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Watching the Watchmen film via Netflixxed DVD…turns out Netflix doesn’t have the half-hour longer “director’s cut” edition, so if I want to watch it, looks like I’ll have to buy it. Or wait for the Ultimate Edition that will have the all the stuff from the director’s cut, plus the Tales from the Black Freighter cartoon interwoven into the film, instead of having it in the standalone “what the hell does this have to do with Watchmen?” edition.
Anyway, here’s my original review, and if you folks follow my Twitter feed, you’ve seen a few of my reactions to the rewatching.
On the plus side: the whole sequence with Dr. Manhattan’s origin translates well, and I quite like the musical score for this portion of the film. And I still enjoy the portrayal of Rorschach.
On the…well, maybe not so much “negative” as it is “curious” – Manhattan dropping the “I can’t see the future because there’s probably going to be a nuclear war” problem into the narrative at the beginning of the film doesn’t feel right to me. I realize that they’re trying to emphasize the imminent danger of war looming over the world, but I’m pretty sure they’d established this fairly well even without moving this line forward in the story.
Also, giving Dr. Manhattan “psychic vision touch” to help trigger Laurie’s flashbacks seems a bit unnecessary. And that they never really justified why exactly Manhattan was toolin’ around in the altogether. Yeah, okay, we know that he wears progressively less clothing the more inhuman he becomes, but does that come across to anyone not familiar with the book? It doesn’t seem like there’s enough in-film material to establish that.
At one point on my Twitter, I say “The Watchmen movie is like watching a comic book version of the original story,” which seemed to strike a nerve with a few folks. Well, okay, with two people. But I think I was struck about how unsubtle and, frankly, dumbed-down this version of Watchmen is. That might just be an artifact of the director’s translation of the comic to film, where most things that seemed thoughtful and witty on the page just became sort of garish and foolish once you have real people in costumes acting it out on screen. And the decision to ramp up the sex and violence to make it seem more “mature,” I guess, just comes across like the “comics aren’t just for kids anymore” mantra of desperation that it is.
To reemphasize, I don’t hate the film. Again, to quote my Twitter, “I do like the WATCHMEN movie as an interesting but failed experiment in adaptation,” and I stand by that. I liked it more than I didn’t like it, and as I said in my previous review, it’s a fitting companion, but certainly no replacement, for the original story.
I’m only halfway through the rewatching, so my opinion may yet change…the film’s real problems seem to set in during the second half of the film, as I recall, so I may have a few more annoyances to pass along here. Consider yourself warned.
So remember that time when extradimensional demonic entity Trigon seduced the woman who would eventually become Raven’s mom by taking the form of Danny Elfman?
Not Blog X, which I’ve mentioned several times before for its ongoing and compelling examinations of ’90s X-Men comics, has since moved on to another kind of mutant: that being the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
And not just any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…the Archie Comics Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’ve written briefly before about the peculiarity of the Archie TMNT series, so I’m looking forward to Not Blog X’s new direction.
Running faster than the speed of light flattens Superman’s head:
One of my favorite webcomics is With Gusto, who has fun with old advertising images and clip art:
Go check it out…tell him I said “hey.”
images from Tales of the New Teen Titans #2 (July 1982) by Marv Wolfman, George Perez & Pablo Marcos, and Flash: Rebirth #3 (Aug 2009) by Geoff Johns & Ethan Van Sciver
§ March 12th, 2009 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on Watchedmen.
Okay, I know everyone’s probably sick of hearing about the Watchmen flick by now. But let me just throw out a few thoughts about the film, and we’ll see where we go from here. I know I’m forgetting something, so I may do a follow-up at some point.
SPOILERS begin after the first pic, end after the second.
- Overall, the look of the film is pretty much dead on. All the characters look right, all the sets look right, a number of the scenes are laid out to look like how they were presented in the comic. In fact, the adaptation of the story to film is pretty faithful, at least through the first half, allowing for some omissions and streamlining of the story. As I was watching, I was thinking to myself “okay, that was issue #1” (a few minutes pass) “okay, there was issue #2” and so on.
