wouldyoukindly99 said:
The Watchmen was one of my all time favorite movies and I'm guessing that you're one of two people:
Fanboy who's obsession with the comic makes him hate every other interpretation of the source material. <--This.
OR
A moron with the attention span of a dyslexic squrriel. <-- Not this. I've watched Lawrence fof Arabia in one sitting.
Don't say something isn't good without giving reasons.
Ok, I'll explain why.
Watchmen the film takes away some very, very key points to the story and characters whilst cramming in as much of the useless ephemera as possible. The result is the complete opposite of The Lord of the Rings (where things were ruthlessly cut to focus purely on the main drive of the story), you get the impressions that whoever directed and wrote the screenplay were only vaguely familiar with the book despite claiming to be fans. They obviously decided to make the film showing all the bits that Moore and Gibbons
couldn't show you, when the entire point is that it's what Moore and Gibbons
wouldn't show you.
The audience is supposed to make up their own mind.
<spoiler=Take Rorschach for example> In the comic his actions are never justified by anyone but him, the audience is expected to decide for themselves.
The 'child murderer' for example, is never explicitly said to have done anything wrong, he never admits to it (quite the opposite), the dogs are fighting over a generic bone and the scrap of fabric he finds is one of many (it's an old dress maker's shop).
Same applies to the prison inmate who wants an autograph. In the book that's all he wants, in the films he's got a shiv.
The film constantly goes out of it's way to justify Rorschach as 'not all that bad' when the whole point is you yourself are supposed to decide whether he is genuinely trying to do good, or no better than the criminals he claims to be fighting.
<spoiler=Other minor things that show a general lack of care and attention to detail>
Ozymandius' attack, if an ostensibly American weapon suddenly obliterated Moscow, Russia wouldn't wait to see who else was hit. The whole point of the Alien attack scenario was it's supposed a completely outside influence that can hit anyone at anytime, yet can be defended against.
It was supposed to be an accident rather than an attack, it was also supposed to force the superpowes into working together to protect everyone, not just continue to be enemies in a constant state of fear.
Archie fires a gatling gun, inside the New York city limits. Rotary cannon, sky scrapers, the National Guard would be there in minutes. Why didn't they just stick with the extremely cool fire suppression system?
The short guy in the prison, does he or does he not die?
Dan Dreiburg doesn't like Rorschach, despite being his friend he knows his life would be a lot easier if Rorschach stopped busting his door all the time and jsut didn't come back. When Rorschach leaves Ozymandius headquarters, he doesn't question it.
Was there any reason for that 10minutes(!!!) long sex scene? It would have been nice if not for the middle aged man taking half the screen up, why not the twenty seconds you-know-what-happens next from the comic?
My biggest problem is that reading the comic then coming to the film you get the impression the people making the film thought they knew better. The effect isn't hugely different to what a 15 year old fan fic writer would produce. All the things they needn't have bothered with and the important bits changed because they didn't have faith in the original telling.
It's not a
bad film as such, it's just hugely irritating to see something so well written and constructed treated with such a lack of care.
