He was aware of it when it was first published, he appreciated the artwork, but never felt like buying the trade when it came out. Back then, $20 bucks was a lot to spend on anything, and, if DNA was going to spend money on comics, it was on original issues of Cerebus, 
2000 AD,
Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman, 
Milk and Cheese,
and the first printing of Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, 
not on a DC comics title. The only DC title that DNA purchased back then was the first Dark Knight series. Although DNA had always been dyed in the wool Marvelphile, at that time, Marvel was beginning to lose its gloss, too.
In the last couple of years, DNA has begun collecting some titles again, particularly titles like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Marvel Zombies books, the Dark Horse Conan, and Planet Hulk;
he also picked up some terrific graphic novels, like 30 Days of Night, and some great trades, like the Metal Men collection, but DNA had resisted picking up the Watchmen. Perhaps he didn’t like all of the critics telling him he needed to read this, and perhaps he didn’t like the attention the series was getting since it became known it was going to be made into a movie, but perhaps he was lame and was sorry that he missed such a good story for such a long time, and didn’t want to admit he was wrong not to have invested in it---like several things in DNA’s life, it might be confirmation that DNA is a dilettante, trying lots of things, but good at no things. He tried comics, but wasn’t really into comics, like many others are. DNA had the same experience when he first listened to Primus.
His first thought was “Eh,” and he didn’t invest a lot in Primus even when the other “cool” people in the music scene were. Primus, of course, is better than “eh,” and ever since then, DNA has been willing to re-evaluate his first take on something, no matter what. Look at it as a flaw, or at the least an idiosyncracy, but DNA will get on “kicks” and then follow those kicks for awhile. So, for example, he got on a kick to reclaim some old Dungeons and Dragons books and modules he used to have. For awhile, he researched, bought, and traded until he had more than enough of that old stuff. Now, he has quit getting more D&D stuff. But, while he was getting the stuff, he was single-mindedly pursuing that goal. This is a good and a bad thing at the same time. There is DNA’s therapy session for today. Now you have seen another layer of the intricate mulitiplicity that is DNA.
Watchmen. He didn’t buy it until recently (last year) and then, he really only bought it for his son, who read it quickly. DNA tried to read it, but quit the first time through. The expectation DNA had was that it was going to be “literary,” and DNA was annoying himself as he tried to read the story critically, the way he would a piece of literature. He put it away. Then, a couple of weeks ago, after DNA’s wifey suggested that the two of them see the Watchmen movie, he decided that he would read the book. This time, he read it just for fun, and was not disappointed. It is a terrific book, worthy of the praise it has received, worthy of its place on Time’s 100 best novels. The art is good, the coloring is good, and the story is excellent, though at times, some of the plot is way too comic-booky. But, it is a comic book, so some of that is a limitation of the medium.
Many people DNA respected had seen the movie and were not particularly kind to the director, Zach Snyder. Some saw it and were really pleased. So, DNA went in to the theater this weekend willing to accept its warts, but hoping to be blown away.
Let’s set the stage: First, this was a DATE, with his wifey, on their ANNIVERSARY, and was long overdue, basically a hold over date that didn’t occur on Valentine’s Day. Why do married people have to have a date? If you are wondering this, then you are not married with children. The planning that it takes to engineer a date when you have a family is greater than the engineering necessary to make Kanye West’s singing voice sound good. Yes, that’s a cheap shot, but have you heard that computer-aided warbling he calls singing? It makes DNA yearn for the “Gold Digger” days.
The date was set, and the first thing DNA noticed when they went to the theater was that DNA’s wifey was the only female in the place. Yikes. DNA became glad at that moment that he was a comics dilettante, otherwise, he might have been one of the over-40, overweight, undersexed, and poorly-socialized masses who were there.
There are lots of websites and movie reviewers that have dissected the film, heralded its achievements and decried its weaknesses, so DNA won’t do that. DNA agreed with most of the things that most critics liked and disliked. On second, thought, DNA WILL dissect the movie, at least a little, cuz most of them got it ALL WRONG!
