Heh. For me, The Lord of the Rings is not a particularly positive comparison; Peter Jackson & co. did a trilogy of straight-up action movies that I think, as with V for Vendetta, more or less captured the plot points but lost all of the magic and subtlety. But then, I'm a big LotR fan.
I haven't seen Watchmen yet, but I have heard from others similar good things to what you say. The interesting question for me was always the other half of the book - the concrete characters and plots are deeply intertwined with the formalistic playing with the medium and genre. In fact, I'd say they support each other, because the points the story makes are much about reality contrasted with mythology, and the mythology in question is the genre whose form and tropes are being manipulated. Of course an adaptation has a tough job of achieving an analogous effect. But, since film is a wildly different medium, with almost as long a history of treating the superhero subject if nowhere near as broad, it seems like the job could be done... and I always assumed that it would not. It would still be a strong story that I would enjoy, but it wouldn't be the narrative macrame that the original was.
Did you feel that they tried to capture that side of the comic at all?
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Date: 2009-03-10 03:31 pm (UTC)I haven't seen Watchmen yet, but I have heard from others similar good things to what you say. The interesting question for me was always the other half of the book - the concrete characters and plots are deeply intertwined with the formalistic playing with the medium and genre. In fact, I'd say they support each other, because the points the story makes are much about reality contrasted with mythology, and the mythology in question is the genre whose form and tropes are being manipulated. Of course an adaptation has a tough job of achieving an analogous effect. But, since film is a wildly different medium, with almost as long a history of treating the superhero subject if nowhere near as broad, it seems like the job could be done... and I always assumed that it would not. It would still be a strong story that I would enjoy, but it wouldn't be the narrative macrame that the original was.
Did you feel that they tried to capture that side of the comic at all?