watchmen

I have to confess, going into watching watchmen I wasn't entirely expecting to enjoy it.

Being a comic book fan you might expect this to be because I was worried they were going to butcher what is regarded by many as a pinnacle of the comic book form. Well, actually it was because of the opposite.

Call it my annoying habit of contrary-ness, but I'm not that big a fan of Watchmen. I do think it's got some great stuff in there, and certainly it's more realistic and thoughtful approach to super heroes is something I like, but I found the actual comic to be very heavy going and a bit lacking in all the things that I think really make comic books comics.

The style of it, with a rigid fixed-panel page structure was a massive visual turn-off and one of the primary things I like about comics is the dynamism of the visuals. I've got a perfectly good imagination and enjoy exercising it with the written word via books, but comics need to really sell themselves visually to be a success for me.

My problem with the film then was that I'd heard it was an extremely faithful adaptation, sticking so closely to the comic as to almost use the panels as a storyboard. So, not being the biggest fan of the comic, I was afraid I was in for a rather dull 2 and half hours.

In fact I really enjoyed the film. My big concern - the overly tight and flattened visuals of the comic, had been very much 'cured' by the film. It's a real visual treat, thanks I'm sure to the advances in CG - if it had been made, say, 10 years ago, it wouldn't look as nice as it did here.

Also, the action works a lot better on film than it did in the strictured panel layout of the original comic. As mentioned, the whole visual flair of comics with odd shaped panels works best when it's helping to tell the story, just in the same way that things like slow motion and the aforementioned CG help to tell the story in the film.

There have been some significant changes, of course. Most notable is the excising of the Tales of the Black Freighter comic-within-the-comic, which was made into a cartoon and released separately (I'm sure there's probably a version on Blu-Ray or something with it stuck in). I'm not sure I really miss the black freighter parts, as such. They added quite a lot of depth to the original, but this film is already two and a half hours and the freighter stuff didn't really tell any of the actual story.

One thing that I don't think works is how they've changed the ending. I'm going to spoiler both in the next two paragraphs, so you may want to skip ahead.

In the comic, Veidt's grand plan is the manufacturing of the sudden, catastrophic appearance of a somewhat Lovecraftian horror simultaneously in many the major cities around the globe. These creatures kill millions and it's made clear via a psychic broadcast that they hate humans and want to kill us all. This sudden new enemy gives us all something to unite against.

In the film, for reasons I can't quite work out, the Lovecraftian horror is replaced by Doctor Manhattan. So, instead of tentacle monsters, Manhattan destroys the cities because... well, that's what I cant' quite work out. I think the idea is because in the film the US is about to launch a pre-emptive strike against Russia after they invade Afghanistan. So, to teach the world a lesson, he destroys the cities... I dunno, it didn't suite gel for me. The Lovecraftian thing just makes more sense and is also independent of the Afghanistan thing, which seems to make Veidt's plan overly prescient.

Anyway, spoilers over. Another thing that becomes more apparent in the film is the issue of super powers. Obviously, Manhattan has super powers, but in the comic it's fairly clear that he's the only one. Veidt potentially might have had some, possibly via manipulating his own genes, but the others rely on simply being physically fit or advanced technology.

In the film it's less clear - the heroes do stuff that clearly only those with advanced strength or speed could do and in particular, the Comedian doesn't seem to age. Yet there's no mention of them actually having powers or how they may have gotten these.

However, I think really this is something that's actually not that clear in the comic.

I seem to have prattled on quite a bit. Basically I did enjoy the film a lot more than I thought I would, though I don't think it's without its flaws.