The trailer looks good, though already some of the lines have dumbed down the Watchmen storyline. There’s an obsession in popular film these days to explain everything in the dialogue because they don’t trust the audience to have the brains to figure it out on their own.
It opened tonight at the Broadway Theater.
I’ve already said my piece. I am trying to keep my children from seeing Lord of the Rings before they’ve had the opportunity to experience the novel. I’m reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe to him before he sees the film. I just hope he can reach the appropriate age to read the very intense graphic novel before the experience is denied him. The novel is so intricately layered and an emotional roller coaster which explores in unmatched complexity the fine line between good and evil and specifically whether certain acts are unjustified even if you are trying to save a world. It applies to the war on terror. It applies to the good intentioned communist mindset upon coming to power. It applies to every consideration of violence as a means to a just end.
There is one copy in the Fortuna branch of the library. I’ve lent my copy out, but I should have it back soon. The comic store on Broadway should have copies. Get it. Read it. The movie will probably be out for awhile, and it’ll probably come to Garberville a couple months down the road.
Lastly, it’s not what you think. It’s much more.
Addendum: A review which seems to validate some of my fears. Some key passages:
Alan Moore, who has refused to have his name on the movie (ditto its Moore-based predecessors, “V for Vendetta” and “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”) and who has declined all reimbursement to protest the entertainment industry’s fundamental lack of respect for intellectual property, counts as a bona fide visionary.
His 1986 comic book is a landmark in the history of the form, a masterpiece of pop cultural angst, filtering Cold War nihilism and disillusionment through the inspired pulp idiom of mundane masked crimefighters and one genuine, possibly radioactive, superhero.
….
But too many key scenes ring hollow, undermined by flat staging and tone-deaf treatment. One of them is the ridiculous moment when Dr. Manhattan’s faith in humanity is restored by the revelation of …
Well, see it for yourself, and then compare with the infinitely more nuanced passage in the graphic novel.
….
The considerable limitations of Swedish-Canadian actress Malin Akerman are cruelly exposed as Laurie, aka Silk Spectre II, and if Matthew Goode (playing Adrian Veidt) is the smartest man in the world, then we’re really in trouble.
….
I guess an honest reproduction of a great comic book is better than the trivialization that often passes for adaptation, and in this case the material is so ingrained with audacious ideas the movie can’t be counted a complete cop-out. But if it was really going to honor the original, “Watchmen” had to put the fear of God in us, to rekindle that prospect of imminent nuclear annihilation that haunted the Cold War world. And it had to remind us these rather sorry comic book characters were, as Moore insisted, more human than super.
Snyder flunks that test. Yes it will hit the box office like a tidal wave, but ultimately the numb, enervating “Watchmen” is living on borrowed time. No smiley face here.
but I will watch it, hopefully this weekend, and make up my own mind
20 comments
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March 6, 2009 at 5:57 am
Jennifer Savage
The problem with reading the novels first is, the movie almost inevitably disappoints! If the movie can stand on its own (is getting good reviews across the board), then I prefer to see the movie first, because the novel will almost always be better. My kids are typically furious with movies of books they love – to the point they’d rather not see them at all.
Holes was the best kids’ book-to-movie I’ve seen. Coraline is right up there, too. (Stardust, too – Hollywood does right by Neil Gaiman.) But The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe? Awful. Eragon? My kids said it was the worst. Neither did they approve of The Golden Compass, although I thought it was pretty good and Philip Pullman’s series is one of my favorites.
Occasionally a movie actually improves upon the book, although I’m too pre-coffee to think of any examples. Except… I would totally disagree about Lord of the Rings. As much of a reader as I am, I couldn’t get into the books, but I love those movies so much, thought them brilliantly done.
Eric, have you seen this list, “Based on the Book“?
March 6, 2009 at 8:39 am
Eric Kirk
Thanks for the link Jennifer. There are movies which are actually better than the novels. In my opinion, a few examples are One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Devil’s Advocate, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Usually it’s because the moviemakers add something, or because of an actor’s performance.
