Lee and De, Stan, Randy, Jackie and I went up and saw Watchmen last night. Here’s the story.
(I will endeavor mightily to be spoiler-free in the review, but no guarantees about the comments.)
Watchmen (2009)
| Overall |  | Story |  |
| Production | | Acting | |
Directed by Zack Snyder. Screenplay by David Hayter and Alex Tse, from the graphic novel by Alan Moore (uncredited) and Dave Gibbons.
There’s two ways to judge an adaptation from another work, like Moore and Gibbon’s seminal graphic novel. There’s taking it as an adaptation (faithfulness to the original work) and there’s how it stands on its own. It’s difficult for me to do the latter, but I’ll try to do both here.
As an adaptation, Watchmen is remarkable. Unlike Sin City (which literally tried to recreate the comic book on screen), director Zack Snyder is willing to make changes — in costuming, setting, and one significant plot point — but he does so while remaining so true to the original dialog and plot that it’s fair to say that this was “only” a recrafting of the book for the screen, with some 21st Century aesthetic applied to it.
People who know the book will recognize scads of dialog and setting lifted straight from the original — and going back to the book after will reveal that many “adds” were also from the original as well. The costumes have been updated a bit (though both the Comedian — sans S&M mask — and Rorschach are nearly untouched — and Dr Manhattan, of course, doesn’t have much in the way of costume). A few scenes have been modified (the assassination attempt on Ozymandias is in a different setting, arguably more plot-advancing, though it weakens a later scene), and a major notorious plot element at the end has been fairly seamlessly changed into something that most people except the highest purists won’t object to (it works, plotwise, but it’s close enough in concept to the original to “work”).
The main title sequence — a time line of the heroic set from the 40s onward — is stunningly done, establishing the setting while paying homage to much of Dave Gibbons’ art. (It’s marred only by over-extending Bob Dylan’s “Times They Are A-Changin’,” a song I don’t care for all that much to begin with and which is not helped by repeating two of the verses multiple times). The sequence also touches on the film’s adaptation of the book’s use of flashbacks — toned down quite a bit here (and likely just as well), but still enough to give you a sense of history without intimacy. As part of this, the makeup and CG work done on the characters to (de)age them in different scenes is very, very well-done. You do, in the end, have a sense of some 40-50 years of history going on around you.
The actors do a stand-out job of playing what are, to be fair, iconic characters. Moore’s more interested in concepts than people (a trend that has grown (worse) over time), and here he was more focused on the whole deconstruction / final comment upon the super-hero genre, than on creating truly life-like characters. This is a story about conditions and plot, and how the characters work within it, than a story about people structured within a tale. Within those bounds, most of the actors hit things spot-on. Jackie Earle Haley’s Rorschach, in particular, is excellent, but
The overall attention to visual detail, both obvious and subtle, both to provide a rich tapestry and to harken back to the book, is well done. Just the fact that you have Gunga Diner blimps in the air — never called attention to, but still there — shows how Snyder is really trying to bring in all the set pieces.
The current soundtrack is made up of various period pieces, most of them appropriate (a few, like one rendition of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” playing as Muzak in the background in one scene, are perhaps a bit unsubtle). It does set parts of the movie in the era (mid-80s), and the original score around it complements things nicely.
The movie is, as rumored, pretty violent, well-justifying the R rating. But it’s not unremittingly so, falling somewhere between 300 (non-stop sword-fest) and a movie with a standard four or five “fight scenes.” Violence is part of the Watchmen world, and Snyder doesn’t shy from it. Much of the violence is brutal — bone-breakings, gunshots, not to mention general martial arts mayhem — but I’ve seen far worse. Further, looking at the original graphic novel last night, the scenes where it most stood out (the alley fight, the attempted rape)were, in fact, just as violent — it just seems less so in static pages than in “real life.”
While the violence is present, there’s also a fair amount of sex. This is true to the book as well, but here it sometimes seems … overly long. No objection to sex scenes per se, to be clear, it’s just that the point of them in the story seems accomplished long before the movie leaves them.
