Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes

I was finally able to go see Watchmen. I will go ahead and say that it was faithful to the comic, more importantly, to the spirit of the comic. The casting was great: Billy Crudup (Osterman/Doc Manhattan), Patrick Wilson (Dreiberg/Nite Owl II), Malin Ackerman (Juspeczyk/Silk Specter II), Matthew Goode (Veidt/Ozymandias) and especially Jackie Earle Haley (Kovacs/Rorschach), among others. Did I mention Jackie Earle Haley? I did? Okay, great.

Great movie. Wonderful movie. Brilliant movie. Zack Snyder deserves his own sovereign nation for this.

Even better than how faithful they were able to remain, was where they decided to make the cuts. The Black Freighter is out. Thank God. As a writer, I was able to appreciate how the comic-within-a-comic provided an analog to the main story, how the hopelessness and despair were supposed to set the mood for the approaching doom of nuclear holocaust. As a reader, however, it bored the hell out of me. I wanted to get on with it, back to the characters I love.

Also changed is the ending. Those who've read the comic know that Adrian Veidt's plan is to bring the US and USSR governments together against a perceived mutual enemy, in the form of an alien invasion (and if you haven't read the comic, shame on you). Personally, I always felt this ending was sprung on the reader. It didn't have enough setup, and too much of it had to be explained by Veidt at the end for it to make sense. Almost like Moore was saying, "Oh yeah. I forgot to tell you, but this was going on, too."

Instead, Veidt setting up Dr. Manhattan to take the blame for the destruction of half of New York seemed the better way to go. It works with the elements at hand, rather than roping in a tenuous subplot that had been cast out to the reader several issues ago.

Not everyone agrees with me on the last one, but that's the beauty of literature. You don't have to.

My only regret is that I only just read the comic last year. So many people have lived with Watchmen for years, and I've only been really aware of it for one or two. I feel like there's so much I'm missing out on: even though I love the movie, it is not the epic for me that it is for the people who read the comic years ago.

I'm not touching on all the topics I want to, mostly because other people have talked about it. I just wanted to throw in my two-cents. I'd also recomment slipping over to PVPonline, and checking out what Scott Kurtz had to say. And while you're there, go back a few strips and check out his Ombudsmen arc. It's an homage to Watchmen and syndicated comics. Dude's got a lot of talent.

Oh, and did I mention Jackie Earle Haley is awesome? Okay, good. Just making sure.