I am hoping to go see Watchmen this weekend, but I have been informed that there is something seriously wrong with it.
Spoiler below the fold.
The ending has been changed! If you’ve read the graphic novel, you know there is supposed to be a titanic space squid. There is no squid! Zack Snyder, you bastard, you’ve made a squidless movie! You can imagine my reaction.
I’ll still go see it for the first three hours and ninety-leven minutes, but they better be darned good to make up for this horrible omission. And yeah, I might start ranting at the screen in German when it ends.
I’m wondering if I should see the film before reading the graphic novel – or see it after. Not sure what course of action to take.
I’ve seen that clip recaptioned I don’t know how many ways, but it never gets old.
Somehow those fake Hitler rants are really hard to watch if you know even the slightest bit of German. Focusing on the subtitles when they don’t match what is being said is almost impossible.
Does anyone know just how that meme began?
“when will hollywood learn to stop fucking with beloved masterpieces?” – so true!
I was looking forward to the squid the most. How the hell can they do this? Bastards!
I don’t know how it began, but the first one I saw was Hitler-as-stand-up-comedian.
They take one of the finest works of literature of the past thirty years and hand it to a director whose vocabulary includes the word ‘super-awesome’, and your biggest issue is with an absent squid?
*shakes head*
That was one of the better recaptions of the clip.
Ah, crud. And Chikai’s moving the rooftop duel from moonlight to noon. (Well, I wasn’t expecting much from Chikai in the first place, but…)
Sorry to interject something more serious after a humorous post, but “squidless movie” brought to mind Margaret Atwood’s poem, “Frogless,” which I share with you now:
FROGLESS
The sore trees cast their leaves too early.
Each twig pinching shut like a jabbed clam.
Soon there will be a hot gauze of snow searing the roots.
Booze in the spring runoff, pure antifreeze;
the stream worms drunk and burning.
Tadpoles wrecked in the puddles.
Here comes an eel with dead eye grown from its cheek.
Would you cook it? You would if.
The people eat sick fish because there are no others.
Then they get born wrong.
This is not sport, sir.
This is not good weather.
This is not blue and green.
This is home.
Travel anywhere in the year,
five years, and you’ll end up here.
(1995)
I didn’t complain when Superman Returns didn’t feature his rainbow ray power or the flying dog. you can’t always get what you want out of a comic book movie.
I’m a bit more optimistic now after looking around a bit. Of what I’ve read, there’s some speculation that the non-squid ending was a fake one for a test viewing for disinformation purposes. Rumors are they did film a squid scene. Doesn’t mean it isn’t squidless, but there’s still hope.
Hey, isn’t that clip from “Downfall”? ;0
SPOILERS WITHIN:
Despite the lack of squid, and SPOILER: lack of streets full of dead bodies at the end, it is still good and quite close to the book.
I don’t think fans should be worried.
Bren: Well, to be fair, taking out the giant squid changes the movie pretty significantly. As alien as he is, Dr. Manhattan simply doesn’t represent the same sort of extra-terrestrial, existential, answerable threat to humanity that the faked telepathic-monster invasion did. I really don’t see why the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would settle their differences in the way they did in the graphic novel in response to a god-like being who has left the earth, never to return.
This may not be the most dignified way for Bruno Ganz’s spectacular acting to go down in history, but it’s a way. I suppose.
I look forward to someone doing the subtitles on Messer im Kopf one day, for great justice.
Very funny. If anyone’s wondering, the film it comes from is “Downfall”, which, unlike Watchmen really is a masterpiece. We see Hitler’s disintegration during his last days in the bunker, and the reaction of all those around him, based on the memoirs of his secretary.
Seriously, check that one out – and, sorry, but it will never be remade in Hollywood. It’s like “Valkyrie”, only awesomely good – and without Tom Cruise.
So, I’ve seen this clip a bunch of times, but I don’t know what movie it is from. Could somebody identify it, please? I think I’d like to see the actual movie.
“when will hollywood learn to stop fucking with beloved masterpieces?”
Only when they deem it most profitable to do stop.
I found this article on the meme:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/26/magazine/26wwln-medium-t.html?_r=1
“They take one of the finest works of literature…”
You’re saying that this cartoon book is one of the finest works of literature??
At least the movie can’t be as bad as the old Saturday morning Watchmen show…
(Hurm. Alternate history metahumor.)
“I’m wondering if I should see the film before reading the graphic novel – or see it after. Not sure what course of action to take.”
It’s usually better to read the book first. And it’s such a gripping book that it should only take a few days to read.
Best. Nazi Clip parody. EVER.
>I have been informed that there is something seriously wrong with it….There is no squid!
Whew.
For a minute there I thought you were going to reveal that Ben Stein played Rorschach.
Oops. Sorry.
Well, The New Yorker sure didn’t like it, FWIW.
It’s a comic book! I haven’t read it, but from summaries it appears that it answers the burning question, how would the cold have been different if Superman were real. Please, everyone, top talking about it as if it were a work of art. Go read some Catullus.
That Hitler is such a drama queen. He had a VERY similar reaction to the season 2 finale of Torchwood:
PZ Myers wrote
-snip-
“And yeah, I might start ranting at the screen in German when it ends.”
If you do that, Ben Stein will take it as evidence that evolution and atheism are linked with Nazism.
:^)
“when will hollywood learn to stop fucking with beloved masterpieces?”
Never. As long as there’s money in it …
I’ve tried pretty hard to enjoy “graphic novels.” They just have never gotten the needle off of the left peg for me. They just come off … ham-handed in the end.
And Magical Powers ruin a book for me. When you can pull a magic rabbit out of a hat whenever you are in a plot jam (or invent a new phycics-challenged technology in a sci-fi book) it destroys the tension.
This lack of interest is odd, because I love action movies (including the latest two Batman movies and Ironman), visual arts, graphic arts, photography. I guess the fatal love here is books. I read about 80-90% non-fiction and the rest novels. Fiction just doesn’t interest me as much as all the great books out there that tell true stories.
Thanks for the link, Kel.
I think I might disagree with the writer’s conclusion. I see the “everyman” problem, but the idea needs to be fleshed out. When used self-referentially (as here) it seems to be more of an awareness and mocking, and thus deflation, of autocratic tendencies within ourselves. It’s challenging the fantasies of control and certitude to which we might be prone, which seems to me a positive thing. I suppose it depends on how it’s done…
Helena and Morris Hattrick,
Read the book before you attack it for being just a comic. Watchman is only of the best book that as come out in a long time. Comics have come a long way from the early days.
The cold war is only a plot back drop. The book is not about how the cold war would be different if superman was real. It is more along the lines of what would superman, or batman or the punisher be like if they were real. The answer is pretty messed up. The book is more about human nature than anything else.
I hope they did correct that embarrassing passwordgate. Come on, the Smartest Man on Earth couldn’t come up with a better one? Ha.
Speaking of German, there is an impressive list of cinemas playing Watchmen in Germany. Check out how many will have the original version (OmU or OV):
http://www.kino.de/kinofilm/watchmen-die-waechter/imkino/108069.html
Have you read The Watchmen? Part of the point is that his “magical powers” are not used to get out of a plot jam. It is about what those powers do to the weilder, detaching him from really caring about anything.
#27 – It is a “comic book” and it is also a work of art. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to condemn that which you have not even cracked open. For the record, I was skeptical at first until my boyfriend made me read it, and it’s very good, very deep. There are a lot of themes of atheism written into it, for one.
I echo the sentiments of #31 – I also read mostly nonfiction, and for the same reasons. The only fiction I have read in close to three years it Watchmen, now that I think about it.
Just back from seeing it at the IMAX in Melbourne. Yes, the change PZ suggests was made, but the substition makes sense in terms of the film. A shame, but it’s the only major change, and the film does work. The music is inspired, too.
Rumour is that a fair amount of what we’re missing from the cinema release will make a future special edition cut anyway.
Regarding the “IT’S JUST A COMIC BOOK! STOP CARING!” comments…
There’s as much of a difference between comic and comic, as book and book. Compare any of your favourite works of literary art to the thousands of crap novels churned out to be sold for a few dollars, or Ray Comfort’s books. Or just because there are so many crap movies that movies by definition are crap.
A medium is a medium, it does not confine what topics you can discuss/tell about.
