Watching the Watchmen

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Oh, Watchmen. They’re finally turning you into a movie (apparently after twenty years of trying and to the chagrin of author Alan Moore).

I loved this book as a teenager — I remember first getting into it around age ten, reading by sort of flipping from section to section out of order, not really understanding much but finding myself thoroughly absorbed in the Watchmen universe. The Rorschach section, especially, sticks in my mind.

These kinds of stories typically get abused by Hollywood. For example: the charisma-neutered Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie. But the preview’s pretty damned striking and Zach “300” Snyder is helming, so there may be hope. Also, they seemed to have nailed the look of Dr. Manhattan (the glowing blue naked guy) — probably the most difficult character to render to the screen. The only real casting miss seems to be Ozymandias, who duesn’t really seem to have quite that golden Master Race aspect to him like in the book. But whatever.

Very curious to see how this turns out. March 2009.