I think the film's biggest problem is in being faithful to a fault. The key aspect of any adaptation from one medium to another is the word "adapt", which many fanboys seem to have a problem with. Not me. As long as the main aspects, thruline and spirit of a property is respected, I'm all for making changes. After all, a movie is not a book. Or a graphic novel. There is no way the quiet, internal experience of reading Watchmen can be replicated on the silver screen. The work needs to be "adapted", not transferred panel by panel.
Most of my quibbles have to do with how tone would be affected, and if many choices that turned out not to work were in fact satirical in nature, then tone would've been all over the place. The greatest thing about the graphic novel is that the satire is biting and dark, not laugh-out-loud funny.
In the end, I can't say I blame the filmmakers. It mustn't be easy to try to satisfy the fans (who seem to always be up in arms over something) while trying to sell to the general population. Their version of a happy medium swayed too much towards the former. I'm not the filmmakers, and I can't tell them how to do their job. But if it were up to me, these are the problem areas I would've dealt with.
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SPOILER WARNING!!
• This ain't 1985 no more. Setting the film during the Cold War was problematic. It makes a lot of sense in the graphic novel, but in the movie there's a huge lack of urgency. It may be the first time I side with a studio on anything geek-related, but setting the film in a more contemporary setting might have helped. Perhaps it's that the urgency wasn't set up properly (bad makeup on Nixon and the Dr. Strangelove war room make the whole conceit seem more like a parody of nuclear threat). The audience for this kind of movie is not old enough to remember 1985. Maybe setting the film in an unnameable time, but bringing the threat to the foreground in a more urgent way could help. The graphic novel's subtlety can't work in the film-- way too much happening and no chance to flip back a few pages to tie up any loose knots.
• It's just too damn long. I think if keeping the film as faithful as possible was such a concern, a six-episode miniseries on HBO or something would have been better suited because it is such a complex story. But the movie would have benefited from a more streamlined approach. Also, better intercutting, to remove the whole episodic structure. But removing the Tales of the Black Freighter segment is exactly what they should have done. But the movie's exhausting, but not because of the emotional burden we should carry out of it.
• Killing the squid was awesome. It may have been the greatest change the filmmakers did, a fantastic solution to a wholly fantastic problem, which would have set the audience rolling in laughter. I understand people's beef about what it represents in a contemporary political climate, informing the world's view of the USA, but in the end, it makes a lot more sense. It would've helped, though, to see the chaos, mayhem and destruction the catastrophe wreaked, instead of a big giant crater where New York used to be. Not that I wish to see a pile of bloody cadavers onscreen, but after all the violence played out in gruesome fashion before, what's with the censorship? The reason it was so powerful in the graphic novel is because it personalized the threat, made it affect us as humans. It may have been gory, but after seeing all sorts of impersonal havoc on screen in tons of less serious action movies, the audience's expectations have already been defined and distanced.
• Dr. Manhattan's genitalia. It shouldn't have been displayed so proudly. Dress him up? 'Course not. But maybe keeping the money shots for when it was vital to see him full frontal would've helped. Audiences (especially audiences for what was marketed as a comic book film) are still quite unprepared for male nudity. That may very well have to do with a sexist hypocritical puritanical society that loves women being nude, but in the end, it hurt the movie. It was a bold choice, and I applaud it. Keeping him naked was right. But choosing more carefully how often we get to see that nudity in all its splendor would've helped a great deal.
• The songs are on the nose. Some of them were right on the money: "The Times They Are A-Changin" was both a sardonic and amusing choice. But "Ride of the Valkyries"? I see what the intent was, but in the end there were so many songs that had the same purpose, it wound up being a similar emotional beat in terms of musical/artistic pop-culture references. All of them good choices and maybe even downright inspired, but not next to one another. It feels like sonic overkill.
• Dr. Manhattan's exile was simply perfect. The Phillip Glass piece helps a bunch, but it is clearly a case of using film to compress a whole chapter of the book effectively into an emotionally successful sequence. If only the same could have been done to many other parts of the film, then it would have been the roller-coaster it was meant to be.
• The cast was too young. Not to say they were bad in any way. Matthew Goode surprised me, I confess, because I thought he was going to be pretty bad from the trailers, but he put n a great transformation that was equal parts sad and distant. And they all did great jobs with the material, rounding out their characters despite the internal conflict we didn't get to appreciate as much on screen. But these are retired superheroes, beaten down, frustrated. I can buy a few of them, but others, try as they might, they still seem way too fresh and upbeat for the screwed-up weight they were supposed to be carrying. Kudos to the actors chosen, because it isn't their fault. Also, the poor makeup doesn't help either.
• These superheroes have no superpowers. Well, one of them does. But the rest were still treated as superhuman, with the strength of a thousand Grizzlies and the agility of a gazillion flying squirrels. I love how they fight and it's cool slo-mo trailer-bait material, but in the end the whole point of this story is they're still human, with very human flaws. I would have loved to see them flinch a little at least, especially after all these years of inactivity.
• Rorschach dies alone. I really don't see why Nite Owl needs to be there. Maybe they were trying to set up their relationship earlier, but in the end Dan's melodramatic scream removes any weight to the death of his "friend". His being alone when it happens is the whole symbolic point of his "sacrifice".
• The sex scene is good/bad. Too long, and the music doesn't help. I love what it means and accomplishes, but its length just makes it funny (but in the best way possible). It would have been just as great if it were shorter. That said, I love that it's included.
• The marketing was off. They knew they had a weird movie here. They knew it was a hard pill to swallow, and maybe selling it all comic-book/action-mystery-like was the right choice. But it turned off people who went in expecting a more straightforward movie. So maybe it was the right choice after all, 'cause it drew in the crowds. But most of them left feeling gypped.
END SPOILERS
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I could go on, but it's moot. What's done is done, and it helps as a cautionary tale for the future. The small-ish Watchmen fanbase isn't happy, and the general public is just confused. And it's a shame, really, because in the end the fans are who should have supported this film more from the start. I think Zak Snyder did a fantastic job despite the film's flaws, but it needed more work and sadly the response has been disheartening. The result is Warner Bros. is limiting most of its DC properties to a PG-13 rating, and filmmakers interested in bringing work like to theaters will have an even steeper uphill battle.
This week, though, I'm happily seeing it again. Maybe everyone should check it out again. It requires bold choices to make a movie like this, warts and all.