Interesting about Lord of the Rings. I read it in the Seventh Grade, and it took me to another world in a way that few other books have. So much that my mother kept bothering me to go outside and play to get exercise. When she insisted, I actually dropped the book out my window and retrieved it without her knowledge and took it to the beach to read. Later she asked me who I’d played with and my lie was undone by the fact that my friend was on vacation.
Those books didn’t work for you, but at least you had the opportunity. The third movie in particularly really dumbed the story down with constant battle scenes replacing story and unnecessary and trite drama added to the Frodo/Sam/Gollum storyline. It was annoying. I would also like my kids’ imagination to create the images of the characters before someone else does it for them, because my images of the hobbits, elves, orcs, etc. was much different from the film’s.
But in this case, good reviews or not, there is simply no way the movie can do the novel justice. It was a tribute to both the fun age and dark ages of comic books, which can only really be done as a comic book. But where the novel really found its texture was in the writings of the various characters at the end of each chapter, with Alan Moore meticulously mimicking writers who might work for Rolling Stone, National Review, academic journals, etc. It has panels which hold multiple meanings and significance. In one chapter entitled “Fearful Symmetry” the art panels follow a sequence for the first half of the chapter and then the same art comes in reverse sequence for the second half, with different dialogue obviously. But mostly, there’s a mystery which is gradually revealed and reading it when you already know the answer will take considerable enjoyment out of the whole experience. And there’s no way the movie can replicate it. Especially disturbing is the fact that Snyder chose action movie actors instead of skilled character actors. Doesn’t bode well because it should not be an action movie.
March 6, 2009 at 10:17 am
Cristina
Oh, you’re so much FUN when you go into fanboy mode! Had enough caffeine this morning, did you?
March 6, 2009 at 10:25 am
Eric Kirk
Hey Cristina! I’ve been waiting 20 years for some stupid filmmaker to piss me off. It’ll almost be a let-down if I like it. So don’t deprive me of the moment!
I need more caffeine.
March 6, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Anonymous
I like that film class version of the Rorscak/Night Owl scene through your link. But I am hearing good things about the movie. The biggest criticism I am hearing is that it tries too hard not to piss off fans like you.
March 6, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Anonymous
Frank Miller is a much better graphic novel writer than Alan Moore. Moore is an overrated elitist.
March 6, 2009 at 4:50 pm
salmon girl
Speaking of good movies. Waltz with Bashir is phenomenal. It’s a very personal animated documentary by an israeli film maker looking back at his role as a young soldier in 1983 when Israel invaded Beruit. Fascinating, thoughtful, beautiful, horrific, and moving. It’s playing at the minor
March 6, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Eric Kirk
Frank Miller is a much better graphic novel writer than Alan Moore. Moore is an overrated elitist.
Will. Not. Be. Baited.
Heh.
March 6, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Dave Kirby
There’s a critic on Yahoo who rips the director of “Watchmen” for slavishly following the book so maybe that bodes well. My first exposure to Lord of the Rings was in Viet Nam. I bought “the Two Towers” off the rack at the BX at Saigon International Airport (Than Son Nhut A.F.B.). Not knowing it was a trilogy I bought it for the cover art. Needless to say it made little sense. I later devoured the books and was disappointed when I finished the last book and had a real sense of loss when there wasn’t more of middle earth to explore. I thought the movie did the books justice.
March 6, 2009 at 8:45 pm
moviedad
Totally agree with you Mr. Kirby. It totally raised the bar. I still have a copy of the Silmarillion next to the bed. every couple of years I pull it out and read it again.
I’m hoping something similar to what Jackson did for Lord of the Rings, can be accomplished for the “Rama” Series by Arthur C Clarke. That saga has really peaked my imagination. it would wonderful to see it done in proper scale, with proper acting.
March 6, 2009 at 9:46 pm
bull moose
OK, isn’t “graphic novel” just PR speak for comic book? I don’t understand why adults are interested in movies based on comic books. Hollywood has lost something. Movie-making is becoming a lost art.
March 7, 2009 at 12:22 am
Eric Kirk
Well, here are some highlights from the Wikipedia entry for “graphic novel.”
