I first read Watchmen a couple of years ago, after hearing for many years previous what a groundbreaking, genre redefining, award winning novel it was. I read it, enjoyed it, and realized it was probably a lot smarter, deeper and challenging than I was giving it credit for. I also knew I was going to have to read it again, now that I knew the story, to really get to the meat of it… those things that made it groundbreaking, genre redefining and award winning. This is not to say that I didn't appreciate the book… just that I did not come away from that first read a convert to the cult of Watchmen.
When I heard that Warner Bros. was finally making the movie (and it looked like it was really happening) I studiously avoided going back to the novel… I knew enough of the story not to feel like I would be lost in the movie, but didn't want to have the novel in the forefront of my mind when I went to see the movie, since that's usually a recipe for disappointment.
I've watched, amused, as people have argued, debated and dismissed the movie, before ever seeing it, as an impossibility… the unfilmable graphic novel would never be able to make the transition to film in any manner that could do justice to the source material. Alan Moore, as has been his wont in the past, dismissed any attempt to make his novel into a movie, has removed his name from the project, and "has vowed to 'spit venom all over' the film version." (Anyone that's seen the fair-to-middling V for Vendetta or the unwatchable League of Extraordinary Gentlemen can understand his rancor.)
Kenneth Turan's review in the LA Times makes a very good case for the failure of Watchmen the movie to live up to Watchmen the graphic novel. He talks about the structural density of the novel, the layers and layers of content and textual material injected into the novel, the 'comic within a comic' that gave the larger Watchmen story an added depth and complexity. He quotes Dan Gibbons, Watchmen's artist to writer Moore, as saying that "the graphic novel became much more about the telling than the tale itself. The plot itself is of no great consequence." (FWIW, Turan doesn't dismiss Watchmen's story quite as out-of-hand, and credits that story for making the film at all watchable.)
Suddenly I realized, for all that I could agree with Turan's argument, that he'd rendered the whole discussion moot. Because Watchmen the movie COULD NEVER live up to Watchmen the graphic novel. Nor, I would argue, should it have to.
Movies and novels, even graphic novels, are separate media. People seem to forget this in these arguments. The elements of a graphic novel, no matter how visual the medium may be, are different from those in a movie. You can do things in a graphic novel that you never could in film.
It's okay to digress into a story-within-a-story within the framework of a novel, to diverge into multiple backstories, to flash back, forward, sideways to multiple story threads as the reader can be carried along for the ride, given a recap if needed, or can page back to reread things they may have forgotten if they get lost. Not so in a film, where you're carried from frame to frame and if you lose your audience at any point, you've lost them for good.
But, while Gibbons, Turan and (presumably) Moore, may regard the Watchmen story as secondary to the experience of the novel… story and action and movement are where film shines. Films have an arc, a momentum that carries you from the opening credits through the last reel. Film excels at telling stories. And I would argue that, for many filmgoers (and probably many of the readers of those graphic novels) story is one of the most important parts of their experience (I'd say the most important, but I don't want to get pretentious). For those people, that inconsequential story is the reason they're going to see that film, and the deeper meanings, the subtext, and any vestiges of the graphic novel experience, are the icing on that story's cake. (Not to get too weirdly metaphorical.)
I caught Watchmen its opening weekend, going out of my way to catch it in IMAX, since I figured that would be the most visually impressive format to see it in. Overall, I really enjoyed the film… it captured what I remembered of the novel and made it an entertaining day at the movies, and I am more then ready to see it again. Was it groundbreaking? Did it recreate the experience of reading the graphic novel? Was it anything more than an entertaining 2 hours & 45 minutes at the movies? Perhaps not.
But if it didn't surpass those things, it certainly did not disappoint me. I was entertained. I enjoyed it. I'll see it again. And, I left the movie speculating about the deeper meaning of the story, what Moore was really trying to say with Watchmen (an argument about the corruption of absolute power?). And a desire to pick up the novel again, now that I've seen the film, and re-experience Watchmen the graphic novel once again.
What more can you ask for?
*Yes, I considered some kind of "Quis custodiet" pun, but I figured the 'net would be rampant with them, so I skipped the obvious. Just this once.