When Alan Moore is involved, things are úsually not counted as “just” a comic book by a lot of people. Will Eisner is another name people should learn, he did great things in the US for making ‘grapic novels’ acknowledged as art and more than “just comic books”. I also recommend “Maus” and its sequel by Art Spiegelman for curing any notions that pictures + text = durrrr stupid.
STOP CONFUSING THE MEDIUM FOR THE MAINSTREAM MESSAGES!
Does Fox News mean that any news channels, even indie and other independents = crap?
—
…That said, I heard about the lack of squid months ago. It saddened me greatly, but I decided to take this movie as less awesome fan work, i.e. something that can still be very enjoyable, but shouldn’t be measured against the original. (I can’t claim to be a fan of Alan Moore, so don’t think I’m that rather than simply a fan of the Watchmen comic book, but it’s difficult to not have a certain amount of respect for the strange bloke.)
Morris Hattrick: “‘They take one of the finest works of literature…’
You’re saying that this cartoon book is one of the finest works of literature??”
It is. Watchmen is, I believe, the only graphic novel on New York Times list of the 100 best modern novels.
Helena: “It’s a comic book! I haven’t read it, but from summaries it appears that it answers the burning question, how would the cold have been different if Superman were real. Please, everyone, top talking about it as if it were a work of art. Go read some Catullus.”
It is a work of art. A great work of art, I would say. Why don’t you read it before being so dismissive of it.
Also, that line about Catullus made you sound really pretentious.
Steve @35:
“Have you read The Watchmen? Part of the point is that his “magical powers” are not used to get out of a plot jam. It is about what those powers do to the weilder, detaching him from really caring about anything.”
No, I have not read it. I will give it a try. Bet my 17-year-old has it …
The “super-hero” movie I liked the most recently may have been Hancock (except for the angle with Charlize Theron, though she did look fine) — a very different take the whole thing.
And since the NYTimes writer brings it up, I’ll say that I find the character of Dreyfus in the Pink Panther series one of the most fascinating characters in film. Those movies are more than just hilarious.
“Watchmen is, I believe, the only graphic novel on New York Times list of the 100 best modern novels”
OK, now you have my attention. I’ll definitely check it out.
So, as I’m thinking about all these comments about: It’s the book, not the medium; don’t lump all the rubbish with the good stuff, etc., I’m reminded of a joke:
In a psychological experiment, two 10-year old boys are put into rooms full of horse shit. After a few hours, the researcher returns to check on them. The first boy is sitting sadly in the corner. “Why did you put me in this room full of shit?!” The second boy is digging furiously through the pile of shit! The researcher asks him, “Why are you digging in that shit?” The boy replies, “With all this pony shit, there has to be a pony in there somewhere!”
In graphic novels (as you please) there is, in my experience, a whole lot more pony-shit to shovel out of the way before you get the ponies that are hidden in there. Life is short. If you are not enamoured of the medium, you are unlikely to wield that shovel very long before moving on to things you know will satisfy.
I tried the first “Last Man” graphic novel after hearing rave reviews from some people I figured I could trust for advice. The (again) ham-handedness of the treatment in the book just put me off completely. It was so cliched and stilted, I just couldn’t get interested.
I AM going to try wathcmen though. I’ve also heard the V For Vendetta is very good (I liked the movie very much).
I have seen it yesterday and apart from leaving out some parts (which obviously couldn’t be avoided) the squid monster was the only major thing they’ve changed.
They even let Dr.Manhatttan walk around naked most of the time! (I really thought they would have made him wear some pants, but it looks like Hollywood is finally getting a little less sensitive about frontal nudity.)
But seriously, it wasn’t a bad movie. It’s not a masterpiece and probably difficult to follow if you go in without any knowledge of the novel, but the acting is really good.
Do read it before you write it off. It is a comic book but at the same time like all good art it is so much more than just it’s medium.
There is a reason they say.
‘Alan Moore he knows the score.!’
I have to admit I didn’t get into Watchmen until after it was psyched up. And I have to admit that when I read this comic that everyone was raving about, I was horribly disappointed by the doomsday deterrent, actually the ending in general. It didn’t mesh well with me. Sorry to the Alan Moore fans.
I saw it at 12:02 this morning. (warning it’s 3 hours long!) and I was thrilled with the way the movie turned out. It was as if this entire movie was catered to my mind. It was everything I imagined it would be and the parts I didn’t like got changed. There are some irkings here and there but I think overall they did a great job. Oh and Rorschach is fucking awesome!!!!
I remember the image of the creature clearly. It had only a superficial resemblence to a squid. Even if they did remove it in the film, there are likely better reasons to be disappointed.
Did I not get the memo about comics being inherently of less worth than other forms of media?
It is a novel but at the same time like all good art it is so much more than just it’s medium.
It is a film but at the same time like all good art it is so much more than just it’s medium.
It is a painting but at the same time like all good art it is so much more than just it’s medium.
It is a recording but at the same time like all good art it is so much more than just it’s medium.
I’m fairly sure that the ratio of worthy to worthless comics is not altogether different to that metric for any other form of human expression. It is only occassionally that people produce anything of enduring value in any medium.
Go read some Catullus.
What an odd suggestion. I mean, I like Catullus but I rarely labor over a decision between modern escapist fantasy in my first language and ancient love poetry in a tongue that is not my most facile one.
For everyone dissing comics as an art form, please try some non super-hero stuff before finalizing your perceptions. I’d recommend Gilbert Hernandez’s Blood of Palomar as a good one to start with; it’s like Gabriel Garcia Marquez collided with Hank Ketchum.
JBlilie, you don’t have to dig through crap to find nuggets of gold, nobody said you had to. What I at least want is that people stop automatically assuming that just because something belongs to a certain medium, it’s crap in comparison to “real literature”. Especially when a lot of people claim otherwise, it juuust might be worth looking up in some reference site or such, e.g. wikipedia, and discover the long list of notable sources praising the book. That said, there’s nothing wrong with assuming that there’s a high probability something is crap, but that’s not at all the same thing as thinking stuff is automatically crap. The former means that when signs of otherwise crop up, one is willing to take that as a sign of that something may be different than the standard, rather than just deluded fanboys mentally masturbating over pointless details.
By the way, V for Vendetta was written by the same guy as Watchmen (Alan Moore). That movie too is claimed to be significantly different and inferior to the comic book (I have yet to read it) because of the oversimplifications the movie made. In the comic book, it’s not “good guy anarchist” vs “bad guy”, but two as extremist characters on the oppisite ends of the political scale, and it’s less black and white. That said, I liked the movie too. A lot of Alan Moore’s comics have been made into movies, unfortunately mostly dumbed down/heavily suffering from adaptation decay.
You pretty much can do the same thing with comic book authors as with plain books, if you like a book by a certain writer, it may pay off to read about his other books and pick some to read. Find sources you trust for book rankings etc, and don’t discriminate based on medium, unless you have attention imparement (e.g. a friend of mine has problems focusing on audiovisual stuff because of him trying to focus on too many details at once, due to a variant of autism, so he prefers stories in audio only, or visual only (text, or images, and so on) where he doesn’t have to be dragged along someone elses pace as much).
“It is only occassionally that people produce anything of enduring value in any medium.”
Indeed!
Robyn@33: Lots of readers think he wanted the password to be guessed.
Well, I thought of it too… But then, shame on Nite Owl for even trying it in the first place!
It’s 2009 and we’re still arguing over whether comics/graphic novels can be art? Well, I guess since none of them have ever won a Pulitzer Prize. Oh, wait…
I love how Hitler’s favourite characters are Rorschach and the Comedian.
In partial antidote to the ‘Beatify Moore’ comments, I don’t like most of his stuff but I love Watchmen. I also don’t like many graphic novels in general, but that’s the first one I enthusiastically recommend to people – and only the third comic, after Calvin & Hobbes and Far Side.
Frankly, from the time I heard there was going to be a Watchmen movie I hoped they’d change the mechanism of the ending. Dr. Manhattan makes sense in the world and everything else is pretty much following the laws of physics throughout – and then in the last act Ozymandias can design a psionic weapon? It’s a very nearly literal deus and literally ex machina, and there are so many ways to play the Greater Threat gambit that I see no reason for that break in the world. I’ve always felt that it’s because the creature dying is supposed to be some piece of symbolism, but if so it goes over my head.
c-law @ #11: you’re not trying to suggest that you actually liked “Superman Returns,” are you??
