WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN? I DO! I DO!

[defrog]

So I saw Watchmen last night. The IMAX version, no less – which, believe it or not, was my first experience with an IMAX film. Not that it mattered – only parts of the film are in IMAX 3D, and I couldn’t tell you which parts they were. Big screen, though.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure it’s in LJ’s T&C that if you see Watchmen, you have to blog yr thoughts on it. I will fulfill those requirements now.

WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE WATCHMEN FILM

I liked it, me.

WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE WATCHMEN FILM (DISCO VERSION)

The first thing you should know is that I’m one of those people who read Watchmen when it first came out, and that it changed the way I saw comics forever, etc. However, as I’ve also said before, I don’t expect comic book films to be true to the source because, as Alan Moore himself pointed out, you can’t tell the story the same way in radically different formats. It’s also fine if stuff gets left out because that means fresh material for people who never read the comics but are inspired by the film verson to check it out.

That said, I think Zack Snyder did a good job translating it to the big screen (the few unnecessary but ultimately trivial plot alterations aside), and it’s interesting that he’ll be able to leverage the DVD format to rope in extra stuff that would have distracted from the film version, like the excerpts from Tales From The Black Freighter and Under The Hood.

Interestingly – and probably typical for me – is that my favorite thing about the film is the thing that most people complained about: it’s not much of a superhero movie.

Well, exactly. It’s not supposed to be. For my money, the whole point of the Watchmen comic was to basically rip apart the whole superhero motif and portray masked vigilantes as flawed and in some cases seriously fucked-up people having to deal with real-world political issues. On that level, the film succeeds wildly.

Thanks to its source material, the film takes the existing template of the superhero film and sets it on its ear. It takes chances that would never have green-lighted if it wasn’t based on a critically acclaimed and influential graphic novel. In fact, no superhero film franchise I can think of would have the nerve to attempt some of the things in Watchmen. Can you imagine Spiderman and Mary Jane having softcore sex on the roof of the Daily Bugle? Or Batman being played the way Jackie Earle Haley played Rorschach? Or Wolverine trying to rape Jean Grey in the practice room? Or The Incredible Hulk doing full frontal nudity?

Didn’t think so.

Upshot: Watchmen has some flaws, but as comic adaptations go, it’s good. And as films go, it’s not only good, it’s also possibly one of the more subversive superhero films ever made.

READ MORE ABOUT IT: 10 Things People Don't Seem to Get About the Watchmen
 
The killing joke,

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