There was a little too much slow motion photography, the sex scenes were way too long and way too graphic, and certainly a departure from the sexual imagery in the graphic novel. The depiction of violence was more intense than it needed to be, and again, particularly in comparison to the sometimes grisly and stark depiction of violence in the comic book, which left little to the imagination in terms of the physical impact of the actions of characters, the movie was still way too over the top in a couple of places. The pacing of the graphic novel was terrific; the pacing of the movie, which mirrored the graphic novel, was slow and long. Many of the backstories and sidestories could have been more deftly handled, letting the motion of motion pictures take up the slack the film’s ability to handle all of the exposition in the graphic novel.
Snyder really treated the graphic novel as his storyboard, which has several positive and negative effects. Most of the negatives were outlined above. Some of the positives include a very true adaptation of the comic book, which is what the fans wanted. Fans will also appreciate the level of detail that was captured by the film, and the care with which the proper attitude was conveyed in each character. It would have been really easy to make Rorschach a Wolverine clone. The emotional strength of the characters, and the philosophical nature of the story was also carried through the movie. However, in comics, it is common and comfortable for characters to be the embodiment of ideals, but in movies, it makes certain characters seem one-dimensional. The Comedian is Alan Moore’s (original writer of the Watchmen) best attempt to repudiate this idiom, but ultimately, almost all of the rest of the characters are allegory. Even the Comedian is, cast as Ironic Doubt. But, he is so well done, that it is easy to forget/miss his archetype. So, the comic book is great because the characters embody archetypes, but the movie is less four-dimensional (time and space) and more three-dimensional (time and the plane of a book page) because of it. On the other hand, the book had a very comic-booky and frankly, silly ending, with extra-dimensional research, genetically engineered creatures, eugenics projects, psychically sensitive humans, and teleportation used horribly, purposefully badly, to create the illusion of an alien threat which would unite the world’s governments. That’s not too contrived, is it? Thankfully, this was replaced in the movie by a much more honest and believable ending in which Ozymandias frames Dr. Manhattan as the source of several atomic sized blasts around the globe. This also fits Ozy’s previously established M.O. However, knowing how detached Dr. Manhattan was, it was probably more likely that had Ozymandias simply told Dr. Manhattan about his plan, instead of trying to obscure it and use Dr. Manhattan, that Dr. Manhattan would have agreed to his plan, like he does in the end, anyway.
Also, Dr. Manhattan did not hesitate to waste Rorschach in the end in the comic book, but in the movie, that moment was milked for sympathy way too long. This summarizes DNA’s problems with the movie in a nutshell: It did 99% of things exactly right, but the little things it does wrong, it does really wrong.
Here is the most important part of that 1% of the Watchmen which was wrong, flat out, Snyder listened or was pressured by the studio to include this stuff, WRONG:
First, in his zeal to capture the pace of the plot, and to as often as possible, produce shots which can be mapped directly to comic book, Zach Snyder produced a movie which lacks that visceral sense of internal motivation, and feels instead like you are watching a series of amazingly well done computer animated/live action comic book pages. A movie should not feel like a comic book. If you were to read the Watchmen, and take out the Black Freighter references and story, and remove the other elements that are eliminated in the film, it would take you as long to read through the comic as it does to watch the movie. That is wrong.
Second, a director has a choice, to show something, or not to show something, or to be implicit or explicit in his image and words. So unfortunately, in two key areas, not more than five minutes of film footage in total, Snyder chose to be explicit, and diverge from the comic in places he shouldn’t have: in the depiction of sex, and in a couple of graphic scenes of violence. In his depiction of the sex scenes, there are two scenes worth noting: the first scene with the Silk Spectre II (actress Malin Åkerman) and Dr. Manhattan, in which everything is implied, and captures the strange and humorous idea of having sex with a being who can be in more than two places at once, (which unfortunately, is partly deflated by the bad acting and forced lines of Åkerman) [she says in this scene, something like, “What am I, a pity fuck?” which although can be written as dialogue, is simply stupid to say]. Anyhow, that sex scene is racy, weird, and tasteful, and so for me, passes the obvious pandering-to-sexually-needy demographic that the producers of this movie knows will pay lots of money to see this movie. The next full blown sex scene (no pun) however, does not pass the pandering-to-sexually-needy demographic spooge test so well. In a blatant and sad attempt to allow fanboys to visualize their own conquest of the Silk Spectre II, her sex scene with Nite Owl II is so graphic as to really be considered Skinamax-level softcore porn. No, we didn’t see erect penis, nor did we see pussy, nor a money shot, but we did see everything else of the sexual act. DNA didn’t need or want to see a slightly overweight dude in a costume slamming his hips convincingly into the waiting womb of a bad actress.
