MARVIN CAPISTRANO: Some people haven't seen it but you can tell it starts off with a murder mystery but it builds up from there. But the thing with Watchmen is it's more, it's way more than that.
That's why fans are worried about the new film adaptation of the groundbreaking Alan Moore-Dave Gibbons twelve-part comic. Their story spun an alternate history in which Richard Nixon is serving his fifth term in office in the 1980s and costumed superheroes roam the streets. Sebastian Castillo appreciates what the graphic novel Watchmen did.
SEBASTIAN CASTILLO: Watchmen is like what if superheroes actually existed in an alternate universe which was pretty cool in that they were all flawed so it takes a more realistic approach to the absurdity of the superhero genre and totally dismantles it.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake/The Comedian in Watchmen (Warner Brothers)
(clip from Watchmen)
EDWARD BLAKE: I love working on American soil I haven't had this much fun since Woodward and Bernstein.
DAN DREIBERG: How long can we keep this up?
EDWARD BLAKE: Congress is pushing through some new bill that's going to outlaw masks, out days are numbered.
MARVIN CAPISTRANO: We're being shown a world that is rejecting the superheroes, they are a little hesitant, they are not that willing to embrace the superheroes in fact they are outright saying stay out of our lives.
That's one of the themes that Marvin Capistrano says the film is keeping intact from the book. But Meshawn Denna is resigned to the fact that a lot will be left out.
MESHAWN DENNA: I mean of course they are going to have to make cuts due to time constraints and it's Alan Moore graphic novel and so of course you're not going to be able to get everything into it.
SEBASTIAN CASTILLO: Alan Moore is always known to just say I don't want to have anything to do with any adaptations of my comic books and I respect that.
SEBATIAN CASTILLO: I'm actually quite worried about it because after hearing Zack talk about how he changed the ending, no squid at the end, if there's no squid at the end then what's the point of the freakin' movie?
But fans like David Perez have other concerns about Zack Snyder's film.
DAVID PEREZ: I just hope it does justice to the book I hate to see people dismiss the book so I hate to see people dismiss the book just based on the movie.
But that's not likely to happen. When Snyder adapted Frank Miller's 300 to the screen, the film boosted interest and sales in the graphic novel. Based on the audience response to the sneak preview, Meshawn Denna thinks fans like her will be pleased by the Watchmen film.
MESHAWN DENNA: Anytime these was an image from the comic book that really matched in the movie, everyone was really cheering, clapping and applauding so it's really cool seeing what you read up there on the screen like that because not a lot of comic books I mean the only other one I can think of is 300 which of course Zack Snyder did. But it was like they just put the panel on the screen. It was just really cool to see.
A comparison between a panel from the comic and a frame of Zack Snyder's film. (Warner Brothers)
And Watchmen is cool to see. Snyder has mastered creating moving picture companions to graphic novels. He has a flair for using the comic panels as storyboards that he adheres closely to, and when the story is simple and direct like 300 , the films can be amazing. But in the case of the multi-layered Alan Moore novel, Snyder only captures the surface of a complex tale. So go see Watchmen in IMAX and appreciate the striking and sometimes epic images, then go home and read the graphic novel for a far richer experience.
Companion viewing: Watchmen: Tales of the Black Frieghter and Under the Hood (coming out March 24), Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic, V for Vendetta, Spider-Man
