Time keeps on slipping

This post isn't about me, per se. It's about the frequently attempted, perpetually postponed, hyper-idealized, bitterly contested fanboy-altar that is WATCHMEN. But before I write about this odd, bold yet unmistakably unwieldy beast of a film, I have to write a few words about myself.

Firstly, I am a Watchmen fanboy. I am a film geek. But I haven't but updating this blog with anywhere close to the frequency that I did when I first began it in the Autumn of 2007. At that time, I was third-year University student (junior) enrolled in the Magazine Journalism program, and I thought I wanted to become a professional movie critic.

I am now, in the Spring of 2009, just a few weeks shy of my graduation, slated to receive a Bachelor of Arts in Magazine Journalism and another in Religious Studies, and all that I know is that I want to write.

The American college experience is supposed to change one's life markedly, at least as far as the price-tag goes. And indeed, I can evaluate my four college years as being some of the most profound, entertaining, and altogether wonderful years of my life. I have been blessed to have a supportive group of educators and more importantly, good friends, whom have taught me much about the life, the world, and myself. I know for instance that reviewing or following movies as a profession would be fun, but not if I have to "sell-out" and write in a disingenuously-flattering or over-simplified way.

Type type type! Get to the point, right? What does this have to do with Watchmen? I read the original Watchmen graphic novel as a junior, a few posts into my self-proclaimed "introspective movie reviews" blog. Although I read a good number of comics growing up thanks to the influence of my cousins, I didn't discover the work of Alan Moore until I was at university. (I'm not going to get into the graphic novel vs. comic debate here, but sufficed to say, I often use the terms interchangeably, although I recognize why some people maintain a firm distinction)

Well before I had connected Moore to Watchmen, I had read reports on AICN, CHUD, and all the other film news that I check consistently about its potential development as a film. First it was Terry Gilliam who had tried to make it in the 80's, as I recall. Then it was Aronofsky, then Greengrass, etc. etc. ad nasuem. Then there was time putting Watchmen on it's list of the 100 greatest novels of 20th century, the sole graphic-novel. My interest was sufficiently piqued. Why was this title so difficult to translate to the screen?

I had to read it for myself, of course. So I went back to the library, procured a copy and although it would be cool to say I read it in a single sitting, I did not- instead I read it over a few nights span in the Winter of 2007/08, during my break from school. When I finished, my life was changed. I never anticipated a comic-book to be able to affect me in the Watchmen did. M(o)ore importantly, I never anticipated a comic-book to be written the way that Watchmen was- with so much character development, background and historical commentary. I was surprised and delighted to discover Moore had taken the time to include material written by the characters themselves in the book. But it was the underlying ideology that really struck with me. This effort to humanize the characters, to humanize the story, to put it in the same world as we live in, where nations are the only things that are considered "superpowered," and all of our role models have some skeletons in their closets. This effort to include moral, philosophical and psychological complexity, this is what I truly admired the most.

SPOILER ALERT

Before I saw the film, I thought about ways to quickly summarize Watchmen for people who hadn't read it. Like that website that does one sentence movie reviews. A foolhardy endeavor, to be sure, but one that I engaged in for some moments nonetheless. I came up with a few possibilities: "Superheroes age and discover that their biggest enemy is within themselves." That sounded nice, except it neglected Veidt's role as the conspiratorial mastermind. "Aging superheroes fight internal struggles while attempting to uncover a worldwide conspiracy." What about the cold war? The whole American experience angle, the dashed American Dream? The parallel history? "In an alternate 1986, costumed American heroes are real, but the combination of their conflicted personalities and Cold War anxiety has rendered them outcasts. As nuclear war between the USSR and the USA seems more and more inevitable, one hero's mysterious murder propels those remaining back into action to uncover a global conspiracy." Ugh. It is impossible, you see? Watchmen cannot be effectively summarized- or at least I have yet to see one. Definitely creates problems for pitching the screenplay.

But that was never the problem, really. Everyone in Hollywood WANTED to make Watchmen. So many people tried and failed. All along, Alan Moore kept his distance, raining criticism every cinematic adaptation of his work from his mystical retreat in England. And why shouldn't he? "LXG" was a notorious flop, and will be eternally remembered as such. "From Hell," totally forgettable. "V for Vendetta," the only one to recieve some critical and popular praise, was still santized and trimmed and dumbed down for the masses. Moore was well in his rights to be dead-set against a Watchmen adaptation.

