(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.

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

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

[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 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]

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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[unicorn]

I knew they couldn't put it in the movie. But man, it was a loss.

Yeah. :/

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

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

Well except for the whole sociopath thing.

[unicorn]

Yeah, but if it was meant to kill that it actually kind of reinforced it because everyone's going ~Oh, Rorschach~ now and I was just completely derailed from my thought by your icon. YOUR ICON.










I'm stealing it. Oh my god.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

I am still mourning the loss of my favorite line—"The world didn't end yesterday." "Are you sure?"—but that only works if Walter Kovacs and his relationship with the newspaper guy has been introduced beforehand, and ... geez, the movie misses so much.

And doesn't understand that flashbacks SLOW SHIT DOWN. Or maybe the movie just didn't care.

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

I got some good ones tonight!

[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.

[unicorn]

Shouldn't Charlie Brown be Nite Owl?

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

Well good! Adrian is a douche!

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

I-icon.

I know Tanz said it already, but.

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

I guess they couldn't resist the baldness thing. But, yeah, he and Linus should trade places.

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

:D

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

I DO NOT LIKE CHARACTERS LIKE HIM. I know you are supposed to think, "Gee, maybe he had the right idea. Maybe." But I totally freaking can't. :/

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

He only gets points for being proactive. Stupid Magnificent Bastards.

[unicorn]

I dunno, I got that he was a genuinely compassionate person out of the comic. Which I think was intended.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

He sort of gets owned in the very end, when he tries to get reassurance and asks Jon, "I did the right thing, didn't I? In the end?"

AND THEN JON IS ALL, "Nothing ever ends."

DENIED, FUCKTARD. YOU ARE DENIED YOUR REASSURANCE.

[pretzelcoatl.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I never really saw him as that because he seemed way more narcissistic than that to me.

GOD I NEED TO REREAD THIS