Who's Watching the Watchmen?

[crowwitch]

Well, Me. Last night at midnight.

I read the novel for the first time about a year ago. And yes, as many say, it is probably the best Graphic Novel ever written, and one of the great pieces of 20th century literature, period. I finished reading it again a few days ago, and every time I read it I just fall more in love with it... it's subtlety, layers, complexity, and irony. It's just a great work. Really.

So, last night I was really excited to go to the midnight showing with a friend last night. My overall opinion is that it wasn't perfect. That there are things that I did have a problem with, and not the "ZOMG On page three of issue nine he clearly goes into the second door on the right but in the movie it's the third door. What were they THINKING!" but I mean actual real issues.

But, I thought it was overall amazingly well cast. Most of the leads were flawless. It was visually everything we could have hoped for, and while we of course lost some of its beloved complexity and subtlety, I think the movie was an overall a win. A-.


First, the issues.

1. Extended violence. More than once throughout the movie, scenes of maybe one or two panels of violence was dragged out into long, involved, drawn out fight scenes. I'm not objecting in an "Oooooo! Too much VIOLENCE!" kind of way. It is freaking WATCHMEN after all. But there were cases when I felt that it was actually detrimental to the plot and characters.

For example: The rape scene with the Comedian and Sally... the story is already in dangerous territory when it asks us to accept that Sally had feelings for him after he tried to rape her. I accept this in the book, though. But when his punching her back after she punches him and kicking her in the stomach and undoing his belt is dragged out by the movie into a long, brutal scene of him beating the crap out of her, then cuts back to her saying the years have away of making these things looks less important, it's almost offensive.

Another example: What makes Ozymandias so chilling in the climax of the story is the ease with which he incapacitates Night Owl and Rorschach with almost no effort at all, only a few movements on his part, like they're nothing. Turn him dispatching Rorschach with a mere flick of his wrist and a salad fork into a big drawn out fight sequence, you actually loose a lot of his character.

2. In their effort to add in sounds and music from the decades involved, the sound track became distracting and at times unintentionally humorous. I admit not being able to repress a laugh when Dr. Manhattan was overtaking the Vietcong army to "Ride of the Valkyries", and when "99 Red Baloons" reared its head... well...

3. I understand fully that when you turn a long and detailed book into a movie, minor plots and characters need to be dropped. It happens. I cope. I understand for the sake of run-time and keeping the story tight and focused and maintaining the emotional impact of the main storyline, smaller storylines fall by the wayside. This is legitimate and not something I complain about.

However, DO NOT leave in scenes that SET UP minor storylines and characters and then drop them and leave loose ends. Seriously. Don't. You'd to better to leave them out entirely. Hollis Mason was there and just got lost, and he's not the only one.

4. Wire work? really? Deconstructing the superhero, making superheroes real people who have taken to being vigilantes, no super powers, and you want Ozymandias to lift The Comedian over his head Incredible Hulk style before he throws him out the window, and Rorschach clambering around like Hallie Berry in Catwoman? Really?

5. His acting was good, but just could not buy Matthew Goode as Ozymandias. I'm sorry. I just couldn't. I could not take the Aryan superman out of Hitler's wet dream that is our Ozzy being played by someone who looks like Dana Carvey and Bill Gates had a kid. That being said the man can act, he was just miscast. Not only did he not look the part, he just didn't have the ancient king presence that an Ozzy needs. Just wasn't going with them on that.

6. Another cast beef: Malin Akerman was annoying as hell, playing bitter and frustrated Laurie as a doe eyed perpetual 15 year old through the whole movie, with no development or even age. Who plays a character at both 16 and 35 with no visible effort to show some kind of age or development? Boring performance with no nuances or life to the character.

On the upside, here are the good things about the movie. Continuing with the Cast:

1. Dr. Manhattan: A character that could have looked truly ridiculous translated onto the big screen was pulled off perfectly. He was beautiful, frightening, disturbingly indifferent yet so touching when reached. And Billy Crudup's delivery of the lines was so wonderful with his bored and uninterested tones but with touches of emotion creeping in so delicately. Wonderful.

2. Possibly my favorite, Patrick Wilson as Night Owl. With the weight gain, bad haircut and bad glasses he looked so much like the drawings of Daniel in the comic book it was startling, yet when he smiled or they hit him at the right angle you could see an attractive man gone to seed. His performance was touching as the self-doubting superhero so uncomfortable in his own skin that he needs to cover it with an owl suit. Charming performance.