DNA would have preferred they kept their uniforms on...their sex scene is already in the top 10 worst sex scenes of all time...How many times do we have to submit to Hollywood’s crass idea that sexuality equals sensuality? Or, that Hollywood is ever gonna show us something sexually in a movie that we have not already seen much more graphically and honestly in a porno? Lastly, instead of making us feel the passion of these characters in a wild, vulnerable, and erotic moment, you feel kind of like you walked in on your roommate humping his girl---mildly surprised that you saw her boobs and his balls, but kind of sad and embarrassed for both them and you, cuz your going to have to talk to them tomorrow like you just didn’t see her boobs and his balls. Wouldn’t it have been better, Zach Snyder, to have followed the comic more closely at that moment, like you did through almost the rest of the movie, and let sensuality instead of sexuality rule the day? Here’s the answer: YES, IT WOULD HAVE. DNA is actually looking forward to the PG edit of the Watchmen for TV. It will be better than the R version in the theaters.
FINALLY, DNA has a problem with the final editorial choice to leave the sex scene mentioned above in and some way over the top depictions of violence (not quite so mentioned above). DNA is no prude. DNA is okay with sex and violence, just not together, unless that’s what you’re into, and even then, DNA isn’t okay with it, he’s just okay with you being into it as consenting adults. So why, DNA, are you so bent out of shape with the sex and violence in this movie?
Well, it boils down to audience. Zach Snyder, DNA really wanted to take his son, his 13 year old son, who enjoyed and understood the comic, who has re-read it and really gets some of the deeper philosophical themes presented within its pages, to see this movie. He really wanted to be able to watch it with him together, to be engrossed in it, and to talk about how awesome it was to see afterwards. We would then be able to talk about the ways it succeeded, the ways it failed, the things it did well, what we liked the most, how cool Rorschach was, how weird it was to see Dr. Manhattan naked, but how normal it was for the character, but, YOU AND THE HOLLYWOOD FUCKERS YOU HAD TO PLEASE MADE IT IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO DO THIS SINCE YOU SHOWED DNA EVERYTHING HE NEEDED TO SEE ABOUT THE SILK SPECTRE II’S FUCKING ABILITY [completely immaterial to the story, by the way] WITH THE CLASS AND OBJECTIVITY OF A MUTUAL OF OMAHA SPECIAL CAPTURING THE MATING HABITS OF HAIRLESS UPRIGHT MONKEYS. ACTUALLY, DNA WOULD HAVE RATHER WATCHED A SPECIAL ABOUT THE MATING HABITS OF HAIRLESS UPRIGHT MONKEYS THAN THIS OBVIOUS, UNNECESSARY, AND CRASS IMITATION OF ACTUAL FUCKING, WHICH HOLLYWOOD TYPES EQUIVOCATE WITH MOVIE SALES. Sadly, these Hollywood types are often right, but this movie would have been so much better had Snyder and the Hollywood types in the woodwork kept closer to Alan Moore’s vision of his audience, namely, anyone who might have walked into a comic book shop and been reasonably bright, including a 13 year old boy. Five minutes. Out of a three hour movie, five minutes would have made the difference. The inclusion of the gratuitous sexual imagery and over the top violence actually subverts the message of Moore’s original work, which was that an overtly visual stimulating medium like comics could still be the setting for a philosophically challenging and morally compelling work of literature. If only Snyder could have held on to that as his compass, (maybe an impossible task) the Watchmen would have succeeded on every level, instead of just succeeding as a story board come to life.
Even with these faults, I liked the movie. More importantly for the rest of the weekend, so did DNA’s wifey. But the Fuckers that regularly fuck things up fucked things up again on this movie, and took something that could have been great art and made it a good movie.
More importantly than all of this nitpicking, the soundtrack was great. Better fit and better edited than any of the visuals. It nicely weaved in a sense of reality that felt less "alternate" and more our own. DNA will buy the soundtrack, but is undecided if he will buy the DVD when it comes out.
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