(no subject)

[rocknload]

Just told my geeky friend Chase about David Hayter's rape joke, after filling him in on the fact that this was the guy who wrote an earlier draft of the Watchman script—it wasn't the script they used, they credited him for legal reasons—and was the voice of Solid Snake. I therefore got to enjoy seeing Chase do a Stan Marsh nose pinch and his entire face sort of twitched. Otherwise, though, not all that funny.

I didn't really go into the movie after I'd seen it the first time, SO I WILL DO SO NOW. I think I've figured out the part that the movie starts to become much less awesome than the source material, and that's at the Comedian's funeral. Before that, we have the Comedian going out the window, the fantastic title sequence that I think everybody loves, Rorschach's first scenes, all sorts of awesome, well done stuff.

And then there's the funeral, and everyone has to have their Eddie Blake flashbacks, which are presented in exactly the same order as they were in the comic and really, exactly the same in their entirety, and they're all interesting but none of them move the story forward whatsoever, and the movie looses all momentum, something it doesn't pick up again until Rorschach goes to prison. And it never really hits that high point again. The middle is all muddled and sort of boring and really weak.

The end is ... I don't mind that they changed the part with the alien at all. And the ending is supposed to be anti-climactic and sort of unsatisfactory, I think. Rorschach's death is fabulous and just as upsetting upon second viewing as it was on the first, but in the comic? He died alone in the snow and nobody cared. Dan and Laurie were too busy having sex inside to even notice he'd left and no one even asked what happened to him. It was horrible and it's way more satisfying to see what happens in the movie, with Dan screaming and run inside to beat Adrian in retaliation, but I can't help but think that the first way, the way that bothers you to see, is the way it's supposed to be.

The movie recreates the world in a way that's awesome to watch, I think the actors all did a great job, but it almost doesn't even seem to bother with the contrasting ideas of morality and justice that I thought the comic was all about.

Dan and Laurie's characters are made much more sympathetic but a lot less complex. I always found both of them to be sort of self-centered and shallow—like, they were having sex while Manhattan is killing Rorschach outside—but that made them a lot more flawed and human.

And really, if the beginning had been weak and the ending totally perfect and awesome, I think the movie would hold up a lot better. As it is, it suffers from the fact that it peaks in quality five minutes into it and then it's all downhill from there. It makes the whole thing seem much more like a ... letdown.

I still liked it a lot, of course.

And on a slightly related note, I'm getting sort of sick of hearing, "Well, he was no Heath Ledger." Seriously, guys, Leder did a great job and totally deserved the Oscar, but have some people never seen another Academy Award winning performance? There's actually a lot of them, you know. There's a few new ones every year, in fact.

Comments

[unicorn]

I ranted at a dude at a diner with me for about ten minutes about how the fact that Hollywood tends to stylize violence works against any meaningful reinterpretation of Watchmen, because the whole point of that was that the violence was not stylized, it was brutal and scary and real. People shouldn't have seen Rorschach butcher knife a guy in the head and gone THAT IS SO COOL. The correct reaction to certain events in the story is horror, and it just didn't happen.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

It was mostly both the fight scenes with Laurie and Dan that really abused the slow-mo in a very awkward way. The other touches of it were ... much more forgivable. But you are totally right on the fact that stylized action is NOT THE GODDAMN POINT dude no.

[unicorn]

I also will rail forever about the fact they couldn't include the shrink's subplot. I understand why they didn't! But his was the opposite story from the rest of the comic's, the "humanity can change without being tricked into it" arc, and THEY LEFT IT OUT. It felt like half the theme was gone.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

That, hm. See, I agree it was really important, but I also don't see how they couldn't put it in the movie, because it affects the main storyline thematically but does nothing at all to directly move the plot forward. A LOT OF PEOPLE THOUGHT THIS COMIC WAS UNFILMABLE and I do believe they were sort of right.

