BSG, Universe and a Watchmen Review
I'm trying desperately to ignore the fact that BSG has ended. If I don’t think about it, I won't be tempted to find out how it ends and spoil myself. Although I may have accidentally spoiled myself for one small but crucial detail. In terms of my own watching, I've just finished Maelstrom in season three, so I'm getting there.
A trailer has been ( Read more... )
A trailer has been ( Read more... )
Another issue with Watchmen I think is that it had more to be loyal to than an adaptation of a book would require, and to a certain extent more than most comics. After all, with most books you don't have continuous pictures of characters/settings to adhere to, just the descriptions, so simply choosing someone to play a character adds something that wasn't there before by solidifying those descriptions into one visual form. And with most other comics (Spider-Man, Batman, Superman) there are multiple canons to choose from, so unless the director flat out says "this movie will be an adaptation of the Silver Age Superman," people can't jump on it as "inaccurate." And thanks to this, the writers/directors can--in fact they almost have to--pull from the various canons and create a new canon. With Watchmen you can't do that, because there's only one Watchmen. So you're left with the choice of recreating it as loyally as possible, or messing with it and pissing people off. Even Lord of the Rings recognized the need to loyally recreate visuals they already had, going so far as to employ artists who had once drawn illustrations for the novels to help them design sets/visuals for the movies and recreating iconic shots(and good lord, but I never ever should've watched all 4 commentary tracks to all of the extended edition DVDs, because I know more than anyone who's never actually finished reading those books should ever know about how those movies were made).
I suppose my answer your question "What was the point?" is that the point was to show how the story works in a different medium, because it's a different way of getting the message across. There's no need to create a different message. I like graphic novels, but I honestly relate better to film; for me, hearing Rorschach and the Comedian made them resonate more than they did in the comic, even though the words were the exact same. Seeing the movie somehow made them more real, and certain scenes wrenched my gut in a way the graphic novel never did, even though I've read it several times over the last few years, and understood what I was reading.
The difference between reading a poem and singing it is a comparison that might help illustrate the point I'm trying (very badly so far)to make. Same words, but when you set those words to music, it will probably evoke something different than it would without that music. The song isn't pointless just because you already had the poem, nor is the poem pointless because you don't have it set to music. They're just different ways of expressing the same message. The adaptation in how the message is delivered is the addition provided, if you want to look at it that way.
...sorry, enough of my rambling. Part of this is me trying to work out for myself why it did work for me, since I can see intellectually what you're saying and it makes just as much sense as what I'm trying to say. I guess really there's no reason why we can't both be right.
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That's a really good point, and one I didn't think of, about how mediums speak to different people. I'm a bit fan of graphic novels because they work for me as a medium better than ordinary novels, and sometimes (certainly in this case) better than movies.
There is that issue with Watchmen canon that doesn't apply to most comics. But other graphic novels with singular canons such as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell, and V for Vendetta had been adapted for movies without such loyalty. But then, I've never read V for Vendetta and From Hell. The only one I've both read and seen the movie is League, which was a really bad movie which actually would have been a lot better if they stuck closer to the graphic novel - so really, that argues your point.
I think this is one of those times when we're both right as well. I can see where you're coming from, particularly with the different mediums point. Anyway, the discussion's been good for me since it's caused me to clarify and articulate my thoughts about the movie, which I had trouble with when I was arguing about it with the people I saw it with.
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And yeah, the discussion's been good for me, too, because when I initially read your post, at first all I could think was "but I liked it!" This helped me realize *why* I like it.
Go us and rational, thoughtful discussion! :)
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