Wow.
The Watchmen
- Thread starter Brian in Mesa
- Start date
Wow.
Finally sat down and watched this one. I used the comic book as source material for an essay I wrote in '94 for a poli sci class on nuclear proliferation and the balance of power. I grew up during the 70s and 80s, and the terror of experiencing nuclear war was palpable -- especially with Reagan's alleged Star Wars program being an aggressive pose that seemed to be pushing all the wrong buttons with the USSR.
I think if you were born after, say, 1978, none of this will hit any emotional buttons for you, not even if you are a die-hard comic fanboy. But it's not that I think the movie was irrelevant. It still has all kinds of great storylines and, like all the great anti-hero comic books, it borrows heavily from Conrad's view of humanity: Man's heart of darkness.
Visually, I felt the movie failed to break any new ground, which I think was imperative they do to make the movie as fresh as the comic book felt. It looked great, but it wasn't an earth-shattering movie experience. It wasn't the Matrix. It wasn't 300. The look and feel owed more to Speilberg's love affair with neon than anything truly dystopic. Well, that and urban blighted Detroit of RoboCop. I almost felt like they used those sets as inspiration.
They were very loyal to the comic book, which I think means it will have some staying power in the sub-culture of cinema. That's an accomplishment in and of itself.
Its one big failure, IMO, was a lack of self-aware irony. You can be as melodramatic as you want in a comic book. The rules are different for cinema, though. You can't present me an alt-history look at Nixon in his fifth term in office and all the accompanying history re-writes and not give me some satire. It was there for the taking. I guess maybe they feared dishonoring the source text. IMO, that's a minor liberty an adapting writer should be given. Stuff like that would've gone some distance to help a mass audience connect. Instead, we're presented Nixon the dictator as being somewhat presidential, somewhat ... human. The evil presented there was too subtle. The joke about Reagan should've been left out. It's not funny 20 years later. Actually it's pretty corny.
I'm a little weary of movies about dystopia. I think maybe the audience is too. Even a strong libertarian shout out like V for Vendetta comes up a little tired. It all feels like it's a decade too late. I think, more than anything, this movie suffered mightily from bad timing.
I think if you were born after, say, 1978, none of this will hit any emotional buttons for you, not even if you are a die-hard comic fanboy. But it's not that I think the movie was irrelevant. It still has all kinds of great storylines and, like all the great anti-hero comic books, it borrows heavily from Conrad's view of humanity: Man's heart of darkness.
Visually, I felt the movie failed to break any new ground, which I think was imperative they do to make the movie as fresh as the comic book felt. It looked great, but it wasn't an earth-shattering movie experience. It wasn't the Matrix. It wasn't 300. The look and feel owed more to Speilberg's love affair with neon than anything truly dystopic. Well, that and urban blighted Detroit of RoboCop. I almost felt like they used those sets as inspiration.
They were very loyal to the comic book, which I think means it will have some staying power in the sub-culture of cinema. That's an accomplishment in and of itself.
Its one big failure, IMO, was a lack of self-aware irony. You can be as melodramatic as you want in a comic book. The rules are different for cinema, though. You can't present me an alt-history look at Nixon in his fifth term in office and all the accompanying history re-writes and not give me some satire. It was there for the taking. I guess maybe they feared dishonoring the source text. IMO, that's a minor liberty an adapting writer should be given. Stuff like that would've gone some distance to help a mass audience connect. Instead, we're presented Nixon the dictator as being somewhat presidential, somewhat ... human. The evil presented there was too subtle. The joke about Reagan should've been left out. It's not funny 20 years later. Actually it's pretty corny.
I'm a little weary of movies about dystopia. I think maybe the audience is too. Even a strong libertarian shout out like V for Vendetta comes up a little tired. It all feels like it's a decade too late. I think, more than anything, this movie suffered mightily from bad timing.
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Cardinals.Ken
That's Mr. Riff-Raff to you!
I still don't get how The Comedian got his name. Did he crack wise back in his Minutemen days?
Stout
Hold onto the ball, Murray!
Really? You didn't glom on? You've watched it, right? The Comedian, the guy that makes one big, sick joke out of the whole world and everything and everyone in it? Not sick as in dirty, but sick as in twisted. Irony at its finest.
If you can understand Pagliacci, you can understand The Comedian. To Moore, I think The Comedian was supposed to represent American vice and violence, dark things that had arrested our attention from noble causes. There's also something painfully truthful about pointing out the deep sadness in the comic, probably the source of the humor.
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Dan H
ASFN Addict
The comic was too Nietsczhe-ian (sp?) for my taste; I'll watch the movie from Netflix at some point but I'm sure it will be more of the same.
They should have just called it Douchebags vs. Tools. None of the characters had any heroically redeeming value. The best of them was probably Rorschach, and he was a psycho.
That plus the fact that Alan Moore is a fruit-loop in real life makes this one big "meh" for me.