If you are looking for a really good comic, try the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman.
For those wanting to read Watchmen there is the animated comic book version coming out on DVD and Blu-ray. It’s the comic book animated with voice overs, limited motion and it’s five hours..
http://www.theworldofwatchmen.com/ has the site for it as well as the link to the Tales of the Black Freighter website which was an animated film cut from the movie .
For anyone who has a problem with the mere notion of the medium of comics and who is unconvinced by Sturgeon’s Revelation(http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/Sturgeons-Law.html), I always direct them to a book called “Palestine” by Joe Sacco about life on the West Bank during the first Intafada.
It’s journalism, and not only that, it’s extremely literate, humanitarian and effective journalism and it’s eye opening.
With regards V for Vendetta, the book is so much better than the film, it’s untrue. If you like the film, you should like the book much more.
Yeah, there’s no giant alien space squid thing, but the ending of the movie actually makes more sense than the ending of the graphic novel.
Overall, they did a pretty good job with the movie, especially with the casting. The actors were pretty spot-on. Definitely worth seeing in theaters.
“In partial antidote to the ‘Beatify Moore’ comments,”
But Moore is just one author of many notable and impressive ones, even if you limit the selection to only comic book artists! =(
Plus the whole saintliness is too close to religion to not be squicky.
Cephalopocalypse Now!
@ 27 – Helena, a lot of people don’t consider love poetry to be a “real work of art” either. Well, unless it starts, “There once was a girl from Nantucket…” A graphic novel or manga is no more a “comic book” than anime is a Saturday morning cartoon. Try reading one before passing the judgement that an entire genre is somehow invalid.
‘than anime is a Saturday morning cartoon‘
Pfft, don’t you know? Anime = porn. With those weird tentacle beasties. No exception. If anyone claims to have seen Maya the Bee as a kid, or “Millenium Actress”/”Spirited Away”/etc a few years ago, they’re talking about tentacle porn with strange costume play outfits, as opposed to plain tentacle porn.
@ Helena
Don’t dis something because of it’s medium. That’s just stupid. Drawing panels upon panels upon panels of art /= art? WTF. I can’t stand poetry, but that doesn’t mean I go around telling everyone it’s not an art form.
my bad
!/
Watchmen is also distinguished by being the only graphic novel (thus far) to win a Hugo Award (1988).
Ouchimoo, meh, it varies.
Compsci people or coders/scripters tend to use !=, while as more math only or mainstream people tend to use /=, or =/= as a visual representation of what it would look written on paper. As long as the person you’re writing it to knows what you means, any is fine.
The only Alan Moore book I’ve read so far was The Ballad of Halo Jones, which was great. It’s probably less super-heroic than V or Watchmen, if you can get over the fact that it’s set in a 1980’s vision of the future. The main character is an average woman, and it follows the various events in her life throughout all sorts of social, political, and economic upheavals and also how she changes and grows due to those events. I didn’t know it was Alan Moore at the time, but when I did notice, I was hooked. I also find super-hero stories kind of obnoxious at times (though they do run the gamut from overly-simplified to deeply intertextual). I’d also suggest Terry Moore’s Strangers In Paradise. Average women, no superheroics, modern day plot, etc for anyone who thinks that comics = Superman.
One thing–every movie starts with a sort of comic book. Storyboards are very similar to comic books. Plus, comic books have been valuable as a cheap and easily produced medium to see whether or not a story will a) work in a visual medium and b) will sell enough to be worth the expense of a movie. At least, that’s how I see it. If comics are a semi-literate bag of trash, so is cinema, since it too is pictures and words instead of just being a huge 5-inch thick mash of fine-print words that makes some people feel superior.
My best friend in high school was like that too. She only reads long-winded, fine print books (I read the same books, only on my own and not spoon-fed to me in a class) and I was just a moron because from time to time I would pick up something like the My Teacher is an Alien series, which is for kids. Well, I got news: children don’t generally write children’s literature! And try it for yourself, because it’s not as easy as it seems at first! I thought that series had a fairly advanced plot and sophisticated ethical considerations for being presented in such a young literary level, and was great for kids because it’s the kind of thing that would provoke some serious thought in children about who we are and what we owe each other and how much we could do if we really tried.
What I’m saying is that a medium isn’t for retards just because it doesn’t give you eyestrain to read or require a dictionary on hand just to understand it. Speaking as a writer, an advanced reader, an animator, and a longtime comic fan, a lot of the finest art is rooted in simplicity (brevity is the soul of wit, less is more, take your pick). I can’t tell you how many people will look at something I scribbled and think it more advanced than something simple and elegent, just because there are a lot of lines involved. The simpler drawing was harder to produce and required a more finished artist to create simply because it doesn’t bombard the viewer with a hodge-podge, but so many think that more lines = more effort.
I’d better go get an asprin for my pounding headache now. I wouldn’t have commented, but some of the snobbish comments about the inherent worthlessness of the comic medium pissed me off. Seriously, if you look at history, a lot of what is now considered classical literature was common in its time, and that is a universal theme.
Demonhype, you might wanna check out Astrid Lindgren’s books: books for kids, but without dumbing the content down.
Also, I need to check some day if I really did read all the SiP volumes, thanks for reminding me of it :-3
There once was a girl from Nantucket,
clenched her jewel and said “Aaaaw, fuck it!”
Her pearl, it seems,
Went the way of her dreams,
as it sank back into the muck, it.
I don’t have PZ’s attachment to squids for squids sake, so the omission of the squid won’t bother me if the basic point of what the squid represented (extraterrestrial threat) remains. And I could see eliminating the squid being a means of jettisoning some of the elements of the story to streamline it for filming.
It has a giant space squid?
I’m so out of touch with this that I imagined that all the talk was about some US remake of a Russian film that, I now realise, was called The Night Watch.
May I just say to those who adore the graphic novel: It’s extremely well crafted, presents a compelling alternate history with interesting characters, but, and this is a big but: The plot sucks. It is extremely far-fetched and hard to believe, and the ending is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in any fiction.
That said, it’s still worth a read, but not probably not more than once.
Helena, you suggest that we read Catullus instead, and I will take up your suggestion, with one alteration. I shall read Catullus as well. The two need not be mutually exclusive.
In fact, as a result of reading Watchmen, I have also been introduced to the works of Shelley and Blake, two poets referenced in the book. And I do mean referenced, not shoehorned in for added gravitas. And you may also like to know that the title, Watchmen, is drawn from a quote from Juvenal, albeit one quoted elsewhere.
Perhaps it doesn not belong in this thread, but speaking of comics=art, I’ve always stood in awe before El Eternauta. Also, I was made to read some Catullus at school. It left me unimpressed.
Read the novel first!
Its an excellent book, and well worth the read. I have no idea how good the movie is, but you should appreciate the book on its own before you watch the movie
I saw Watchmen in IMAX at midnight, and I loved it!
Just like several people already noted, it stayed very close to the source, except the squid bit; at the risk of pissing off fanboys, the space squid never really worked for me, anyway, so I liked the change. The visuals were amazing, acting was all very good (casting relative unknowns was key, IMO), and the musical choices were truly inspired – especially the Hendrix and Leonard Cohen cues. Oh, and I was glad the studio didn’t force pants onto Dr Manhattan – little details like that were what made the film great.
I’m going to see it a couple more times this weekend; hopefully it stands up after my standard premeire buzz.
“It is extremely far-fetched and hard to believe, and the ending is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in any fiction.
”
Well if Nixon has won Vietnam he would have been able to likely kill Bernstein and Woodstein or kill the story they would have put out.
Watchman supposes a world where costumed vigilantes were given free reign till the public had enough of their actions. Sure it’s far fetched because of the blueman winning Vietnam, Nixing being a five term president, the House Unamerican Activites Commitee still being active etc.
They changed the ending a tad because a Lovecraftian horror was pretty far fetched for an alien invasion that would get the world to unite. Manhatten being killed off may get the United States and other countries to form their own measures but inite the world from one apparent extra dimensonal monster? Nah it’s not an apparent alien invasion method that would get every country to unite as one in order to mobilize against another invasion that may not come for decades.
