Watchmen

Like everyone else in the comic world, I've been awaiting the Watchmen movie with a mixture of excitement and unease. Watchmen was the 1986 Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons masterpiece using pastiche versions of the 1960s Charlton characters DC had just bought. It's impact on the field probably can't be overestimated, and people have been trying to figure out how to film it ever since.

While I very much appreciate the much-ballyhooed decision to film it with a very great loyalty to the way it looked on the page, I've decided not to see it. There were two key elements in my decision. First, I read some reviews, and while there was a mixture of opinions, I'm troubled by the fact that several writers thought the main flaw was a too-great adherance to the printed page. That suggests that what worked on the page doesn't work on the screen, which doesn't surprise me. One my favorite scenes in The Lord of the Rings is something I would have hated to see filmed - it wouldn't have worked at all with live actors. I'm thinking of Aragorn's justification of his actions to the Rohirrim when he, Legolas and Gimli first encounter them in the Two Towers. I love his speech; but it would have been unbearably arrogant and strange if filmed. It only works on the printed page.

Second, I reread parts of the original Watchmen the other night. And the more I read, the less I wanted to chance my memories of the brilliant, tightly constructed work to the vagaries of film. I'm sure there are pleasures at seeing Dave Gibbons characters, sets and scenes translated to film. But I think I'll settle for the book.

Here is a review that compares The Incredibles to Watchmen. The writer is making a different comparison to the one I made at the time The Incredibles came out, more or less contemporaneous with Fantastic Four. The Pixar movie was a classic that captured the vibrant heart of why superhero comics work on any level; Fantastic Four didn't work at all except as vaguely amusing entertainment, unlike the wonderful original comic. I suspect the same will be true of Watchmen.

By the way, I fairly recently saw The Incredibles again. I agree with the reviewer; it's a classic that makes most comic book movies look sick.