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

I'm having flashbacks to people who saw the waitress scene in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with me. :|

[unicorn]

I FEEL QUITE, QUITE STRONGLY ABOUT CERTAIN PARTS OF THIS STORY AND HOW THEY SHOULD BE REPRESENTED, ANDY, not to say that I didn't like Watchmen the movie. It was a pretty okay movie!

It just failed to rip apart the superhero trope, which I thought was the point.

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

Could it be argued that there is a different trope, though, since Watchmen came at a time before the nineties anti-hero came to be? (In fact, iirc, Rorschach influenced the emergence of anti-heroes.) So maybe there's a different trope to be destroyed?

Idk I'm feeling tired and ergo am confused. Plus I need to see the movie. Lol.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

I am mostly completely uninformed on this subject, but! Your comment moves me to speak.

I had a long conversation with my friend after she saw the movie, and one of the things she said makes me very wary- that the violence was more brutal when the "bad guys" were doing it, and more stylized for the "good guys." I still haven't read Watchmen, but I was like "...Isn't the fact that they're all doing the same thing kind of a major point?"

[unicorn]

IT SO IS.

Yesss, read Watchmen immediately and join our HUGE TRIPARTITE CONVERSATION THAT HAS CONSUMED THE PAGE. Do you need access to the book? I can give you scans if you want.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

I have it at home! It is what I am planning to read over spring break!
...While I am supposedly reading about the financial markets in the 1980s and 90s right now. Except obviously not really.

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

Really? I always thought Dan was pretty sympathetic, but admittedly it's been a while since I've read Watchmen.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

Maybe sympathetic was the wrong word? He's the character most people can identify with, even if people think they are TOTALLY LIKE RORSCHACH/THE COMEDIAN/OZYMANDIAS/WHOEVER, Dan is the regular dude. Most people are like him! But in the comics he wasn't perfect. Not just because he's lol out of shape, but because in the end he walks away from everything that happened and goes on to live a regular life with his new hot girlfriend! That, to me, was as questionable as some of the stuff the Comedian or Rorschach did.

In the movie, I can't think of any morally questionable decision he makes. And IN THE COMIC he doesn't care when Rorschach dies. CLEARLY THIS MADE AN IMPACT ON ME.

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

Poor Rorschach. He's totally that one awkward kid who means well.

Well except for the whole sociopath thing.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

My brother saw the movie first and now he's just reading the comic, and he told me that if you haven't read the comic the movie just doesn't show how insane Rorschach really is. I think they could've squeezed in more bitter monologues about all the shit Rorschach HATES. Like GAY PEOPLE. WOMEN. Et cetera.

I don't think he's really a sociopath, though. That's just Adrian being a judgmental douche. Dude, I hate Adrian so much.

[sunsetsred.livejournal.com]

Well, this. Jon's just as bad as the Comedian for not interfering with shit. Just standing by and letting it all happen, as if he cant change a thing. And everybody at the end just... going on to live the perfect life? I think that's one of the things that makes Rorschach the most "noble" to people, because he wasnt willing to live a lie or just stand around and do nothing in the face of it all.

NEVERMIND ALL THE PSYCHOPATHIC SHIT. But it says something that, even though he's the most fucked up, he's got his head on the most straight. ...Er. You probably get what I mean.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

...

I'm failing to come up with an appropriately damning condemnation for this Hayter bastard.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

Why the fuck would anyone think that is funny?! Augh. At least he's not even the real writer for the movie. At least there is that.

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

Because they're...yeah, words are failing me on the level of this...this...locking misogynist bastard of a douchebag. Or something like that.
Thank god they knew enough to get as far away from that mess as they could.

I am sadly suspecting that I'm going to get more use out of this icon than I had thought.

[interstellar.livejournal.com]

Oh god the Hayter rape joke. So much cringeworthy fail. I can't say anything intelligent on the matter because I read Watchmen when I was nine or ten. But uh, the movie did make me want to go out and buy the graphic novel and read it, so...