In the second half of the movie, I had the impression that things were getting a little more compressed/streamlined, a few more little things were getting changed around, not always for the better. I have a specific example in mind that I’ll bring up near the end of the “review” here.
- I admit it: I was bothered that the team actually referred to themselves as “The Watchmen.”
- This film sure felt like “cut scenes ahoy,” didn’t it? The director’s cut is going to be like seven hours long.
- Things that appeared to bother other people that didn’t really bother me all that much:
1. The costumes, particularly for the older team, looking just a little too goofy, a little too much like the live action Tick series. Well…yeah, they’re supposed to look gaudy and sorta goofy looking. That’s pretty much how they looked in the comics, too.
2. The “slow motion” effects in the fight scenes. It wasn’t all that distracting to me. In fact, I thought the fight scenes were pretty effective.
3. Dr. Manhattan’s penis. Yeah, so it was a penis. Big whoop.
4. The music. I don’t know that we’ve had a superhero movie in recent memory that used so many songs from popular culture. Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, even Nena with “99 Luftballons.” This movie certainly didn’t sound like any other superhero flick. Maybe they were songs we’ve all heard a million times before, but…hell, I can handle a million and one. (And perhaps this was a commentary on the overuse of said songs, by cramming them all together into one soundtrack? If so, that’d be one of the very few, if any, overt instances of the film commenting on itself, following in the self-commentary of the source material.)
- Okay, how awesome was Matt Frewer as Moloch? Okay, he wasn’t in the film very much, but I thought he did a good job. Plus I just plain like Matt Frewer. I even watched his short-lived sitcom Doctor Doctor. You remember Doctor Doctor, don’t you? Sure you do.
- The sex scene: okay, we get that Dan got his mojo back after tooling around in the costume. And perhaps the sex scene made a counterpoint to the excess of bloody violence in the film. But…well, as a customer put it, “that was a whole lot of thrusts we had to watch onscreen.” Someone somewhere in the MPAA was keeping a count and making sure this film didn’t cross over in the X territory.
- Kid Chris noted this, and he ain’t wrong: why is Ozymandias’ genetically altered lynx Bubastis in the film? In the comic, Bubastis’ main purpose is to demonstrate the current level of genetic engineering available to Ozymandias, foreshadowing the alien creature construct from the original ending.
- And speaking of the changed ending: the new ending, with Ozymandias destroying cities around the world and making it look like Manhattan did it, in order to get the world to pull back from world war and unite against a common enemy, didn’t sit quite right with me for one reason. Manhattan was known to be American, and long associated with the U.S. military. It seems to me the rest of the world would be awfully pissed at the U.S. for losing control of their weapon, rather than wanting to buddy up with them against a renegade superhero.
Now, I suggested this to a few internet pals via the e-mail, and they had a lengthy debate why this would or would not be the case. I personally thought having the alleged threat be completely “outside” would be more conducive to the kind of worldwide joining together established in the story’s ending, leaving no room for recriminations or accusations how the world situation is the U.S.’s fault. But it was pointed out that with either ending, this sort of unification was likely to be shortlived anyway. Or that the need to behave with a vengeful Manhattan supposedly watching would override any desire to retaliate against the U.S. Or, you know, whatever…there are plenty of good arguments on either side of why either plan would work/wouldn’t work. Basically the plan of choice works because the people making this story want it to. The end.
Anyway, despite all that, it really didn’t bother me all that much. Just thought it was worth thinking about.
- One other aspect of the ending that bothered me was the “nothing ever ends” line being given to Laurie to say as “something that Jon would say” rather than having Manhattan actually deliver the line to Ozymandias as he does in the book. Sorta undermines the impact.
- Oh, and Nite Owl doing the “NOOOOOOO!” thing and falling to his knees, near the end there…? Really, movie, that’s what you want to do? You sure?
