HBO's Watchmen

hairyblue said:

They made some changes for the movie, but I think the overall point was there. Or maybe I'm missing the point. lol

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Philosofy said:

I thought the movie was very faithful to the comic: it was almost a panel by panel adaptation. Except for the end, which made a lot more sense in the movie than it did in the comic.

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realityboy said:

Agreed. I think the movie was a great adaptation in spite of Snyder. He didn't understand what he was adapting, but he did it faithfully enough that the ideas still come across.

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One key thing about the comic book is that it is a...comic book. Alan Moore wrote it very specifically as a comic, building the structure of a comic book into the story. The way the story flows from panel to panel matters; the physical act of turning the page. The way the covers are integrated into the story. The way you can flip back and forth through the pages (Issue 5 can't be fully appreciated until you read it first page, then last page, then second page, then second-to-last page, etc., to see how its structure really works).

Now, I've never seen any evidence that Zach Snyder is capable of seeing past the surface of anything, so he probably didn't have a clue how much of the comic he was throwing out by doing a "faithful" adaptation. A better filmmaker would have made a Watchmen movie that leaned on the language of cinema as strongly as the comic leaned on the language of comics. That's one reason why for decades better filmmakers tried and gave up doing their own adaptations.

As for the ending, yes, superficially the movie ending is more satisfying than the comic. But it only accomplishes that by completely missing the point of the comic ending. Moore had Veidt set up a conflict between the human race and an alien threat to force the human race together (including the Watchmen). By making the fake threat a framed Doctor Manhattan, Snyder doesn't force the human race together...he pits the rest of the human race against the Watchmen. Again, a better filmmaker would have come up with an ending that doesn't undermine one of the main themes of the story (I agree that the Space Squid would have been problematical for a movie).

I don’t care about the media differences and what they could have done to mirror the comic format. That’s like 12 orders of magnitude beyond what Snyder is capable of. I thought the tone of the film was WAY off. It’s one of the worst adaptations I’ve ever seen and among the worst movies I’ve ever seen despite being a “faithful” adaptation. The style and tone of the film was basically the exact opposite of the material’s intent.

I liked it marginally when I first saw it but began stewing on the tonal betrayal and the second time I saw it, I loathed it.

Based on The Leftovers and interviews I’ve read and the “universal acclaim” it’s getting, I have faith this will be much better than the dumpster fire that was the movie. Not that they are directly comparable since this is set after the events of the comic.

So yeah, I’m watching this, even though Lindelof might have been literally cursed for making it and seemed one step away from full panic attack while making it.