I definitely cared about Rorschach lots more in the movie, but for all of my JDM love, I liked the Comedian in the graphic novel more (eventually), perhaps because we saw more of Sally Jupiter's affection for him than we do in the movie.

I see that there's a Watchmen cartoon on one of my pay-per-view channels? Anyone seen it?

Watchmen Babies in V for Vacation!

Is it the Tales of the Black Freighter short?

Black Freighter Babies in Vacation From Hell!

Watchmen... I agree with all the comments about the ninja skills, because that was one of the things about the graphic novel (which I read a couple of months ago) that was interesting to me. The idea that these are all relatively normal (though seriously screwed up) people who parade about in costumes and beat up whoever strikes them as bad people. And the movie totally destroyed that notion, leaving... what?

One thing the movie did have in common with the graphic novel: both left me less than cheery at the end. I don't think I need to watch or read either again.

And by the way, David Hayter: Frell you.

(wow, that was a happy post)

Six hour drive back home allowed me to mull some more on Watchmen and the awesome idea of a "So You Think You Can Do It Better?" movie editing kit (I'd so totally buy that!).

Finishing the graphic novel I was impressed and affected but wasn't infatuated with the story and really found it hard to connect to any of the characters. But I was blown away by the structure and the rhythm. Watching the movie a first time I found that the movie had forsaken what I loved most about the graphic novel, watching a second time I realized that it that it *had* developed a style and structure of it's own (for better as well as worse). I

I wondered then, would the story hold up if told completely chronologically? And by hold up, I mean: would it still be compelling? Was I merely awed by flash and style?

What was the mass appeal of the original story? The political commentary? The glimpse into another world so similar to our own? The commentary on the genre of costumed heroes? What character or characters were the entry-point into the story, either through identification or fascination?

Or was it the brilliant pseudo-cinematic mastery of picture and prose?

I can only answer that it was the latter for myself, but what about the fans who became so decades ago?

I'm very curious about the answer to these, although maybe I should pose it in another thread?

Or was it the brilliant pseudo-cinematic mastery of picture and prose?

Well, that. In fact I would say that it surpassed what film was capable of in the way that symmetries kept popping up in between panels and pages, with lots and lots of meticulous details.

But also Moore was taking the superhero genre places it had never gone before. It was pretty ballsy, which is hard to see in retrospect.

Well, that. In fact I would say that it surpassed what film was capable of in the way that symmetries kept popping up in between panels and pages, with lots and lots of meticulous details.

Okay, because the thought that was bubbling on the backburner was that, if the movie couldn't recreate this, then I feel that a movie of Watchmen sort of had a responsibility to therefore be innovative and groundbreaking in it's own, different and unique way. To tell the story on film the way a filmed story has never been filmed before (with lots of attention to meticulous details!)

It almost makes me sad that Darren Aronofsky couldn't have made both The Fountain and Watchmen. Not that I'd trade. But I am greedy.

It almost makes me sad that Darren Aronofsky couldn't have made both The Fountain and Watchmen.

Oh not me. I thought Snyder's Watchmen went quite far enough with the brutal and visceral aspects of the comic. I shudder to think where Aronofsky might have gone.

I haven't seen all of Aronofsky's work, but when I read the trivia that he backed out in order to do The Fountain, it kind of clicked that that movie also did some head-tripping past (albeit fictional), present, as well as future (emotional speculation) inter-cutting, with lyrical imagery and motifs. Also, naked men and the lotus position.

edited to add commas!