Speaking of sex — yes, Doctor Manhattan is naked, and, yes, we do get some full-frontal view. Unless you’re, say, sitting at the center front row at the IMAX, it didn’t really “stand out” to my eye compared to the overall character and the scenes he was in. It was just part of what he was, a familiar, idealized shell of a the man he had previously been. (The use of a motion-mapped CG construct for Doc worked pretty well, lending him just enough of an air of unreality and artificiality.)
As to other remarkable effects — it’s a toss-up between Bubastis (of whom I want to see more), Doc’s Crystal Clockwork Palace (spectacularly rendered but abstract in the first place), or Nite Owl’s flyer, Archimedes (which gets my vote as Best Super-Hero Vehicle To Date).
The movie comes in at 2:35 in run time — the “Director’s Cut” is promised to be much longer, including a bunch of stuff that was trimmed out. The biggest gap from the original book was the excision of the “Tales of the Black Freighter” parallel story — which, honestly, I didn’t at all miss (and which will be available as a separate animated release, ho-hum). A lot of the “civilian” stuff that didn’t directly impact the main story — the psychiatrist, the newsstand, the tax driver — didn’t make it into the main cut, nor did anything more than a brief scene with Mason Hollis, the original Nite Owl. That robs the climactic moment of the Bad Guy’s scheme of much of it’s emotional impact. Some of Rorschach’s origin story (the fabric part) was elided (and a key element in his “crazy” origin was altered from the original, too — in this case, not as well).
So, as an adaptation, it’s excellent, remaining highly faithful without being a mirror image (the best analogy I can think of is a well-done Shakespearean play adapted for the screen, faithful to the words and narrative intent of the Bard while taking advantage of the different medium). Alan Moore, of course, did not think that a suitable adaptation could be done, though Dave Gibbons, the artist of the original, consulted closely with Snyder.
Outside of the adaptation, how is it? Hard for me to judge, of course. Jackie, the non-reader-of-the-original who was at the flick, didn’t give a definitive answer, aside from finding it very violent, and that it didn’t seem to focus well on any particular characters. I’ll be curious to see what Margie thinks when we get the DVD.
Part of the problem, of course, is that what Moore did with Watchmen — making the super-heroic condition “real” and extrapolating out what that would mean to society and individuals — is not nearly as fresh and original today as it was in 1985. Not that it’s often been done as well, but it’s ground that’s been gone over in a lot of different ways, and so is less impressive to the neophyte for all that.
As well, it may be that not knowing the full background of the characters, as laid out in several ways by Moore in the original, the abbreviated parts we do see — which to the knowledgeable eyes stand out as enhancements to the overall fabric — don’t stand well enough alone. There are a lot of characters we touch on — the six Watchmen, plus supporting cast. They perforce are going to get short shrift, even though the movie manages to get their origins and their key drivers on-screen for them. It’s difficult to think of how the movie could be better in that fashion within the compromise of the (still long) run time (and it will be interesting to see how it works with the longer director’s cut).
Overall? Glad I saw it, glad enough I saw it on IMAX just for the overall impact, and I think it’s as good a job of adapting the source material without substantial change as I could have hoped for. It’s not perfect, and I could probably spend a lot of time discussing its flaws, but I’ll confess this geeky fanboy is well-pleased.
1. Things that were cut (and what will and won’t show up in the Director’s Cut): http://io9.com/5164535/whats-on-watchmens-cutting-room-floor
2. Trailer for the “Tales of the Black Freighter” animated feature: http://io9.com/5153304/watchmens-black-freighter-trailer-released
How the studio really wanted the film (no, really). (1) Cut out all that silly backstory, including the Rorschach interrogation. (2) The funeral scene, with still more flashback nonsense. (3) Oh, and nothing really happens with Doc on Mars, so you could cut that, too. Oh, and (4) the bad guy should really die in the end.
Riiiiight.
http://io9.com/5165227/the-version-of-watchmen-the-studio-wanted
One thing I particularly liked was the ties to the “real world” by unabashed inclusion of celebrities of different sorts — not just Nixon (and Kissinger), but Ted Koppel and David Bowie and Andy Warhol, and Lee Iococa … even when it was just a passing image, it added to the verisimilitude in a way that generic figures wouldn’t have.
