From what you saw in this movie, I don't think any of the conclusions you came to are wrong. The denouement especially was lacking a significant amount of imagery and dialogue that would have made any or all of the characters... Well, the distinction between Dr. Manhatten and Adrian presented in the movie is far from satisfactory. I can't even discuss it all here. Just know you did better then me. I never actually left, but I thought hard about it less then 10 minutes in. Adrian fighting with Eddie was purely masturbatory on the part of the director, and that first opening music video montage, I had to get out my phone and check my calendar for a minute to make it through. Comedian shooting JFK? Hyper explicit sex scenes? Completely inappropriate, completely unprecedented, and really just fucking trashy.
It's rare for a work of fiction (whatever the format) to make me angry. Watchmen did, because I went into the movie with a lot of buzz at the back of my skull: Alan Moore understands, Alan Moore is a genius, Alan Moore is a god. I was hoping to find something in his story that related to my views, riffed off them in an interesting and enlightening way. Maybe I did. Maybe I'm bitter because my horse went down in spray of entrails in the last five minutes of the story.
Alan Moore hates and refuses to have anything to do with the movies adapted from his visual novels. He'd rather die than go and watch them. Here is a brief exert from an interview on the subject:
When we did meet Mr. Gilliam did ask me how I would go about translating Watchmen into a film, and I said to him, "If anybody had asked me, Terry, I would have advised them not to."That said, though, I haven't seen the movie, and I'll have to crack open my ancient copy of the comic to remember how it ends there. I do know the V for Vendetta had a vastly separate ending, and I
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It's a good point, I think, and without having read the comics I've heard enough to get an inkling of why he's outraged and offended. It is, I think, one of the more problematic aspects of the Comic Book imprint model of publishing --authors of books and stories retain rights over their fiction except where they explicitly waive those rights. Authors of graphic novels and comic books seem to waive those rights, by and large --it's an interesting morass, especially in light of recent adaptations (Gaiman's Stardust and Coraline) that did meet the author's standards and received their endorsement.
After reading that interview, my respect for Alan Moore explodes by leaps and bounds.
Although I do have an amendment to make: Having read what you've said on the movie ending (I'll confirm for myself soon enough), and having picked up my Watchmen and read all chapters past "Look upon my works, ye Mighty. . ." (Ozymandias relaying his plan as enacted 35 minutes ago), there seems to be no discernible divorce. This implication shocks me, as there has yet to be an Alan Moore adaptation which has kept the bleak and cynical commentary of human nature intact, instead opting for more triumphant David vs. Goliath victory throes
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Alan Moore hates and refuses to have anything to do with the movies adapted from his visual novels. He'd rather die than go and watch them. Here is a brief exert from an interview on the subject:
When we did meet Mr. Gilliam did ask me how I would go about translating Watchmen into a film, and I said to him, "If anybody had asked me, Terry, I would have advised them not to."That said, though, I haven't seen the movie, and I'll have to crack open my ancient copy of the comic to remember how it ends there. I do know the V for Vendetta had a vastly separate ending, and I ( ... )
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After reading that interview, my respect for Alan Moore explodes by leaps and bounds.
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