"Who Watches the Watchmen?"

Just so you know, there will be SPOILERS! :p

In between work, sleep, and my social life, I have found enough time to read all twelve chapters of Alan Moore's famous Watchmen comic. Set in the mid-80's in an alternate timeline (for example, the US wins the Vietnam War, the Arms Race escalates much more rapidly with the existence of Dr. Manhattan, and even Richard Nixon is President of the United States for a third term!), the main plot of the comic revolves around defunct superheroes investigating a murder of one their own brethren.

After spending the past several days reading the comic, I almost immediately watched the movie adaptation of the comic afterward (I say almost since I debated going to sleep for a minute, but then I realized that I didn't have any serious engagements the following day - so I could afford to have a late Sunday night :p). I've got to say that I was thoroughly impressed with the movie, although in all fairness, the movie was an already an immediate favorite of mine when it was first released years ago. The movie pretty much offers a stripped-down version of the comic book (for example, Rorschach's interactions with Dr. Malcolm Young in the maximum security prison are brief in the movie, as opposed to the exploration of Young's increasing instability with his life, both private and public. Another example is the removal of Tales of the Black Freighter in the film (which I'll get to later), but still (obviously) taking much from the movie such as the dialogue in the comic and even elaborating on some scenes (like The Comedian's final moments alive, the attempted assassination of Ozmandias, and rescuing Rorschach at the prison). Of course an adaptation is an adaptation, so certain things here and there would be altered or even removed. This is really apparent with the lack of back story in the movie, in which the comic series has fleshed out through documents, excerpts from books, and even newspaper clippings. The back story in the comics was necessary to understand the machinations of the mind of our costumed heroes. Instead, the film removes these elements and hopes to create a movie with as little confusion/plot holes as possible. The elaborate back story elements do appear in the movie, but more of a nod to the fans of the comic. However, at this point, I'm digressing.

Tales of the Black Freighter...where to begin with that? A pirate comic that Bernie was reading since the third chapter of the comic series, Tales revolves around the story of a shipwrecked mariner desperately trying go to his home town of Davidstown before the Black Freighter (the ship that shipwrecked the same mariner) can devastate the unsuspecting town. At first, I didn't know that this was a story-within-a-story ordeal because it had happened so suddenly, since some scenes in Watchmen don't involve any of the main characters. Though Tales would often coincide with much of the character development of certain people. For example, the mariner's exile and separation from humanity and his crew reflected Dr. Manhattan's exile and emotion attachment to the human condition. As the mariner became more savage on his journey home, whether it was eating live gulls or murdering sharks, Rorschach was becoming the vicious, uncompromising vigilante that he is now known for. Finally, when the mariner became the scourge he tried to hard to fight against for his beloved town, Ozmandias' loss of humanity by tricking the world of a false alien invasion seemed to reflect that. So perhaps that's the main purpose of Tales, to highlight key moments of the story, though sometimes I wonder if there is more to this story that just that.

Finally, I was quite surprised just how radically different the story ends in Watchmen. I had first seen the movie, before I ever touched the comic, so I presumed that the comic would follow in the same steps, more or less. Instead, I was shocked to realize that it wasn't a reactor that Dr. Manhattan designed that brought the world together, but in fact an alien invasion upon New York City. Or at least, it was made to look like one. In my humble opinion, the whole alien bit seemed a bit of stretch to me. I will admit that it was an interesting way to bring two conflicting countries to work together, but the way the film adaptation attacked this conundrum seemed more realistic, or least plausible, especially considering the fact that Dr. Manhattan was becoming more and more disconnected with humanity as a whole. "Sacrificing millions!..To save billions!" 

At the end of the day, I just enjoy a good comic that is thoroughly engaging, unique, and thought-provoking. I'm off to read more books now! :P