(no subject)
First, I think this post on Watching Watchmen is very good. While I may not be geeky enough to be so invested, or have finished the book (I'm halfway through at this point), overall the piece itself is kind of brilliant. The format they used worked well to keep people interested, and provided for intelligent debate on the story/film.
1) As I've said, I'm halfway through with the graphic novel now. To be honest, while I can see why it is good, I've had a hard time finishing it. It's a difficult piece to become invested in (for me), and as a result, it's hard for me to keep focus on the plot, the actions, and the characters. It's because of this that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend seeing the film first to someone who was interested, but didn't know where to start. Having only read one other graphic novel, I found this one very difficult to get in to. I couldn't keep the characters straight at times, and the film actually helped me with identifying & understanding who is who.
2) Silk Spectre II was very pretty (and I loved her hair), but boy was she lackluster in the roll. I found myself insanely physically attracted to the Comedian, and Rorschach was so perfectly and beautifully cast it hurt. I was actually quite entertained post-film, with seeing who the actors were and comparing their screen personas to their real life selves. Many looked so vastly different, I couldn't help but be amazed.
3) With the exception of Across the Universe, I'm not sure the last time that I felt the soundtrack of a film was a character in & of itself in a film. I know there's a lot of feelings about the music, from it being too obvious to those who enjoy it, but overall it seemed like an extra character to me. It was nice to see filmmaking used in that way, since too often it seems that a lot of the technical sides are used to complement the story & acting, and not used so much as devices anymore (except editing. That's a whole other post, though).
4) The Violence. Again, many thoughts on this (some thought it was over the top & theatrical like the film, I've heard others completely hate it). In the novel, it felt like people had become very dead towards violence, that it didn't illicit a response from society. It seemed like the sort of thing were we, as readers, were supposed to be shocked because we had become so immune to the shock of it. Because I felt this way, I felt that the violence was gratuitous and borderline torture porn (ala Saw). It didn't shock me, or make me question my feelings about how I reacted to violence & gore, it made me close my eyes and go, "That's so gross." There's almost always something in Zach Snyder's films that make me dislike him as a director, and for Watchmen, it was this.
Aside: On that note, I find it interesting that there are complaints about how misogynistic the film is. Unlike Sin City, I felt like while there may have been undercurrents of it, it wasn't the view of Snyder or Moore, but rather the mindset & mentality of the eras. It's kind of like how shocking Mad Men is; and that's shocking because of history, not deliberation. In ways, I always think that is important to talk about in film, because it reminds us where we've come from and how far we have to go.
The dog was a wonderful scene; we didn't see him splitting the animal open, it was the horror of the owner finding it, finding something he cared about destroyed. So why did we have to see blades coming out of a man's head, to see bones and muscle ripping in half? It was vulgar and gross, and didn't convey any message about violence except lets capitalize on what's popular in cheap horror nowadays (again, that's another post).
5) I really enjoyed the film, overall. The pacing was good for a film that was nearly 3 hours long, and I didn't get up once to go to the bathroom, so that says something. It was enjoyable to watch, and visually it was quite lovely to look at.
As with any adaptation, I always find you have to separate the two mediums and remember not everything can or should be transferred over. I'd absolutely see it again, though I imagine the second or third times will be where the length begins to bother me (like Iron Man & the Dark Knight).
1) As I've said, I'm halfway through with the graphic novel now. To be honest, while I can see why it is good, I've had a hard time finishing it. It's a difficult piece to become invested in (for me), and as a result, it's hard for me to keep focus on the plot, the actions, and the characters. It's because of this that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend seeing the film first to someone who was interested, but didn't know where to start. Having only read one other graphic novel, I found this one very difficult to get in to. I couldn't keep the characters straight at times, and the film actually helped me with identifying & understanding who is who.
2) Silk Spectre II was very pretty (and I loved her hair), but boy was she lackluster in the roll. I found myself insanely physically attracted to the Comedian, and Rorschach was so perfectly and beautifully cast it hurt. I was actually quite entertained post-film, with seeing who the actors were and comparing their screen personas to their real life selves. Many looked so vastly different, I couldn't help but be amazed.
3) With the exception of Across the Universe, I'm not sure the last time that I felt the soundtrack of a film was a character in & of itself in a film. I know there's a lot of feelings about the music, from it being too obvious to those who enjoy it, but overall it seemed like an extra character to me. It was nice to see filmmaking used in that way, since too often it seems that a lot of the technical sides are used to complement the story & acting, and not used so much as devices anymore (except editing. That's a whole other post, though).
4) The Violence. Again, many thoughts on this (some thought it was over the top & theatrical like the film, I've heard others completely hate it). In the novel, it felt like people had become very dead towards violence, that it didn't illicit a response from society. It seemed like the sort of thing were we, as readers, were supposed to be shocked because we had become so immune to the shock of it. Because I felt this way, I felt that the violence was gratuitous and borderline torture porn (ala Saw). It didn't shock me, or make me question my feelings about how I reacted to violence & gore, it made me close my eyes and go, "That's so gross." There's almost always something in Zach Snyder's films that make me dislike him as a director, and for Watchmen, it was this.
Aside: On that note, I find it interesting that there are complaints about how misogynistic the film is. Unlike Sin City, I felt like while there may have been undercurrents of it, it wasn't the view of Snyder or Moore, but rather the mindset & mentality of the eras. It's kind of like how shocking Mad Men is; and that's shocking because of history, not deliberation. In ways, I always think that is important to talk about in film, because it reminds us where we've come from and how far we have to go.
The dog was a wonderful scene; we didn't see him splitting the animal open, it was the horror of the owner finding it, finding something he cared about destroyed. So why did we have to see blades coming out of a man's head, to see bones and muscle ripping in half? It was vulgar and gross, and didn't convey any message about violence except lets capitalize on what's popular in cheap horror nowadays (again, that's another post).
5) I really enjoyed the film, overall. The pacing was good for a film that was nearly 3 hours long, and I didn't get up once to go to the bathroom, so that says something. It was enjoyable to watch, and visually it was quite lovely to look at.
As with any adaptation, I always find you have to separate the two mediums and remember not everything can or should be transferred over. I'd absolutely see it again, though I imagine the second or third times will be where the length begins to bother me (like Iron Man & the Dark Knight).