#27 – I have read Catullus, both in Latin and in English. So what?
If you are trying to make the point that there are many amazing pieces of literature out there to explore, then I whole-heartled agree with you. Some were written in the 1st century BC, and some were written a little more recently. In my opinion, The Watchmen is a revolutionary and remarkable pieces of literature, and if you don’t want to sound pretentious and out-of-touch with people who happen to live in the same era you do, you might want to include it in your reading list.
There are so many interesting novels, graphic novels and comics that explore humanity via superhumanity. Philip Wylie’s 1930 science-fictoin novel “Gladiator” may be the first of the lot, though I’d be curious if others here know of earlier. Check our our post on the subject.
Oh no, I’m saying nothing about the genre, art, blah blah blah. Just several people had come in with Moore is genius, Moore knows what’s up… I just wanted to address the hypothetical potential Watchmen reader who isn’t impressed by, for example, The Killing Torture Porn or V For Look How Many Words I Can Fit In A Panel, to tell them that Watchmen is something special in the form, the genre and the author.
Damn, all this talk about how good the movie is makes me impatient =(
I want to see it nowwww and not have to wait more! [/ 5-year-old style whining]
The squid thing was a bit much. Really only at home in a comic book. Yes, if I too was a Doctor of Cephalopodness then I’d miss it. But it felt like an in-joke for comic fans. Watchmen is a meta-comic book (crap, I really did just use meta in a sentence, I’m a pretentious liberal arts grad dickwad now), so the squid thing is a comment on comic books. He could’ve replaced it with some sort of joke about the endings of movies — actually he might have…
Off topic but it does concern a possible graphic novel.
Alison Bechdel
Octavia Butler is one of my favorite authors and Kindred just might the best of her many great novels. And the graphic novel can be great, like any other art form. Pick up a copy of Alison Bechdel’s Fun House as a good example. But I am not sure I like the idea. I guess it depends on who makes the adaptation.
My Powers of Amazing Spelling fail me…. please substitute “whole-heartedly” and “piece” where appropriate.
That’s what I get for being all angry & pretentious. :D
Apparently the Pirate story from the novel will be added into the movie as part of the DVD collector’s edition. Perhaps the squid will make it in then too.
Hypocee @#83, oh ah =)
Also, amusingly enough, if I recall correctly even Alan Moore as well as the artist of the Killing Joke said, in retrospect, that it’s not particularly good and nothing remarkable. Torture porn, eh? Probably a good thing I didn’t bother reading it, then.
No squid, eh? I can’t imagine what it’s going to take to drag me into the theater now. I was so looking forward to Dr. Tomorrowness bleating plaintively “open the cephalopod bay doors HAL” while clutching Voltronica’s lifeless corpse in his claws. I am, however, beginning to enjoy being able to say “I’m too old for this shit” and really mean it.
“Perhaps the squid will make it in then too.”
Unlikely. Also, as others pointed out: That ending worked for the comic due to what other comics were like at the time, whether it would work as well in the movie is questionable.
I would accept that ones taste in “art’ is purely subjective and by definition prejudicial.
It is all very personal. No one can say what I like or what anyone else likes is not art or is bad art or good art in the end only that they do not like it and for these reasons which are personal.
One art form can be compared to an other art form but they are not really the same but may (to me only) have important similarities.
You can not really use reason to convince anyone that a given work is good or great in itself only that it is “culturally, socially or historically” important or influential. You or I may never like it ourselves that is he way it is.
As far as believability goes Who could believe that Portia in The Merchant of Venice could pull of her mascaraed and even fool her lover? That does in no way distract from the power and magic of the play, we simply over look that, we suspend our disbelief!
I personally recommend the comics by the director Alejandro Jodorowsky
For those of you that have not read good comic books, here are a couple that I consider literature among the medium:
The Sandman Series (this series has finished, so you can find it in book form)
by Neil Gaiman (who also wrote many good novels, including Neverwhere, American Gods, Ananzi Boys, and Good Omens with Terry Pratchett. He also wrote a children’s book called Coraline which has recently become a movie)
Fables
by Bill Willingham
I don’t know what else he has done, so I will explain a bit about Fables. The idea being that the nursery tales are all extremely short and limited treatments of characters that exist, and so they are fleshed out greatly, so you see for instance, how Rose Red and Snow White had major issues with sibling rivalry, even before they both had sex with Charming.
Watchmen is also on my list of literature in comic form.
Tales of the Black Freighter is being released direct to DVD in five days, just in time to load a digital copy on to your iphone and watch it in your seat while Watchmen plays out on your Imax screen.
For those of you who* have not
@#46
Oh and Rorschach is fucking awesome!!!!
You’re telling me that Snyder’s movie portrays a brutal psychopath, one who is so utterly detached from the world around him that he can only deal with the world through violence from behind a mask that he considers his true face, who has severe emotional and parental issues, and who has become so divorced from actual reality that there’s nothing left to him but a shell of a little boy who can only lash out against the world in anger and hate – you’re telling me that Snyder’s movie portrays this in a manner that can be described as “fucking awesome”?
I hope to Grod that you are wrong – that Rorschach is portrayed as the pathetic, dysfunctional, brutal figure that Alan Moore wrote when he penned Watchmen. Because I’m going with friends to see Watchmen this weekend and I really, really, really don’t want to spend over two hours sitting through a display of someone so utterly missing the goddamn point of the book that they’re trying to adapt.
Yes indeed, and credit to them both for their candor and aspiration. I certainly don’t mean to be down on Moore either; “He only wrote lots of perfectly good stuff and one or two dazzling masterpieces” is more than anyone will ever say about me! But there’s a large and vocal contingent of Batman fen that’ll tell you TKJ is the best Batman story, and a genre-transcending exploration of the nature of evil.
Just a thought, but if hitler was alive today, he’d be making a mint off his talk radio show.
well, whilst there’s no squid, the project is at least named squid.
Sitll makes a sad panda.
I really, really, really don’t want to spend over two hours sitting through a display of someone so utterly missing the goddamn point of the book that they’re trying to adapt.
From everything I’ve read, if the movie has a problem it is in going overboard with slavishness to the source material, lifting entire passages of dialogue and merely executing Gibbon’s vision. Moore has commented on the popularity of the Rorschach character. One measure of the success is to read reviews by critics who just don’t get it (like the New Yorker review) who are appalled that the movie has no heroes.
As for Alan Moore, his attitude toward filmed adaptations is interesting. They cannot, by definition, be what he intended in mixing words and pictures in a book where the reader juxtaposes concepts and images independently, unlike the experience of having your attention dictated by the pace and focus of a film. While he does not lend his name to any filmed adaptation, Moore negotiates his hefty fee in such a manner that the artists who draw his books get the money he would have made.
NonyNony, he’s both. A pitiable, broken, brutal shell and awesome. He inspires awe with his insane insight and terrifying inhumanity. He’s an antihero, and the arguable hero of (the last panel of) the story.
I think it’s pretty much agreed everywhere that Jackie Earle Haley–a long ways from Bad News Bears–as Rorschach/Kovacs gives the movie’s best performance, both with and without the mask. He comes off as quite pathetic, but finally, tragic. Although yes, he does have some pretty “fucking awesome” scenes–in the same way, I guess, that Travis Bickle is “fucking awesome.” Sad but true.
@ NonyNony
At least to me, he is EXACTLY as I imagined him in the book. Right down to the voice. Also the actor was able to do the Rorschach’s detachment perfectly. Especially so when he was getting taunted by the inmates. In fact in the end when he shows emotion to Dr. Manhattan, I had to look it up in the graphic novel because a sudden shift to emotion was so shocking.
I know a lot of people were pegging for Rorscharch not to be fucked with. That includes me. Which is why I am so happy about the way it turned out.
Wolverine from Xmen is hugely popular too. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come from his brotherly/fatherly personality.
