I posit none of that is needed for Watchmen the thick comic book to still work very well for any intelligent reader. Being familiar with superhero tropes just adds one more layer – of which there are so many in the book that losing one is no great calamity.
It’s like watching Waltz with Bashir without having carried an assault rifle in South Lebanon during the Israeli occupation (which I have, by the way). You can still appreciate the work quite well.
The really obvious thing that Watchmen loses when moving to the screen is best exemplified with Dr. Manhattan’s story. Because of his accident, Manhattan experiences time non-linearly - he can see patterns of things where humans, with their strict linear movement through time, cannot. During their conversation on Mars, he sadly says to Laurie “I wish you could see time the way I see it.”
Laurie can’t, of course. But we, the reader, can. We can literally experience Watchmen the way Manhattan experiences his life - we can page back and forth through individual memories (panels), we can recognize motifs (which Watchmen is rotten with, like how the pharmacy under Hollis’ apartment has a logo strangely similar to Rorschach’s signature, or how a smiley-face can resemble a light socket or a radiation warning), we can see patterns no matter how small (like how Rorschach, unmasked, appears in the very first panel of the comic).
Snyder, with his ridiculous and valiant attention to detail, does manage to put a lot of the visual motifs in the movie, but because we watch the movie linearly, the meaning and purpose of those motifs are lost. In the book, we’re Manhattan, but in the movie we’re Laurie.
But with the DVD, we’re Manhattan again (sort of).
Still, that’s a great analysis!
I liked how Rorschach said he’d deny everyone their salvation, but in the end he’s the one that does try to save them but yet at the same time denies the pragmatic way (comprising) of salvaging the disaster. His uncomprising nature won’t let him leave them to die, but at the same time won’t let him leave them to a delusion of peace. Alan Moore is really good at writing in that kind of complexity to a story. The biggest barrier to his comics is just how densely he packs his work. I can only read one graphic novel of his at a time and then need to take a break before reading something else of his.
I love these kinds of discussions, because, well… I’m not that smart so the best thing I can do is read other people who are smart. :)
Ah, Chicago. Once had some fun with the cast.
I wish I could see time the way bago sees it.
I’m with Tom. I never read Watchmen (although I want to), but I thank Snyder for bringing such an interesting story to the screen. It may lack a lot of the subtle comic styles that can only be shown on paper - that may even have a direct narrative effect, but I believe it maintains the core themes of heroes, superheroes and human nature. It still flips the hero and superhero concept on their heads. The Dark Knight is very serious and dark, but Watchmen is something else entirely. This is not your standard superhero movie and like Tom I’m amazed and glad that such a unique and grandiose story was able to be put on screen with amazing production and quality.
I can’t remember the movie as well as I should in my old age - did Snyder leave in the bits where dialog from later in the comic series showed up earlier? Like when Manhattan is talking to Laurie about something or another and he says something completely and totally out of context (I think about her crying) and then you get to Mars and he says it there and suddenly it all makes sense?
I’ll also join the group recommending Watchmen whether or not you read superhero comics. You’ll miss some of the historical significance (the Watchmen sort of represents the transition from the Silver Age, as represented by what you can hear on Tom vs. The Flash, and the modern age, as represented by everything that the new Batman series draws on), but the story itself is still rewarding.
As far as the ending goes, put me in the group that thinks a little bit more setup was necessary. The conclusion was, essentially, God Says Don’t Do That, which is fine when God is walking around and trashing your cities, but not so fine when it’s been ten years since the last good old-fashioned genocidal massacre and I still really want all that nifty oil you’re sitting on top of. The original story was about Threat Construction as applied to The Soviet Union - Reagan used the looming specter of The Evil Empire to motivate people to work together and define themselves in opposition to a thing that they could beat. Dr. Manhattan is unbeatable by definition, which will certainly inspire obedience when he’s hanging around, but not so much when he’s away. You can use “Santa won’t bring you presents” to make your kids behave around Christmas, but it’s harder to pull off in July. I mean, Extradimensional Death Squid from the Planet Zeta is pretty weak reasoning as well, but it builds from a theory that is very much of its time. And it gives Horny Cat a reason to exist - at this point the inclusion of Bubastis just seems like an editing mistake on Snyder’s part.
