The Medium Is The Message

Have now finished my re-read of The Watchmen. Two hours and twenty minutes to go until the eight o'clock showing begins.

When I finished reading this series the first time, in late 2000, I was quite shell-shocked. This time around, knowing what was coming, I was less so... though I am still disturbed by how the story plays out. I won't say more, to avoid giving spoilers.

More than ever, though, I am convinced that the film adaption is going to be utterly horrible. Sure, most people who go see it will not have read the book; they will chide those of us who have done so as being too "purist" or "close-minded" to appreciate the film. This is fairly standard fare, in my experience. Ultimately, I believe that the film cannot do the story justice because it is simply not a story that can be told in film. Not to go all Marshall McLuhan here, but different mediums have different capabilities. You wouldn't try to make a comic book version of a piano concerto -- it wouldn't work. There are things that comic books cannot convey. This is true of any medium. In this case, moving The Watchmen to film will also not work, because there are things that film cannot convey. This story is one of them.

The length of the film is a problem... but it is only part of the problem. The Watchmen tells, to various extents, the story of a great many people over the span of six decades. Some of those people are masked heroes, others are ordinary folks. To tell the tale in under three hours necessitates the removal of much of the story. Indeed, I would argue that the length necessitates the removal of most of the story. Although the main plot will, of course, be there, it is only the skeleton of the story. Without all the rest, you have a skeleton with no muscles, nerves, organs, et cetera. And what good is that?

However, even if the length were greatly increased -- a la a television mini-series -- it would still not work, I believe. There are things that you can do with comic books that you cannot do with film. Most comic books do not probe the depths of their medium, of course, and thus translate fairly easily to film. Indeed, these days many comic book creative teams are practically writing their comics as a film transcribed to page. In contrast, The Watchmen makes good use of the advantages of comic books as a medium... and, as such, is basically unfilmable.

I will update again, later tonight, after I have seen the film. It is possible that I will have to take up a knife and fork to eat some of these words. I have been wrong before: I predicted that the Iron Man film would be terrible, and ended up liking it very much! Yet, somehow, this time I do not think that I am likely to be off the mark. Iron Man, as a character, can work just fine in a variety of media. I had not expected the studios to put in the effort to produce a good story for the film, but I never doubted that it was possible to do so. For The Watchmen, we are talking about a very specific story. A most excellent story... but one that really does not work in the medium of film. My expectation is that I will say the visual effects were stunning... but the story fell far short. In a few more hours, we shall see if this prediction is correct.

The Medium Is The Message

Have now finished my re-read of The Watchmen. Two hours and twenty minutes to go until the eight o'clock showing begins.

When I finished reading this series the first time, in late 2000, I was quite shell-shocked. This time around, knowing what was coming, I was less so... though I am still disturbed by how the story plays out. I won't say more, to avoid giving spoilers.

More than ever, though, I am convinced that the film adaption is going to be utterly horrible. Sure, most people who go see it will not have read the book; they will chide those of us who have done so as being too "purist" or "close-minded" to appreciate the film. This is fairly standard fare, in my experience. Ultimately, I believe that the film cannot do the story justice because it is simply not a story that can be told in film. Not to go all Marshall McLuhan here, but different mediums have different capabilities. You wouldn't try to make a comic book version of a piano concerto -- it wouldn't work. There are things that comic books cannot convey. This is true of any medium. In this case, moving The Watchmen to film will also not work, because there are things that film cannot convey. This story is one of them.

The length of the film is a problem... but it is only part of the problem. The Watchmen tells, to various extents, the story of a great many people over the span of six decades. Some of those people are masked heroes, others are ordinary folks. To tell the tale in under three hours necessitates the removal of much of the story. Indeed, I would argue that the length necessitates the removal of most of the story. Although the main plot will, of course, be there, it is only the skeleton of the story. Without all the rest, you have a skeleton with no muscles, nerves, organs, et cetera. And what good is that?

However, even if the length were greatly increased -- a la a television mini-series -- it would still not work, I believe. There are things that you can do with comic books that you cannot do with film. Most comic books do not probe the depths of their medium, of course, and thus translate fairly easily to film. Indeed, these days many comic book creative teams are practically writing their comics as a film transcribed to page. In contrast, The Watchmen makes good use of the advantages of comic books as a medium... and, as such, is basically unfilmable.

I will update again, later tonight, after I have seen the film. It is possible that I will have to take up a knife and fork to eat some of these words. I have been wrong before: I predicted that the Iron Man film would be terrible, and ended up liking it very much! Yet, somehow, this time I do not think that I am likely to be off the mark. Iron Man, as a character, can work just fine in a variety of media. I had not expected the studios to put in the effort to produce a good story for the film, but I never doubted that it was possible to do so. For The Watchmen, we are talking about a very specific story. A most excellent story... but one that really does not work in the medium of film. My expectation is that I will say the visual effects were stunning... but the story fell far short. In a few more hours, we shall see if this prediction is correct.