Watchmen: Going in

I already own a Watchman graphic novel and the Absolute Edition. I probably do not need any more paraphernalia, despite its omnipresence. Photo by Steve Rhodes.

I am terribly eager to see the Watchmen film, despite having no idea whether I will enjoy it or not. Through a strange turn of fate, I will be in a position to watch it tomorrow in Mildura. I generally don't put too much thought into when films are released, as those dates bear little resemblance to when I get to see them here in Broken Hill. I've also drifted away from downloading films, as they either punch a hole in my download limit or provide an experience akin to staring at a rorschach blot.

See what I did there?

Anyway, I thought I'd record my thoughts on the film before seeing it, as these types of things tend to evaporate upon viewing.

Adaptions are always tricky. It's hard to divorce your feelings from the source material. If things are dramatically changed you can have a negative view before the first frame. If they are painstaking recreations then the whole thing can feel unnecessary enough to blunt your interest.

So where does that put my headspace as I prepare to - and I'm totally going to use this gag - watch the Watchmen?

Strangely unaffected.

Watchmen is widely regarded as the greatest comic book of all time. These days, of course, it's the greatest 'graphic novel' of all time, which apparently sounds less embarrassing.

Despite the part of myself that refuses to see movies purely because someone else said they were good, I have to give the title to Watchmen, it's totally the greatest.

I probably only read Watchmen about five years ago. I mentioned recently that I consider it a truly great work of art because I thought about it for about a year after reading. It gave me a lot of material to chew on.

Recently I've been listening to Comic Geek Speak's Watchmen episodes, where they spend about an hour and a half deconstructing each issue. Now, I've read Watchmen three times, picking up new information each time, and I've thought about it a lot. Even so, there's been dozens of things pointed out to me in those episodes that I'd never picked up on. The book is stuffed full of meaning on multiple levels.

So I love Watchmen, blah blah blah.

I was trying to enunciate to a friend last night why, given my love of the source material, I was not concerned about potential film awfulness.

The best I could come up with is this:

When someone adapts a work I love and the adaption is bad, then it makes me angry. I think that anger probably stems from a desire to somehow defend the original work.

For example, when the Legion of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie turned out to be worse than dying in a vomit hurricane, I was angry because I felt the book had been slighted. I was angry on behalf of the book, in the same way I would be angry on behalf of a friend who had been insulted. Additionally, I was angry at the thought that would-be readers would never find the book, turned off by a movie that had rendered their eyeballs inert with its destructive power.

But for some reason I feel Watchmen is big enough that, well, it doesn't need my help. A bad adaption does not hurt a book, but this book is good enough, and a big enough deal, that it will be found regardless.

It's refreshing really. Freed from the book in my brain, I'm quite comfortable to head in with an open mind, my fanboy armor left at the door.

Back soon with thoughts that are actually influenced by having seen the film.