Friday, March 06, 2009

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes (who watches the watchmen)

So, here we are.

I've been waiting 20 years or so for today.

Some (maybe one or two) of you are familiar with The Watchmen. At this stage, I'm referring to the 12 issue limited series comic/graphic novel. Unless, of course, you're one of the fanatic that saw it today at the first possible showing in your local theater.

I, of course, was one of those.

Didn't I just tell you I've been waiting 20 years? Did you think I'd wait one minute longer, let alone two hours and forty-three minutes? Yeah, you read that right: 2:43.

And they still had to leave stuff out. I get it. I mean the average screen play is like, 114 pages long. Which is what, 4 issues of the comic? I expected there to be stuff gone, and there was. Most of what was missing was at least touched upon, if not outright explained or redone elsewhere in the movie, so on the whole it was ok.

What they did right (and they did a lot right) they did perfectly. Rorschach's voice. Eddie Blake's demise. Jon Osterman's demise. Almost every visual scene was as spot on as I could hope for.

In addition, they held true to another very important aspect of the book. After it was published, it was commented on that it was 'very mature.' In fact, it went a long way towards the 'maturation' of many comics.

This story broke ground.

They kept that in, again, almost picture perfect.

There were a couple things I had problems with, and one rather huge thing that I really had a problem with, but on the whole, this film fucking rawked.

As usual, I'm not going to post any spoilers, on the off chance that someone might happen to read this before they've seen the movie (and intend to) but please feel free to email me about it.

If you don't have my addy...ask for it.

Buenos con queso,

T.

RSOTD: 5. How does whatever wizard degenerate next to the pedestrian expenditure?

2 comments:

Heather Rose said...

Okay. So, you have a post about Watchmen AND Mark Knopfler?! I think we may be kindred spirits, man.

I was one of the fanatics. Read the novel...was at the theater at 11:59 on Thursday. I felt like a dork, psychotically pointing out every minor detail that differed from the comics.

Overall, it was pretty much perfect. I agree with EVERY SINGLE unspoiling thing you said about it. ^__^

T.J. said...

Ahhhh....I feel much better now.

I was kinda shocked myself when I scrolled down your page and saw a Watchmen post.

That's when I knew you had to read my theory about Mark and the boys.