The Watchmen
The Watchmen graphic novel= AWESOME!
The Watchmen movie= SUCK!
Actually... The Watchmen movie would have been good if I hadn't read the book first. The whole reason I read the book first was because I had heard it was a really good book... And it was. It outshined the movie in every way possible. Unfortunately, you can't put a book of that magnitude on screen. It doesn't work. If they had taken the book as is and made it into a movie, it would have been a 5 hour long movie that you would have had to watch several times to get all the nuances and meaning.
The ending was completely different. It was maybe more probable and it was easier to explain in movie form, but the book was CHARACTER driven (like all the indie flicks I watch), not PLOT driven. The end of the book is a bit implausible, but it doesn't matter, because what matters is the moral dilemma the characters are put in and how they react to it. You could tell that Adrian was the "villain" almost from the beginning of the movie- the actor just seemed so skeazy and devious somehow. You couldn't tell that in the book. I also hated that the movie took all the fight out of the female characters. That pissed me off. They oversexualized them and then took the sass and fire out of them. Laurie was fighting with Jon through half the book. In the movie they always seemed to agree with each other, even when they were disagreeing. There's more to that, but I won't go into it...
Now I remember why I don't read the books before I see the movies... I end up terribly disappointed. I just figured that since it was a comic book movie, that it would translate better onto the screen.
Moral of story: Watch the movie before reading the book, then I can be pleasantly surprised by how much better the book is. Plus, I hate being that person that's like: "The book is SOOOO much better than the movie," but in this case it was and the movie could have been better. Rorschach was about the only character that they got right. The actor who played him did a really good job.
Side note: The guy who played The Comedian is yummy.
[/Carrie's inner movie critic]
The Watchmen movie= SUCK!
Actually... The Watchmen movie would have been good if I hadn't read the book first. The whole reason I read the book first was because I had heard it was a really good book... And it was. It outshined the movie in every way possible. Unfortunately, you can't put a book of that magnitude on screen. It doesn't work. If they had taken the book as is and made it into a movie, it would have been a 5 hour long movie that you would have had to watch several times to get all the nuances and meaning.
The ending was completely different. It was maybe more probable and it was easier to explain in movie form, but the book was CHARACTER driven (like all the indie flicks I watch), not PLOT driven. The end of the book is a bit implausible, but it doesn't matter, because what matters is the moral dilemma the characters are put in and how they react to it. You could tell that Adrian was the "villain" almost from the beginning of the movie- the actor just seemed so skeazy and devious somehow. You couldn't tell that in the book. I also hated that the movie took all the fight out of the female characters. That pissed me off. They oversexualized them and then took the sass and fire out of them. Laurie was fighting with Jon through half the book. In the movie they always seemed to agree with each other, even when they were disagreeing. There's more to that, but I won't go into it...
Now I remember why I don't read the books before I see the movies... I end up terribly disappointed. I just figured that since it was a comic book movie, that it would translate better onto the screen.
Moral of story: Watch the movie before reading the book, then I can be pleasantly surprised by how much better the book is. Plus, I hate being that person that's like: "The book is SOOOO much better than the movie," but in this case it was and the movie could have been better. Rorschach was about the only character that they got right. The actor who played him did a really good job.
Side note: The guy who played The Comedian is yummy.
[/Carrie's inner movie critic]