A graphic novel is a type of comic book, usually with a lengthy and complex storyline similar to those of novels, and aimed at all audiences, generally speaking. The term also encompasses comic short story anthologies, and in some cases bound collections of previously published comic book series (more commonly referred to as trade paperbacks).
Graphic novels are typically bound in longer and more durable formats than familiar comic magazines, using the same materials and methods as printed books, and are generally sold in bookstores and specialty comic book shops rather than at newsstands.
….
The evolving term graphic novel is not strictly defined, and is sometimes used, controversially, to imply subjective distinctions in artistic quality between graphic novels and other kinds of comics. It suggests a story that has a beginning, middle and end, as opposed to an ongoing series with continuing characters; one that is outside the genres commonly associated with comic books, and that deals with more mature themes. It is sometimes applied to works that fit this description even though they are serialized in traditional comic book format. The term is commonly used to disassociate works from the juvenile or humorous connotations of the terms comics and comic book, implying that the work is more serious, mature, or literary than traditional comics. Following this reasoning, the French term Bande Dessinée is occasionally applied, by art historians and others schooled in fine arts, to dissociate comic books in the fine-art tradition from those of popular entertainment, even though in the French language the term has no such connotation and applies equally to all kinds of comic strips and books.
….
As the exact definition of graphic novel is debatable, the origins of the artform itself are open to interpretation. Cave paintings may have told stories, and artists and artisans beginning in the Middle Ages produced tapestries and illuminated manuscripts that told or helped to tell narratives.
The first Western artist who interlocked lengthy writing with specific images was most likely William Blake (1757-1826). Blake created several books in which the pictures and the “storyline” are inseparable in his prophetic books such as Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Vala, or The Four Zoas.
The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, the 1837 English translation of the 1833 Swiss publication Histoire de M. Vieux Bois by Swiss caricaturist Rodolphe Töpffer, is the oldest recognized American example of comics used to this end.[5] The United States has also had a long tradition of collecting comic strips into book form. While these collections and longer-form comic books are not considered graphic novels even by modern standards, they are early steps in the development of the graphic novel.
….
DC Comics likewise began collecting series and published them in book format. Two such collections garnered considerable media attention, and they, along with Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus (1986), helped establish both the term and the concept of graphic novels in the minds of the mainstream public. These were Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (1986), a collection of Frank Miller’s four-part comic-book series featuring an older Batman faced with the problems of a dystopian future; and Watchmen (1987), a collection of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ 12-issue limited series in which Moore notes he “set out to explore, amongst other things, the dynamics of power in a post-Hiroshima world”..[15]
These works and others were reviewed in newspapers and magazines, leading to such increased coverage that the headline “Comics aren’t just for kids anymore” became widely regarded by fans as a mainstream-press cliché.[16] Variations on the term can be seen in the Harvard Independent[17] and at Poynter Online.[18] Regardless, the mainstream coverage led to increased sales, with Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, for example, lasting 40 weeks on a UK best-seller lists.[19]
….
Some in the comics community have objected to the term “graphic novel” on the grounds that it is unnecessary, or that its usage has been corrupted by commercial interests. Writer Alan Moore believes, “It’s a marketing term … that I never had any sympathy with. The term ‘comic’ does just as well for me. … The problem is that ‘graphic novel’ just came to mean ‘expensive comic book’ and so what you’d get is people like DC Comics or Marvel comics — because ‘graphic novels’ were getting some attention, they’d stick six issues of whatever worthless piece of crap they happened to be publishing lately under a glossy cover and call it The She-Hulk Graphic Novel….”[20]
Author Daniel Raeburn wrote “I snicker at the neologism first for its insecure pretension — the literary equivalent of calling a garbage man a ‘sanitation engineer’ — and second because a ‘graphic novel’ is in fact the very thing it is ashamed to admit: a comic book, rather than a comic pamphlet or comic magazine.”[21]
Writer Neil Gaiman, responding to a claim that he does not write comic books but graphic novels, said the commenter “meant it as a compliment, I suppose. But all of a sudden I felt like someone who’d been informed that she wasn’t actually a hooker; that in fact she was a lady of the evening.”[22] Comedian and comic book fan Robin Williams joked, “‘Is that a comic book? No! It’s a graphic novel! Is that porn? No! It’s adult entertainment!'”[23]
Critic Douglas Wolk quipped: “The question I got asked most often this year: ‘What’s the difference between “comics” and “graphic novels”?’ My answer: ‘The binding.'”[24] Responding to Wolk’s comment, Bone creator Jeff Smith said, “I kind of like that answer. Because ‘graphic novel’… I don’t like that name. It’s trying too hard. It is a comic book. But there is a difference. And the difference is, a graphic novel is a novel in the sense that there is a beginning, a middle and an end.”[25]
….