I really like the Watchmen movie and am amazed it worked out so well, both as an adaptation of the comic and as a stand-alone movie that conveys most of the thematic depth of the comic in an entertaining - and occasionally dazzling - way.
For me, I’ll always love this movie for how well it nails the Manhattan and Rorschach parts - both actors do an amazing job, and all the key scenes that I loved so much in the comic: the Manhattan origin told through flashing back and forth through his history; Rorshach in prison, etc. are adapted extremely well.
I’m less fond of a lot of the other acting in the movie, which largely seems amateurish (particularly the first Nite Owl and the female characters in general); some of the goofy makeup is distracting; and I hate the awful alley scene of casual violence which is a real misfire (as someone posted above, you lose a lot if Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are also willing to casually kill criminals just like Rorschach).
I’ve only watched an hour of the Directors’ cut so far, and there’s a couple small scene references to things like the Keene Act that I think should have been included, but for the most part the scenes deleted from the theatrical version seem superfluous - and some of the stuff like Rorschach being shot at in the beginning of the movie is just goofy and the theatrical version is better for having deleted it. But I haven’t gotten to the meatier additions, so I’ll reserve judgment on which version I ultimately prefer - but it doesn’t seem like the directors’ cut is clearly superior, like the Lord of the Rings extended editions.
Finally watched it last night. I can’t seem to search this thread, but has anyone discussed why the film looks the way it does? Was there something going on with the focus or the lens? Everything looked very sharp, and I take it that was deliberate due to the comic book origins.
I still don’t understand why you keep saying it’s about comics. What you’ve written here is a description of how well it uses the comic book medium: panels, colouring, repetition of visual motifs, etcetera, but I’m not seeing how Watchmen is about comic books any more than Memento is about film. The are both excellent examples of what their medium is capable of but neither of them is about that medium.
SPOILERS
Anyway, my problems with the movie are the same as my problems with the comic. The first and last third are amazing and it all falls apart in the middle where the narrative threads established in the first third are dropped until Doc M comes back from Mars. I think the movie has some real moments of poetry - the whole Doc M on Mars sequence (set to a track from Koyanisqaatsi, of all things, and working beautifully!) is gorgeous - but the film also has clumsy moments written like a Hallmark greeting card. Still impressively mounted, because Snyder is not without a vision, but flat, flat, flat.
Watchmeh 5/10
Nerd rage incoming :o
Other than Malin Ackerman being a completely awful actress, I was pretty impressed by the adaptation. It doesn’t exactly capture the book, but I think that would be more or less impossible for reasons outlined by others. For me, this is about the best Watchmen movie as could be expected. Thumbs up overall.
I know this was directed at Matt, but allow me to interject: Like I mentioned above, Moore explicitly links the idea of Manhattan’s perception of time to the act of reading a comic book. The reader literally can experience the book the way Manhattan experiences time. (It occurs to me that this works even on the first reading. There’s nothing preventing you from flipping forward through the novel or an individual issue before you’ve “read” it, so like Manhattan you can see things in the future that haven’t “happened” to you yet because you haven’t read that part of the narrative. This is how Manhattan can know Laurie is cheating on him but not experience it until she tells him.)
That kind of thing goes beyond merely using the structure of comics - it gets at the very core of what comics can do that other mediums simply cannot, and in a way that only makes sense within the medium.
Definitely the best movie I have seen all year. Having read the comic, I have no complaints about the film.
The comic still exists, you can still read it, nothing changed there…
Apart from a couple odd things, Snyder did a fantastic job of making a movie out of a comic that people never thought could be made into a movie.
