tiggymalvern (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tiggymalvern) wrote2009-03-09 03:15 pm
tiggymalvern) wrote2009-03-09 03:15 pm
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Watchmen
Went to see the Watchmen movie yesterday afternoon. I liked it.
The director did a pretty good job with all the elements that made it to the screen. The opening credits were a thing of beauty, that made me squee right from the start. Plus it was a brilliant directorial decision to get so much back-story across that way and reduce the need for exposition.
I was actually in favour of the main change that was made - it worked in context, and reduced some of the plot complexity, so it worked better in a compressed timeframe. Most of the other changes were very minor - some I agreed with, some were a shame, but were needed for time.
I've heard complaints that the movie was 'too slow' for an action movie, and I heartily disagree. Seemed a fast two and a half hours to me. I've heard complaints about the level of violence, but hey, it's a violent comic about a violent world, which is kind of the point. There are places where the dialogue is lifted straight from the graphic novel, and the words don't work as well in the mouths of actors as they do on the written page, and I think that's one of the ways it would have been a good idea to be *less* faithful to the source - not a complaint you'll hear often in movie adaptations of beloved works!
The main problem with the Watchmen film, inevitably, is all the elements that *didn't* make it to the screen. On the car on the way home, we kept thinking of more and more little background details that had been missed out, that just added layers to the metaphor and sublety to the characters, tiny details that make the whole.
The good thing was, watching a short 'making of' type documentary last night, we could see that some of those details were there in the background, in some cases literally built into the sets. Me, I just can't wait for the four hour director's cut on DVD :-)))
The director did a pretty good job with all the elements that made it to the screen. The opening credits were a thing of beauty, that made me squee right from the start. Plus it was a brilliant directorial decision to get so much back-story across that way and reduce the need for exposition.
I was actually in favour of the main change that was made - it worked in context, and reduced some of the plot complexity, so it worked better in a compressed timeframe. Most of the other changes were very minor - some I agreed with, some were a shame, but were needed for time.
I've heard complaints that the movie was 'too slow' for an action movie, and I heartily disagree. Seemed a fast two and a half hours to me. I've heard complaints about the level of violence, but hey, it's a violent comic about a violent world, which is kind of the point. There are places where the dialogue is lifted straight from the graphic novel, and the words don't work as well in the mouths of actors as they do on the written page, and I think that's one of the ways it would have been a good idea to be *less* faithful to the source - not a complaint you'll hear often in movie adaptations of beloved works!
The main problem with the Watchmen film, inevitably, is all the elements that *didn't* make it to the screen. On the car on the way home, we kept thinking of more and more little background details that had been missed out, that just added layers to the metaphor and sublety to the characters, tiny details that make the whole.
The good thing was, watching a short 'making of' type documentary last night, we could see that some of those details were there in the background, in some cases literally built into the sets. Me, I just can't wait for the four hour director's cut on DVD :-)))
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Yup :-) The DVD is going to be a thing of beauty!
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