I’d Really Like to See…The ’Watchmen’ Not Suck

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series.



Editor's Note: This blog contains SPOILERS about the "Watchmen" comic and film.

If you know me and/or follow this feature on the site, you should be well aware that I’m a pretty big comic book geek. It only seems inevitable that I should have something to say about this week’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s "Watchmen." Now I wouldn’t say that the book introduced me to comics or changed the way I look at them, and I may not even consider "Watchmen" my favorite thing by Alan Moore (seriously, check out his work on "Swamp Thing"), but it’s an absolute masterpiece no matter whether you're judging it as a graphic novel or standard novel (it's still one of the few graphic novels to be included on Time Magazine's Top 100 Novels of All Time).

Moore managed to add a level of maturity and moral complexity to superheroes that was not close to being matched until about 20 years later and he did it all while simultaneously incorporating the Golden and Silver Ages of comics and showing us how the medium has evolved in the Modern Age.

For the uninitiated, "Watchmen" follows a group of former masked vigilantes in an alternate version of our own reality (one which sees the recently re-elected Richard Nixon serving his third term as president in 1985). When one of their own is murdered, the heroes' investigation into the motives behind his death and a suspected plot to rid the world of all of the former avengers uncovers a conspiracy with much larger ramifications. That said, the novel takes full advantage of the comic medium and is a perfectly singular, self-contained work. In addition to the main story, Moore includes “source material” (articles and books written by or about characters in the universe) at the end of each chapter and the comic-within-a-comic "Tales from the Black Freighter" to add further layers to the story, characterization, and general themes of the piece. As one can imagine, these extra quirks to the book along with the generally massive scope of the story can make the film difficult to adapt from page to screen.


Here are some potential factors that, in my opinion, could hinder a successful adaptation:

Zack Snyder: I wouldn’t consider myself a Zack Snyder hater by any means. He’s 1-1 in my book. I enjoy Dawn of the Dead, but I consider 300 the Top Gun of our generation (think Tarantino's homosexual rant from Four Rooms). When looking at his films, you'll notice that they’re incredibly stylized, often sacrificing emotional substance on the altar of eye-popping visuals. Although we’re likely to have a pretty film to watch that compliments Dave Gibbons’ art, I fear a lot of the subtext and morality will be lost.

Miscasting: When I heard that Carla Gugino was cast as Silk Spectre, I thought that it was a good choice. Then I heard that she was cast as the first Silk Spectre and that Silk Spectre II (the more primary of the two) was going to be played by some young girl, Malin Akerman, who doesn’t have much in the way of acting chops, judging from her body of work (27 Dresses, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle). I can’t say that I have much hope for scrawny Matthew Goode as otherwise fit Ozymandias either, nor do I have much optimism after seeing either of their stiff performances from the various clips that have been release on the Internet.

New Ending: “Squidgate” has been dominating the message boards about as much as the Fox/Warner Bros. legal tie-up the film had been in. Those familiar with the book know that it ends with a giant, "extraterrestrial" squid monster engineered by Ozymandias detonating upon its teleportation into Manhattan, effectively wiping out half the city and millions of lives. For various reasons, likely because the idea of a squid monster may not translate as easily to the screen, the end disaster results in a variety of nuclear, Dr. Manhattan-like explosions unleashed on cities around the world.

Think about Veidt’s reason for causing the disaster: he was hoping that the catastrophe would bring a world about to go to war together in harmony in its wake. In the book, it works and makes sense, but it can’t possibly work this way in the film. Why? Because other countries would obviously point to Dr. Manhattan - an American - as the cause of global atrocities. The catalyst for unification has to come from an outside, third party source without affiliations to anyone or anything in order for warring parties - in this case, the United States and Russia - to truly be uniting against a common enemy. And for anybody who doesn’t think a squid monster wreaking havoc on Manhattan doesn’t work in film, you haven’t seen Cloverfield.

Hopefully all of my concerns will be for naught. Please don’t think I want this film to fail; I would love to be able to have an additional way to enjoy this extraordinary story. But no matter how much the film may sink or swim, that will never change Alan Moore’s original novel, which will forever be around for us to enjoy in its original form.