:P
I like this thread!: Wheee, book tips! *jots down names and titles*
@#97: Torture porn = “bestest evar”? Scary :-/
@#98: Possibly, though that reminds me of that book I keep wanting to read but keep forgetting about, about how it would have been if Hitler had moved to the US in artist angst and become a scifi author. Seems like a great book to read, and apologies for my extremely dumbed down and badfic type summary. …Trying to find the title/author took longer than what I thought it would: ‘”The Iron Dream” is a metafictional 1972 alternate history novel by Norman Spinrad.’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Dream
Paraphrasing Moore, Rorschach is what Batman would be in the real world, a vigilante psychopath with a king-sized death wish.
I saw the midnight show last night and the movie is amazing. Don’t worry, Rorschach is totally fucked up and that *makes* him an awesome character.
The changed ending is totally acceptable, trust me. I’m not sure I agree it’s easier for an audience to handle, but it didn’t bother me one bit as a huge fan of the source material.
I believe this movie is a gift of love from director Snyder to fellow fans. He took on the job not so much because he felt it should be done but because he wanted to save it from being made terribly by Hollywood. The script he was given was set in modern day in Iraq, had a happy ending, and was a setup for a sequel. First thing he did was rewrite it so it was as true to the source material as possible. The studio was pissed, but by then 300 was a smash and they let him continue.
That sounds like a setup to forgive the flaws in the film, and normally it would be. But there really aren’t. What’s left out had to be left out, what’s changed had to be changed, and what’s in is amazing, dense, uncomfortable and engaging.
My only real complaint is that the makeup on a few characters (Nixon especially) was a bit phony and “snapped my suspenders of disbelief”.
It’s a piece of shit, don’t bother. Read the graphic novel. That’s the only place where the story works.
gotta read the novel first, foreshadowing is a major component of the irony in the story that I can’t see being translated to the screen.
brutal: check
psychopathic: check
dysfunctional: check
pathetic: WRONG.
why cram Rorschach into such a two-dimensional box? he’s not good or bad. he’s totally sympathetic.
the point of the goddamn book is to have three-dimensional characters. goddamn hippy, s’what you are. shut your bong hole!
“In fact in the end when he shows emotion to Dr. Manhattan, I had to look it up in the graphic novel because a sudden shift to emotion was so shocking.”
http://comics.ign.com/articles/956/956412p1.html it’s number five of the ten most shocking moments of the Watchmen graphic novel.
Er, Keith, perhaps the book is the only place where the story works with your personal connotations and biases, but it seems as if the movie works not only from minimum adaptation decay point of view, but also for a great deal of various personal bias from different people. What I mean to say is that declaring the movie to be a piece of shit seems unreasonable harsh. Not an as good experience as the book? Possibly, plusminus some individual variables. But to downright call it a piece of shit… Seems like a too black and white kind of view.
Gblilie #43: I should caution you – V for Vendetta the movie and V for Vendetta the graphic novel are completely different things. Completely. The only things they have in common are a protagonist who wears a Guy Fawkes mask and some minor parts of the actual plot.
Not that either one isn’t enjoyable on its own, but they aren’t the same.
I caught a midnight showing of this last night with some friends. Even though I’ve had the novel for the last three months, I never got around to reading it. So I was unfamiliar with the characters and story.
Overall, the film didn’t really do anything for me. My friends who had read the book indicated that I probably would have liked it more had I read it as well. The problem with the film is that it’s very difficult to take serialized stories with lots of characters like Watchmen, and turn it into a 2-3 hour film. Unfortunately, instead of trying to adapt the book so it would work better as a film, Snyder seems to have painstakingly recreated the panels from the book as closely as possible. But naturally, you can’t fit all the scenes from the book into the film – there just isn’t enough time.
So, instead, we’re given a bunch disparate set pieces and events, but there’s no soul to this film at all. The story is barely comprehensible to new viewers, and none of the characters’ motivations are developed. Everything just sort of happens – and if you don’t already have a connection to the characters and if you aren’t familiar with the backstory, it all falls flat.
Still, I suppose it’s an enjoyable film to watch, but you can’t help but think that it could have been so much better if they had taken some risks and made the film their own. There was so much potential here, but I think Snyder and co. missed the target.
JBlilie #43, sorry. I kant spel tudaye. :(
Also wanted to add:
I think if Snyder wanted to go for as literal an adaptation as possible, it would have worked much better as a longer film, or to have broken up the story into several films.
It really is kind of a clusterfuck as it is. They tried to sell too much too quickly, and we don’t buy anything as a result. I look forward to seeing the director’s cut though.
I feel your pain. Ozymandias says that the brain of the creature was “cloned from a human sensitive”; if human sensitives had had any significant impact on the story before then, it would have worked a helluva lot better. It’s like the cameo appearance which ESPers make in the Ghost in the Shell manga: “I foresaw that you were going to call me for help, but I don’t have any help to offer you.”
Yeah the movie would have had to been a lot longer to put everything in it. However for a comic book the action was pretty scarce. People would have been upset that the movie was too long and too boring. There is no happy middle. I think that is why they pushed so hard for people to read the graphic book a year prior to the movie coming out.
They really had no choice with it, PZ. Sure, a movie with an extra hour built in to explain the squid part would have been nice to us loyal fans, but it would have looked completely ridiculous to the larger audience. I saw the premiere and don’t worry–the ending they fashion is coherent and appropriate.
Seen it, and yeah, they fucked it up.
The ending in particular, just grates.
The film has its good points but they’re not enough to save it from being an heroic failure.
They said it was unfilmable, well now we know they were right.
The main thing that irked me in the movie was Malin Ackerman’s (Laurie) acting. Oh my god, she was inadequate. Totally failed at capturing Laurie’s emotional complexity.
The ending was better. Sorry P.Z. The squid would have been really stupid. The movie actually makes more sense.
The marquee at the Neptune theater, Seattle:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tikistitch/3333213543/
WE ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES TO NOTICE!!!
I’d like to see some comments from fans of the “Watchmen” on the juxtaposition of “Tales of the Black Freighter” in the graphic novel.
“I’d like to see some comments from fans of the “Watchmen” on the juxtaposition of “Tales of the Black Freighter” in the graphic novel.”
You will have to wait the release of the feature on dvd or blu-ray. It’s in a few days.
I don’t understand it at all, to be honest. I’m sure it’s supposed to be juxtaposed against events in the story, but I’ve never seen much connection between its story or themes and events in the larger work. I somehow get the feeling Watchmen needs it, but at the same time I don’t like it and find it intrusive and pretentious. I’ve basically been waiting years for some future rereading to suddenly make it make sense; until then, I see it as A. communicating the cynical depression of a popular culture that’s abandoned the idea of heroism, B. providing a structural sort of comic relief and C. creating a false dichotomy to make its parent story feel more “real”.
Why would I have to wait for the release of the feature on DVD? “Tales of the Black Freighter” is part of the novel and that is what I’m seeking comment on, not the movie.
How do you think that TotBF relates to, informs or impacts the storyline of the Watchmen?
To all of the people who look down their noses and deride graphic novels as low brow dreck – might I ask you to give me back the hour or so of my life it took to read Steinbecks “The Pearl”? I was just as pissed off and disgusted reading that “classic” piece of CRAP (literature) as I was wasting my time watching the Blair Witch Project. Oh yeah, and I want two hours back from the pricks that told me THAT was a great film!
Watchmen, the graphic novel, was great. Watchmen, the movie was good (albiet dumbed down a bit for general audiences). Will the purist like it? Probably not, but all a purist REALLY likes is to hear himself complain. It captured the spirit of the story and except for a few noted scenes, was pitch perfect. I would have rather seen the space-squid too but the compromise (mostly) works.
All I can say by way of recommendation is:
If you can handle the teens in the crowd giggling at every appearance of Dr. Manhattans big blue Schwantz (or Driebergs ass) and
If you can accept that the movie is NOT a note for note recital of the graphic novel and
If you don’t mind a movie you actually have to pay attention to…
Then you might enjoy this film.
I myself will be seeing it again.
Never, apparently.
First The Natural. Then The Last Mimzy. And now this! *sob*
Just got back, loved it!!
Just a few comments from someone who worked, and is beginning to work again, in the comics feild.
When Watchmen came out (1986? I think) it changed the industry forever. At roughly the same period, Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns hit. The influence that those two works had on the medium was staggering. Everyone in the business, and I suspect, everyone who has entered the business since that period, has wanted nothing more than to be a part of the next Watchmen or Dark Knight. Everyone wants to be a part of something that important in the medium they love.
