Kinda explain everything better here:

I do actually agree though that the sex scene and moments of ultra-violence were clumsy and detracted from the overall film. And I’ve already mentioned the poor use of music.

Nevertheless, I know Margaret and David and Roger Ebert liked it and they were new to the material. Is there anybody else out there who hasn’t read the original graphic novel but still enjoyed the film?

The sex scene was completely clumsy, the ultra-violence was too graphic and any important message or sub-text that the comics had is lost in translation to the big screen. Also, the music seemed clunky.

I’m interested to read the graphic novel in spite of the film, because I’ve heard so many good things about the former. But the film does nothing to point me in the novel’s direction. It seems just another throwaway blockbuster.

But yes, being too faithful can be a major issue, and it’s a shame that so many fans of so many novels these days are so critical of the smallest of changes to the original story. It’s an adaptation, not a re-creation.

You are spot on with your comments about faithfulness and different mediums.

I briefly discussed those idea about adapting a work to suit the new medium when I reviewed A Scanner Darkly. That was a film that suffered from being too much of a literal adaptation where something like Blade Runner heavily deviates from the narrative of the source material in order to cinematically convey its concepts and ideas.

I can understand that some people would enjoy it having not read the novel, but I personally put things like plot and character development over just good fun. Sometimes one overrides the other, but not really in this case.

I think that fanboys have only really impaired this film rather than made it better. A lesser known novel Atonement (that deserved the Booker Prize, but I won’t get into that) was adapted recently in such a way that it completely overrode nearly every detail of the core material and only really kept the characters and the plot, but I consider to be one of the best adaptations I have ever seen. Faithfulness to the core material should not be important in the grand scheme of things when you are adapting something to the screen. Different things work for different mediums, and that should be taken into consideration. Sadly, it was not in this particular case.

I must confess that I usually have no time for people who evaluate a film based on its faithfulness to the source it was adapted from. It’s an adaptation – not a literal transposing. There is nothing sacred about the original work and the end product is what matters. It should be regarded as a work in its own right regardless of how you feel about the original novel, comic, film etc. On this occasion I suspect that I’ve failed to fully do that where your response, as somebody coming to the film fresh and unburdened from having read the original comic, is perhaps the more valid one.

Having said that, I have spoken to other critics (and many of them older and more conservative in taste than me) who had no knowledge of the comic and still enjoyed this film.

Thank you for sharing your perspective and providing a very worthy counterbalance to my review.

By the way – I hope you don’t think I’m a fanboy!

I saw the film and got what I paid for – i.e. sex and violence – but the film didn’t really touch on any of the things I see quite a lot of people saying that the graphic novel did. I didn’t really understand a lot of the motivation behind the characters, nor did I fully comprehend them – with the exception of perhaps Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach. As you said, the song choices were extremely poor. I honestly don’t care about them being in the graphic novel – they did not work at all in the film. It took me out of the moment and I was thinking more “Why are they playing a weird cover of All Along The Watchtower?” than “Woah, Antarctica”. I also thought a lot of the acting was sub-standard, and the Silk Spectres I and II were just plain terrible. Everything was under-developed and it seemed to be made especially for fanboys who loved the novel and Snyder didn’t seem to take into consideration that people who haven’t read it could see it.

Sure, I had fun, and it was visually epic, but looking back it had nothing memorable and I have no desire to see it again.

Firstly I should admit that I had completely forgotten about the fact that the book makes reference to specific songs so that’s my bad.

I actually really liked the Nat King Cole and Dylan songs and thought they were used beautifully so I agree with you there. However, I became aware of my problem with the music when “Sounds of Silence” was used as it just seemed a little overwrought. It was also the wrong time period and I was overall too aware of how much a lot of the music was so recognisably 1970s. I didn’t dislike any of the music but was just distracted by it more than I wanted to be. And yes, “Hallelujah” was the most offending song in terms of being way out of place.

My problem with the Philip Glass music was (and I admit this is perhaps unfair) that I recognised it as having been lifted from other film soundtracks. The music itself is great but I get annoyed when music that has been used so effectively in one film then gets used in another film to try to evoke similar emotions. It seems a little lazy to me. I had the same problem with the use of Michael Nyman’s music in Man on Wire.

Having said all that, I loved “99 Luftballons” and “First We Take Manhattan”.

I hope I’ve shed a bit of light on why I made that comment and I really appreciate that you took the time to add your thoughts. You’re most welcome to do so again.

Cheers
Thomas

By the way, congratulations on your interview with Zack Snyder and I encourage other readers to check it out if they are interested in all things Watchmen.

From Nat King Cole in the open sequence to Dylan in the opening credits, the use of Philip Glass for Dr Manhattan’s theme to the brilliantly poignant choice of Sounds Of Silence for The Comedian’s funeral (the death of innocence). Furthermore some of the songs were specifically selected because of references in the novel, giving them additional meaning. The only duff choice for my money was Hallelujah during the sex scene, which just didn’t fit right at all.

Which choices in particular were you not impressed by?