Watchmen Week: Why We Will Watch the Watchmen

By Jordan Tunney

March 5, 2009

Watchmen’s release is near, and one of the most important works in comics will be adapted to the screen for the first time. Some fans will appreciate it and others will scoff, but everyone recognizes how difficult Zack Snyder’s job really was. The marketing for the movie has been outstanding and impressive (even for non-readers). Some have even said it was the excited fan base that pressured the studios to settle the legal disputes around Watchmen’s rights and release the movie.

The first look fans got of their beloved story, getting the silver screen treatment, was the first trailer that ran in front of The Dark Knight. Beautifully edited and accompanied with Smashing Pumpkin’s “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning”, I sat in amazement pondering the potential that existed in this project; this might actually work. It looks authentic and true to the story, yet differing in its execution, stylized and fitting for film.

The character one sheets sold me on the level of detail and authenticity the movie was taking. Night Owl II does look a lot like Batman, but that was expected. Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias both look the way I imagined they would. Comedian and Rorschach and Silk Spectre II both look faithfully like their comic book counterparts. Probably one of the best things about the posters was the fact that we only had one angle of presentation for each of the characters, and it worked perfectly. Some movie marketing for this summer (Wolverine and Terminator come to mind), try to show us a lot of the characters in posters and standees, but Watchmen only needed one look. Set design shots look taken right from the panels of the book, but gritty enough to fit in the world they are presenting.

Although Zack Snyder did a great job with other directing projects, I did not want to see ’300′-with-superheroes. For a comic book, there really is not a lot of action in the story. But that is perfectly fine. The action is only an accompaniment to the main story, which needless to say, is stellar. I was afraid that off the heels of 300, the movie would feature additional scenes of action simply to keep the audience entertained. However, as stated previously, by all appearances Snyder stayed true to the source material, yet also, is giving it his directorial style.