3. I'll mention Jackie Earle Haley and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in one go, saying that they both gave spot on performances. They both demonstrated really strong understandings of their characters from the source material and both created powerful and emotional moments with their characters. Morgan managed to make us eventually come to care for The Comedian in spite of the things he had done, and Haley... I have nothing to say but I felt like he was spot on with his performance throughout the entire movie... really... perfect. Wouldn't have had anyone else in either character.

4. Art Design: The director, while imperfect, recreated panels from the novel with startling accuracy. Visually, it was spectacular.


Anyway, I'm sure that was all TL;DR but... oh well.

Enjoy your weekend everybody.

Comments

[auspeople.livejournal.com]

Thought I'd take this to your actual LJ and leave poor Sushi alone for a last thought:

Loosing Laurie was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it's pretty clear that he was lost long before that. Janey knew it after the accident. The Comedian knew it in Vietnam. Laurie missed it because she was young and naive, but she learned quickly.

These are good points! I missed a lot of details of the characterizations on my first read because I was so busy cumming over the way the panels interacted and some of the metapoints.

But they still don't discount my points at least to me, because I still read a lot of people not "getting" what it means to be who he is after the accident. But what I really think is interesting is that I was disappointed in the movie with how Dr. M was played, and reading your analysis here, it's because he was played EXACTLY as you see him.

I do have a tendency in my readings to see things that others don't. It could mean I'm wrong (sometimes I am). It could mean that I see subtexts that others miss. I do think that often people bring things to texts that enable them to see things differently... it's part of that grayness I love/hate so much about humanity. It may be eventually I'll decide that initial reading was wrong. But I think I'll have a fondness for it always, because it is one of the many reasons I found the book so exciting.

[darlingfreak.livejournal.com]

I think it's rather unreasonable and unrealistic when other characters... multiple ones... all had the same response and assessment of a character, to claim that they all just "didn't get" him. And, if there's one thing that Moore makes V-E-R-Y obvious in the book was that there was almost nothing the Comedian DIDN'T "get". He was the one who saw and understood... pretty much everything.

There is absolutely NOTHING in the book that implies that these people didn't understand Jon. There's also nothing Jon's words or actions that imply anything different than what they stated either. It's pretty obvious after The Comedian gives his assessment of Jon, and the way Jon stands over the body of the dead pregnant Vietnamese girl, that he'd hit the nail on the head, and Jon knew it.

Jon himself says that Laurie was the last single thread holding him to Earth and when that thread was broken he left.

To be frank, I really don't think you've seen anything others didn't see, but rather spin things to what you wanted to see in spite of glaring evidence to the contrary. In fact, I think you developed a rather huge blind spot.

Anyway, don't think because I disagree strongly that I don't think you're smart and a cool person to talk to and am glad to have you on my friend's list.

[auspeople.livejournal.com]

I'll have to admit I'm surprised by the vehemence of your responses to my suggestions. I think what I enjoy about reading is how things hit people differently and what they see in text. I agree that there are may be wrong readings, but I guess I'm not seeing why the reading I had is so offensive to you. Maybe it's that it sounds like I'm saying I'm seeing something no one else has or something and that therefore that's right. But that's NOT what I'm saying.

I also think I'm not always communicating these reactions properly... this is the first time I've tried to articulate them. I don't think I'm blind to the evidence... I certainly see the pitfalls in Jon and don't think he's some sort of great guy or something. He certainly has disconnected from people, no question. It was just a feeling I had reading that Jon's situation was where the crux of the tragedy was (not denying there are other tragedys). His chapter were the ones that mattered to me, over all the others... that, and the scenes by the newstand with the pirate comic.

[darlingfreak.livejournal.com]

Oh I just come across that way sometimes. Don't worry about it. I'm just an academic by nature and studied education in college, and English education at that so literary analysis is kinda what I like to do. I also did a lot of debate and am used to writing college papers where I state and support my case, so in writing I tend to come across pretty strong and give people the impression that I'm talking them down, when I really don't mean to.

Your reading is not offensive to me, it's just that I don't believe it holds any water in the light of what is stated by other characters and Jon's words and actions in the book.

That's all.

[auspeople.livejournal.com]

Ah, debate. I think that's the difference. I never did debate, just a heck of a lot of literary analysis (grad school, medieval lit). Hence probably the feel that I was "picking and choosing" lines to support my points.

I certainly appreciate your perspective and plan to read with an eye to whether I was just seeing something that wasn't there (though the question is then why did I see that, which may be just as interesting to explore). I'll admit to hoping something in what I saw is there, if only because I really liked the Jon I was reading... much more than the Jon in the film.

[darlingfreak.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it kinda did look that way, like you had some lines that you could spin to support your view and was just ignoring the rest. It also appeared dismissive to just say that whenever a character's assessment of Jon didn't match your reading to say that they just "didn't understand him."