They should have just called it Douchebags vs. Tools. None of the characters had any heroically redeeming value. The best of them was probably Rorschach, and he was a psycho.
That plus the fact that Alan Moore is a fruit-loop in real life makes this one big "meh" for me.
Cardinals.Ken
That's Mr. Riff-Raff to you!
Watch? yes
Glom? no
The Comedian's origins are from a less subtle time. I don't see how a heroic character from that era (post-depression) gets attributed a nickname with that sort of subtext.
Perhaps I'm latching on to the concept of the archetype in the wrong way.
Well ... hmmm.
Alan Moore is an anarchist and his love of chaos ... or perhaps just the naivete of our hope in heroes being more noble and brave than us ... is poured out into all his work. The 'hero' in V for Vendetta, I'm guessing, was Moore's most idealized version of himself. He sees the truly heroic as those who do the daring things that free people from self-imposed oppression. It's the kind of stuff that influenced other writers like Chuck Palahniuk, and it's the stuff of revolutions, so I think there's some power in that message. It's real punk rock. But that comes off as threatening if you have anything at stake in the world, I guess.
Nietzsche would've thought no more of Moore's anarchy than Nietzsche thought of organized religion. Maybe Moore was somewhat inspired by Nietzsche as a provocateur, but philosophically it ends there. Nietzsche found tragedy as life-affirming. Weed out all of Moore's cynicism and you see someone who desperately wishes to avoid tragedy. But he does is see it as inevitable as man succumbing to his weaknesses.
I agree he's weird, so are/were some of the most prolific and celebrated writers of the 20th Century. And if they weren't weird, they were probably a-holes. At least Moore can find the humor in his idiosyncracies. He claims to worship a Roman snake-god -- as a joke. Compare him to Philip Dick, who was certifiable and not someone you'd ask to care for your children for even a nanosecond.
I don't enjoy Moore's work, but I appreciate it in the sense there's not really anyone else like him out there. He's political, but not in the traditional Republican/Democrat sense. He really knows how to turn pop culture upside down and show us what it looks like on the inside. If philosophy is the understanding of the nature of man, I think Moore had as much insight to man in first world 20th Century as anyone.
But I can appreciate not wanting to watch a movie that, ostensibly, you know offers whatever the opposite of hope is. We love flawed anti-heroes. Moore goes one step further and makes nobility so fleeting as to fear anything or anyone with power. I say that's probably raw wisdom we should all invest some time and thought into, but again, doesn't make for enjoyable cinema.
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Gads pretty much summed it up well for me.
In UC speak, however, "it was crap."
In UC speak, however, "it was crap."
The Comedian's origins are from a less subtle time. I don't see how a heroic character from that era (post-depression) gets attributed a nickname with that sort of subtext.
Perhaps I'm latching on to the concept of the archetype in the wrong way.
I can see how that can cause confusion. The story was written in the 80s and the character was literally based on G. Gordon Liddy. I don't think it was Moore's intention to de-romanticize the 40s, more I think he was incapable of romanticizing anything. Nor would ever intend to do so.
I thought it was gassy windbag.FTFY.
Dr. Jones
Has No Time For Love
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This thread went way over my head about 40 posts ago.
Hated the movie.
Hated the movie.
I was wondering whether this would be worth getting on Netflix. I am not going to bother now.
Renz
An Army of One
It was okay. I was expecting it to be awful, so it exceeded my low expectations.
To begin with, it was about 20-30 minutes too long. Sometimes I had trouble telling if a scene was a flashback or taking place in the present. It dragged in parts too, so I can understand why it never achieved blockbuster status like many other superhero movies have.
I would have liked to see more backstory on Ozymandias. He was supposed to be 'the smartest man in the world'. I would have loved to see some flashbacks to his childhood and discover why he became one of the Watchmen. His character was way underdeveloped, IMO.
I didn't get the Dr. Manhattan character at all. That whole thing was way over the audience's head.
Overall, based on the movie, I don't really see why the 'graphic novel' was so popular. I give the movie 2 1/2 stars out of 5.
To begin with, it was about 20-30 minutes too long. Sometimes I had trouble telling if a scene was a flashback or taking place in the present. It dragged in parts too, so I can understand why it never achieved blockbuster status like many other superhero movies have.
I would have liked to see more backstory on Ozymandias. He was supposed to be 'the smartest man in the world'. I would have loved to see some flashbacks to his childhood and discover why he became one of the Watchmen. His character was way underdeveloped, IMO.
I didn't get the Dr. Manhattan character at all. That whole thing was way over the audience's head.
Overall, based on the movie, I don't really see why the 'graphic novel' was so popular. I give the movie 2 1/2 stars out of 5.
crisper57
Open the Roof!
I loved the graphic novel and I actually really liked their attempt to make the movie. Fans of the novel long thought that it was unfilmable, unless they took an HBO miniseries approach. Snyder was generally true to the source material (sometimes to a fault), but I was one of those people who bought the "ultimate cut", which is like an hour longer than the theatrical version.
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