Monday, April 6, 2009

Watchmen: Graphic Novel vs. Movie

Watchmen is one of the few graphic novels where the movie has done a better job. Nothing against Alan Moore, who wrote a pretty good story, but the movie does a better job at giving the readers the proper cliff notes to what the story is about. It also has a much better reason for our ultimate villain allowing humanity to unite- he really makes Doctor Manhattan the villain. That element wasn't in the graphic novel, and the gigantic-cloned-psychic-brain-alien thing that is used as the villain in the graphic novel is just... well, silly. Silk Spectre is a lot more likable in the movie version; in the novel, she was just sort of crazy yelling and complaining all the time. Her costume adaptation, which is only loosely based on the original design from the comic, is also just much nicer. Her comic costume is very dated. The movie was cast well, and giving us extended fight scenes upped the ante. I don't usually say "see the movie and read the book" but this is a good example of one time I probably should. Recommended. Go see it.

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