Charles McGrath (former editor, The New York Times Book Review) in The New York Times: “Some of the better-known graphic novels are published not by comics companies at all but by mainstream publishing houses — by Pantheon, in particular — and have put up mainstream sales numbers. Persepolis, for example, Marjane Satrapi’s charming, poignant story, drawn in small black-and-white panels that evoke Persian miniatures, about a young girl growing up in Iran and her family’s suffering following the 1979 Islamic revolution, has sold 450,000 copies worldwide so far; Jimmy Corrigan sold 100,000 in hardback….”[28]
March 7, 2009 at 1:44 am
Bob
Went to see the movie tonight with three friends who had all read the g-novel and all are big Moore fans. I have not read Watchmen, but that did not stop my enjoyment — great storyline, which my friends said was quite faithful to the book for the most part. If you think about it, movie storyboards are a lot like graphic novels. Now I want to borrow the book and see what you’re talking about.
One other thing: the film uses lots of classic rock — I think there were at least three Dylan songs, and a couple of Leonard Cohen numbers — from now on when I hear “Hallelujah,” I’ll think of the steamy scene in the movie it accompanies.
March 7, 2009 at 8:31 am
Eric Kirk
I’m going to see it today. Glad you enjoyed it Bob, but I wish you’d read it ahead of time. One reviewer on NPR described the movie as “pedestrian” but I’m not clear as to whether she’d read it ahead of time.
March 7, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Eric Kirk
I did see it today. I’m working up a review. I liked it for the most part. I have three major complaints, but Snyder was faithful to the novel to the best of his ability. I really wish Alan Moore, the writer, had chosen not to boycott the process, because he could have explained a few things to Snyder, which I think the latter just did not get.
The guy who played the Comedian was perfect. The guy who played Veight/Ozymandias was the weak link which I think blew the ending somewhat.
Oh, and the Cohen song for the sex scene was fine, but it was supposed to be Billy Holiday’s You’re my Thrill, the lyrics which “play” in the novel’s scene. It played elsewhere, but it really belonged there. It would also mean a more tender and perhaps less intense sex scene.
March 7, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Hank Sims
Did Veidt scapegoat Dr. Manhattan in the book? I don’t remember it that way, but maybe it’s one of the layers I missed.
Makes more sense than the giant squid, actually.
March 8, 2009 at 12:13 am
Eric Kirk
Did Veidt scapegoat Dr. Manhattan in the book? I don’t remember it that way, but maybe it’s one of the layers I missed.
Makes more sense than the giant squid, actually.
Nope. And yeah, it makes more sense. The squid makes more sense to a comic book fan, which was the target audience. Remember, artists and comic book writers were part of the Pyramid conspiracy.
March 8, 2009 at 9:36 am
Movie review
What a wretched mess! Worst film I’ve seen in years. What, pray tell, did you get out of live cannibalism, rape, hands sawed off, heads blown off and a lame plot that consisted of nothing but cliches?
March 8, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Eric Kirk
The violence may be distracting to some. The cliches were deliberate, but the wit behind them was lost, I agree. I’m writing about it today.
March 22, 2009 at 12:08 am
Watching the Watchmen « Sohum Parlance II
[…] March 22, 2009 in Uncategorized | Tags: film, graphic literature Just some thoughts on the film. This is my third and last post on the topic. If you want to know what I’m talking about read here and here. […]