And for those who missed it, while “the squid” doesn’t show up, a SQUID does. If you watch the carefully when John is teleporting the reactor down to Karnak (talking with Adrian over a video call, just after Laurie has discovered he’s “three-timing” her), you’ll see against the back wall that the reactor is called SQUID (Sub Quantum Unifying Intrinsic Device, though some sites say it’s Sub QUantum Intrinsic Device).
http://io9.com/5158465/zack-snyder-has-a-squid-for-you-plus-a-new-watchmen-clip
where Snyder discusses why the original Squid didn’t make the script — essentially because of the time necessary to set up the backstory of it. I would have rather, ideally, seen that (it’s a richer idea, in a lot of ways), though the finessing around it works better than I would have thought.
(Or *did* it make the script and get shot, and was just cut for length? http://io9.com/5069493/watchmen-ending-may-be-closer-to-the-comic-than-you-think ).
Frankly I think the ending as presented is much cleaner. Without both the art island subplot AND the pirate comic subplot the Squid just doesn’t make sense. You already have a frightening ‘other’ in the person of *spoiler removed by me before typing*, introducing another other for no reason is narratively sloppy.
One of the major themes of the comic was how the tone of communication changed the way people interacted, and that was completely absent. The whole Black Freighter and Squid plotline were aimed at highlighting that change in communication and world view. WAAAAAY too deep for a movie of this sort and other plots going on.
DId it bother anyone else that in the comic at the funeral Dr. M kept the rain off himself, but in the movie it was hitting him?
Actually, I didn’t see rain on Doc M. I actually didn’t see much rain on Nite Owl, except on his glasses.
I liked the idea of something that was not only scary, but engineered to be scary, including the use of artistic imagery. It also made for a threat that was fully from “outside,” whereas the threat from [movie menace] was not only identified with a particular faction, but would, presumably, lead to some blame being assigned (albeit disarmed in a “Fail-Safe” sort of way).
Also, the solution provide presumes that the antagonist would not be returning or object to the act having been done, which is a bit more problematic.
I don’t think the threat in the movie, in short, is as good as the threat in the book. However, it is in fact a brilliant shortcut, so I am more than willing to live with it.
I just saw the movie (yeah, I waited a long time). I think the plot is cleaner, clearer, and neater — it’s clearly v2 of the plot by comparison with the comic’s v1. It makes the villain’s big plot more workable, in my opinion, because it plays more to the villian’s strengths and doesn’t involve the same kind of secrecy. I think the movie does a better job of deconstructing the idea of a superhero than the comic does, and I think the movie does a better job of being “real-world” than the comic does. In that regard, I think Moore should be ashamed of himself for his attitude toward the movie — it’s insulting to the artists who made the movie, who clearly understood what he was trying to do and were very effective at doing the same thing in a different medium. I don’t buy his idea that this is something that could only be done in a comic book. I liked the Hendrix version of “All Along the Watchtower.” I thought it had a nearly punk sound, and I thought that sound fit the end of the movie while preserving the connection to the comic. Dylan’s version (which I haven’t heard in a very long time) would, I suspect, not be nihilistic enough. All that said, I don’t like the movie very much. I think the acting is a little flat, I don’t particularly like some of the costumes, and I think it was move violent, more gory, and more sexual than it needed to be.
In short, I liked the movie adaptation of “V for Vendetta” more than I liked this.
You’re probably the first person I’ve read who’s made that final assessment.
I still disagree that the plot (save for the omission of the Black Freighter) is cleaner and neater, except that it fits into a 2.5h movie, rather than the several hours that the full Moore book would have required. It’s the best feature-length _Watchmen_ I think we could have gotten, though.
In the comic, it always bugged me a little that the villain figured out how to do teleportation. The movie seems neater to me in the sense that this mystery is eliminated.
