The Watchmen!
I think that this is a good way of finally getting all this Watchmen stuff out of our system.
So, what are your feelings on the book, the movie, or the Saturday morning cartoon?
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Posted on March 8, 2009, in Pop Culture. Bookmark the permalink. 17 Comments.
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An outstanding comic.
The comic was brilliant, well written. I probably won’t see the movie because of the violence (bone-breaking violence one review wrote). I never got into the Watchmen back in the 80s when it was more relevant, but I enjoyed it nonetheless as a product of that time.
The cartoon is great. The comic is fantastic, the movie was pretty good. Everything in the movie is just a bit much when compared to the comic. The comic was pretty dark and the movie captures that. I think the violence was more extreme than necessary, my wife would have hated it.
Of the three people I went with, the two who had read the book liked the movie much more than the guy that had never read it.
Ok, I’ve never seen that cartoon, but from the clip embedded here it looks like the goofiest, worst animated, most pathetically scored cartoon of all time. It’s like a bad Scooby-doo parody. Does anyone watch that cartoon, and is it as bad as it looks? Yikes!
It’s a parody, McQ, but I think a good one.
Ha! MCQ has obviously not read the book. The cartoon is hilarious if you know the character’s backstories.
I’ll probably see the movie, even though it’s getting very mixed reviews. I liked (but didn’t love) the graphic novel.
I liked the graphic novel when I first read, but didn’t love it, either.
but, with the renewed interest of Watchmen, I picked it up over the past few months and reread it. I was amazed at how much subtext I had missed on my initial reading. I have reread various parts of the comic probably 2-3 times over the past few months.
I appreciate its depth more.
Oh well. The movie won’t come to Japan for awhile, but I will be seeing it when it does.
You’re right, I haven’t read it (if that’s the right word for a comic book), but I’m talking about the quality of this cartoon. It looks like it’s just badly drawn and the music is just plain terrible. Parody or not, isn’t there some level of quality you hope for? This just looks plain poor. Maybe I just don’t get it. I was planning on seeing the movie, but the mixed reviews have put me off a bit. Is it worth seeing if you aren’t already a fan of the comic book?
I read two articles from Ebert, who was a Watchmen virgin, as it were.
First crack:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/REVIEWS/903049997
Second time (saw it on an iMax)
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/03/were_all_puppets_laurie_im_jus.html
Yeah, it’s supposed to look terrible. It’s fake. The premise behind this cartoon is: what if the Watchmen, this incredibly complex and adult comic was turned into the worst kind of Saturday morning cartoon? To someone who’s read the book, the cartoon has some utterly ridiculous in-jokes (I’ll refrain from telling more because it would involve spoilers).
Oh, ok. I get it.
This one from Slate is worth checking out too.
I think the Watchmen comics provide a very complex story – but it’s quite brutal and depressing in its conclusions about human beings. Definitely interesting/intriguing for a comic books fan but at the end of the story I’m wondering if the conclusion/end is really all that helpful or illuminating. But maybe that was never the point … (?)
(shrugs)
I felt the movie was disappointing because it was too faithful to the source material (which is slightly overrated to begin with). By the last act it begins to plod precisely when it should ramp up. And the acting was really uneven. Jackie Earle Haley was great as Rorschach. In fact, for most of the movie I was wishing I was watching RORSCHACH: THE MOVIE, not WATCHMEN. Nite Owl and the Comedian were also solid, but Silk Spectre? Don’t get me started. I think she was cast almost entirely for her looks.
And although I’ve seen great stuff from Billy Crudup in other films I don’t think he pulled off Dr. Manhattan. While the comic gives you a tragic sense of a man on the verge of happiness that is accidentally wrenched into an existence where he’s helplessly distanced from humanity, the film just gives you a cold, emotionless, uncaring god. This proved to be a key difference in making the story work.
Ouch, Race to Witch Mountain beat Watchmen this weekend. Totally surprised by that…
I’m not. It’s been a long time since a good kids movie was out and a lot of people have fond memories for the original. (Although I hear the remake sucks)
Go back and watch the originals sometime (or don’t). They are terrible. I had fond memories, too. When I rewatched with my kids, I thought, “This? This is the movie I liked? Really?” Truly awful. If the new one’s as bad as it looks, then at least it’s not out of line with the franchise.