
It really is surprising it took this long to make it to the big screen. There have been talks about making it into a film for years now. I read once that Terry Gilliam was approached and he said to make it would cost a million dollars per page of the comic. Maybe what he meant was 'to do it right'.
I don't want to be one of those fanboys that shouts "That's not how it happened in the comic!" over and over, but they really changed more then they lead fans to believe when hyping the film. When the Sin City movie was made, it was heralded as a translation rather than an adaptation. That's what I was hoping for with Watchmen, but sadly that wasn't what we got. Instead what fans were handed was a similar plot with more violence, less backstory, a gratuitous sex scene, and a completely different ending. It felt like they wanted to make the story more Hollywood and inject the kind of stuff you find in your run of the mill R rated blockbuster. I'm no prude, I love sex and violence, but the liberties they took with them in this film fit about as much as Steven Hawkins being casting on Dancing with the Stars.
Like most adaptations, there were a handful of minor changes that I could look past. In the comic, there is an on-going story where a young man is reading a comic called Tales of the Black Freighter. The story is about a sailor trying to find his way back home and has to overcome lots of obstacles. Rather than have the character reading the comic in the film, which would have added an hour to the movie, they released it as an animated film, which is due out on DVD later this month.

Minor tweaks to the characters' origins and added sex and violence aside, I think the biggest affront to this story was the dramatic change of the ending. Please keep in mind that if you haven't read the book or seen the movie I'm about to ruin both for you, so if you don't want to ruin the surprise stop reading now.
In the book there is a subplot about a group of people that are considered leaders in their fields; an artist, a writer, scientists, et cetera. We see that they are on an island working on a secret project. It is later

How retarded. Like any other country wouldn't just say, "Well that sucks for the US, but let's just make sure we're ready in case he comes here!" An alien attack is something that would be a threat to the planet as a whole, and since the attack was partially psychic in the book it effected people all over the globe.
I guess I was expecting too much from the film. It had so much potential. I will admit that it looks gorgeous on the big screen. They really did make the characters come to life. The best part of the film is Rorschach, who despite having one of the most brutal scenes in the film, is the character kept most true to the comic.

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