My girlfriend (who isn’t super nerdy) absolutely loved the film and the themes in it. She actually borrowed the book from me to read as well. (She doesn’t read graphic novels)
One more thing, I don’t get the complaints about the acting in the movie at all. Nobody did a bad job, certainly some people were better than others… but I didn’t feel anyone did an “awful” job.
That’s a very cool and novel concept, but it’s not crucial to maintaining the central themes of the story. There may be some things lost in translation, but the point still stands.
Veidt was awful. Awful. Totally missed the point of the character. Ackerman was pretty terrible too but at least she looks exactly like Laurie. But Goode doesn’t even really look like Veidt.
The movie is confounding, because it gets so much right and then blows it in weird and needless ways. Why is Nixon’s makeup so utterly terrible? Why is the song selection so facile? How can they nail the tricky characterizations of Manhattan and Rorschach but totally fumble Veidt?
Matthew Goode as Veidt is definitely really bad, but I sort of felt like at least he didn’t have a whole ton of screen time, and perhaps I’m more apt to forgive a hammy performance than a just plain bad one. Every time Ackerman opened her mouth I immediately wanted her to shut up.
Okay, so that’s an interesting side note, but how does it serve the story? Yeah, you can jump ahead and learn about stuff for which you have no context. Or flip back and re-read sections again, but so what? Doc M’s story is told in a linear fashion: it has flashbacks but no flash forwards; we learn about him in the same way we learn about everyone else.
I’m just not seeing the big deal. Perhaps if the story continuity wasn’t so linear. For example, look at the movie 21 Grams which contains flash forwards and flashbacks whose meaning is revealed the farther you get into the narrative. The filmmaker is making an information deposit with us - Sean Penn and Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro together in a motel room and someone’s been shot - but when we see that moment the first time we know that the three people don’t even know each other yet - and it’s only later, when we have more context, that the story reveals itself. Once the film is done we are left with a much more cogent sense of both how shattered these peoples lives are and how time itself isn’t linear, but is subjective and happens in stops and starts.
There’s none of that in Watchmen, the comic or the movie, so the Doc M time vs. Comic Book time justification feels very weakly supported.
It serves the story because it makes you completely understand Manhattan’s character in a way that would be impossible in any other format. Manhattan has no ability to change the future any more than you, the reader, have the ability to change the next panel. A linear, narrative film literally cannot get across that idea in the same way that the Watchmen comic can.
The strict grid structure used by Gibbons is also meaningful, here. His adherence to a strict 9-panel grid is such that on those rare occasions that he breaks into a larger panel, those larger panels are constructed in such a way to still have the individual panel be the unit of measurement - i.e., a larger panel might consist of two or three panels merged together. A single splash page is actually 3x3 panels big. This constantly reinforces the single panel as the quantum, irreducible “unit” of Watchman. By doing so, he accomplishes a couple of things. First, any break in the structure becomes visually shocking, so he’s able to really bring forth the real horror of the final book’s shots of New York in an effective and powerful way. Second, it gives each individual panel equal weight, which then gives all detail and information equal weight. A matchbook cover is as important as a map or store sign. Everything seemingly has importance. So, like Manhattan, we perceive all these details but we have trouble figuring out which ones are important.
It also nicely ties into the major point of Watchmen - that Veidt is the only person able to pull back far enough to be able to perceive the big picture and make a very difficult decision. (By the way, note how Veidt perceives the world: he’s set up a Man Who Fell To Earth style bank of video monitors, which then feed him images in a grid form - much like the panels of the very comic you’re reading.) We the reader can only see individual, discrete moments (panels), but Veidt is able to pull information out of that noise and see a solution. If we were as smart as Veidt, we’d be able to see those important details the first time we read Watchmen, but most people only perceive those details on second, third, fifth or whatever readings.
The nine panel format is more a trademark of Moore. Gibbons just didn’t fight with Moore over the formatting or the exacting detail and panel composition Moore asked for. Of all his books, if Moore could draw, the Watchmen is the closest thing to what’d it’d feel and look like. At least that’s what I’ve been told.
It’s like English literature class, but fun.