Comments on: Movie Notes: Watchmen

By: Movie Notes: The Proposal : Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest

Movie Notes: The Proposal : Webomatica - Entertainment and Tech Digest — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 04:46:34 +0000

[…] Malin Ackerman has a small, simple part that introduces a tiny amount of wistful regret, washing The Watchmen and The Heartbreak Kid from my […]

By: Random Stuff: Watchmen, Amazon, Bumatai » Webomatica - Technology and Entertainment Digest

Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:30:40 +0000

[…] hilarious, spot on mashup essentially sums up one of my complaints about the Watchmen movie — Snyder’s overuse of slow mo and camera moves to everything. Here they’re applied to […]

By: Dartboard Cabinets

Dartboard Cabinets — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:46:47 +0000

I have read the comic and was a little disappointed with the movie but I don't know that I have ever seen a movie after reading the book and not been a little bit disappointed. I don't think it's possible to live up to expectations when they were as high as they were for this movie.

Overall I liked the movie and thought it to be entertaining. I would say I thought it was a little bit long for my taste although I don't necessarily mind long movies as long as the time is filled with stuff relevant to the plot. Long for the sake of long doesn't do it for me.

I though the set designs looked good and the I think they got it right in terms of being "dark". Not bad overall.

By: webomatica

webomatica — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:48:19 +0000

Yeah — seems Hollis Mason added additional motivation for Dan to continue as
Nite Owl. And the Black Freighter reminds me of the comic book guys, who
provided levity to the story, and also made the destruction of the city more
powerful, since there were some characters we cared about.
And you’re right, it sounds like both elements exist and were cut from the
film.
http://scifiwire.com/2009/02/what-had-to-be-cut…

Still — IMHO something needs to be done with the music and all that slo-mo
stuff. Maybe someone will take the full “director’s cut” and then do a
“phantom edit”

By: Mike

Mike — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:11:11 +0000

Agreed. Thoroughly enjoyed the comic / graphic novel, but the movie was missing some important stuff, and otherwise seemed a bit "off" (I think you were dead-on with the music, especially).

My understanding is that the director's cut will be better:

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1605378...

The movie was definitely missing Hollis Mason. Putting 'Tales of the Black Freighter' back in would be good, too.

By: devix

devix — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:27:00 +0000

i don’t like graphic novel.

By: webomatica

webomatica — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:56:22 +0000

Good question, and I am not really sure of the answer. I don't think
"graphic" in graphic novel is meant in the same sense of "graphic
violence." I think the term graphic novel is meant to differentiate
from "comic book" in the sense that comic implies funny. The tern
"novel" seems to imply a better quality of writing as well. I think
they generally have a complete plot line as opposed to the episodic,
where every issue is a new adventure and the order is unimportant.
Kind of like a sitcom (Seinfeld) vs. a serialized show (Heroes).

Personally, I have a looser definition, I'd consider any series of
single-issue comic books combined into one compilation a "graphic
novel." And yeah, the term definitely has some snobbery to it.

By: DaveD

DaveD — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:16:30 +0000

I haven't read the "graphic novel"... not one bit. Nor have I seen the "movie".

My question - a sincere one - is when did "comic book" turn into "graphic novel"? Even serialized... why this insistance on "graphic novel"?

I've been wondering this ever since hearing about this movie. And since you decided to use this term four times in a single post I thought this would be a good place to ask it.

Look, I understand some need to qualify that this serialized "comic book" hit on topics a bit more mature or dark than others. I can see where you would want to re-image the term into something because the target audience is most adult.

But this insistance on call a serialized one time run mini-series of comic books a "graphic novel" just doesn't... compute with me.

It's not just you - there have been several Gen-X or younger bloggers who seem to love to describe this story this way. And from all accounts it's a great story. But so were many serial comic books from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Except we didn't call them "graphic novels".

Am I making sense?