Everything since, that has even attempted to give depth and real emotion to their characters, is trying, on some level, to bring their work closer to Watchmen.
You have to give credit to someone for changing the way that veterans view their medium. Makes them all say “I wish I had done that.”.
Now, as far as the movie goes…
The parts that were omited, I totally understand. You have to accept that going in. It had to be done.
The changes that were made? I wasn’t thrilled with a few of them, I was ultrathrilled with a few others. The ending was beautifully handled. I honestly found the ending to be a vast improvement. They kept all the best points (Rorschach and Jon etc.) and lost the rather unwieldy squid (sorry fanboys).
Overall, a fine job indeed. The best film from an Allen Moore work by far. I guess that’s not saying much though.
On a final note, Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars and says he’s going back to see it again.
Finally, I am part of the lowest-common-denominator.
Finally, I have no emotional investment in a film adaptation.
Finally, I can say “that was a good movie” in blissful ignorance of the horrible crime that was probably done to the material. This is a good day.
Also, fuck whoever made the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie. Assholes.
Stephanie
A second on the Hitchhiker reference.
I would NEVER have imagined that there would EVER be a time that I was glad Douglas Adams was dead.
If he had been alive and witnessed what they had done to his work, I would have had no choice but to go Rorschach on someone.
I really should watch (der/die/das?) Untergang at some point. It musta been on telly by now, but I don’t recall when my 14″er was last plugged in.
Ah well.
Hurm. Zack Snyder has said before that he removed the squid due to time constraints, and I believe him. Think about it; it requires you to know who Max Shea is, it requires a whole lot of background info about the setting involving the technology for genetic engineering, it requires us to go into detail about all sorts of stuff that a three hour film just doesn’t have time to go into.
Alan Moore was right when he said Watchmen highlights all the aspects of comics that don’t translate into film and traditional print. Of course there’s no reason a roughly equivalent plot element couldn’t have been introduced, although if it’s a Doctor Manhattan frame-up, then no, that doesn’t work. Hopefully Zack Snyder actually understands what it was about the squid that made it such a brilliant move when executed the way it was done, rather than just thinking “well, we just have to kill a bunch of people”.
Frankly, I’m not sure I’m even fully on board for Zack Snyder as director; if I could have picked out a dream team to make this film, I think Snyder would have stayed on as like…. purity inquisitor, but I definitely would’ve wanted Christopher Nolan to direct. He just did such a bang-up job on The Prestige, creating a coherent feeling, easily legible narrative which nevertheless jumps all over the place non-linearly and leads up to a great plot twist at the end (like Watchmen).
As for V for Vendetta, no, if any of you are thinking “yeah that might be good because the film was good”, fuck that. The film was okay by Hollywood standards, it was crap by Alan Moore standards. We’re talking about a comic book here where a whole chapter is written as sheet music! And to any of you out there who think comics can’t be great because they’re, well, comics, I’d suggest actually reading Watchmen, although there are plenty of other good ones (Maus comes to mind, as does The Sandman). Right now I’m reading From Hell, another Alan Moore opus which had its brains brutally blown out all over a movie screen. I’m not pointing fingers at anybody here, but people who laugh at comic books thinking they’re just for otaku remind me of stereotypical ignoramuses chiding the rest of us for being muzzy-headed literary types.
If it is any consolation – no squids were harmed during the filming of this movie…
I just finished the comic, and I have to say that while not bad (except for the squid), if this is “teh greatest comic evar!” then I’ll probably not read any more of them.
I left the movie feeling very unsatisfied. It felt very meh.
I felt that at least half the actors were inadequate. Only the Comedian, Rorschach and Dan worked for me. Everyone else seemed off. Ozi was too effeminate, the voice for Doc seemed too bland, and Lauri seemed too young and wispy.
As for the story, only Rorschach’s character received adequate coverage. Doc’s perception of reality was not adequately explored and his relationship with Laurie was not deep enough. They cut out the moment of revelation when Doc discovers Lauri and Dan were sleeping together which goes a long way toward explaining just how much a puppet Doc really is in terms of time. Worse, the Comedian’s and Lauri’s relationship received short-shrift. Lauri is supposed to hate the Comedian for the rape attempt on her mother. She hates him more than any other person in her life. In the book, after she learns of the rape attempt, Lauri confronts the Comedian asking him, “What kind of man are you, that has to force himself on a women.” To which he replies, “Only once.” This confrontation is left out of the movie, making Lauri’s revelation of her true parentage a little less emotionally significant.
As for losing the squid, I would not have minded if the solution was at least as viscerally and visually shocking as the squid. You know, bodies everywhere. Instead, we get…blue lights, which really sanitizes what Ozy did to affect his “practical joke.”
Hrrrm.
Boycott the squid haters!
JMinc
I was pleased with the way the end was put together.
It really touched on a lot of points. It worked, period.
On the Zach Snyder point, let’s be honest here. 300 was crap. The book was far from Miller’s best, and the movie was worse than the book. Visually, it was interesting at best, but anything that makes a shitload of money for a comic artist is a good thing (biased here of course). Especially when it is a legendary cat like Miller.
Sin City is the best comic to movie event in history, but only because the book was standard Miller (depth of a fifteen year old, with sensabilities of an old master).
The smartest thing Rodriguez has done in his career was to try to make every frame of that movie look like it was drawn by Frank.
Now, on Watchmen. It was going to be made. They’ve been trying to make it for two decades. Although Snyder would not have been my first (or even fifth) choice, he did a surprisingly good job.
I look forward to seeing the directors cut. My hope is that it will go further into the transition into Rorschach. I found it lacking.
Here’s the Ebert link. Wher most of the critics didn’t seem to “get it”, it seems as though he really did.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/REVIEWS/903049997
Ryogam
Okay, let’s see.
Ozy was totally effim in the book. At least, that’s how it always struck me.
Doc’s voice was meant to convey his seperation from humanity. I thought it was beautifully done and that was the key point in deciding whether to give any film critic any stock on their review. Whether they understood what Crudup was doing with the voice and approach.
The rest, we agree on, except I gave a lot more slack on what they had to remove for the sake of time.
Remember, there was a lot to go over here. Perhaps I’m being too forgiving, but I don’t think that’s the case.
Egaeus
I think that part of it is understanding how revolutionary this was in the mid eighties. It could also mean that you need to read it several more times to understand.
I’m not here to judge (giggle).
#31:
In that case, you might try some of the many excellent non-fiction graphic novels out there: graphic memoirs, graphic reporting, graphic history, etc. “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel; “Palestine” by Joe Sacco; “Nat Turner” by Kyle Baker; “In the Shadow of No Towers” by Art Spiegelman; “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi; “Blankets” by Craig Thompson; etc. (The last two are near- essential reading for atheists, IMO.)
Of course Sturgeon’s Law applies to graphic novels as much as it does to any other medium. But that’s hardly a reason to reject an entire medium.
It may be that you just don’t like it. Heck, I pretty much just don’t like opera, even though I recognize it as a great art form. But if you reject comics and graphic novels out of hand, be aware that you’re rejecting what I suspect will turn out to be the great new literary form of our era. It’s a bit like living in the early 19th century and refusing to read novels.
@PZ
Just finished reading the comic. Yeah, my friend who saw the film confirmed this much – no malevolent tentacled beastie ever makes a debut in the ending.
On the other hand, considering that Veidt’s tentacled terror died when it was teleported to NYC in the comic, wouldn’t it NOT appearing be good news for squid lovers everywhere?
“when will hollywood learn to stop fucking with beloved masterpieces?”
I am no great fan of this complaint. If Hollywood treated masterpieces as scripture (no pun intended), why, we’d have no Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster. We’d also have Richard Dreyfuss eaten by Jaws, though I guess that book’s not a “beloved masterpiece,” but still.
WATCHMEN SPOILER:
I do hope the Kitty Genovese/Rorschach connection will be in the director’s DVD cut, as well as Hollis Mason’s murder.
You may have a point about Doc’s voice. Perhaps I am too critical because it doesn’t match the voice in my head.
As for Veidt, in the book, I never saw him as fem. He’s gay, of course, and soft-spoken, but I always imagined him more of the “epitome of human perfection” in body and mind, very manly. Kind of like Captain America without the Super Soldier serum. The movie Ozy just leaves my cold. But, see above.
