Watchmen Cast Comparison Over the Years

I've been unofficially obsessed with "Watchmen" since I first read it several years ago. I do not, by any means, have the right to call myself one of the book's biggest fans, mostly because I don't want to involve myself in that fanboy pissing contest, but also because I truly don't have the comic book pedigree to even enter into the discussion. I just like the hell out of the book and try to shoehorn its existence into every feasible conversation...because why not?

This post could easily turn into, "Well, this is what I think of this casting and this casting," so I won't do that to you, reader. I've posted the above picture for inquiry's sake. What is the consensus on these picks? I'm not sure just how accurate they're supposed to be, but for the most part, they're not bad casting decisions. I especially like Jude Law as Ozymandias. He seems to naturally possess the arrogant essence of Adrian Veidt. Ditto for Pearlman for the Comedian.

There is something innately unsettlingly 80s about Gilliam's casting vision of the movie. I can't quite get my finger on it, but maybe it has something to do with the casting of Jamie Lee Curtis for Laurie. I can see it, because in the book Laurie's not quite still the same sex bomb she used to be, but I don't know that I would have wanted to see it played out that way. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what the chemistry of the movie would be like, especially if Gary Busey took on the duties of the Comedian. His apparent insanity aside, he might've worked, or he might've not. No one will ever know.

Not to pour salt on Snyder's wounds, but - coming from Comicbookmovie.com - here's what Terry Gilliam had to say about the filmed version of 'Watchmen':

The pace is wrong. I was glad our version didn't get done, the one that Charles McKeown and I had wrote, because we had reduced it down to about two hours and five minutes I think and we lost so much. Comedian was cut down to next to nothing. So [Zack Snyder] did a good job, but it just felt… I also thought "The Incredibles" had kind of [frick]ed it for him... [S]o much of that material had been in a quarry that everybody had been digging goodies out of and suddenly you get lost. I think "Watchmen" really bothered me, because I thought it should be better. It was all there. It looked right, but to me it was pace. It didn't have pace. It needed a bit more quirkiness in there. Dr. Manhattan was getting boring, frankly, and then Ozymandias by the end I thought "Oh, come on!" They lost me by the end, frankly, but it was certainly looking better than what I was going to do! (laughs)