[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for the film version of "Watchmen"]
"Do it? Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago." -- Adrian Veidt
Have Lived Life, Free From Compromise...
Most adaptations suck. How often have we all complained that "the movie ruined the book!"? (My response is always "No, it didn't. The book is right there, as good as it ever was.") This phenomenon certainly happens in the gaming world as well. We're all familiar with the largely true trope that movie-to-game adaptations suck only marginally less than game-to-movie adaptations. Those who try to analyze why this phenomena occurs usually attribute it to one of two causes, either a lack of talent on the part of the adaptor (call it the "curse of Uwe Boll") or a lack of respect for the source material (call it the wail of Tom Bombadil). While I can't seriously argue with the first as poor workmanship will ruin anything, the second intrigues me because I've always thought that people get that exactly backwards. It isn't lack of respect for the source material that ruins an adaptation, it's a lack of respect for the process of adaptation itself. Exhibit A: Three versions of "Watchmen," a book, a movie and a game.
1986's "Watchmen" is arguably the greatest comic book ever made. It was, I believe, the book for which the term "graphic novel" was coined, to separate it out from the lower orders of disposable drugstore rack funny books. It's an opinion I share as the proud owner of all 12 original issues in mint or near-mint condition, and the possessor of my fourth dog-eared copy of the trade paperback. "Watchmen" is a rich feast that gets richer the more times you read it. It's a deconstruction of the superhero myth, a treatise on the politics of power and the power of politics, an examination of heroism and where it comes from and much more. It's also -- and the importance of this cannot be understated -- a comic book.
"Watchmen" derives much of its power from its status as a comic book. Despite the attention paid to the work of Alan Moore, "Watchmen" owes as much to the artwork of Dave Gibbons. Consider that the broadly symmetrical nine-panel grid layout of "Watchmen" was not common at the time, and harked back to the format of the EC horror comics and the work of Steve Ditko, which was itself influenced by comic's origins as a newspaper strip. This strictness of this form is one that verily screams "comic book" because it's the classic comic book idea of good and evil that what goes on inside the panel is busy deconstructing. "Watchmen's" artwork respects the power of the format even while it's busy pulling apart its sacred symbols.
Who Watches The...
Just this past weekend I went to see Zack Snyder's film "Watchmen," a remarkably faithful adaptation that did the seemingly impossible: cram the essence of a gargantuan story into a relatively compact three-hour running time. While I won't claim it's a great film -- it certainly doesn't beat Snyder's own "300" -- I enjoyed it. What struck me while I was watching the movie, though, was that the film's weaknesses didn't stem from any lack of fidelity to the source material; if anything, it was from a failure to properly fit the property into the requirements of a film, an art form very different than a comic book. A comic book derives its power from the sequential nature of its art in combination with text and the active participation of the reader in the so-called "gutter" filling in the blanks between panels (thanks, Scott McCloud!). Films quickly move from place to place and display a moving image in a way designed to give a specific impression.
Snyder's "Watchmen" achieves real filmic power in two particular instances. The first is the fight scene between Nite Owl II and Silk Spectre and a group of about 30 gang members. The action in this particular scene is absolutely brutal. Snyder's camera shies away from nothing in displaying just how large the gulf is between a human being trained well enough to be a "superhero" and an ordinary person. Consider that in 1985 both of them had been in retirement for seven years. They were both out of shape and out of practice yet between them they proceeded to take apart a gang of 30 toughs presumably not unused to fighting, as well as carrying a variety of weapons, including a handgun.