- And this isn’t really specific to the film, but it just sort of dawned on me as I left the theatre and can’t believe I hadn’t thought about this before. So, the clock motif that repeats itself throughout the story, with the minute hand always stuck at just before twelve? It occurs to me that the hydrogen symbol on Manhattan’s forehead is yet another repeat of that motif, only with the “hand” (as it were) at the twelve o’clock position. At least, there’s nothing in the “clock’s” face visible as a distinct minute hand, so if we’re going to extend the clock symbolism, it would read as both hands being straight up at 12.
Thought that was a bit interesting. And, as Kid Chris mentioned to me when I brought this up to him, this particular bit of symbolism has more resonance in the film version than the comic version, given the altered ending.
EDIT: Well, I feel dumb. One of my readers has an equally valid, if not superior, interpretation.
That may have sounded like I disliked the movie more than I did. And no, I didn’t hate the movie. It was entertaining enough, and if
Watchmen was going to be made into a film, by hook or by crook,
this film is at least reasonably acceptable. I don’t know if it’s going to convince anyone new to the property that the source material is, in fact, “the most celebrated graphic novel of all time” unless they go and check out the book itself. But the film stands as an interesting novelty, a sidebar to the graphic novel rather than any kind of replacement…not that anything really
could replace the graphic novel, mind you.
Well, maybe that Watchmen driving game I hoped for a while back, but that’s pretty much it.
§ March 10th, 2009 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on A commercial announcement or two, and some Watchmen sales talk.
El Gorgo #2, the world’s
only comic about a luchador gorilla scientist, is now out in stores…and also available as a free download from
the official site in a variety of formats. However, I do recommend
buying your own copies because, c’mon, you want to be seen strolling around town with a copy or three of this comic tucked under your arm. Men will cower, women will swoon!
Seriously though, this comic is a lot of fun. It’s an unpretentious, unabashedly goofy comic book that evokes the silliness of the Silver Age while still forging its own enjoyably peculiar path. El Gorgo is highly recommended!
Also, I’m selling a variety of items on the eBay to meet some expenses, with a few of those auctions ending this evening. If you want to help a pal out, and get some actual merchandise that I personally have touched with my own filthy, filthy hands, then please feel free to bid!
The first of DC’s “After Watchmen” dollar book promotions is due out this week, featuring issue #21 of Saga of the Swamp Thing. I’ve already discussed my thoughts on how this particular promotion will do, but I am curious to see how the Watchmen graphic novel will do this week, now that the film has been released and, traditionally, any sales bump that comics made into movies may have experienced tend to dissipate right about now. We did move an awful lot of copies over the weekend, which was a bit of a relief as, due to a reordering mix-up (and the fact that reorders over the last few weeks have been delayed due to Diamond moving warehouses), I accidentally doubled the number of copies I’d actually wanted for the movie’s opening. Thankfully that worked out, due to a combination of some increased demand over the last few days and the fact that I set up a small display of the books by the register for impulse sales.
Once Watchmen burn-out has set in, I expect the sales to drop like a stone on these things, but the real trick is whether or not that drop is temporary. Watchmen has always sold well, to the point where I kept thinking “okay, that’s it, everyone’s read Watchmen by now,” but then we’d sell more. It’s truly a perennial seller, still moving copies long after sales on flash-in-the-pan “hot” books like Civil War have dwindled down to relatively nothing. I’m hoping Watchmen will eventually recover from the post-movie dip, like Hellboy did for us after its films, and not simply continue to languish on the shelf like, say, Sin City or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.*
Of course, if sales on Watchmen are still up, up, up this week too, I’m not going to complain about being wrong. But eventually the movie-inspired sales bump will go away, and the question remains if and when the book will recover. I suppose it depends if the book’s reputation remains “greatest graphic novel ever” or if it transmutes to “oh, yeah, I saw that movie…boy, that was stupid.”
I’ve been meaning to link to this and just never got around to it, but so long as I’m talking about sales: Johanna compiles and examines Archie Comics’ sales for 2008. And I’m not just linking because I helped a little. (Very little!) The numbers are somehow both surprising and yet not totally unexpected, and you should go take a look.
