Posted by kiteBut who will watch The Watchmen?
I suppose the nerd thing to do this week is go watch The Watchmen, the comic book that supposedly could never be turned into a movie. I know a lot of my friends are quite a bit nervous about this upcoming movie. Will it be awesome? I suppose only time, and personal taste, will tell. For instance, while I loved Batman Begins, the last Batman movie...really didn't do much for me. It seemed like cake to me. Sure, the stuff going on on screen was bad ass, to a very high degree, but there didn't seem to be enough substance driving it. For me though, the ultimate superhero movie will always be Spiderman 2. Perhaps its because I have a questionable love for Doc Oc, but I actually felt like there was more going on there than "oooh, neat special effects."
I mean, wasn't that what made Batman: The Animated Series as awesome as it was? It wasn't the Batman fights (though those were equally rad), but the characterization itself. The characters simply sprang to life on the show, each was given a honest feel to them that made them feel real. Time and energy was spent developing the characters and making them flesh and bone. Time was spent on the psyche of why these characters, and why they acted as they did. For me, simply saying The Joker acts as he does "because he enjoys chaos" isn't giving the character the even hand it has been given. Though, I suppose we've all been spoiled by The Joker, I can't think of a single one, including the Adam West Joker, that wasn't amazing; so Heath had quite an oversized clown shoe to fill.
But, I digress. Here's the thing about The Watchmen. I'll be seeing it tomorrow, with some friends of mine, at the IMAX Theater. I protested saying I don't have the cash to scrounge up to afford IMAX. Being the nerds they are, that need to share the experience en masse, they pitched in to get me tickets. So, I'll be seeing it with the gang at large. Here's the thing though. I never read the comic. I've never been a comic guy, so I never really bothered. Normally, for a movie based on a book, I refuse to watch the movie until I've read the book on principle. Generally two and a half hours just isn't time enough to properly develop a character, and I want to know what I'm getting in to before I sit down. I usually want to know if they gave the story justice. A changed story is fine; you almost have to change most stories for a new medium.
So, I'm of two minds here. I don't have access to the book, as I was late in asking my friends to borrow copies as they had already distributed the wealth amongst fellow nerds. For one, it's a comic book, how badly do I really need the source material? I've never read a Batman comic a day in my life, but I feel like I know the character pretty much inside and out. But then again, most comic book fans hold The Watchman on the same level as Miracle Man, a comic book I did in fact read, and did find to be just as majestic as I was told it would be. Am I not holding a medium to a different standard just because of a generalization? Any medium, if loved and worked with, can be honed to an artform if time and energy is spent. If you don't believe that, read Cavalier and Clay, I promise they will sell you on the notion that there is more to the comic book super hero than spandex and a six-pack. For that matter, for god's sake, I write a freaking comic, so you'd think that would set me in the mind that it's a venture worth the energy. Then again, Sold Out isn't art. Sometimes, you just want cake, and that's what we feed you here.
What I'm getting at here is, I'm going to give you all 24 hours to sell me. Chances are, none of you will get a chance to sell me, but that's fine too. Should I try, by any means necessary, to get my hands on the comic? Or, should I enjoy the movie as the independent art form it is? I'm leaning at option two, myself. They don't call me Slacker for no reason.