Last Friday, I took a “furlough day” and left the office at noon to go see Watchmen with another professor. A cold drizzle fell as I ran to get my ticket. I waited, hands stuffed inside my green jacket against the cold, for my fellow academic geek. The weather seemed appropriate, somehow. I thought about the few things I had heard about the movie; I made an effort to avoid spoilers and hadn’t read any reviews. All I knew was the ending had been slightly changed, there was no pirate story, and the reviews were highly polarized. My friend soon arrived. I grabbed a kids combo for a snack (really, the best deal in the theatre) and we hit the theatre just as the previews started. At first, it was empty, but a few folks joined us before the movie started.
I am sure that someone watching US during the movie could have figured out our reactions by our posture. As the film went on, my friend literally crept toward the edge of his seat. By the time Night Owl and Silk Spectre busted Rorschach out of prison, he was leaning forward, elbows on knees, intent. Meanwhile I leaned back, legs crossed, arms folded or hands in my lap. As we left, he exclaimed “Man! That was awesome!” My response was a little more . . . muted. He asked what was up.
“I am not really sure. It looked great, was very faithful to the comic, and I think everyone did a good job. I really don’t know why I am not more excited. I need to wrap my head around it a little more.”
I went home and pulled out my graphic novel. Small changes jumped out at me: the film was more graphically violent in places, especially the prison scenes. But it was remarkably faithful; panels were used as storyboards, the dialog was the same in many placed.
Then I noticed some things in the novel I’d almost forgotten: Hollis Mason dies in the novel, a victim of a random gang attack and robbery. The court psychologist is visibly affected by his interview with Rorschach, to the point where his marriage is threatened. These things weren’t in the film, but they were small things. Not really essential for the whole “Ozymandias is manipulating everyone to save the world, sorta” plot. No big deal.
Except they were. A beloved minor character getting randomly killed and a stable minor character being pushed to the brink by a hero were both vital in setting the tone of menace for the novel. That tone oozes in every page, with the backgrounds, the Black Freighter story, all of it, contributing to the readers sense of doom. Moore’s 1985 is a world on the brink, not just of nuclear annihilation, but of complete social collapse. Things are falling apart. The center cannot hold. That’s the reason the Comedian is such a nihilist. That’s the reason the reader is both attracted to and horrified by Veit’s plan. He’s order in chaotic times.
The film lacked that sense of menace for me. As such, it lacked much of an emotional punch. Sure, it tried to make us feel the impending threat of nuclear war, with Nixon’s speeches and the Doomsday clock. But, by omitting certain scenes, it failed to deliver the horrible background of which our protagonists were both cause and effect. They helped bring about this state of affairs; only they can stop it. But they can only stop it by destroying New York city with a giant comic book creature (designed, by the way, to induce maximum fear).
Since I didn’t feel that threat, I didn’t care about the characters or the world very much, which contributed to my distance and lack of investment in the whole thing.
I think that’s it. I think that’s the reason that I enjoyed the movie and was disappointed at the same time. What did everyone else think?
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