I’m hoping we get more fleshed out lines in the extended edition.
Ryogram
I totally understand. Ozy left me cold through most of it. What did it for me was that the character left me cold for a bit of the book too. The scene where Night Owl attacked and beat him pretty mercilessly actually helped me along quite a bit. I thought that the freedom of the scene allowed the actor to stretch his legs a little more, and the fact that everyone knew that Ozy could have destroyed him with a single swing gave the vibe that as much as he believed in “the plan” he felt as though he deserved punishment for what the end result MUST be. I found a subtle, beautiful moment tucked away in there.
Just because it worked, and he knew it would, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a horrific act. I found it humbling. Greater good and all.
@125, 126: The “hero” of the Black Freighter comic, if you can call him that, tries to save the world from what he imagines to be its doom. (Trying not to spoil things here): Think about what Ozymandias does, and you will see one of the parallels.
Ryogram
I’m sorry, it seems as though I’m attacking your views on this, but it’s not the case.
This whole experience is taking me back to the mid eighties when my fellow artists, writers and I would have amazing discussions about the book and see what each of us read into things.
I hope that I haven’t made you uncomfortable with my dissagreements. It’s kinda taken me back to my teen years.
After all this time, it has a wonderful effect on me.
This was such a groundbreaker.
Y’know, when this was trickling in, one month at a time, it had a strange effect on people like me. We were inspired to do better and convinced we would never amount to anything of this level. We wanted to be this great, but we were all afraid that we never would. It was enough that a couple of people I knew walked away from the business.
I suppose the same thing happens in every field. Some are content to work, while others have to be the greats. It’s difficult to have such a tenuous grasp on your confidence, but “the crazy” is what brings out the truly beautiful.
Let me say now that being a “creative” person sucks. It’s way too easy to be fragile.
Read the book before seeing the movie. The Book is definitely better, but I thought the movie was excellent. The new ending works just fine and is probably more likely to achieve the stated goal, in my opinion. It understandable they changed it, particularly considering the absence of the Black Freighter, which ties into the original ending.
Though I sure hope for a special edition with the Black Freighter and original ending.
“Tales of the Black Freighter” is part of the novel and that is what I’m seeking comment on, not the movie.
”
I thought you were refering to the film treatment of it.
Nope, you have very good points to consider. Just because this is the internet, I don’t take your very well-reasoned and polite disagreements as an attack. This is art we’re talking about, opinions can and should vary.
Tales of the Black Freighter riffs on where comics came from, particularly the EC Horror comics that Dr. Werthram was blaming for the rise in juvenile delinquency back in the day when my parents were dangerous tween-agers who had babies like me in 1955. By the time I was learning how to read comics across the street in suburbia with kids just my age and a few years older, who’d managed to collect every Marvel title in single digits, they’d collected Justice League issues featuring plenty of Justice Society team-ups that made a future Crisis on Infinite Earths actually matter to me. I was learning to read in the Silver Age of Comics when EC was only a tragic UR history echoing in the pages of MAD Magazine. The genre of pulp-horror/science fiction was abolished in an act of Congress resulting in the Comics Code just before I was born, so seeing its tropes in the pages of Watchmen 25 years later was revelatory. Part of Black Freighter’s brilliance in the book was the deliberate creative conceit that in the world of Watchmen’s masks, superheroes could not be exotic, so for escapism, Tales of the Black Freighter would be the norm.
The experience of reading a comic book is what cannot be replicated in a film. To open the splash page in the center of the episode titled Fearful Symmetry and notice the pattern of Tales of the Black Freighter panel layouts alternating with Watchmen panels is flipped in the second half of the book, (nine panels per page, with Black Freighter narrative holding the center panel on one side of the centerfold and Watchmen narrative holding the center panel on the other), is just one tiny detail among so many that contributed to the book’s brilliance.
There must surely be a ton of college papers on the significance of Tales of the Black Freighter to the narrative of Watchmen, with its commentary on the central narrative, of a protagonist building his dream of survival on vengeance. Its absence is a poignant reminder of the absence of Piracy on Pharyngula, with Cephalopocalypse predominant in its pages of late. Here is a vote for more piracy please, PZ.
on the Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe if you look up the credits you will see that the screen play was written by Addams and Karey Kirkpatrick
and that he was involved in the production.
I suspect i should be hanging my head in shame for i have never heard of the watchman. should i read the book first or just go to the movie?
OMG please don’t banish me to the dungeon
it was a typo.
Watchmen!!! Watchmen!!
The ending they subbed in works just as well in the end, even if it gives it a different feel. It’s a satisfying feeling gained from the new ending, and it does lead into the exact same ending (the squid was the ONLY thing replaced, it is still all about the same ideology and philosophy), but I can sympathize with the Watchmen Fundamentalists, as my OCD acts up when they change stuff like that.
Frankly it was a better idea for the ending, certainly more thematically consistent. Gave them the chance to shave off several subplots that would’ve been difficult to portray.
Having said that, the last third felt very rushed and not dramatically “heavy” enough.
Besides that – and a few other tiny things – I thought it was startlingly close to the text, and really well done. I eagerly await a Director’s Cut release, which I think would very probably push just over 3 hours.
” just go to the movie?
”
Movie first. Then get the animated book on dvd or blu-ray.
Keep in mind there are no real heroes in the movie or book.
Probably some spoilers in this comment –
The other thing that’s not there is the pirate substory, which to be truthful I found really tedious and not entirely necessary to read. The squid change was actually quite well thought out, although when you think about it the squid made more sense as to how reliably it would affect the political climate – yes it’s ridiculous but if you think about it, something that mental would be necessary to make people at such odds unite without question. I won’t spoil it but I felt the ending to the film was just as likely to cause a nuclear war as to avert it.
The main thing that I felt lacked continuity in both the film AND comic is the fact that Ozmandias lets the Night Owl and Silk Spectre live. I guess Manhattan would have flattened him for it, but there just seemed to much at stake for him to leave that loose end, I felt it could have done with a better obvious explanation.
“gotta read the novel first, foreshadowing is a major component of the irony in the story that I can’t see being translated to the screen.”
They excise a lot of stuff – a trivial example is the absence of the upcoming New york appearance of the band “Pale Horse”.
The one badly mishandled scene for me is the scene Dan and Laurie get mugged – the violence is excessive and totally out of character.
“I don’t understand it at all, to be honest. I’m sure it’s supposed to be juxtaposed against events in the story, but I’ve never seen much connection between its story or themes and events in the larger work.”
The connection is made in a single line of dialogue where Ozymandias mentions he’s been dreaming the events of the Black Freighter story.
Like the narrator of Black Freighter, Veidt has started out with the best of intentions and ended up a monster.
“The other thing that’s not there is the pirate substory …”
Actually there’s all the subplots revolving around the people who live on Dan’s block – the news kiosk guy; the black kid and the lesbian couple – all the people whose deaths in the final issue are intended to bring home the enormity of Ozymandias’ scheme.
Yeah, cheers to both. I’d spotted that final chord, but I assume there must be lots more that I don’t see, or see very well. For example, I assume the raft of bodies is supposed to echo the murders of Veidt’s former friends and foes who are too close to the truth, but the people in TotBF are already dead, Veidt leaves some alive… if these were throwaway references I’d have no trouble with that kind of disparity, but TotBF takes up what seems like a quarter of the book. For that kind of investment it seems like the commentary should be more tied to specific things in hindsight. And again, I believe it actually is and I’m just reading it wrongly in some way. Someday I’ll figure it out.
>Robyn@33: Lots of readers think he wanted the password to be guessed.
I’m one of those readers; I sort of saw Ozy as a proxy for Nixon – a man who had it all who kept just enough incriminating evidence around, needlessly, to get caught and loose it all.
If I had to choose between film having the original ending and Malin Akerman wearing tight latex, I know which way my vote would go.
“For that kind of investment it seems like the commentary should be more tied to specific things in hindsight. And again, I believe it actually is and I’m just reading it wrongly in some way. Someday I’ll figure it out.”
Someone reconstructed Tales from the panels shown – I think it actually runs around 8 pages.
I think it’s time for another reread of Watchmen as I’m sure there’s more ot it that I’ve forgotten.
