Dakota Graves

Oh, there was something else major that happened on March 6th you say? The release of the movie adaptation of the most celebrated graphic novel/comic book miniseries (yes it was comic book miniseries at one time as most graphic novels are) of all time? Winner of 1988 Hugo Award and on of Time Magazine’s top 100 novels since 1923, the only comic book/graphic novel to do so was released in film format you say? In all seriousness I skipped WATCHMEN in my last blog so that I could avoid creating one big super post but to you who answered my questions I say………..meh. 

Don’t get me wrong WATCHMEN has always and probably always will be the epitamy of mastery of the comic art form. HOWEVER, I have never been that crazy about it. Before you cry out, I understand the story in all its depth and glory, I love Mr. Gibbon’s art it just doesn’t strike a particular chord with me. I appreciate and recognize it artistically, its just not my favorite. Why you may ask? I’m not 100% sure, not to mention that is an article for another day. 

NOTICE: I loved the movie, it was brilliant. Zach Snyder and everyone who worked on this film were brilliant. Casting was amazing. I am not just some angry fanboy who only says negative things. These are just my thoughts.

Anyways, my attitude toward the original novel is the first reason that I couldn’t really get into the movie. I loved the style of the movie. It was beautiful. If this style had been put on another movie I would have flipped my lid. Absolutely gorgeous, BUT I was just not that into the characters or the story, so the connection was not there. 

The second reason for the aforementioned “meh” is that even I could tell that there was a lot lost in translation from comic book to film. Sure the story and its characters work just fine. An audience that has not read the book will understand the story just fine but the real depth of those characters and their universe is almost completely lost. I noticed this in the amount of people walking out the theatre saying things like “Rorschach is badass!!” No young viewer with your smiley t-shirt from Hot Topic, Rorschach is NOT badass. Rorschach is a sociopath. He is not someone to be idolized. That just shows your complete and utter misunderstanding of what the character is and what Alan Moore was saying with that character. You sir, are an idiot. Btw, the irony that t-shirts for a book/movie that denoted modern corporate capitalism did not escape me, but I digress. 

The movie is extremely well done and deffinitely takes third as the best superhero ever made. Right behind (1) The Dark Knight, and (2) Iron Man (I don’t care what you say about Spiderman 2 and/or X2, neither of those movies deserve being the the best superhero movie).

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