We won’t deny that we’re not 100% sure how good “Watchmen” will be (we see it next week). We think that these fawning “review leaks” let alone the sheer expectation that this movie’s the Second Coming are a little asinine. Both Jeffrey Wells’ and David Poland’s blogs have heard that the movie’s going to be style over substance and the trades (real reviews) today suggest that as well. Let us chime in on that note and tell you why you need to settle your hyperactive anticipation down in order to give the movie a FAIR ASSESSMENT. It’s honestly a little gauche and embarrassing some of the panting and gushing reviews. Have you no professional pride? Some of your are only reinforcing your geek stereotypes, btw.
100% Faithful Adaptation You Say? Congratulations?
We think the constantly reiterated fact that Zack Snyder prided himself upon directing the movie with a copy of “Watchmen” at his side to help him complete a “100% faithful adaptation” is not necessarily the unequivocal win that everyone seems to think it is and we’re deeply troubled with the blind and utterly naive notion that “100% faithful” all of a sudden became a synonym for amazing and thumbs up postulating. Says who? Do you have any critical faculties? Are you a discerning person? Or do you just eat any scrap off the floor?
Is the Tone And Spirit Captured Above The Xerox?
What that suggests is an indicator of a director who is fetishizing the material, and too afraid to put his artistic spin on the source material for fear of worrying the fans and not preoccupying themselves with what might serve the onsreen-story best (god, do we need to get into what an adaptation is and why comic books, novels and the film medium are two different forms? Do we need to break out Marshall McLuhan Alan Moore to explain how the mediums are actually quite different?). And face it, breaking the record for most slo-mo/speed-up Matrix-style effects in a single film does not count as putting the story through an artistic scope (and if you think action and this kind of speed-ramping captures the tone and spirit of Moore’s book, you grossly misunderstand what it’s actually about).
Sure the movie is going to LOOK like the comic book, but is it going to FEEL like it?
This book-in-hand business screams “creative crutch” to those who know that directing doesn’t work the same way as having a cheat sheet at a test. Adapting material to the screen should come from both a director and a screenwriter internally understands the story, its characters, their emotions, and their fluctuating interactions and repercussions among other intangible phenomena. Tone is an ineffable element that must be captured above all and tone isn’t conveyed in by-the-book storyboards. How that process can be approximated by having the book on set to make sure it all looked the same is a mystery. It’s also kinda fucking mentally-retarded to think that should further enhance anyone’s enjoyment of the film.
The potential xerox factor has us worried that “Watchmen” is going to look purty, but lack all of that tightly-woven subtext that Moore penned. The “Black Freighter” story that is truly one of the best allegories within a story in the past few decades? Straight-to-DVD. Sure the movie’s long as hell as is, but a better adapter would know what is and isn’t essential to the story instead of worrying about getting every last word and panel into the film. Stronger directors have tried and failed to put the book onscreen (Darren Aronofsky, Paul Greengrass, Terry Gilliam), which also makes us feel like we could’ve seen a better (and SHORTER) version in an alternate reality (no pun intended).
Yet the less attractive option of a visually literal adaptation has the geek community in erect rapture. Forget the fact that directors have adapted books for decades and that the best comic book films (“The Dark Knight”, “X-Men 2” and Iron Man) were not adapted word-for-word and panel-for-panel to the screen. They weren’t even culled from one single story!
Just because the movie is a chance for geeks to loudly proclaim the film represents their (not at all) marginalized culture, doesn’t mean they should. The whole “I was there/I read that before it was cool” reasoning behind providing one’s “expert” opinion is the most shallow point on which to base an argument, but that’s basically how these early praises and reviews have been written. All this fawning is accomplishing is building expectations way too high (not to mention further discredits any reviews pretending to be non-partisan) and perhaps not being very realistic about what’s actually onscreen.
Or maybe that’s cool. Maybe idolatry is specifically part of the game, but then stick to being a fan and don’t try and mask yourself under the guise of being a journalist.
Here’s the thing: come March 6 are just going to see a story that you’ve already read that hasn’t been given any further artistic development? That should be of concern to us all.