* I should note the fact that Hellboy is still a Going Thing helps counter the impact of the movies. League is showing some stirrings of life in trade sales again, as a new installment approaches. If Sin City were to have a new series, its backlist might start moving again, too.
However, none of this bodes well for Watchmen, which won’t have any kind of follow-up installments. Presumably.
§ March 7th, 2009 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on Not that it’s going to stop me from trying to sell a few through my Amazon link.
Here’s a thought that crossed my mind the other day: it occurs to me that selling Tales of the Black Freighter (the pirate comic embedded in Watchmen) as a separate story is like taking the choruses out of Greek tragedies and presenting those as standalone narratives.
Your thoughts, internet pals?
§ March 4th, 2009 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on See more of Seymour!
So, in just a couple of days, Seymour-Mania will be sweeping the nation!
The unsung hero of
Watchmen, the moral center of the story, the steadfast witness to history, the indefatigable champion of the common man, unbowed even in an unpleasant work environment, undefeated even in the face of disaster. SEYMOUR ENDURES.
Seymour Fever! Catch it!
Also, this is allegedly going to be in our Diamond shipment today:
I’m not going to believe it until I’m actually holding it in my hands. And maybe not even then. I may just chalk it up to some delusion induced by consuming too many Diet Cokes.
When I went looking for a pic of the cover, I saw this on the official Marvel Comics site:
Heh.
And yeah, yeah, I know, you don’t need to explain banner ad placement details to me. Just enjoy it for what it is. Reminds me a bit of when you used to see some toy or candy ads with DC heroes in a Marvel comic, or vice versa.
Or maybe it reminds me a little of the greatest Pizzazz cover of all time. Well, okay, it really didn’t remind me of that, but I’m always looking for an excuse to bring up that cover again.
§ February 25th, 2009 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on “…Rorschach goes berserk!”
After making a joking “next issue blurb” for Watchmen in yesterday’s post, I thought I’d dig into the Vast Mikester Archives and find the actual blurbs DC used in their editorial pages. I pulled these from the Deluxe Checklists that appeared in DC’s direct sales only Baxter-paper books from late ’86 through late ’87.
There may be some minor SPOILERS ahead, in case you haven’t read the comic yet:
WATCHMEN #1:
Who watches the Watchmen? Beginning a maxi-series unlike all others about super-heroes in the real world, as told by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.
WATCHMEN #2:
Rorschach continues his hunt for the hero-killer, and we get to learn more about the Watchmen and their predecessors, courtesy of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
WATCHMEN #3:
All the facts about Doctor Manhattan are spelled out and they will stun you! Plus more excerpts from Hollis Mason’s book. All by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons!
WATCHMEN #4:
The maxi-series continues with the origin of Dr. Manhattan … as the mystery deepens! A book-lengther by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.
WATCHMEN #5:
The tension builds, the mystery deepens, and the hero killer strikes again as Rorschach goes berserk! A classic by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.
WATCHMEN #6:
Revealed at last! The life story of Rorschach! A classic tale from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
WATCHMEN #7:
The mystery of the mask-killer grows! Nite Owl and the Silk Spectre go out on patrol for the first time since the Keene Act! Another instant classic by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons!
WATCHMEN #8:
As war approaches, Nite Owl and the Silk Spectre spring Rorschach from prison. A must-read from Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.
WATCHMEN #9:
Silk Spectre reveals her origin as she tries to convince Dr. Manhattan to come home. From Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.
WATCHMEN #10:
The countdown to nuclear armageddon continues as Rorschach and Nite Owl reunite! Must reading from Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons.
WATCHMEN #11:
Revealed at last! The origin of Ozymandias in the series’ penultimate issue! Another classic from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
WATCHMEN #12:
Thirty-two pages of story conclude this blockbuster series as you’ll finally get the answer to ‘Who Watches the Watchmen?’ An instant classic from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
A couple of notes:
Issue #4 notes that the story is a “book-lengther,” implying that no back-up feature was expected to follow the three-part “Under the Hood” series from the first three issues, making room for the letters pages that (as I was corrected about by a couple of readers yesterday) were to occupy the back pages of the comic. Obviously that turned out not to be the case, but thought it was interesting that the original plans for the series still slipped into the next issue blurb.
