Like most comic book readers, I am a big fan of Watchmen. It has been on the mind of a lot of us lately because of the movie currently being made by Zack Snyder for Warner Bros. Snyder proved that he is a lover of comic books and willing to make a very faithful adaptation of source material with the film 300, which captured the original Frank Miller comic perfectly on screen. With his current status as a hot commodity in Hollywood after that film’s massive success, Snyder used his leverage to make a dream of his come to life, a live action movie of Watchmen.
I’ve been following the production of the movie closely and it looks like it has the potential to be a terrific film. Judging by the video journals and the interviews, Snyder and the other film-makers obviously have a great deal of love and respect for the source material and are doing everything in their power to make this adaptation as close to the source material as possible.
Watchmen is, quite possibly, the most dense comic ever produced. Alan Moore intended it to be the “Moby Dick” of comics, a story with layer upon layer upon layer of symbolism and recurring motifs that only become completely understandable after many repeat readings. Watchmen is one of those stories where you are supposed to pick up new little bits and hidden pieces every time you read it. I have read it five times and every time I notice things I didn’t the last time, whether it’s small character moments, hidden symbols, or even just various meanings in panel compositions. It truly is a work that rewards the careful reader. Look closely and really pay attention and you will get a lot out of this comic.
Obviously, as with any novel, be it of the prose or graphic variety, there are going to be sacrifices made for run time reasons. If every sub-plot from the comic was included, the movie would probably run over five hours, which may be fine for us fanatic fan boys who have been drooling over the prospect of this movie for years, but if the studio is going to turn a profit, the film has to appeal to a wide range of people, not just comic book fans.
Here are where the rumors and conjectures get us into trouble. There is word on the internet right now that seems pretty reliable (but one never really knows with these things), that Zack Snyder and Warner Bros are currently fighting over some aspects of the movie, the two biggest things being the movie’s run-time and the ending of the film.
Let’s address the run time first, since it is probably easier to look at. Snyder is trying to get a three hour run time for the theatrical release of Watchmen. (Supposedly, Snyder wants to do a four and a half version aimed at the fanboys for the DVD release, which would be great, in my opinion.) Warner is saying that people do not want to sit through a three hour movie about super-heroes. They are also saying that with a shorter run time, they can have more showings a day and boost the grosses.
Now, I may not be a studio employed expert, but I do know a little something about the viewing habits of movie goers. And to all the people at Warner Bros who say that people are not willing to sit through a three hour genre film, I say this: Have you ever heard of a movie called Return of the King? That movie was three hours and twenty minutes long. And that was just the theatrical release. The DVD extended version is rumored to never actually end at all. With a run time of well over three hours, not only did people sit through it, they sat through it in mass. The movie grossed over $377 million dollars and that was just in the USA. Not only was it a commercial success, it was a critical smash as well, gaining rave reviews from critics everywhere and winning 11 Oscars, including Best Picture. Not bad for a fantasy movie about hobbits and wizards and stuff. Exactly the kind of thing that is supposed to only appeal to the exact same demographic as Watchmen. Would the movie have been as successful if it was chopped up and rushed in at under two hours? Probably not. Books that are of epic length are normally that long for a reason. There is a lot going on and if you take out too many details, things get muddled and confusing. Return of the King shows that people are willing to sit through a movie of that length and I hardly feel a shorter run time would have made more money for the film in the long run.
Which brings us to the ending of the comic and the film. I’m going to keep this spoiler free, so I’m not going to go into the plot or how it finds for people who haven’t read the comic. Let me just say that Watchmen is a story with an elaborate plot, yes, but the plot is really secondary to the themes explored. The story is really just a tool used to explore the concepts Alan Moore was interested in, as well as the super-hero genre in general. At it’s heart, Watchmen is an exploration of the political and social climate we lived in at that time, as well as a way to experiment with pushing the boundaries of the entire genre of comic books, super-hero comics in particular. Moore proved with Watchmen that comic books could tell stories just as sophisticated and socially relevant as any prose novel. These were not just simplistic stories for children, this was a medium that could be used to tell extremely layered and dense stories just as valid and sophisticated as any novel (and if you have an artist of the caliber of a Dave Gibbons, you can weave in so much hidden thematic symbolism in the artwork that a novel could never hope to emulate with just words.)
In the time-lime of the comic book’s evolution as a storytelling vehicle, Watchmen is the turning point. Just as Citizen Kane is basically universally considered the greatest film ever made, Watchmen is considered by most to be the greatest comic book ever produced. For twelve issues, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons produced a barrier smashing work that completely revolutionized the entire comic book industry. There are comic books before Watchmen and there are comic books after Watchmen. Like Citizen Kane before it, it completely changed the genre forever.
What the people at Warner Bros need to realize is that the movie version of Watchmen has the potential to have a similar affect on comic book inspired film. Zack Snyder sees Watchmen for what it is: a complex character study that explores the role of the costumed super hero in the real world and how they would have affected the political and social climate of America. When Warner Bros hears a “comic book movie” s being made, they immediately think mindless action and stunts. Now, Watchmen has it’s fair share of action (I for one can not wait to see the riot scene with Rorschach in the prison), but the story is so much more than that. Warner Bros is trying to ramp up the action and change the ending.
I don’t want to say what happens here to avoid spoilers, but they can not change the ending. If they do, they change the entire story. The ending of the story must remain in place to keep the meanings of all that has gone before it. What is the point of having Zack Snyder go through the trouble of making this amazingly faithful adaptation, that will try to get across as much of the themes of the story as possible in a film (and by all reports, that is exactly what Snyder is doing), just to have it all wiped away in the last ten minutes? They can not change this to a “Hollywood Ending” or it ruins the story. They can not try to set-up a sequel. The comic never had a sequel, despite it’s huge sales, because the story is whole the way that it is. The story is complete, the message is delivered. To try to keep going would only tarnish it and invalidate it. Which is what I am hoping does not happen here.
So here’s hoping that for once, a director wins a battle with a studio. I will be seeing this movie opening day. I just hope I don’t have to wait for the DVD release of the “Director’s Cut” to see what I, and Zack Snyder himself, want to see.
