WATCHMEN/RANT

PIERCE:

I'm either going to get a lot of flack for this, or a lot of folks are going to agree. Or both. Or neither.

So..."Where do we...begin?" The surely-to-be-soon-overly-quoted line by the Joker aptly states what's happening /about to happen in the comic book film world. I'll go ahead and waste words reiterating what everyone already knows; that if The Dark Knight continues barreling along at the same rate, it'll soon give Titanic a run for its money. The thing is, before people even had a chance to ponder what could come after this dark, heady, character-driven film, viewers caught a preview of what has been considered the "most important Graphic Novel ever written." There is a geek standard for that type of description, but that's not what I'm talking about; Time magazine placed this in the top 100 greatest books ever written. So when the preview to Zach Snyder's nervously anticipated Watchmen trailer finally aired, most people's fears were laid to rest, right? I mean everything looked solid, he did that other comic book 300, didn't he?

Maybe not, and I think (pray I'm wrong) the problem will be this: Zach Snyder thinks he's making a superhero film. We saw in the trailer a lot of masked/caped people swooshing, gliding, and strutting across the screen in slick, stylish slow motion. It looks cool,
but unfortunately if you READ Watchmen you're given something more this: A Salinger-esque, irony ridden, dialogue-driven tale that paints the portrait of a doomed group of former "superheroes" as ultimately a sad joke. Who also are spending 90% of the time NOT in costume. One character is actually modeled around that very idea, and his death forms what drives this plot. It was one of the first pieces of work to truly turn the notion of superheroes on its head. I didn't catch any of that in this trailer. I saw the caped costumes, which looked awesome, but which are also in error, given that the costumes were all supposed to have an endearingly embarrassing element to them (this version may actually just go a little too far past in the other direction though... heh).

Anyways, to top it all off, the trailer featured a song by Billy Corgan. This song I didn't recognize, and I soon found out why when I realized it was written for the BATMAN AND ROBIN movie, the one that sort of ended comic book movies for a while. That bad omen of a song wouldn't be sooo bad, if only Alan Moore the author hadn't fleshed out this damn book to the point where the book, actually had its-yes-own soundtrack. A damn good one to boot. The lyrics of various/amazing songs are woven into the themes of this book, from Bob Dylan, to Nat King Cole, to Hendrix and Simon and Garfunkel, to name a few. This movie is going to be a @#$ing chore to make, honestly. I didn't mention the labyrinthine plot, or that Alan Moore also wrote this comic specifically to do things that only comics, not movies, can achieve.

Believe it or not I'm not naysaying this movie, I just feel as if I'm the only one not so hot for it yet. This lists only half the things Snyder is up against. Finally I want to state this ISN'T fanboy gripe--I could care less that Watchmen is Graphic Novel form--but rather from someone wanting to make sure really seriously good book gets made right.

I'll keep my proverbial fingers crossed on it and keep watching to see what happens. Either way, they have my ticket sale...