Klaus wrote:

It's not the "comic book world" that tend to rate Watchmen as one of the best literary achievements during the last century but rather respected publications such as TIME and The New York Times.

They rate Watchmen in the same way that all such lists and hat-tips are made, it's pure tokenism. What I meant, anyway, is that I see Watchmen as the exemplar to which comic readers point non-comic readers to establish the literary merit of the medium. That's what happened to me.

Klaus wrote:

Comic book nerds are still more into Marvel than Vertigo (and if they're into Vertigo they're far more likely to idolize some of that Gaiman crap than any of Moore's work), unfortunately, and the majority of them share the opinion expressed by you above.

What, X-Men nerds think Watchmen is "a workbench for Moore to carve up and glue together his eclectic ideas about superheroes, godhead, will to power, etc., that doesn't stack up that well as a story"? Really?

Klaus wrote:

Personally I think it's a brilliant story, written by an equally brilliant man, that perfectly illustrates the strong points of the medium it's represented in.

It has a broad, playful scope of ideas in it, a subversive premise or two, and it's reasonably subtly executed. A masterpiece of tight plotting and insightful characterisation, it isn't.

Klaus wrote:

In any case, I guess we can agree that it's an inherently flawed movie. Neat opening sequence though. He sure knows how to pick a soundtrack.

We're not doing too well here 🙂 I hated that Forrest Gump-ish opening sequence. I'm so done with montages of the significant events of the twentieth century, as seen through the baby boomer lens.

Burnwinter wrote:
Klaus wrote:

Comic book nerds are still more into Marvel than Vertigo (and if they're into Vertigo they're far more likely to idolize some of that Gaiman crap than any of Moore's work), unfortunately, and the majority of them share the opinion expressed by you above.

What, X-Men nerds think Watchmen is "a workbench for Moore to carve up and glue together his eclectic ideas about superheroes, godhead, will to power, etc., that doesn't stack up that well as a story"? Really?

Well they generally believe that Moore is pretentious and difficult for the sake of some higher literary ambition rather than just telling a story through his chosen medium, which is more or less what I gathered from your post. Which I think is wide of the mark. I think it stacks up brilliantly as a story and even better when you start to analyse the mechanism behind its storytelling.

Burnwinter wrote:

It has a broad, playful scope of ideas in it, a subversive premise or two, and it's reasonably subtly executed. A masterpiece of tight plotting and insightful characterisation, it isn't.

Funny, I think it's the exact opposite. There's little subversive about the premise itself in my opinion, apart from the fact that it's meticulously researched perhaps. The genius of Watchmen has always been the character portraits, the pacing and how it tells a complex story without making it extremely transparent just to make sure the theme gets through. Just like everything Moore's ever written it's an extremely conscious work, perhaps to the line of borderline-obsessive. We're talking about a mentally disturbed individual who, apart from story and dialogue, spends an entire page of a script just to set up a single frame and its content. In a 400 pages long book with 9 frames on each page.

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Burnwinter wrote:
Klaus wrote:

In any case, I guess we can agree that it's an inherently flawed movie. Neat opening sequence though. He sure knows how to pick a soundtrack.

We're not doing too well here 🙂 I hated that Forrest Gump-ish opening sequence. I'm so done with montages of the significant events of the twentieth century, as seen through the baby boomer lens.

It's a pretty overused narrative device in itself perhaps but I thought it was very fitting, especially when you bear in mind the decade under which the story of Watchmen is supposed to take place. Not to mention - it was the only coherent sequence in the entire film where you really felt like you got an idea of how the book constantly and seamlessly skips back and forth in time, and just how powerful and rich on analogy the imagery in some of those scenes really are. It's another aspect that got hopelessly lost in the film's straight-line and all too flashback-ridden narrative.

Oh, and Pepe needs to fix the forum. It cuts off your post after 2000 characters.

Well they generally believe that Moore is pretentious and difficult for the sake of some higher literary ambition rather than just telling a story through his chosen medium, which is more or less what I gathered from your post. Which I think is wide of the mark.