When I heard that Warner Bros. was finally making the movie (and it looked like it was really happening) I studiously avoided going back to the novel… I knew enough of the story not to feel like I would be lost in the movie, but didn't want to have the novel in the forefront of my mind when I went to see the movie, since that's usually a recipe for disappointment.
I've watched, amused, as people have argued, debated and dismissed the movie, before ever seeing it, as an impossibility… the unfilmable graphic novel would never be able to make the transition to film in any manner that could do justice to the source material. Alan Moore, as has been his wont in the past, dismissed any attempt to make his novel into a movie, has removed his name from the project, and "has vowed to 'spit venom all over' the film version." (Anyone that's seen the fair-to-middling V for Vendetta or the unwatchable League of Extraordinary Gentlemen can understand his rancor.)
Kenneth Turan's review in the LA Times makes a very good case for the failure of Watchmen the movie to live up to Watchmen the graphic novel. He talks about the structural density of the novel, the layers and layers of content and textual material injected into the novel, the 'comic within a comic' that gave the larger Watchmen story an added depth and complexity. He quotes Dan Gibbons, Watchmen's artist to writer Moore, as saying that "the graphic novel became much more about the telling than the tale itself. The plot itself is of no great consequence." (FWIW, Turan doesn't dismiss Watchmen's story quite as out-of-hand, and credits that story for making the film at all watchable.)
Suddenly I realized, for all that I could agree with Turan's argument, that he'd rendered the whole discussion moot. Because Watchmen the movie COULD NEVER live up to Watchmen the graphic novel. Nor, I would argue, should it have to.
Movies and novels, even graphic novels, are separate media. People seem to forget this in these arguments. The elements of a graphic novel, no matter how visual the medium may be, are different from those in a movie. You can do things in a graphic novel that you never could in film.
It's okay to digress into a story-within-a-story within the framework of a novel, to diverge into multiple backstories, to flash back, forward, sideways to multiple story threads as the reader can be carried along for the ride, given a recap if needed, or can page back to reread things they may have forgotten if they get lost. Not so in a film, where you're carried from frame to frame and if you lose your audience at any point, you've lost them for good.
But, while Gibbons, Turan and (presumably) Moore, may regard the Watchmen story as secondary to the experience of the novel… story and action and movement are where film shines. Films have an arc, a momentum that carries you from the opening credits through the last reel. Film excels at telling stories. And I would argue that, for many filmgoers (and probably many of the readers of those graphic novels) story is one of the most important parts of their experience (I'd say the most important, but I don't want to get pretentious). For those people, that inconsequential story is the reason they're going to see that film, and the deeper meanings, the subtext, and any vestiges of the graphic novel experience, are the icing on that story's cake. (Not to get too weirdly metaphorical.)
I caught Watchmen its opening weekend, going out of my way to catch it in IMAX, since I figured that would be the most visually impressive format to see it in. Overall, I really enjoyed the film… it captured what I remembered of the novel and made it an entertaining day at the movies, and I am more then ready to see it again. Was it groundbreaking? Did it recreate the experience of reading the graphic novel? Was it anything more than an entertaining 2 hours & 45 minutes at the movies? Perhaps not.
But if it didn't surpass those things, it certainly did not disappoint me. I was entertained. I enjoyed it. I'll see it again. And, I left the movie speculating about the deeper meaning of the story, what Moore was really trying to say with Watchmen (an argument about the corruption of absolute power?). And a desire to pick up the novel again, now that I've seen the film, and re-experience Watchmen the graphic novel once again.
What more can you ask for?
*Yes, I considered some kind of "Quis custodiet" pun, but I figured the 'net would be rampant with them, so I skipped the obvious. Just this once.
Comments
I don't think I will see it again. I didn't think it was bad, necessarily. But, I didn't really like it either.
I just think I'm tired of the post-modern hero deconstruction. The Batman films have done it as well as can be done. Nothing new here. Just a lot of moodiness and good looking, sterile frames.
Moore and Gibbons came up with it first. And, as Gibbons said, the book really IS more style than substance. But, WATCHMEN happened 25 years ago? Time to move on. This film felt dated to me.
But if you bring Watchmen up to date, you lose what resonance to the comic it has. So you have to treat it as a period piece and see it for what it is as a film. Then go back and read the comic and get the rest.