Wow. I haven't gotten more enjoyment from a website in months. Check this out.
I'll be posting the obligatory New York post later. I need some time to mull it over.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
"Your turn. What do you see?"
I was very young. Too young to be reading this material. But something about that yellow cover with a blood-red stain attracted my naive eye towards it. Flipping through pages produced emotions that run the gamut from horror to sheer joy. Of course, I had read a wide variety of comics at the time--with most of my education coming from the stereotypical heroes: Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, the X-Men. The only one from that group that comes close to being entirely human is, the Dark Knight himself. He was my first real journey into the depths of literature--and watching him grow amongst death and chaos helped a small, fragile mind like mine develop enough to think for itself.
And then, there was Watchmen.
These characters were like no one I had ever heard of. A sociopath who does not let killing stop his pursuit of justice. A rapist asshole who understands the joke--and who was rumored to have shot John F. Kennedy. A human-being who has reached the peak of performance, but still keeps his college-professor demeanor. The man who hung up his suit to lead a better life, and got nowhere. A god among men--who cannot connect with any of them.
So, after almost ten years of waiting for an on-screen adaptation, Zack Snyder has bestowed upon us his view of Alan Moore's cherished baby.
I loved it the first time. I enjoyed myself the second time. And yet there was a twinge of disappointment in the back of my brain. I tried to force myself to forgive Snyder for taking his creative liberties with the ending, but I feel like I've been let down. A book as deep as Watchmen has constantly been called "un-filmable," and I now have to agree. Jackie Earl Haley (Rorschach) Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Comedian) and Patrick Wilson (Nite Owl II) all turn in fantastic performances. It is now impossible to read any of Rorschach's lines from the novel without hearing Haley's haunting, noir narration.
But, looking back and removing my rose-colored glasses, I feel so... underwhelmed. At first, I was fine with Snyder changing the ending, but now--I resent it. It misses the point. The ending is supposed to unite the entire planet under one common goal, but now they pin the whole mess on Dr. Manhattan--who is fine to take the blame. The scenes of Laurie and Jon walking through the rubble and bodies and blood--which takes TWELVE full splash-pages in the novel--is over in barely thirty seconds. If Ozymandias was supposed to feel the guilt of his actions, why aren't they shown?
The subtle details and characters were all there, but they felt empty. I was eager to see how Snyder would pull off Hollis Mason's murder--and he wasn't. In a book that involves so much human suffering--why did Snyder remove the suffering?
Snyder is fantastic at taking a piece of literature, skimming across the top, and producing a polished--if not perfect--work of art. So, while I didn't enjoy 300 as much as everyone else did, I applauded him for his general loyalty to the original material. The movie opens with a fantastically nostalgic montage of the alternate world that Watchmen is set in--which is, in particular, one of my absolute favorite scenes. But then, I was forced to acquiesce to Snyder's choices and fight back my own grievances.
I let it slide that Hollis Mason is in approximately two minutes of the movie. I overlooked that Silk Spectre I may have had the worst makeup in superhero history. I tried to understand why Malin Ackerman decided to over-act to the point of nausea.
Maybe it's because I feel so attached to the source. After the thrill of seeing the legendary characters on-screen for the first time had died down--I was left feeling empty. Perhaps my expectations were too high. Watchmen has always been one of my favorite books to loan out because I love seeing somebody's reaction as they read the same story that affected me ten years ago--and most everybody's reaction to the movie was just the same. But I felt like something was missing from the entirety of the film, and I don't think Snyder could do anything about it.
I knew from the beginning that the movie would never replace the novel. It's just impossible. But it feels as if Snyder stayed just faithful enough to get the point across--a point he casually throws in towards the ending. Of course, we were granted the gift of seeing Rorschach, Nite Owl, and Comedian played completely perfectly--and that is something that will always make the movie re-watchable--but the rest of the cast is played either too shallow or too over dramatic.
