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The Greatest Graphic Novel of All Time: Watchmen

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40hz:
Anyone seen the movie yet? Everyone I know who might go with me is 15 or younger (my kids are 4 and 6), so I haven't had a chance to get out to see it  ;D
-Darwin (March 08, 2009, 08:55 AM)
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Suggestion: wait 2 weeks and then go to see it on a Tuesday or Thursday night around 8 PM.

I don't know if this works everywhere, but doing it that way where I live gets me an almost private screening. I seldom share the theater with more than ten people.* And most of them are adults who came for no other reason than to actually sit and watch the picture.

:Thmbsup: Gotta love that!  :Thmbsup:

;D

* (When I saw Constantine, Hellboy, and Sky Captain it was just me and my girlfriend. There were six people when we saw Sunshine, five for Hellboy II, three for Pan's Labyrinth, about a dozen for each of the Lord of the Rings installments...the list just goes on and on!)

40hz:
I typically don't like watching movies based on a book that I've recently read, because Hollywood always tends to add change the story.  :mad:
-Mizraim (March 08, 2009, 09:15 AM)
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Boy do I know that feeling.

Sometimes (rarely) it works - the Bourne films & Chocolat are actually better IMHO that the original books.

But most times it doesn't - LOTR The Two Towers & Return of the King being two of the most obvious screenwriting screw-ups.

Deozaan:
I heard from a friend that it was a horrible waste of 3 hours. He had re-read it before watching it and it totally went off the wayside. Having never read it myself, nor seeing the movie, I can only go off of what I've heard. I typically don't like watching movies based on a book that I've recently read, because Hollywood always tends to add change the story.  :mad:
-Mizraim (March 08, 2009, 09:15 AM)
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I think movies work like this: Watch the movie before you read the book. That way if Hollywood totally smurfs up the book's story, well, it might still be a good movie but with a different story than the book. Then you'll have (potentially) seen a good movie and you can still read a good book.

I remember this is how it was with Eragon. People who had read the book absolutely hated the movie (including me), but most people who had not read the book enjoyed the movie (including my wife).

Lashiec:
Anyone seen the movie yet? Everyone I know who might go with me is 15 or younger (my kids are 4 and 6), so I haven't had a chance to get out to see it  ;D
-Darwin (March 08, 2009, 08:55 AM)
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I went yesterday night with a friend and I kinda enjoyed it. I never read Watchmen before, so I didn't have any expectations on it. Well, I expected it to be acceptable at least, I pay some money for it ya know ;D, but I didn't care if it was true to the novel or not.

Anyway, the movie was worth the ticket. I liked how the main plot was slowly developed mostly by the investigations of Rorschach, while it showed the post-superhero life of the rest of the main characters, and their struggle with normal life. I think such internal conflicts were already present in past superhero movies or comics, but it seems to me that the Watchmen heroes don't have anything in life than being that, and as a result they felt to me like empty characters, and I did not feel empathy with any of them. I ignore if this is a fault of the movie, lacking character development or if in the comic were already like that. I also missed in the movie a lot of the backstory of the different masked heroes, including the ones that fought in the World War II, as my friend said to me such backstories were present in the novel.

The actors did their job, but I did not find anything remotely memorable, frankly. Perhaps the characters were not exactly appropriate for a good actor to develop a fine role, so who knows. The action parts were nice, well choreographed, and making good use of special effects, although some of them were quite violent with blood splatter and limbs being cut. The soundtrack is really cool.

Still, I was kinda disappointed in the end. The "Luke, I am your father" part didn't strike me at all, and it's not that I saw it coming, perhaps I was expecting a more complex twist, even more considering that the unveiled truth is disgusting, but after 5 minutes you promptly accept it (IRL it would not be remotely possible, in any case). Also, the movie lacks cohesion between the different parts, and the rhythm of the narrative is irregular </pedantic critic>

Most of the disappointment comes from the fact that I fail to see what makes Watchmen so great. While as I said it's a fine movie, if it's a faithful adaption of the Moore novel, I wonder why it's so loved, because I did not see anything to make me think otherwise in that respect. I guess I will end up getting the comics one way or another, but if someone cares to explain where's the big fuss in the meantime...

But most times it doesn't - LOTR The Two Towers & Return of the King being two of the most obvious screenwriting screw-ups.
-40hz (March 08, 2009, 01:11 PM)
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I think the Lord of the Rings movies did a good job of adapting the book to a different medium. It doesn't beat the original text by any strech of the imagination as movies can't match the feelings you get reading a nice book, but they were really enjoyable, and worth watching a few times more. A better example would be Dune, a major disaster, as a movie and as a book adaptation.

It's not even clear if Watchmen is a good adaptation or not. Some claim it's a heresy, others said it's damn good... I guess that must be it's OK.

alivingspirit:
I saw it last night also and I approve this message. Good job Lashiec that was a great review.

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