Comments on: In Which I Am Joyless and Pretentious

By: Bill D.

Bill D. — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:52:41 +0000

“No, they found a cynical super-hero beat-’em-up comic with sex and swearing.”

I’m not defending that audience, but I do think it needs pointing out that that’s what a lot of the comic book industry took away from Watchmen, too, sadly.

I’m definitely curious to see it, though as I’m in the middle of re-reading the book, I’m confident a lot (if not all) of the subtext and subtlety will be lost in favor of a surface-only approach to the material. But at least the surface story is interesting, so I’m hoping to at least be entertained, even if “meaning” is tossed out the window.

By: Martin Wisse

Martin Wisse — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:16:54 +0000

I have some hope for this movie, since V for Vendetta turned out to be pretty good and is certainly as complex a story as Watchmen. If the movie turns out to be crap, the comic still exists.

By: jim

jim — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:32:28 +0000

I love it when you get joyless and pretentious! Even if you ended up bashing Paul Blart: Mall Cop!

By: Dorian

Dorian — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:21:06 +0000

Mark–I base that claim on the many conversations I’ve had with customers about the book when I worked in a comic book store. I base that claim on the discussions of the comic I’ve seen online over the years. I base that claim on the number of basic errors of fact and interpretation I see whenever the book comes up, errors that clearly indicate that the person making them did not read the text pieces.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:28:05 +0000

You claim that most people skipped the text pieces? What is this based on, the need to feel like you are part of a minority that “gets it”?

By: Matt Maxwell

Matt Maxwell — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:58:55 +0000

But the Terry Gilliam version would have had that Sam Hamm screenplay due to the timing of the thing. You sure you really want that?

By: Captain Splendid

Captain Splendid — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:19:33 +0000

I still think you’re being too harsh. While I agree about everything you said of lowest common denominators (unavoidable when hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake), I’d like to hold at least a tiny sliver of hope in my heart that Snyder and the rest at least tried as hard as possible to keep as many of the subversive elements fresh and to the fore.

Yeah, I know, I want a Unicorn too. But at the end of the day, unless some WB exec discovers time travel, we’ll always have the original text anyway, so gives a shit?

By: Sallyp

Sallyp — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:59:10 +0000

What…no pirates in the movie? Well, the heck with that!

By: Steven H

Steven H — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 06:40:35 +0000

I’ve always kinda had an inkling that Watchmen wasn’t fully grasped by a lot of people by the frequency it’s mentioned in the same breath as The Dark Knight Returns and held up as a forerunner of “grittier, darker” superhero comics.

By: Chad

Chad — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 04:02:27 +0000

I’ve always thought that the only way a “Watchmen” film could work was if the filmmakers distanced themselves from the source material as much as reasonably possible and worked toward making a good film rather than an adaptation. Unfortunately, that’s obviously not what we’re getting.

Ah well. At least I’ll have my fantasies of what Terry Gilliam’s version would have been like.