Some Watchmen Movie Thoughts

I. The day before the movie came out, I felt a sudden pang of fanboy grief. Sure, by all indications one of comics' masterpieces had been faithfully translated to film, and the nation was about to be exposed to the medium's greatest triumph. Some of them might even wander into a comic book st--Ok, let's be realistic here--wander over to the graphic novel section at Barnes and Noble.

But, at the same time, from that day forward I'd never be able to introduce anyone to Watchmen again. Not in the same way, at least. Pre-Zack Snyder, you could hand a non-comics reader Watchmen, tell them it's really great, then watch as they end up completely blown away by a comic book (of all things!). I saw it happen firsthand twice in college at UVA, where two classes I took assigned the trade as reading material.

Now, however, you'll bring up Watchmen to your friends and they'll go, "Oh yeah, that movie they made with the big naked blue guy?" Regardless of whether they're actually familiar with it, they'll think they are. Even if Watchmen is read and liked, forever gone will be its shock value. Comics blog Doomkopf sums up this feeling better than I could here, lamenting fanboys' loss of their great "secrets."

II. The worries instilled in me by one of the trailers came true when I saw that the heroes in the movie actually refer to themselves as the "Watchmen." As readers of the comic know, the characters weren't exactly all part of some named group, and the sole failed attempt to do so involved an idea for a team called the Crime Busters. Even when dealing with a story as mature as Watchmen, the studio heads just can't get their minds around the idea that the title of a superhero movie need not refer to the name of the main characters (at least, I'd assume this was the studio's doing). Thank The Dark Knight for taking at least a half-step away from this.

Imagine if this logic were used in all forms of media. You know, the old Simpsons joke about Homer thinking that Mel Gibson portrayed characters named "Braveheart" and "Payback" in his movies? Who can forget such memorable roles as Charlton Heston playing the man known as Ten Commandments or Clint Eastwood as Mr. Unforgiven?

III. On a similar note, it really disturbs me to see so many writers out there calling Alan Moore's work as "The Watchmen." It's just plain Watchmen, people! Adding "the" to things is what old people do when they don't understand how to properly refer to modern concepts. And I'm not talking about mainstream journalists, either. I'm talking about writers for comics publications and on comics blogs. Shouldn't such folks know better?

IV. I've had quite a few conversations with friends about the Rorschach "origin" scene in the movie, where he repeatedly meat cleavers the head of the murderous kidnapper. The scene is quite graphic, but when compared to the way Rorschach takes out the killer in the comic it actually seems tamer in an emotional sense (Remember? He cuffs the guy to a pipe, sets the house on fire, and gives him a hacksaw sharp enough to cut through the killer's arm but not the cuffs. And then we see Rorschach simply standing outside the house watching it burn.) . Why would Snyder and co. choose to show such explicit gruesomeness when the source material already laid out for them how to imply something more impactful?

My theory on this is that the original scene in the comic would have seemed like a ripoff of Saw. I haven't seen the movie (too scared to!), but from what I understand, a major plot point involves a victim having to saw through his own leg with a dull hacksaw in order to escape a deathtrap. Of course, you and I know that Watchmen predates the Saw movies by almost 20 years, but the film was released in a post-Saw world, and moviegoers can't be trusted to so easily grant the benefit of the doubt.