That’s right, I went to see Watchmen tonight.

Now, Alan Moore is apparently really pissed off about this film… Pretty much for the exact same reason that he’s pissed off about the movie adaptions of all this other films. I’m going to be honest here, I haven’t actually read all of Watchmen yet. I started reading it, and half way through book two, heard there was a movie coming out. I thought to myself “Moore always complains about the film adaptions of his books, so this time, I’m going to see the movie first, so what’s a good movie in its own right won’t actually be ruined by the book”. The logic being that if I read the book second, the superior printed form makes me appreciate the movie and the book all the… moore. I will now go out and buy the “absolute edition”. I recommend you do the same. Apparently it contains Moore’s rebuttal to the flick.

Back on topic. What was the big change?

The ending, but other than that… the size of Dr Manhattan’s dick.

See, apparently, in the series, Dr Manhattan has this tiny, inneffctual penis, like Michaelangelo’s David. This is to make some grandiose statement of how amazingly emasculated and ineffectual he is as a human being, even though he’s got all these godlike powers. I don’t know, he managed to pull some tail that looks like Lucy Lawless, only much younger and hotter, and then have a foursome with her entirely on his own. That seems pretty effective as a male to me. But no, apparently the giant dick, circumcised dick, he now sports for the majority of the film undermines all of this, because no he’s fully omnipotent… Which I can’t show you either, because there seems to be some kind of internet conspiracy where not only can I not find his dick in the movie, most of the shots of it from the comic are censored by the bloody Smiley button. This is in juxtaposition to the Nightowl who can’t even get it up unless the chick he’s with has just beaten someone senseless and is wearing latex and CFM high heels.

I actually question how different that is from most guys that watch internet porn in the first place actually.

Either way though, this is what has Moore afroth. Gee man, if you hate Hollywood so much, stop fucking selling them your scripts. You bitched about 300, and complained about how Tarantino was the only person that understood your vision for Sin City. Eisner’s probably glad he’s dead so he doesn’t have to listen you bitching about what they did with his stuff… Not that you’re reading this, but hey.

Seriously, anyone could have told you that this film wasn’t going to be sticking to the original script with 100% faithfulness the moment the advertising team thought it would be a good idea to give out big blue condoms in matchstick packets as a promotion. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that maybe the creation is no longer the sole work of the original creator at this point.

The fact of the matter is that this is a good movie in its own right. Sure, it doesn’t stick 100% to the source material, but you know what? It’s not fucking terrible. It’s actually pretty fucking good. This is nowhere near the kind of textual and theatrical rape that was Michael Bay’s first foray into Transformers (thank the Matrix that the second film is looking half decent).

Fact of the matter is that some films actually are on par with their source material, whilst being radically different. StarShip Troopers comes to mind. The original was Heinlein’s crackpot views on civil service and a citizen’s franchise. The film was an action packed masterpiece on the futility of war with an enemy you refuse to understand. Some movies are even better than their source material, like Blade Runner and Total Recall.

And some movies simply stand up as good movies in their own right, and people would fucking love them if they didn’t say they were based on something, like Super Mario Bros.

Even so, what I believe to be the main point of the novels was still present. That even in heroes, there is no absolute good, and still great capacity for evil. Most of them are amazingly fucked up characters. Rorschach hits the nail on the head when breaking into Dr Manhattan’s joint when he queries why so few of them are mentally balanced and still alive. The greatest hero of them all decides that the best way to save a world is to kill millions, and the only true superhero decides that he has no place and to just leave. Admittedly, if I were suddenly a supreme being, I doubt I’d have enough left in common to sympathise with my fellow man, but the premise thatVoidt brings, that Rorschach can’t deal with, is that what is Just and what is Right can be, and often are, two totally separate things.

Rorschach dies for this because he cannot live in a world that isn’t just. Dr Manhattan leaves (in the film) because he cannot continue to do what is right.

The point is that no adaption will ever be like the source material! The director and D.O.P don’t really know what’s going on in the head of the author, even if they authored a comic that kind of gives a shot for shot run down of how it should go. The film version of Adaptation is proof enough of that.  So long as the core argument or ideology of the original text remains, what does it matter if there are details that are changed? The characters and sequence of events are merely devices for conveying an idea, not the idea itself.

There are some things that it’s not worth getting worked up about when you’re the one that let it happen in the first place by selling away the rights.

A giant blue cock really isn’t one of them.

You might also like to read:

1. More Watchmen, Less Blue Cock
2. Oh, I get it! They’re black people!
3. Blue Bebop

4 Comments »

1. [...] to the Watchmen movie, Moore’s best loved comic is getting a lot of attention [...]

   Pingback by Watchmen: Suitable for Children | The Goth Club — March 16, 2009 @ 12:50 pm

2. [...] if Moore had a heart attack over the movie, and a brain embolism over the Saturday morning cartoon for the kiddies, what would he be like if [...]

   Pingback by Watchmen: The Pie ad | The Goth Club — March 19, 2009 @ 7:25 am

3. [...] you’re likely going to rage over this almost as badly as if they’d given Hugh Jackman a massive blue swinging cock and twirled it in your face for three hours. And getting massively dicked is exactly what happens [...]

   Pingback by Movie Review - X-Men Origins: Wolverine | The Goth Club — April 14, 2009 @ 1:46 am

4. [...] that are unaware, Wade is one of my three dopplegangers (see photo). If you are interested in some Dr. Manhattan Action, again, the comment box is below… I’ll be the one still working in the tool [...]

   Pingback by Oh god, WHY?! | The Goth Club — April 30, 2009 @ 2:04 pm

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