March 15th, 2009
Watchmen On My Mind
I’ve allowed myself several days of reflection before posting about the Watchmen. I was never raised in a way that made me read comics, however I had my fun with their Saturday morning cartoon versions. As studios started releasing comic book based movies, I found myself to be quite a fan of the genre in general. However I had never really heard of Watchmen until I saw the trailer.
Somewhat after seeing the feature film I found myself craving to learn more about the property. I found myself reading the graphic novel, watching interviews and documentaries on the making of this movie and the book that inspired it (iFanboy 111 & 112). I’ve even tried my hand at the demo if The End is Nigh, a Watchmen brawler. All that to say, that the movie can give you so much content to think about. Not just plot wise or the themes of humanity. The film itself, by the way it’s made, tries to provoke. I clearly remember telling myself halfway through the movie: “I don’t think I’m really going to like this movie”.
But somehow by the end, everything made sense. The awkward music, the shots, the convoluted dialogue, the nudity. Everything came full circle, that may very well be attributed to the fact that I had not read the graphic novel prior to seeing the movie. I did not know the conclusion, I did not know who lived and died, who the villain really was. Discovering those characters was by definition a “geekgasm“; the character of Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan alone, were more developed than Spider-Man was in three movies. The opening sequence provides, on it’s own, an amazing amount of back story into the Watchmen universe. I’m not a history buff, and I clearly missed on several references, but the existence of these masked heroes altered the timeline as we know it.
America dominates in Vietnam, thanks to their super-powered hero.
The movie was rated R, meaning people under 17 have to be accompanied by a consenting adult, we’re clearly departing from comic book properties targeted at kids. The movie is DARK, DEPRESSING, VIOLENT, CRUDE and GRITTY. By doing so, it feels grounded in reality, the same way Battlestar Galactica feels. It’s like Science fiction, with less fiction. The movie sticks the original material like a gum under your shoes, dialogue and shots are reproduced with great fidelity. We have Zack Snyder to thank for this feat, the work he did for 300 surely helped some fans understand he could pull it off.
In my book, I consider this movie to be a triumph, what it represents as a medium, art form, entertainment media. It does justice, in my opinion, to a graphic novel that was considered “un-filmable”, this property was put in the spotlight, sales of the book sky rocketed in anticipation of the movie. But I consider myself happy to have experience the film first. Things are constantly thrown at you stimulating your brain, when it comes to reading content, everyone has his pace, can take the time to discover the subtleties of each frame. You experience a movie as a whole, not knowing and discovering can be a blessing. What I learned about Rorschach was truly disturbing and came right at me. No famous Hollywood actors where used in this picture, many I’ve seen before, but they out performed any of my expectations. This movie goes right beside V for Vendetta in terms of meaningful movies.
Feel free to share love or hate in the comments.
Our first interaction with him is a bullet to the chest. Aside from character development and that annoying kid that I loved to hate, the movie shows off how cool aliens can be, unclear of what technology they might be using. Indicating how out of reach they are, and how miserable we truly are in the grand scheme of things. Sadly, the movie fails at having the message come across to the general public. As shown in this poster, what I’ve liked the best about the movie was how bad ass the giant “robot” was. The Day the Earth Stood Still is a clever reference to how the movie ends, but you should go read 