If I wanted to hit below the belt I might even point out that maybe there's a reason that the movie didn't portray him that way.

But don't worry, we're all guilty of stuff like this, and I really did appreciate the debate and discussion and really liked meeting you.

You're obviously a really smart and well read person and this has been really cool. :) I like getting my teeth into literature.

[auspeople.livejournal.com]

Not below the belt at all... I thought that exact same thing. I'm more exploring my ideas to see where they fall apart than trying to prove anything. I learned that from my husband... that sometimes you explore something you don't necessarily believe in to see if it works.

You're take is probably closer to right, though I find your explanation for why he gets the photograph of Janey dissatisfying ;-)

And yeah, I like masticating on good lit too. It's been awhile since I've found something that sparks my imagination this way, though. Never expected it.

[darlingfreak.livejournal.com]

I must say how refreshing I find it to talk to someone who has the intelligence to re-examine their ideas and be open to the fact that they might not be right.

Most people just dig in their heels and go "LA LA LA I'M RIGHT"

[auspeople.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was realizing last night talking about this conversation with my husband that I must have got a lot more out of grad school than I ever thought I did. I hated theory, and the whole issue of deconstruction vs structralism . But I think on the whole I'm a deconstructionist, in that I really don't believe that there's a "right way" to read a text. There's just ways that are "more right" than others.

Go figure.

[darlingfreak.livejournal.com]

Well, in English education evaluating interpretations and discussion about what makes an interpretation "Right" or "Wrong" is something we do a lot of, namely because we're grading papers on the subject.

There is no one right interpretation. There can be as many correct interpretations as there are readers. The number of correct interpretations is infinite. However, there's also a new train of logic that says that since interpretation is subjective that it can't be incorrect. And personally, I think that's bullshit.

There is an infinite number of right interpretations, but I also think there's an equell number of wrong ones. I think the difference between a right one and a wrong one is whether or not it is supported by the text as a whole.

And I think "as a whole" is a key part. It's pretty easy to find a paragraph or sentence or a chapter to support most anything you want, but if it's negated by the rest of the text, or another version is then at some point the one with the most validity must eventually win through.

Then for me there's just the good old logic of what makes most sense. For example, unless it is a plot point I usually find "They misunderstood" a weak and unlikely way to examine other character's reactions to a character. Especially when you have multiple characters reacing the same conclusion independently of each other, and the character in question really does nothing to counter it.

I'm just using this as an example of my thought process, not as a slam or anything.

Anyway... interesting conversation.

[auspeople.livejournal.com]

Totally with you, she says, reading quickly... and I like way your mind works at least in terms of this "thought process." One thing I hated about grad school was the idea that folks could take stuff totally out of context and say, "Well, look, it must mean this." And that pissed me right off.

Not to give myself too much credit, but I didn't do that. Well, OK, there was the time I tried to argue that Goneril and Regan had reasons for the way they acted in King Lear, but that was about exploring the argument. As I mentioned on my journal, I was big on structure, yes, and at my best, I exceled at being able to dig into a text and find meaning and evidence to support it. I approached literary criticism as science... if there wasn't evidence, I didn't go there. But I often saw others that just went all over the place, and it's one reason I left grad school, because things just had the potential to get silly silly silly!

I agree that labeling someone as misunderstood is a really cheap way to argue a point and I see why you pounced on it. Note that I'm not in anyway trying to continue the debate... I'm done for now and may come back after I've read things through again. I think what I was trying to get at is that I was sensing that Jon was *written* to be misunderstood. It's just that there were points, particularly that whole sequence between Dan and Laurie where we see Jon getting ready for the interview, where what was being said about him wasn't syncing for me with what I was seeing in the panels. And that commentary made me think that some of the dismissal of him as dispassionate and disconnected by the other characters (especially Laurie) was something Moore wanted us to examine. Particularly in light of the trajectory of Chapter IV.

But yeah, this has all really got me thinking about the way I read and the whole process of reading in general and why certain texts work this way and others don't.

[darlingfreak.livejournal.com]

I just felt like his growing dispassionate and disconnected nature was demonstrated clearly enough and there's plenty that shows that they were right on in their assessment of him.

And sorry, you're right. We don't need to keep going in this. :)

And yeah... All through college I heard all kinds of crap about what poems "Symbolized" that just came out of thin air and was just so ridiculous.

And I'm a Les Miserables nut. I love the musical and I think the novel is one of the best books ever written. And I spend years in that fandom listening to kit wits who had never so much as cracked the book carrying on about what lines from the songs in the musical implied or meant and what the characters meant when they said this line in the stage version and then argue with people who had actually read the source material

Yeah, it gets crazy.