The other comment is more general, in that it’s somewhat amusing to read these blurbs which boil down one of the most significant comic books ever published to something that doesn’t sound any different from any of the other comics being blurbed on the same page. Right next to the blurb for Watchmen #5 was this entry for Vigilante #37:
“The Vigilante is out for blood – and being stalked by the Peacemaker! By Paul Kupperberg, Tod Smith & Rick Magyar. Plus: A Mike Grell cover!
Or this one for New Teen Titans #27:
“It’s the search for Nightwing and Raven as the Titans face the Church of Brother Blood and the girl known as Twister! A must-read from Marv Wolfman, Kerry Gammill & Romeo Tanghal.”
Let’s do a little switcheroo here:
“Nite Owl is out for blood – and being stalked by Rorschach! By Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Plus: A Mike Grell cover!”
I didn’t change the Grell bit, if only because I pictured what that would be like and it was awesome. Anyway, I hope you see what I’m getting at here, about how the Watchmen blurbs look in context with DC’s other more traditional super-books. Of course, what was I expecting?
“The life of Rorschach revealed, showing why you violent fantasy prone fanboys idolizing him and similar characters are demonstrably wrong. Another instant classic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons!”
“Revealed at last! Symbolism you won’t get! Text pages you’ll only skim! Our company’s bread-and-butter superhero genre entirely undermined in Watchmen‘s most subversive issue yet! By Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.”
Yeah, that might not have gone over as well.
§ February 24th, 2009 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on Yes, the post’s point is basically “reading a comic book is different from reading a trade paperback.”
So all this Watchmen talk had me thinking…I’ve spoken to a handful of people at the shop who were new to the work, and reported stalling a bit on the text pieces between chapters. My advice to them was to go ahead and skip those bits if they’re getting in the way of the story, and go back and read them afterward. Yeah, okay, some of you are wincing, but according to a few of those folks that strategy seemed to work.
And this is what got me wondering. I read Watchmen in its original serialized format, one issue every month (or six weeks, or two months). That meant I had plenty of time to read the comic portion of the story and digest the text back-up pieces before the next issue came out.
However, in the collected format, I wonder if the text pieces function more as “speed bumps” for some readers, interruptions between chapters of the “real” story that one feels obligated to slog through before going on to the pages with actual comics on them. Without the time gaps between chapters forced by the monthly-or-so release schedule, perhaps some readers feel as if they have less time to contemplate the text pieces, knowing that the plot continues just a page turn or two away.
That’s just a random thought that occurred to me during a discussion of the work I was having yesterday. I could be completely off…but I’ve heard from enough people that the text back-ups did slow them up a bit that I think, in some cases, the pacing is drastically altered by the story’s collection under one cover.
Anyway, the other advice to readers, besides “skip ’em ’til the end,” is “take it slow” — don’t feel like you have to speed through the entire book in record time. Read just a chapter (plus text piece) a day, let it sink in, move on to the next chapter the next day. Or a few days later…whatever. But if you still feel the need to just skim that owl essay supposedly by Dan Dreiberg…well, I don’t tell anyone.
On a related note, in a preview for Watchmen that appeared in Amazing Heroes #97 (June 1986), it says the following:
“In place of a letters page in the first three issues you won’t be seeing the usual awkward selection of biographies or series notes, but extracts from ‘Under the Hood,’ the memoirs of Hollis Mason, the original Nite-Owl.”
Now I suspect this may have been a misinterpretation by the article’s writer, who was told that the first three issues would have that back-up feature and may have assumed that the letters column would appear after the back-ups were completed. Or maybe the other back-ups actually were late additions…which seems a bit unlikely, but possible, I suppose. (EDIT: Okay, ignore my suppositions…Augie reminds me that Dave Gibbons’ book Watching the Watchmen confirms the initial plans for a letter column.)
