Quick thoughts on Watchmen: unfilmable?

Is Watchmen unfilmable?

I’ve seen the trailers. I’ve seen a bunch of clips. It looks good. The visuals are great. Hard to say much else about it, though, so far.

I’m also reading the book for the first time. At the moment I’m over 3/4 through it, so I don’t know the whole story, but I’ve seen a lot of it. I like the book (probably not a surprise).

Here’s the thing, though. Everyone has told me that this is supposed to be unfilmable. I’m not sure why. Yeah, there are parts that would be challenging to film, but nothing, to this point in the book at least, seems insurmountable. The hardest things I’ve seen would be the concept of Dr. Manhattan’s perception of time and the juxtaposition of the pirate story (Tales of the Black Freighter) with the street corner characters. They certainly would involve some creativity to get on film, but I can at least conceive of how it might be done, and I’m not a filmmaker.

For what it’s worth, though, unless it becomes way more important in the last bit of the book (and it might) it sounds like the decision to remove the pirate story from the film is the right one. It’s not that it’s extraneous in the least in the book—it certainly adds to the book—but it’s also not central. I’m a little sadder to hear the street corner characters are all but missing, but I can live with that, too.

Of course, I may feel completely differently about that once I finish the story.

The frequency of flashbacks could be a problem for a mainstream audience, I suppose. I’ve seen a lot of movies that use flashbacks well, though, so I really don’t think it’s inconceivable that they could be done well here.

I’m a little annoyed that I can’t experience this film both with and without knowing the story ahead of time. I’d like to avoid the book ruining the movie for me, and vice-versa. It sounds like the movie will have a bit of a different ending than the book (or at least a different motivation for the villain), so at least there will be something original to judge on its own merits. Given that I can’t have it both ways, however, I think I’m making the right choice in reading the book first.

It’ll be interesting to me to get my wife’s take on the film. She has not, and will not have, read the book before we see the film. Whether the story is one she’ll get into is questionable. It seems like one that could go either way with her. It depends on which elements they emphasize. I’m looking forward to see what she thinks.

Now I gotta go read more of the book so you guys who comment don’t spoil the end for me… at this point I’m thinking Veidt is the bad guy, but I’m not positive yet. It does seem likely though, since he’s the only one they’ve built up as smart enough to pull something this big off. At the moment the motive seems to be money, but that could be a red herring. It would be kind of boring if it was.

Off to the book!

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