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

IT IS WORTH A REREAD I have reread it halfway and it's so worth it. Even though the first time I read it was, um, seven months ago?

[nadleeh]

I watched the movie yesterday!

My thoughts on it are still somewhat steamrollered by THEY PLAYED HALLELUJAH OVER THE SEX SCENE FFFFFF I CRACKED UP AND FELT BAD

[nadleeh]

OKAY I HAVE A FEW MORE COHERENT THOUGHTS

- Me and my friend ended up in a conversation about the ending - Rorschach's death, specifically, and what happened following it. I cried a little at that bit with Jon in the snow, which...is a good sign in terms of emotional impact, I guess? And my friend said that Dan seeing and going and beating up Ozy was wish-fulfillment, which...it is, kind of, but - I can see why they did that too, because Watchmen has enough of a downer ending without that, and they have to do something to placate the audience. Insert Theater Studies geek rant about Brook and Deadly Theater here. And I think that, if they had to put that in, they did it well - Ozy still stayed composed and clearly in control and there wasn't a sense of 'this beating will do any good', it felt sad and empty. It kind of worked in the best way that could have done, I thought!

[maxiboom.livejournal.com]

They did try to make the ending more of a climax, with Dan freaking out and beating up Adrian and going "YOU PERVERTED HUMANITY", but yeah, when the heroes fail half an hour before they've even shown up it's hard to spin any sort of dramatic triumph out of what's left. Which definitely should have been the point.

Although I don't really mind these changes all that much, since it doesn't so much matter. The movie still translates the basic plot into film intact, and that's what it wanted to do. It misses all the little side stories that actually made the core of the story Adrian's monster punches out in the end, of course, and so it fails to do what the book did, but no movie could have done that. I'll give it that much.

Just don't talk to me about the actual cinematography because I will rant and NEVER STOP. Zack Snyder does everything wrong and they call it a personal style. NO WORDS CAN ENCAPSULATE MY DISGUST.

[theeternalmind.livejournal.com]

I actually laughed and laughed when Adrian went "I subscribe to the List of Things To Do When I'm An Evil Overlord! :D" and we find that most of the major cities in the world have been axed. It was such a cruel thing to do, but it's one of those cruel things that I find deliciously hilarious (as opposed to, IDK, the Comedian gunning down the Vietnamese chick he got knocked up because she CUT HIS FACE MAN) because it's almost like a joke, and the punchline is on you.

[theeternalmind.livejournal.com]

Having read through the comments and heard what apparently some scenes were supposed to do/some characters were supposed to read in the comic, I'd probably say that Rorschach definitely was more sympathetic in the movie. I remember, in the scene where he goes to what's-his-name's apartment and threatens him, then realizes he's already dead and the cops have the place surrounded, and he goes, "NO NO NO NO NO NO," I actually felt really sorry for him, and was rooting for him to get away. I might not have felt that if there'd been those little details of normal civilians being outright scared of him because he's such a murdering bastard.

Definitely agree on some of the violence (on the heroic side) getting stylized. My thoughts go immediately to when Dan and Laurie are kicking the asses of the inmates in the penitentiary when they go to rescue Rorschach; that was definitely a cool fight scene, and if that's supposed to not be the point... Though my one friend who I went to see it with made a disparaging remark about how they basically ditch the place once they find Rorschach. Don't bother to try to help suppress or calm down the riot, they just up and run. Maybe that was more the point? IDK, I was barely aware that Watchmen existed (I had seen it before, but didn't know a damn thing about it) before the movie came out.

I DUNNO, I ONLY SAW THE MOVIE. EVERYTHING IN IT WAS COMPLETELY NEW TO ME. Though I actually sort of see Rorschach being gay, given that one scene he had with Dan when Dan flips at him, then apologizes, and Rorschach is all "it's cool man :(" and they... did they hug? I think they did. All the same, I don't know that I would have thought that without being told.