Eating the Fugu: "I did it 35 minutes ago"
Having finally seen the film version of Watchmen, I feel any opinion I could express can be far better, and more eloquently, summed up by quoting two other people.
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"I don't think it is filmable. I didn't design it to show off the similarities between cinema and comics, which are there, but in my opinion are fairly unremarkable. It was designed to show off the things that comics could do that cinema and literature couldn't."
--> Alan Moore, The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made, 2002.
"While Watchmen is still as rich, daring, and intelligent an action film as there's ever been, it also proves Moore absolutely right [to distrust adaptations]. As a comic book, Watchmen is an extraordinary thing. As a movie, it's just another movie, awash with sound and fury."
--> Nick Dent, Time Out Sydney, February 25, 2009.
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Which leads me to the following uncomfortable question. Apologies, in advance, for my heresy - please keep in mind I love Watchmen, while at the same time am interested in dissecting it. Therefore, in the spirit of English lit class, I ask the
wednesdaycomics readers:
If Watchmen, the graphic novel, is a thing of power and majesty because of the way it's told - the stylistic tricks, the use of imagery, the breaking with the conventions of the time - does that mean its central plot and story line, once stripped of those "tricks", is ordinary?
Greet the Fire as Your Friend,
SF
dragontail is a professional journalist and published true-crime author, who has won awards for writings both journalistic and science-fiction. He is the creator of Otaku Journalism and his opinion column, Eating the Fugu, appears semi-regularly at wednesdaycomics.
"I don't think it is filmable. I didn't design it to show off the similarities between cinema and comics, which are there, but in my opinion are fairly unremarkable. It was designed to show off the things that comics could do that cinema and literature couldn't."
--> Alan Moore, The Greatest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made, 2002.
"While Watchmen is still as rich, daring, and intelligent an action film as there's ever been, it also proves Moore absolutely right [to distrust adaptations]. As a comic book, Watchmen is an extraordinary thing. As a movie, it's just another movie, awash with sound and fury."
--> Nick Dent, Time Out Sydney, February 25, 2009.
Which leads me to the following uncomfortable question. Apologies, in advance, for my heresy - please keep in mind I love Watchmen, while at the same time am interested in dissecting it. Therefore, in the spirit of English lit class, I ask the
wednesdaycomics readers:If Watchmen, the graphic novel, is a thing of power and majesty because of the way it's told - the stylistic tricks, the use of imagery, the breaking with the conventions of the time - does that mean its central plot and story line, once stripped of those "tricks", is ordinary?
Greet the Fire as Your Friend,
SF
dragontail is a professional journalist and published true-crime author, who has won awards for writings both journalistic and science-fiction. He is the creator of Otaku Journalism and his opinion column, Eating the Fugu, appears semi-regularly at wednesdaycomics. 