Another thing that bugged me in the comic was the idea that Archie has water cannons and a significant amount of water on board. Shooting the legs out from under the water tower on the roof was a better idea.
If I watch it again, I suspect I’ll remember some other ways the movie script was cleaned up.
I would agree that the comic is richer due to the inclusion of the side plots that are not in the movie (the newspaper vendor, most of the psychologist’s story, most of Hollis Mason’s story).
One change I don’t understand is why the movie has Dreiberg rather than Rorschach warn Veidt about the hypothesized mask killer.
One bit of trivia I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned: the computer on Veidt’s desk appears to be a Macintosh SE or Macintosh Plus painted black.
Since teleportation is already demonstrated in the Watchman (movie) world, figuring it out how to do it is not substantially different from the Evil Scheme as it unfolds.
The ending is neater only in that it eliminates plot elements, making it simpler. I think those elements added some richness to the book’s plot, but I concur it would have been difficult to do it justice in the course of the movie’s theatrical run time.
(There were very strong rumors and set reports that the original Evil Scheme was actually filmed. I don’t know if those were false, or if we’ll see some of that as supplementary material when the movie comes out on disc.)
Yeah, Archie having gunnery makes sense — though I also recall in the book that the water cannon were used for crowd control during the Keene Act riots. A small vehicle could have a water tank under pressure (to help give it negative buoyancy under water as well) which would work for spot fires, if not to put a conflagration completely out. It’s no more of a wonder than Archie being able to fly in the first place, of course.
Dreiberg fits better, more legitmately, into the Veidt world than Rorschach (who is a wanted criminal, of course). It’s a shame, because it loses the unpleasant relationship between the two, but it does give Dreiberg something more to do (can’t recall if that scene was conflated into the assassination attempt scene; if so, it’s even more of a reason, since Dreiberg was there in mufti).
I noticed the Mac — I don’t recall if it was branded as a Veidt computer or not.
I don’t expect to see it in the theaters again (time constraints), but I’ll certainly be watching the DVD when it’s time.
I think of the villain as a social engineer rather than a technician, so having him figure out a technical wonder like teleportation bugs me, even if it’s been demonstrated by Dr. Manhattan. But if the villain can trick Dr. Manhattan into providing him with the technical wizardry he needs for his evil scheme, that’s consistent with the villain’s genius lying in the area of social engineering. I think that’s the main advantage of the movie ending over the comic ending.
You make good points about Archie’s water tanks and about Dreiberg’s warning to Veidt. With respect to Dreiberg and Veidt, it gives the movie less emphasis on Rorschach, which the comic achieved in other ways.
But I remembered another gripe. In the movie, Dr. Manhattan has the ability to affect a person’s mind (he does it to Laurie Jupiter twice). I think this is a mistake. In my mind, Dr. Manhattan is the villain’s opposite: he can create technical miracles and manipulate physical objects, but he can’t understand or manipulate human behavior. In addition, I think the movie makers could have accomplished the same thing with a regular flashback without dressing it up with a super power.
I’ve also taken a look at the comic this morning. I need to revise what I said about the claim that this story could only be done in a comic book. I need to distinguish the deconstruction of super heroes from the interleaving of many stories, sometimes shifting between stories panel by panel. That highly interleaved storytelling probably cannot be done in a movie that anyone would want to watch. The deconstruction of superheroes clearly can be done in any media.
Given that the entire movie is full of straightforward flashbacks, giving Dr M the ability to give Laurie detailed flashbacks was unnecessary.
I tend to agree with most of the rest of your points — though clearly the villain’s lair and deathtrap indicates a level of technical prowess (partially hired, of course, but still) beyond simple exercise of charisma and psychological manipulation.
What I think the movie does do in the villain’s tricking of Dr M is keep the villain less “guessable” (for the audience who haven’t read the book) than otherwise. Maybe.
Hmmm … these are the comments — we can probably allow spoilers. 🙂
Oh, and I got confused about the music. I still think the Hendrix version of “All Along the Watchtower” is a better choice than the Dylan version, but the punk-sounding thing over the end credits is “Desolation Row” by My Chemical Romance.