I was pretty peeved when I heard about the remarkable squidlessness. I was really unhappy! But after seeing the movie and reflecting for an hour or so, it’s been decided that we will forgive Zack–particularly if there’s an alternate ending on the DVD :3
But to do the squid properly, it would have added another 30-45 minutes, easily. They’d have had to build up the missing artists subplot, which involves building up the New Frontiersman. They’d also have to build up the massive advances in cloning and genetic manipulation technology, then get into how they cloned the psychic’s brain…a mess indeed.
1) the book is always better
2) the ending is always different
GET OVER IT
The Squidless ending was BETTER. Although uniting against a common enemy is confirmed from social psychology as an effective means of two groups achieving peace, it does not have to be so… alien.
Actually, the squid ending has a lot of contradictions too. The United States is a country hated for its powerful stance and iron hand on the world, and suddenly, a disaster that occurs on its biggest city gets all the sympathy from its enemies? HARDLY. Whatever happened when of 9/11? Many parts of the world engaged in euphoric parties. This way, a lot of Dr-Manhattan-style-nuclear-explosions on several cities *around the world* is a much more satisfactory explanation for uniting the world. Alas, Dr. Manhattan can be even seen as the “Dark (or Amoral) Side of the United States” (not Dark Side of America: FYI, America is a continent and not a country).
So, I see the new ending as politically better and more credible. Also, to me, which do not share this “the US is the world” feeling, it feels much better to see that the rest of the world is at least *considered*. (and, btw, aren’t there costumed heroes outside this prepotent country? It is never said nor implied. Truly, truly limited thinking)
US-centrism sucks. US qid.
There are other nice touches in the movie. Notice how every important thought of Rorschach is presented on the screen, except for the one when him, professing his atheism, also bears a very negative stance for it on morals? Maybe it was taken off on purpose, to avoid relating atheists to amoral people.
But the BEST, BEST part, was that Snyder FIXED that damn creationist explanation of Dr. Manhattan to gain interest in life. Alan Moore, you can suck my balls, your pseudoscience-trumping bastard! Every generation of life is NOT a miracle, not even thermodynamic (pseudoscience loves scientific-sounding names). Is a regular happening that were brought to us not by impossibility, but by mere probability accumulated by generations. If there was a miracle in it, Evolution would be WRONG. Zack Snyder changed the explanation to one regarding nuances of the personality, which I find perfectly acceptable even if not that convincing. But, hey, doc Manhattan knows the future, and this stuff might be significant to him.
I haven’t read Watchmen, but that was the exact reaction I had upon viewing Peter Jackson’s mutilated excuse for the Lord of the Rings. Woe to anyone who gets in the way of a geek’s rage!
Geeez. Poetic language, look it up.
tootiredoftheright:
“Well if Nixon has won Vietnam he would have been able to likely kill Bernstein and Woodstein or kill the story they would have put out.”
That’s actually the plot of the Watchmen videogame that was recently released on Xbox Arcade, The Comedian kills Woodward and Bernstein and frames a mob boss who had previously been convicted due to one of their stories.
I remember the great Watchmen discussion on the rec.arts.comics newsgroup as it happened. Three weeks the newsgroup would be totally swamped, and then one week while we all waited for the next issue. I’ve probably read the book straight through four or five times since.
I also remember reading Catullus in Latin class. Somewhere I have his collected poetry in a “student” edition, the original Latin with helpful hints in the back, and sometimes I reread it.
And I just saw the movie. So many things left out. I missed the policeman is onto Dan scenes, I missed Adrian telling his soon to be killed assistant about the Egyptian beliefs about death, I missed the psychiatrist getting into Rorschach at great personal cost, I missed Laurie getting pissed at the rescued man who wanted his “medicine”, I missed Bubastis giving Rorschach a hard time, and so on and so on.
Odi et amo? Tartarus non! Amo et amo!
In particular, I did not miss the squid. I agree that the new ending makes more sense.
The movie was awesome, but I doubt non-Watchmen readers will appreciate it.
On the other hand, I am not always such an appreciative fellow. I did not appreciate Conan getting it on with Valeria in the movie version. Confusing her with Belit was just beyond the pale. And I refused to see the Lord of the Rings film version.
@ #170 Geeez. It was a light-hearted throw away comment, not an earnest attempt at poetic language.
Sorry to have offended, Auditor – not you, one post up. The spittle-flecked twenty-year tantrum about “miracle of thermodynamics”.
Ah ok, no worries. My apologies, I assumed the comment was directed at me.
As to other graphic novels to recommend:
_Pride of Baghdad_ is also literature.
Greta Christina @ 141:
I’ve tried hard to like them. (As I noted, I’ve tried hard to like them.) I tried to like them as a kid too. I didn’t even like them that much as a kid.
My main message was: life is short. I’ll try most anything once or a few times. If disappointed, I move on. Vive la difference and there’s no accounting for taste.
It’s not easy to isolate what fails to appeal about comics.
“But that’s hardly a reason to reject an entire medium.”
My reason to avoid them has been repeated disappointment. Same reason I don’t go to opera. Or listen to rap. Or listen to current popular “country-western” music (made in a big city in the east, incidentally.)
“It’s a bit like living in the early 19th century and refusing to read novels.”
Novels have been around a lot longer than since the 19th century. I think that comics are better compared with chapbooks than novels. (Chapbooks? Exactly.) Another indicator here may be the general absence of an editor (read: peer-reviewer; QA person.)
“if you reject comics and graphic novels out of hand, be aware that you’re rejecting what I suspect will turn out to be the great new literary form of our era.”
Allow that not everyone will agree with you on this. The statement seems to me to be precluded by the fact that the medium requires pictures (making it a visual art, at least in large part.) If the pictures were removed, would the words stand on their own?
Jeff Smith: “… Because ‘graphic novel’… I don’t like that name. It’s trying too hard. It is a comic book. But there is a difference. And the difference is, a graphic novel is a novel in the sense that there is a beginning, a middle and an end.”
A beginning, middle, and end is not reaching too high.
I think some thought about what constitutes “great” art is needed here. Great compared to what? Great in sales, in popularity, in its reflection of human thought, action, emotions? Great for what? How much of a medium has to be noteably relevent to humanity or noteabley memorable to make the medium great? Or perhaps, how great a mass of “important,” “relevant,” “memorable” works are needed to make it great? Must it appeal to a wide segment of educated (or uneducated?) people? In what culture(s)?
I’ve seen several comic fans complaining that people assume there’s a higher percentage of dreck in comics than in novels and other media. That there is conforms to my experiences. I would suspect that there are very few comic writers who consider that they are trying to write something great (rather than entertaining and sales-worthy.) This can be justly applied to many other genres.
Popularity does not make something “great.” I’m sure there are many who would claim that rap music is a great art form. (So little of pop music isn’t terminally temporal or otherwise eminently forgettable. And I LIKE pop music.) The great majority of all pop culture is junk, almost by definition.
I saw the film version of Persepolis and I liked it quite a lot (though a bit dark for winter time viewing.)
The “super powers” that are involved in almost all comics (that I’ve seen) for me fall into the same category as any other kind of magic — not very interesting because not only not true: never will be true. To me it’s phoney. I hate (I tell my small child not to use the verb hate …) I have a strong dislike for phoney. Phoney anything.
All of this falls into the category of taste. Like a friend of mine likes to say,”That’s why there are both chocolate and vanilla.” (Note that I am not pushing my favorites on anyone.)
I’ve tried Manga and Anime as well. Very largely dreck in my opinion. The style is a fad (and incredibly cliched to a non-fan.)
Much of this may be generational too: I wasn’t raised with video games and 100 channels on cable (I have never had cable TV). I don’t like loud noises on TV, moving/wiggly cameras, bright flashing lights and colors. To me they are ONLY distractions, generally. On the attention-span scale, I’m WAY over on the focused end. So all the dancing baloney that’s included to keep the other end of the scale engaged just causes me annoyance.
I get this feeling that comic fans are just very annoyed that people don’t share their taste.
All the best, JB
When the comment is “That work doesn’t suit my taste”, no. When it’s “That work uses a certain form and is therefore implicitly devoid of value”, yes.
One might almost compare your little zinger to accusations of an atheist persecution complex.