Finally, Zach Synder came along, remade "Dawn of the Dead" and suprised everyone when it turned out to be actually pretty good. Even more stunning was "300," a "niche," "fanboy," call-it-what-you-will-to-make-it-sound-less-mainstream comic book adaptation that made some $70 mil its opening weekend. As for as movie execs and most American moviegoers were concerned, Snyder was 3 for 2 at that point- a "rookie" director on an impossible winning streak. Why the fuck not take on the most daunting of projects, the "un-adaptable" Watchmen? Why not?

Well, now, on Monday, March 23 we have the answer. Believe me, I was hoping that the Watchmen film would be great. Everything I read about the production indicated to me that Snyder and Co. were doing the title do-justice, recreating locations, scenes and characters in excruciating detail. Fuck, they even had the original illustrator Dave Gibbons on board. I wanted everyone, from fanboys to my mother (ok, maybe not her, but point made) to go into the theater and be absolutely blown away by the literary grandeur and sheer inventiveness of Watchmen. I wanted everyone to feel in their bones, in their soul, that Watchmen was the greatest story about comic superheroes that has ever been told, because that's how I felt when I read the book.

Of course, I was let down. It didn't happen the way it should have- not to me, not to anyone. Nobody left the theater after the film thinking "that was one of the most awe-inspiring, brilliant things I've ever seen." Even the fanboys like myself just had to internally justify the cheesy dialogue, the slapstick violence, the pornographic sexuality, and all while we were watching the film for the first time. Nothing about the film conveyed any literary merit whatsoever. What happened? What went wrong? Did Alan Moore's curses really work?

Maybe. But the bottom line that the direction wasn't good. Yes, it was lots of word-for-word dialogue and narration from the book. Yes, the filmmakers were careful to convey the tone of dread, angst and loathing, and, where appropriate, love, appreciation and reconciliation. But it just didn't ring true. Characters, set pieces, situations themselves were played for their sheer, comical outlandishness rather than for their unsettling strangeness and earnest, complex emotion.

I thought the point of the Watchmen graphic-novel was to anchor superheroes in reality, though not in the same way that "The Dark Knight" anchored Batman to the streets of a gritty, mob-infested version of Chicago. No, the Watchmen graphic novel was so good because in anchored superheroes to the reality of the human mind- to the fact that there are psychological motivations in all for us for fighting, sacrificing, seeking attention and simultaneously masking our true selves from the world.

You don't have to have your parents killed in an ally to want justice for criminals, for instance. All it takes is being alive in the world to know that it's fucked up, and that somebody should do something about it. Moreover, in being alive for some years, most people learn that most things, including the most important things, are beyond their control. And yet, the human potential for creativity, for accomplishment, is surprisingly unlimited- especially when it is least expected. This is a curious, profoundly vexing dichotomy to recognize, and it is expressed nowhere better than in the original Watchmen.

Maybe I demand too much of my films. Maybe I demand too much of the people making them, or, more probably, people in general. After all, we are profoundly limited and powerless so much of the time. But watching the Watchmen film on that opening Thursday night at midnight, my girlfriend and I both off to the far left side of the screen because the theater was so packed with people in my demographic (20s, college, geek), I couldn't help but imagine what it could have been. Imagine a dark, gritty, "Se7en"ish Watchmen directed by David Fincher. Or a profoundly intellectual and artistic one by Aronofsky. Or a raw, unflinching one by Danny Boyle. I wanted a Watchmen with gray and white and shiny metal tones, with slow, deliberate close ups and meditative long shots, with an original weird, bubbly and minimalistic synth-orchestra soundtrack. I wanted it to be a subtle, heavy, introspective mystery as opposed to a slick, light, action/adventure. I wanted my Watchmen to be so uncool it was cool, rather than the reverse.

I understand what Alan Moore is so paranoid about, because now I'm paranoid about the same things. Yeah, sure, you can try and make something that appeals to a bunch of different people, to society at large. But in the end, unless you are doing what you are doing for you, without regard for what other people will think, its not going to be very good. That's why I resumed writing on this blog- For me. I had stopped because I was discouraged and disenchanted with my professional experiences trying to review film. Everyone who I saw succeeding was doing so at the cost of authenticity and originality. The Watchmen film suffered from precisely this problem- trying to remain loyal and yet appeal to everyone and their mother.

At least it was about as long as I expected, which is still shorter than this post.

In Sum: A monumental effort at adapting an epic piece of fiction, but a wholly misguided and ultimately futile one. Irony abounds.