Looking Out To Sea

Yesterday afternoon we saw the eagerly-awaited-by-some comic adaptation, Watchmen. The first laugh comes in the opening credits with the line “Adapted from the graphic novel co-created by Dave Gibbons”. Yep, that’s Alan Moore staying well out of it, as usual. And, as usual, he was right to do so.

The real flaw for Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen is that he doesn’t seem to realise he’s directing a film, instead of filling in the gaps between storyboard frames. I’m sure if you read the script you could easily find the 12 discrete episodes that made up the original, faithfully translated into the new medium. The result is disjointed, lacking in momentum and somewhat emotionless.

Tragically, what ruins the overall film is what makes each individual scene so good — the faithful rendering of the original. Most of the characters and their complexity came across quite well. I was really worried that Rorschach wouldn’t translate well to the screen, so I was really impressed with his character in particular.

SPOILER ALERT

The important point with any adaptation, besides being enjoyable, is how much it reflects the story that shares its name. In that respect, Watchmen is pretty faithful. Veidt is still masterminding his conspiracy to bring about world peace, the Comedian still dies at the beginning, Rorschach is just as crazy as ever, and Dan Dreiberg still can’t get it up. I was also surprised that there was so much character back story in the film. It was pleasing to see but it did terrible things to the pace of the film.

Some departures from the original were entirely warranted. If they’d included anything from Tales of the Black Freighter they would probably have successfully confused everyone. But they could certainly have done more. Dr Manhattan’s self-indulgent scenes on Mars with his big crystal palace were tedious in the original and not any better in the film.

The loss of the knot-tops and the death of the first Nite Owl was also understandable. It wouldn’t add anything significant to the film because the pre-war tension of the populace was largely ignored. Only the main characters really got to show their emotions regarding the war.

The main focus of the plot — the actual details of the conspiracy — were completely different for the film, and in my opinion no longer made any sense. The original story involved a staged alien invasion, complete with dead alien, madness and death in the streets of New York. The enemy was tangible and terrifying.

The new conspiracy involved a fake attack by Dr Manhattan on the major cities of the world. Never mind that the film goes to great lengths, like the book, to show how Dr Manhattan is becoming less and less interested in the fate of the world and humanity. We’re supposed to believe the only people to have spotted this are the superheroes who confront Veidt at the end of the film. But then, to compound the absurdity, the nations of the world get together in order to defend themselves from Dr Manhattan. To use his own analogy, this would be like all the termites in the mound banding together to defend themselves.

It is odd, that many of my complaints about the film as a whole (rather than the ending, which can be ignored) stem from the slavish translation from comic panel to film screen. Even the music referenced in the book is blasted out at overbearing volume through the course of the film. Almost as if the director is saying “hey you fans, I’m totally making Watchmen here!”. But sadly he didn’t.