But now I’m imagining Watchmen with letter columns, people writing in guessing how it’s going to end, talking about how badass Rorschach is, asking why Dr. Manhattan isn’t wearing pants, etc. And of course the editorial plug for the next installment:
“NEXT ISSUE: One character learns a terrible secret about the past, while another makes a fateful decision that will change The Watchmen forever! Watch for issue #9, The Darkness of Mere Being by Moore and Gibbons, coming next month!”
I enjoyed writing that last bit far more than I should have.
So DC Comics is releasing a handful of $1.00 sampler issues to capitalize on interest in the
Watchmen movie, including first issues of
Preacher,
Transmetropolitan,
Planetary and the seemingly odd choice of
Identity Crisis, along with the above pictured comic reprinting #21 of
Saga of the Swamp Thing.
Now, I say “seemingly odd” because while it feels like a very “one of these things is not like the other” sort of situation, it does 1) feature DC’s major superheroes 2) in a murder mystery (which Watchmen is, among other things) 3) by a best-selling author, so I get where they’re coming from. ‘Course, while I did like Identity Crisis, it ain’t a patch on Watchmen, so I really can’t blame anyone too much for a little eye-rolling at DC’s attempt to connect the two. But, you know, can’t fault DC for trying.
The timing is a bit tragic, too, since my experience with nearly every comic book based movie aside from the first Batman film has been that movie-driven demand for the related comics almost completely vanishes as soon as the flick opens. The people DC wants to reach with these $1.00 books, which are slated to begin arriving in stores the week after the film’s release date, are coming into stores right now. I’m currently getting plenty of people in the door who aren’t regular customers looking for “this Watchmen thing.” I’ll only get a fraction as many after March 6th.
It may be a moot point anyway, since most media-driven comics demand results in sales of just that particular item being advertised. I’m no slouch at salesmanship, but by and large people coming in just to buy, say, the new Stephen King comic don’t want to buy anything else. However, given that the trade dress for these $1.00 books actually has the Watchmen logo on it, I admit that it is possible it might attract the attention of, and be an easier sale to, anyone coming in just for that book.
Anyway, we’ll see. At least I’ll get another Swamp Thing item out of this, because I really don’t have enough already. Plus, we’ll have $1.00 samplers for various graphic novels that I’ll be able to use as sales tools for the near future…and I can give them away during Free Comic Book Day, too. Heck, they cost us about as much as some of the FCBD books anyway.
In conclusion: I can use these $1.00 “After Watchmen” comics, but unless Watchmen bucks the trend and the general non-comics-fan audience continues demanding Watchmen comics after the movie’s release, those $1.00 books will primarily be additional marketing for the regular customer base.
Then again, this is Watchmen we’re talking about. It’s a graphic novel that, even 20+ years after its release, can easily outsell many brand new graphic novels, movie or no movie. Hopefully Mr. Cynical-Pants Blogger here will be pleasantly surprised.
I also wanted to note that the clock design in the “After Watchmen” logo made me laugh. Well played, sirs.
READ MORE ABOUT IT: Bully, the Little Stuffed Bull, takes a look at Watchmen merchandise. Enjoy, won’t you?
§ February 16th, 2009 § Filed under watchmen Comments Off on From the Amazing Heroes Preview Special #4 (Winter 1987).
At the end of the Watchmen entry:
“Current plans call for the entire Watchmen saga to be reprinted in both hardcover and softcover formats for release through bookstores once the story is completed, and [Alan] Moore is optimistic about the eventuality of a Watchmen film.”
‘Course, I have no idea what Mr. Moore actually said. He could very well have been looking forward to a movie version of his comic, though the article says he’s optimistic about the eventuality of a film, not the film itself. Depending on how you read that, he could have said something like “oh, I’m sure there’ll be a Watchmen movie. I’m positive it’ll be terrible.”
…And, you know, that’s an optimism of sorts.
Hard to believe the film’s only about three weeks away, isn’t it? Seems like only yesterday people were complaining that Watchmen could only be properly made as a 12-part HBO series. Oh, wait, that probably was yesterday…or even today.
At any rate, we’d better sell our Watchmen books at the shop while we still can. Just in case.
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