Watchmen and Dollhouse
Mar. 21st, 2009 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katsarisYesterday's Dollhouse (1x06) was both the first good and the first EXCELLENT episode of the series -- the first episode that made me feel I was getting two episodes' worth for the price of one, rather than a 10-minute idea stretched to hourly lengths.
5 bad-to-okay episodes followed by an excellent one. Let's see how the 7th one goes.
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Saw Watchmen last Sunday. Excellent or mostly excellent faithfulness to the characters and the story. Even those plot points that changed (notably one near the ending) were changed mostly for the better.
The thing I didn't like was the aesthetics: Too much blood and gore - It's notable how some OFF-panel killings in the comic (the prisoner whose hand gets cut off, or Rorschach's first murder) are turned into ON-screen killings in the movie.
This increase in onscreen gore also has the side-effect of the probably only characterization violation between comic and film: in the comic it's implicit that Nite Owl and Silk Spectre DON'T KILL (they're the more standard sort of costumed hero, not the barbaric sort that Rorschach represent), and it's explicit they didn't know Rorschach was about to kill someone in the toilet.
In the film on the other hand, it seems explicit that they do kill (atleast in self-defense), and it also seemed to imply they were aware of Rorschach about to commit murder in the toilet.
The sex-content was also over-lengthy in the film. A few panels in the comic are stretched to minutes in the movie. And seriously, I love the song "Hallelujah" but it should NEVER be played during a sex scene. That's the apotheosis of lame.
The increase of needless sex and gore not withstanding, which is an aesthetic choice I dislike, I felt it to be a very good movie, and an EXCELLENT adaptation.
5 bad-to-okay episodes followed by an excellent one. Let's see how the 7th one goes.
---
Saw Watchmen last Sunday. Excellent or mostly excellent faithfulness to the characters and the story. Even those plot points that changed (notably one near the ending) were changed mostly for the better.
The thing I didn't like was the aesthetics: Too much blood and gore - It's notable how some OFF-panel killings in the comic (the prisoner whose hand gets cut off, or Rorschach's first murder) are turned into ON-screen killings in the movie.
This increase in onscreen gore also has the side-effect of the probably only characterization violation between comic and film: in the comic it's implicit that Nite Owl and Silk Spectre DON'T KILL (they're the more standard sort of costumed hero, not the barbaric sort that Rorschach represent), and it's explicit they didn't know Rorschach was about to kill someone in the toilet.
In the film on the other hand, it seems explicit that they do kill (atleast in self-defense), and it also seemed to imply they were aware of Rorschach about to commit murder in the toilet.
The sex-content was also over-lengthy in the film. A few panels in the comic are stretched to minutes in the movie. And seriously, I love the song "Hallelujah" but it should NEVER be played during a sex scene. That's the apotheosis of lame.
The increase of needless sex and gore not withstanding, which is an aesthetic choice I dislike, I felt it to be a very good movie, and an EXCELLENT adaptation.