A break from the silence...
...for a very important announcement.
I loathed the Watchmen movie.
I did not enjoy it as a mindless action movie. I did not enjoy it as an adaptation. And it is revolting to me that Zach Snyder thinks Alan Moore might not hate it.
Yes, they got the visuals perfectly. The period sequences were beautiful. The major change in the ending was actually very well done. I might even say I like that better than the giant psychic squid. (I always thought that was just a little too much.)
But they fulfilled my worst fear about an adaptation directed by the director of 300. They exploited Every. Single. Possible. excuse for a fight scene, even when the lack of violence proves a point in the book. And every fight scene was executed in that uber-stylized Zach Snyder style that worked fine in 300. Seriously, how many slow motion shots of flying blood do we really need? The violence completely detracted and distracted from the important themes in the book. No one has real superpowers except Dr. Manhattan. Rorschach really is a pathetic psychopath. Did you get that from the movie? I didn't.
All the characters were toned down to fit into standard Hollywood stock archetypes. Rorschach's pathos, his brutality and sociopathic tendencies are either omitted or normalized in the context of the rest of the movie. How can his setting a cop on fire and gutting another with his grapple gun have any impact when the entire movie seems to be about beating up everyone who gets in your way?
Adrian Veidt becomes your standard effeminate, arrogant villain. The point of the original character is that this physical and intellectual Adonis of a man thinks that killing millions for the peace of billions is the reasonable, nay, best course of action.
Dr. Manhattan was completely watered down. He was one of the book's accomplishments: a character utterly divorced from humanity that the reader comes to understand. His Mars sequence, which frankly I think was the greatest most well crafted single comic book issue ever, was boring and lacklustre. But that was expected. The reason it blew me away is that it was perfectly formed to the strengths of the comic book medium. That rhythm, that spiral narrative, is unfilmable.
The problems of the adaptation can be summed up thus: The major themes and questions of the book were rendered utterly incoherent. But the film had nothing to replace it with except the jizzings of a crazed Effects department.
And yet, this is still the least bad film adaptation of an Alan Moore book.
Also, it probably detracted from the movie that I saw it in IMAX.
I don't what to be one of those rabid fans foaming at the mouth talking about how the original work has such personally significance in their lives, but it's not too far from how I feel. I have a very clear memory of fclbrokle buying the book and giving it to me in the basement of a book store in Brookline. My memories are so discombobulated that I can't date it at all. I think it might have been when I visited him in early...2002? That seems about right. But I can picture that basement so clearly. I don't even know which book store it was...
I remember that it took me a while to get around to reading it. I remember it was not an easy read. I was tired when I finished it. But I immediately began to reread it. I was hooked.
And now for what BoingBoing likes to call a "unicorn chaser."
I loathed the Watchmen movie.
I did not enjoy it as a mindless action movie. I did not enjoy it as an adaptation. And it is revolting to me that Zach Snyder thinks Alan Moore might not hate it.
Yes, they got the visuals perfectly. The period sequences were beautiful. The major change in the ending was actually very well done. I might even say I like that better than the giant psychic squid. (I always thought that was just a little too much.)
But they fulfilled my worst fear about an adaptation directed by the director of 300. They exploited Every. Single. Possible. excuse for a fight scene, even when the lack of violence proves a point in the book. And every fight scene was executed in that uber-stylized Zach Snyder style that worked fine in 300. Seriously, how many slow motion shots of flying blood do we really need? The violence completely detracted and distracted from the important themes in the book. No one has real superpowers except Dr. Manhattan. Rorschach really is a pathetic psychopath. Did you get that from the movie? I didn't.
All the characters were toned down to fit into standard Hollywood stock archetypes. Rorschach's pathos, his brutality and sociopathic tendencies are either omitted or normalized in the context of the rest of the movie. How can his setting a cop on fire and gutting another with his grapple gun have any impact when the entire movie seems to be about beating up everyone who gets in your way?
Adrian Veidt becomes your standard effeminate, arrogant villain. The point of the original character is that this physical and intellectual Adonis of a man thinks that killing millions for the peace of billions is the reasonable, nay, best course of action.
Dr. Manhattan was completely watered down. He was one of the book's accomplishments: a character utterly divorced from humanity that the reader comes to understand. His Mars sequence, which frankly I think was the greatest most well crafted single comic book issue ever, was boring and lacklustre. But that was expected. The reason it blew me away is that it was perfectly formed to the strengths of the comic book medium. That rhythm, that spiral narrative, is unfilmable.
The problems of the adaptation can be summed up thus: The major themes and questions of the book were rendered utterly incoherent. But the film had nothing to replace it with except the jizzings of a crazed Effects department.
And yet, this is still the least bad film adaptation of an Alan Moore book.
Also, it probably detracted from the movie that I saw it in IMAX.
I don't what to be one of those rabid fans foaming at the mouth talking about how the original work has such personally significance in their lives, but it's not too far from how I feel. I have a very clear memory of fclbrokle buying the book and giving it to me in the basement of a book store in Brookline. My memories are so discombobulated that I can't date it at all. I think it might have been when I visited him in early...2002? That seems about right. But I can picture that basement so clearly. I don't even know which book store it was...
I remember that it took me a while to get around to reading it. I remember it was not an easy read. I was tired when I finished it. But I immediately began to reread it. I was hooked.
And now for what BoingBoing likes to call a "unicorn chaser."