I want to love this movie. I really do. But can't you forgive me for not being blown away like I was by the novel? If you've already seen the movie, try to look with an objective eye at what you watched. It took me a while to see, and I'm not entirely sure if I appreciate my new point of view. But I can't change it now, can I?
All of my feelings for this novel can't be expressed in just one short blog post--so if you'd like to know everything that ran through my mind, then we can chat about it.
And then, there was Watchmen.
These characters were like no one I had ever heard of. A sociopath who does not let killing stop his pursuit of justice. A rapist asshole who understands the joke--and who was rumored to have shot John F. Kennedy. A human-being who has reached the peak of performance, but still keeps his college-professor demeanor. The man who hung up his suit to lead a better life, and got nowhere. A god among men--who cannot connect with any of them.
So, after almost ten years of waiting for an on-screen adaptation, Zack Snyder has bestowed upon us his view of Alan Moore's cherished baby.
I loved it the first time. I enjoyed myself the second time. And yet there was a twinge of disappointment in the back of my brain. I tried to force myself to forgive Snyder for taking his creative liberties with the ending, but I feel like I've been let down. A book as deep as Watchmen has constantly been called "un-filmable," and I now have to agree. Jackie Earl Haley (Rorschach) Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Comedian) and Patrick Wilson (Nite Owl II) all turn in fantastic performances. It is now impossible to read any of Rorschach's lines from the novel without hearing Haley's haunting, noir narration.
But, looking back and removing my rose-colored glasses, I feel so... underwhelmed. At first, I was fine with Snyder changing the ending, but now--I resent it. It misses the point. The ending is supposed to unite the entire planet under one common goal, but now they pin the whole mess on Dr. Manhattan--who is fine to take the blame. The scenes of Laurie and Jon walking through the rubble and bodies and blood--which takes TWELVE full splash-pages in the novel--is over in barely thirty seconds. If Ozymandias was supposed to feel the guilt of his actions, why aren't they shown?
The subtle details and characters were all there, but they felt empty. I was eager to see how Snyder would pull off Hollis Mason's murder--and he wasn't. In a book that involves so much human suffering--why did Snyder remove the suffering?
Snyder is fantastic at taking a piece of literature, skimming across the top, and producing a polished--if not perfect--work of art. So, while I didn't enjoy 300 as much as everyone else did, I applauded him for his general loyalty to the original material. The movie opens with a fantastically nostalgic montage of the alternate world that Watchmen is set in--which is, in particular, one of my absolute favorite scenes. But then, I was forced to acquiesce to Snyder's choices and fight back my own grievances.
I let it slide that Hollis Mason is in approximately two minutes of the movie. I overlooked that Silk Spectre I may have had the worst makeup in superhero history. I tried to understand why Malin Ackerman decided to over-act to the point of nausea.
Maybe it's because I feel so attached to the source. After the thrill of seeing the legendary characters on-screen for the first time had died down--I was left feeling empty. Perhaps my expectations were too high. Watchmen has always been one of my favorite books to loan out because I love seeing somebody's reaction as they read the same story that affected me ten years ago--and most everybody's reaction to the movie was just the same. But I felt like something was missing from the entirety of the film, and I don't think Snyder could do anything about it.
I knew from the beginning that the movie would never replace the novel. It's just impossible. But it feels as if Snyder stayed just faithful enough to get the point across--a point he casually throws in towards the ending. Of course, we were granted the gift of seeing Rorschach, Nite Owl, and Comedian played completely perfectly--and that is something that will always make the movie re-watchable--but the rest of the cast is played either too shallow or too over dramatic.
I want to love this movie. I really do. But can't you forgive me for not being blown away like I was by the novel? If you've already seen the movie, try to look with an objective eye at what you watched. It took me a while to see, and I'm not entirely sure if I appreciate my new point of view. But I can't change it now, can I?
All of my feelings for this novel can't be expressed in just one short blog post--so if you'd like to know everything that ran through my mind, then we can chat about it.
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