Methinks someone's expectations were a little too high.
i won't deny that, although i did set them lower than i thought i would, especially when i learned about the endgame replacement. i was totally willing to give it a chance, and went in really hoping for the best.
besides, i'm not really as much a fan ho of alan moore as i am of, say frank miller or neil gaiman.
There's simply no way anyone can condense the amount of development in the graphic novel into a 3 hour movie. It would have to be at least 8 hours long to really do the book justice.
i was all for cutting things, but there was no reason for a few of the changes/substitutions that they made that enraged me the most.
I think the people who made it were stuck with a Catch-22, in that keeping completely faithful to the graphic novel wouldn't make for a very good movie, but deviating from it would really piss off the fans (see: John Turner). I didn't think it was a bad movie, but it does pale in comparison to the graphic novel, though I believe that was inevitable.
All things considered, I think the producers did as good a job of turning Watchmen into a movie as anyone could have.
hey, i'm not rabid by-the-book guy. i loved v for vendetta, and that was -substantially- different than the graphic novel.
but with the watchmen they corrupted a few of the key concepts that showed me that they didn't "get" it for a few of the most important things. with a movie version, the plot by needs needed to be simplified, but if they had made the characters complete and true to the source material, then all else could have been forgiven, i think. they didn't.
rorshach would have -never- lost it like he did against the girl's kidnapper, and they had no reason to show him actually killing the guy. the way it was in the book was philosophical, and reflected rorshach's value structure completely. the fire was a purging, purifying thing. the dude had the option of crippling himself or being purified.
rorshach losing it and chopping the guy on the head showed me that snyder has no clue about rorshach, and -he- is the most important foil to the veidt, imo, one of the most important absolutes in the story. "never compromise".
speaking of veidt, he came across imo as weak and snivelling. i envisioned veidt as ladyhawke -ere- rutger hauer, physically, and someone of donald trump-esque presence, not some skinny nerdy know it all. his whole physical and verbal presence in the movie was wrong, and making it his idea as opposed to the old guy, mr metropolis, to form "The crimebusters/watchmen" was another element that just weakened his character that much further - the "smartest man alive" and he couldn't have figured out the truth from the start about what was needed? in the novel he was just figuring things out, but had not yet committed to any course of action. this more appropriately fit his level of development at the time.
many characters where simplified, and that's fine for movie contraints, but imo rorshach and veidt were corrupted by the filmmakers taking licence with their story, and it ruined it for me.
the whole ending thing too, was just hollywood crap. the original ending was supposed to be somewhat absurd, and unbelievable, for the simple reason that that's what would have been required in such a screwy world as the story's earth was to make the PTB change their tune and play together.
lastly, purely on simple movie terms the movie left me unsatisfied - it was not coherent, did not flow well, imo. it was a little stilted, unnecessarily, and that frustrated me as well.
tbh i almost left when rorshach went nuts on the kidnapper. i stayed til the end, though, because i still held out hope.
you know, reviewers are giving snyder props for sticking to the source material, which is ironic imo. this effort is a schizophrenic parody of the original material, unable to decide whether it wants to use the book as a storyboard (i.e. be exact) or just a loose guideline. some of the elements that followed the story exactly were unnecessary, even irrelevant, relatively (why follow the comedian's backstory verbatim when he's not even that important a character, at least not compared to rorshach, who got a very poorly conceived rewrite?)
the level of graphic violence also was more intended to shock and be "cutting edge from zack snyder (tm)" than it was actually necessary to the story, and that made me lose even more respect for the film, and for him.
i really wanted to like this film, and went in with really lowered expectations, considering. they focused on the wrong things imo, changed the fundamental flow of the story (at least the ending, the most important part, like changing the punchline to a joke) and then hung elements from the graphic novel on this like a christmas tree.
tbh this movie angers me more than batman 4 (batman and nipples? i forgot the name) did, and i'm -way way- more of a fan of batman than i am of watchmen.
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). she pulls one of these out on blu-ray and rewatches it at least once a week, amid all the other things that keep her busy in life, and she gets -teary eyes- watching them.