Not at all - I have no problem with "difficult" works. It seems I just don't rate Watchmen as highly as an overall creation as you do Klaus. De gustibus non est disputandum.

There's little subversive about the premise itself in my opinion

Well, to me the premise is exactly your thesis statement: that Watchmen is about superheroes as strange, flawed sexual deviants who like to dress up, coming into bracing contact with forces and events that actually are supernormal. I'd suggest it does subvert, by leading readers to question the nature of character types with which, heretofore, they've been inclined to identify, and problematising them morally, aesthetically and politically.

In turning Manhattan into the decider of Vietnam, for example, it's situating the superhero concept in unfamiliar, ambivalent terrain. In showing a decidedly flabby Dreiberg clambering into his outfit it's highlighting the mortality and ultimately, the absurdity of the costumed superhero.

Yeah, the 2000 char limit got me as well, and I had to trim my last post. Never mind I'm sure the world's not much the poorer.

It has been quite a while - nearly ten years I think - since I last read Watchmen by the way.

Burnwinter wrote:

Well they generally believe that Moore is pretentious and difficult for the sake of some higher literary ambition rather than just telling a story through his chosen medium, which is more or less what I gathered from your post. Which I think is wide of the mark.

Not at all - I have no problem with "difficult" works. It seems I just don't rate Watchmen as highly as an overall creation as you do Klaus. De gustibus non est disputandum.

It wasn't a comment about personal preference. 🙂 I just got the feeling that you felt Moore complicated matters for the sake of being complicated rather than serving a finer point within the story, but I guess I just read it wrong.

Burnwinter wrote:

There's little subversive about the premise itself in my opinion

Well, to me the premise is exactly your thesis statement: that Watchmen is about superheroes as strange, flawed sexual deviants who like to dress up, coming into bracing contact with forces and events that actually are supernormal. I'd suggest it does subvert, by leading readers to question the nature of character types with which, heretofore, they've been inclined to identify, and problematising them morally, aesthetically and politically.

Yeah, point taken. I'm not sure I'd call it subversive though, because most superhero comics are by definition subversive in that case. But, yes, one of the most important ideas is to deconstruct the superhero by asking the question: what makes seemingly normal people dress up in weird costumes and beat the shit out of others? And then, to add some sexual insecurity to their anxiety over the approaching third world war as well as their own approaching mid-life crisis, a god being comes into existence and makes them obsolete. Again, it's something the film does a terrible job at portraying.

Avoiding any further discussion about the graphic novel for a moment, surely you can see why I don't think the flaws in the movie is down to any supposed weakness in Moore's original story though? There's almost none of it in there!

The film is certainly a bit thin - and still long at that. A miniseries adaptation probably would've been better, or just to have left well alone.

To be fair, I thought tnat they did as well as poss with the source material. Obviouslly in the minority there.

Anyway, so I watched Night of the Living Dead last night. Never seen it before. Could see how it's influenced so much that followed but it's probably a little dated now. Not sure i'd rush to watch it again

I watched an oldish film about hooligans called The Firm earlier. Great bit of drama, lots of Gary Oldman chewing the scenery.

Captain wrote:

To be fair, I thought tnat they did as well as poss with the source material. Obviouslly in the minority there.

i actually liked it.. maybe its because i never read it

There are two things in film right now I am especially excited about:

  1. The Dark Knight Rises. It will be phenomenal.
  2. Inception out on blu-ray with hopefully some great special features.
  3. The Arrested Development movie, whenever it's released. Though I feel it may pale in comparison to the show.
5 days later

Anyone watch the Scott Pilgrim movie? My mate's sent me a decent quality link to watch it, wondering if it's worth it. I remember hearing mixed things about it at the time, the trailer was funny though.

Watched it recently. Like Capi, really enjoyed it.

Half an hour in this is brilliant. 😃

Good shout boys.

You're about a month late Gael 😉

Yup, James has been raving about her (and rightfully so) for a while now.

Watched King of Comedy recently. Nice turn by De Niro although in terms of the cinematic experience, I'd definitely say Taxi Driver is superior. Got Blade Runner to lined up to watch in the near future.