YES! I loved every protagonist and antagonist, most of all Rorshach. I was disappointed by the lack of elaboration on Rorshachs interview in the movie. But I guess a four hour long directors cut edition was good enough. Nothing could do that book justice.
Yup, rorshach is probably my favorite character from pretty much anything. Yeah I agree! I figured the movie would make my friends appreciate it and want to read the novel... but now all they remember it as is the movie with the big blue **** :,( haha And I love your sig. I cant count how many times i have read Hitchhiker's guide and the rest of the series! It influences me to write with a little bit of humor, and when i read it i cant get rid of it because i love it too much, but it's unprofessional... haha
I have yet to watch the film or read the graphic novel, but they are both on my ever-growing to-do list.
Do it! Dont be reserved that it appears to be a comic book, the graphic portion of it is less important than the novel portion, if that makes sense
I read graphic novels from time to time, so that doesn't bother me. I just haven't gotten around to it. My to-read pile is something like 100 books Maybe I'll do that one next, though. I'm looking for something a bit different from what I've been reading lately.
I didn't know of it until the movie came out, and my girlfriend made me promise to never watch it. I don't even know what it's about.
In three words, Vigilantes and Extremists. Definitely go read it, there's no reason you should avoid this read.
I read it ages ago, and it's gotten to the point where I've forgotten a lot of it. I want to read it again, but I can't find it, and I refuse to buy a new copy out of principal... because I know it's somewhere... probably ran away together with my beloved Sesame Street book. Anyway, I loved the book, but wasn't that into the movie. Don't know what ruined it for me, but something must have.
Vamp fan, i am so glad you said that! I dont normally listen to a movie's soundtrack (unless its classic disney or the tron one was pretty good... but those dont count!) and I decided to search it up, and I agree, its pretty fantastic, I had no idea!
The soundtrack has a lot of awesome songs, but personally I felt it made no sense whatsoever in the movie. It was like someone picked their favorite songs and played them where they thought they might fit, only most of the time they didn't. Do I sound a bit harsh? The movie bothered me quite a bit.
Watchmen (the book) was exceptionally well written for its time. It had a complex story line with multiple sub-plots, complex characters, symmetry, painstakingly planned panel layouts, and so on. Every second issue was devoted to delving deeper into one of the six main characters. You could say it's the Citizen Kane of the comic book medium - the proof that comic books can both be art and have mainstream appeal. However, most of the book doesn't translate into the film medium. You can't fit very many sub-plots into a two-hour, or even a four-hour, film. There's not enough time to develop six characters. Panel layouts don't correspond to scene layouts. And so on. Basically, a lot of what made the book great, can't make it into the film. The film maker can only take the premise, characters, setting, and the over-arching storyline with him. This is why the writer, Alan Moore, was opposed to making a film out of Watchmen (or at least one of the reasons). However, I still think the film was quite enjoyable in it's own right. You just can't expect it to be similar to the book.
Let me explain it without spoiling it for you. It's about an alternate reality where superheroes do exist and the VietNam War was won with their help. However, these superheroes are not your common variety types. Some have serious personality flaws verging on the pathological. The film is narrated via one of these flawed superheroes named Rorschach who wears this raglike mask that appears to be stained with ever-changing forms. Since I didn't read the book I can't say what those stains represent but I'm sure those who have read the book can. Both music along with the attending scenes are captivating. "Times are Changing" by Bob Dylan is used in the intro. Simon and Garfunkel's "Hellow Darkness" is played during a funeral scene. All-in-all an interesting watch if you can get past the explicit violence.
I've read both the book and the movie and I feel like I have to add that, if you are planning on experiencing Watchmen, read the book before watching the movie. I enjoyed the movie, but it seemed more like it was simply re-enacting scenes from the story, but not actually telling the story (if that makes any sense). I remember showing a friend the movie (made him sit through the whole 'Ultimate Cut'), and while he found it interesting and weird, he didn't understand the overall "meaning" of the book (why certain characters acted a certain way - for example, why Veidt was actually the hero, why Rorschach had to die, why Nite Owl/Silk Spectre II were such relatively bland characters). Watching the movie also means missing out on those terribly vital and insightful sections in between chapters they had in the book.
I love both the movie and the graphic novel forms of the Watchmen. I read the book after I saw the movie, and I had a pretty interesting conversation about the ending with a friend of mine. I was glad that they left the space squid out, because I thought it was really dopey, unsustainable solution to the problem that Ozymandias/Adrien had created. I thought it was hackneyed, campy, and ridiculous. It was never going to work. Then my friend pointed out that it was supposed to be like that. It was supposed to be a stupid, poorly-thought-out idea. Of course it wasn't going to work. That's why the tone at the end of the graphic novel is completely, completely different from the movie's tone. The graphic novel leaves me with this dank, pit-of-your-stomach kind of "well, crap," feeling (note: I like the graphic novel ending better than the movie ending now, after the aforementioned discussion; this is not by any means meant as a bash, it's just an observation about the kind of emotion the different endings pulled out of me). I don't get that in the movie. Those kinds of changes always interest me. Hollywood probably needed a vaguely upbeat ending, and, as my friend sagely pointed out, it is kind of hard to work a surprise space squid into the end of a movie...
Interesting. I didn't realise that when I read the book way back, but it makes sense, since the book is trying to deconstruct super heroes. After all, Veidt (Ozymandias) says something to the effect of, "What do you take me for? Some kind of movie villain?" at the end
