Five Reasons Watchmen Will Rock/Suck, Part I
Watchmen releases in just a couple of weeks and anticipation is running high. Naturally there’s a lot of speculation about how the film will turn out. Will it rock? Will it suck? Well, we here at Deviant Knowledge like to hedge our bets, so we’re presenting five reasons Watchmen will either rock or suck, so, no matter what happens, in two weeks’ time we can say with authority, “See? Told ya.” Today we look at reasons the movie will rock.
5. Zack Snyder
I admit, I wasn’t a huge fan of his Dawn of the Dead remake, partly because I saw no real reason for that movie to be remade. After seeing it, I still saw no reason for it, but thought he at least paid tribute to the original. It didn’t feel like a cheap cash-grab on an established property, or an arrogant “I can do better than that” handling of a classic horror flick. After seeing 300, I started viewing Snyder in a different light. His take on the material was impressive, and he turned a short comic into a wild, fun, brutal ride. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough—and faithful enough to the source material—that I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on Watchmen. He clearly has a vision, loves the book, and seems determined to do it justice. There’re worse people to handle an adaptation.
4. Dave Gibbons
Artist and co-creator of Watchmen, Gibbons’ work has been used extensively in the planning and preproduction of the movie.Word has it that vast chunks of the graphic novel were cut up and intercut with the storyboards created for the film, and if you’re starting with Gibbons’ art, something good almost has to come out the other side. And while Alan Moore has very publicly removed himself from all connection with the film, Gibbons has done set visits and spoken positively about the way it’s all being handled. If the dude who drew it says it looks correct, you must be doing something right.
3. Attention to Detail
Watch the trailers or any of the dozen clips online, and you see an astonishing amount of correlation between the movie and the book. You could take freeze frames of the film and compare them to panels of the book and get an almost exact match. And if they’re paying that close attention to the little things, then you have to assume that the big things are getting the same treatment. Sure, not everything is exactly like the book (since when is Rorschach’s mask made out of burlap?) but they’ve done a fantastic job of capturing the look of the novel, while still modernizing it a bit and making it not look ridiculous on-screen. Let’s face it: In real life, in general, people in spandex look just straight-up stupid.
2. A Virtual Reality
One thing I liked about the book was the reality of it. It seemed like a world right next door to our own. Sure, there were some pretty major differences like Nixon being president, the airships and electric cars, utterly trouncing Vietnam, and a large, naked, blue god-thing walking around, but it still felt real. Different but real. You really felt like this is what the world would be like if we had a Dr. Manhattan, and if some folks, for whatever reason, decided to put on funny costumes and beat up bad guys. Most of what I’ve seen in the early footage captures that. While there are fantastic elements, it doesn’t say “this is a fantasy world and all this is make-believe.” It seems very real and grounded in reality. Sure, it’s a very stylized reality and one with a very distinctive visual look, but it still looks like it could be happening just down the street.
1. It’s Freaking Watchmen!
Come on, you know you love the book and, unless they just flat-out crap all over it, you’re going to like the movie. Oh sure, you’ll probably bitch about stuff being changed or left out, but it’s going to be your imagination come to life (in IMAX!) and you’re going to get a geek-stiffy sitting there opening night. The odds of them completely botching such a high-profile project are pretty much nil and, while it may not be perfect, it’s still going to rock.
Tomorrow, five reasons why everything I just said doesn’t matter.
Part 2 Now Posted Here!
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3 Responses to “Five Reasons Watchmen Will Rock/Suck, Part I”
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February 22nd, 2009 at 6:36 pm
I think that Snyder has been given enough flexibility that he’s going to be due all the credit or blame he deserves. He’s got a ridiculously long running time (clocking just under 3 hours), the R rating. I don’t know. I think 300 was an incredible piece of work. Dawn was nothing special, but it certainly wasn’t total shit. There’s no question that this will be one of the most nitpicked films of all time.
February 24th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
I think the Virtual Reality is something that a lot of people get drawn into. In a lot of ways, fantasy lands like Lord the Rings are great stories but I often think that something that is directly relatable almost tangible can pull interest instantly.
February 24th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I think what he’s trying to drive at by talking about a “virtual” reality is molding the real world around these fantastic characters. Rather than trying to create an entire “fantasy” world for the characters, one of the aspects of the Watchmen novel was the intense effort to realize what the real world would be like if we really did have these “heroes.” The most obvious of these is the character of Doctor Manhatten. In the simplistic “superhero” world, we get a fantasy like Superman or even the X-Men. The strength of the Watchmen story was that it took a very realistic approach to the possible outcome of a world where these people with powers are real.
1. First Assumption is that just because you have powers, doesn’t mean you are black or white, good or bad. These people have all the human flaws all of us do. Sure, they’re “heroes,” but that doesn’t mean that they’re good people. One of them is a Rapist, one of them is just plain mentally unstable…etc.
2. Second assumption is that the more realistic approach to what would happen if these people existed. You get these superhuman abilities in a group of people and what does the US government do? They use them for espionage. Send them the Vietnam to decimate the enemy.
That’s the really the pivot point of why the story works. These are flawed characters in a very real world. Maybe if we really had been able to send a bunch of superhuman badasses to Nam that Nixon would have been president forever.
Watchmen is an incredible piece of work. The tagline “Who watches the Watchmen” is a warning. Just because these “things” are billed as the protectors of the people, who says the people don’t need protection from them? Imagine if that kid that beat you up for your lunch money every day through junior high ended up with Superhuman powers? What would George W. Bush have done in Iraq if he had had a blue, radioactive bastard that could manipulate atoms at his disposal?
Unlike most superhero stories, this one is a raw look at how a world without simple black and white lines between good and bad would incorporate these mutant bastards.
I’m still thrilled they got the “R” rating and the extended running time. And even as someone who didn’t live and breathe “Watchmen” I’m still astounded by not just how some stills I’ve seen from the film that you wouldn’t even consider “Iconic” images from the novel are immediately recognizable as frames from the novel. Just one simple image “oh, ya, that’s from the rape flashback sequence”
When you get down to the “bigger” imagery from the comic, you can literally hold the graphic novel up the the still from the film and it’s like a storyboard. Framing, proportionally, even the colors. I hadn’t even heard until this article that they actually intercut frames from the novel into the storyboards, but it’s readily apparent.
In the end though, I full believe it’s going to come down to how well the characters play on screen on how well they pace the story.