After turning Frank Miller’s 300 in one of the ultimate fanboy movies of all time, Zach Snyder has turned his attention to one of the pinnacles of the comic world, The Watchmen. Even though Alan Moore isn’t involved, Snyder did manage to recruit series artist, Dave Gibbons. So far everything looks good. Visuals are phenomenal, actors fit and the director is committed to staying true to the source material – kinda.
SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING! (Shame on you if you haven’t read this graphic novel yet…) SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING!
The whole story of The Watchmen is the manipulation of the heroes by one of their own. This manipulation isn’t truly evil; he’s simply trying to unite the peoples of the world despite themselves. Most of us believe that this will never happen without some kind of global catastrophe or an invasion of an alien race a la Independence Day (which stole the idea from Watchmen). The antagonist in the graphic novel genetically creates a single “alien” to teleport into the heart of New York City. It arrives and sends out a psychic pulse that kills everyone within an extremely large radius and then dies itself. The people of the world forget their petty bickering over religion, land, etc. and unite against their new common foe. This is what every single page of the Watchmen led up to. Now the same director we loved from 300 has let it slip that there won’t be a giant alien at the end of the movie. He and the other screenwriters actually rewrote the last 4 (I believe…) pages of the graphic novel with a new ending and even had Dave Gibbons draw the new pages. The only other thing I can think they would use is the superheroes themselves, especially from the visuals I’ve seen. The bluish mushroom cloud tells me that the antagonist turns the world completely against superheroes by causing Dr. Manhattan to explode in NYC instead of the alien. Although he is the only hero with any real powers, this might – might unite the world.
And other than extra money, why the heck is Warner Bros releasing Snyder’s cut of the movies on opening night? We get to see the A.D.D. version and then see the “real” movie in July?!? Com’on! Just do it right the first time and let the movie stand on its own, like Dark Knight.
Just don’t let us down Zach…
I got to watch this movie on Saturday afternoon. I was suitably impressed. Zach Synder did a great job staying true to the story and definitly used the comic as his basis for the movie storyboards. The ending that I thought would happen did, if for a slight miscalculation of Ossie’s evilness on my part. My only complaint would be the movie really needed to be NC-17. When parents hear cartoon or comic they think happy-happy, joy-joy; not: Holy $H!%! Did that guy just explode?!?
I think that the sex and violence in the comic, which only last for a panel or two for a whole scene, is different from a movie that shows every detail in full motion. The sex scene(s) were a little long for my taste, especially for being a “R” movie. But, all-in-all, a great job and a great adaptation. Two thumbs up.