t even been made yet. But unfortunately, I think we’ll see the same disappointing results in 2009 when Watchmen hits the big screen. That’s too bad. All those people who haven’t yet discovered Doctor Manhattan, Ozymandias and Silk Spectre will never know just how deep and layered these characters really are.