From the moment the first trailer for Watchmen was revealed, my thought was that it would be a breathtaking adaptation of the characters and story that stripped it of most of its meaning and subtlety.
The book, for its part, is one of the least overrated recipients of a "greatest X of all time" consensus in existence - it masters the art of comic book superhero storytelling while also creating a complex structural commentary on its own subject matter. To call it "unfilmable" is to miss the point to some degree - it is simply not translatable into any other medium. If a filmmaker wanted to set out into equivocating Watchmen in film form, one of the first things they would have to do would be to throw out much of the story itself. It is a product of its format, its genre, and its era, and adapting it so directly to film is futile if it is an attempt to adapt it at its thematic core.
When I watched the film on opening night, my original assumption seemed to hold true. The story and the characters come to life vibrantly and are breathtakingly faithful to the source material. The unfortunate side of this is that the film feels shallower as an experience than the book. Another downside is that it is so faithful that any changes present become glaring wounds on the film - every missing beat and every altered plot point is preset to be annoying to the viewer who is familiar with the source material. Some took this in stride, while others absolutely hated the film for it. For my part, I found myself closer to the former - willing to adapt, but also mildly bothered, especially by the ending, which seemed to me to violently alter several thematic aspects of the original.
Like the book, though, I felt like the movie would likely benefit greatly from a second viewing. In the case of the book, this is because the presentation is so complex and layered that an entire level of the story opens up to those who read it a second (and third, and fourth) time. The film was different - watching it for the second time, I felt more at ease with the changes, and this allowed me to gain more enjoyment from the film itself (which, despite its lessened subtlety, is still monstrously complex and a visual masterpiece).
In the end, the test of time will sort out true failure from success, and I have a feeling that Watchmen will endure as a tentpole in the film superhero genre - even if it's not quite as big a one as it is in the world of graphic novels.
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I agree with your assessment, but the second time around I felt that I not only noticed more errors, but many of my disagreements with the film were largely strengthened.
ReplyDeleteIf you look close enough, you'll notice that each character with little exception is generally corrupted by the slight, almost unnoticeable changes made to their stories. It's as though they sought out the specific points that would collapse their character arcs into something bite sized or bad ass, instead of real, human, and emotional arcs that actually take the character somewhere.