tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471698.post4479419301947193514..comments2024-02-06T07:55:24.303+00:00Comments on Pai: Who Watches the Watchmen? (spoilers)Sarangahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03545162612237984546noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471698.post-18258941339030210352009-03-22T22:50:00.000+00:002009-03-22T22:50:00.000+00:00"Many of the things (the rape attempt, the fa..."Many of the things (the rape attempt, the fate of the lesbian heroine) you hated about the movie were the same in the book"<BR/>Well, I'd have to say that they were significantly different in the book.<BR/>Particularly the death of Silhouette. The comic does not show her bloody corpse in bed with that of her girlfriend; it's referred to in the Hollis Mason book excerpt and I think in the Sally Jupiter interview snippet, not shown. <BR/>Part of the point of the reference to her fate is to point out that the supposed "good old days" of the "golden age" weren't all that good or golden, especially in terms of social attitudes that we take for granted now.<BR/>Another is (yet another in the book) to the fact that the "heroes" were much less than perfect, as when Silhouette was outed by an enemy, the other masks, on the advice of their manager/publicist, cut her loose, leaving her even more exposed & culminating in her murder by a homophobic mob.Jack Norrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05347116217773724467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471698.post-20660984331072037422009-03-11T21:14:00.000+00:002009-03-11T21:14:00.000+00:00Thanks for the feedback guys.@ notintheface: I fi...Thanks for the feedback guys.<BR/><BR/>@ notintheface: I figured the book would look at certain things more in depth, thanks for confirming.<BR/>I forgot about the black psychiatrist. Doh. Weren't there some black guys in the prison too? I still maintain that it's shockingly white.<BR/><BR/>One of the problems with converting books to movies is that stuff always has to be cut out. One of my friends who I went with thinks it was too faithful to the comic, and that if they'd played around with the core material more then we would have got a better movie. Think of the third Harry Potter movie was sooo much better than the first 2, despite the fact they fucked around with the basic material.<BR/><BR/>Sea: I have read some League of Extraordinary gentlemen stuff, but I wasn't bowled over by it.<BR/><BR/>Back to Watchmen, I figured that the costumes etc of the women were very much of their time, which makes it a lot easier to digest.<BR/><BR/>Overall, I do rate Alan Moore - Promethea is wonderful and I have the DCU stories of Alan Moore trade, which I love.Sarangahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03545162612237984546noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471698.post-72912177085602766552009-03-11T13:38:00.000+00:002009-03-11T13:38:00.000+00:00I haven't seen the movie yet (I plan to), but I ha...I haven't seen the movie yet (I plan to), but I have to admit that I read Watchmen when it was first released, and I wasn't overly impressed with it at the time. It's easy now to look back over the last 20 years and see how Watchmen influenced super-hero comics, though -- and I think (mostly) for the better, as super-heroes are treated much more realistically in the comics now. So, I respect Watchmen for its influence -- but I'm still not crazy about it. I think part of the problem is that I also, really didn't like the way women were treated -- though the characters were products of their eras to a large degree. Maybe at the time, Moore was still struggling with how to portray strong female characters. The character of Mina Harker in his <I>League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</I> books is certainly no pushover.Sea-of-Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00813600516703661200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471698.post-31140770563824162022009-03-10T23:56:00.000+00:002009-03-10T23:56:00.000+00:00That said, the book is one of my favorite comics e...That said, the book is one of my favorite comics ever.notinthefacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12537680561821564347noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471698.post-85166939785149466232009-03-10T23:21:00.000+00:002009-03-10T23:21:00.000+00:00You'll have mixed views of the book. Many of the t...You'll have mixed views of the book. Many of the things (the rape attempt, the fate of the lesbian heroine) you hated about the movie were the same in the book, although maybe the points of some of those scenes may be more obvious). Others (the violence being more graphic onscreen, the lack of exploration of Laurie's relationship with her mom and her motivations for becoming a superhero) were things that the movie added or subtracted. The black psychiatrist who questioned Rorschach shared a chapter with Rorschach and had his own subplot running throughout the book, and Laurie got a chapter of her own, but both of those developments got mostly cut out.<BR/><BR/>Oh, and by the way, the unmasked Watchman with the lazy accent actually was Goode... actor Matthew Goode, who played him.notinthefacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12537680561821564347noreply@blogger.com