I will watch the Watchmen

Well, I haven’t made a new post in a while.  Not only that, but I’ve been slacking on posting in general.  I used to have a new post every other day, but now it feels like I’m going 1 or 2 weeks without adding something new.  I’m going to try and change that.

Anyways, let’s get back on track:

I’ve never been big into graphic novels.  This isn’t to say that I disliked them at all, I just never took the time to get into them.  Sure, I had some friends who really liked them, and I’d read some of their copies every once in a while, but I never bought any of my own… until now.

For those of you aren’t aware (although I imagine that’s very much a minority these days), Watchmen is a graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  It was published during 1986 and 1987 and has since been put into a single collection.  It is set in an alternate reality in which “costumed heroes” or “masked adventurers” are no longer fictional (although not necessarily common) and with several political events changed (the outcome of the Vietnam War, for example).

*Spoilers Ahead*

What I really love about this book, is that the plot is almost unnecessary.  The story is completely character-driven.  Not only that, but the book is a commentary on comic books as much as it is one itself.  It has a certain sense of self-deprecating humor while retaining a very realistic style in its satire.  There’s even some analysis of the super hero motif presented in the form of a ‘comic book within a comic book.’

This is helped along quite a bit by the various documents which are shown with each chapter.  Straying from the graphic novel style, it gives us a view of the Watchmen world which one might expect from actual literature.  In a certain sense, it becomes almost like metafiction.  The characters almost seem aware that they are playing parts within a graphic novel’s story.

My one gripe with the book is that of the ending.  While it makes perfect sense as an ending to the story, and it is absolutely necessary that it ends that way, I find that the transitions of the characters are ultimately unsatisfying.  This is annoying, for me, as the book is really all about the characters, and the story is the backdrop.

These tools work amazingly well within the bounds of a graphic novel, but how well might they translate to film?

Let’s take a look:

I must say, the trailers look pretty amazing.  However, some of the elements which I think make Watchmen a step above the rest (those literary devices I discussed earlier) are absent.  While I can understand this decision, as they need to market it to a wider, less patient audience, it leaves me a little worried.  Mostly, I’m worried that they’ll have to turn it into an action/super hero movie, and really, there is very little action in the entire series.

I also dislike the fact that they’ve modernized the costumes a bit.  I thought that the more traditional comic book hero appearance of the characters added to the satire.

From what I’ve read on the Wikipedia article for the film, there will be a second DVD which will be released when the movie comes out and will include the Tales of the Black Freighter in animated form as well as a mockumentary which will fill in the space of the backstory.  It’s unfortunate that time restrictions will make the joining of all these parts together an impossibility, but it’s nice to know that they’re at least attempting to stay true to the book as much as possible.

The one thing that really scares me is this quote: “ My Chemical Romance (whose lead singer Gerard Way is a fan of the comic) will cover Dylan’s “Desolation Row” for the closing credits.”

Do we really have to sink that low?