Greg Knauss: I enjoyed the movie, but sympathize with Alan Moore’s take, in that the story exists well enough as a comic and so the movie is unnecessary.  I don’t think that means it shouldn’t have been made, but it didn’t need to be made.

I almost wish the movie had been a half-hour trailer, highlighting the epic or detailed scenes — the stuff that would make me go, “OH HELL YEAH!” — and just not bothering with the rest.  Same with “Sin City.”

Ben Boychuk: The movie does expose some of the weaknesses of the book. I didn’t like the new ending at all. But having seen it, I like the book’s ending less.

Lisa Schmeiser: Having just explained the original (read: comic) ending to my “Watchmen”-virgin husband apres-film, I have to admit: saying aloud, “Yes, this guy hired a bunch of people to create a fake giant psychic squid alien to drive people crazy” sort of knocks a little of the shine off the original.

Jason Snell: Having seen “Watchmen” 24 hours ago, I am still thinking about it and still not quite sure what I thought of it. I think the fact that this intersection of two forms of media and two different works of art has provoked this much deep thought says something in its favor; if it’s a failure, it’s the good kind of failure.

I think the critics who are bashing the source material are guilty of the most pathetic form of revisionism; the work is a masterpiece despite its (admitted) flaws. Yes, it’s a B-movie plot with some ridiculous dialogue. So? Doesn’t diminish it one bit.

The movie is perhaps more interesting in terms of its relationship to its source material than as a movie. I don’t know. I would need several blows to the head to watch the movie in a state that doesn’t involve 20-plus years of self-interpretation of Moore’s and Gibbons’s work. I do think that perhaps this is the best movie that could ever have been made of “Watchmen,” with the possible exception of casting different actors as Adrian and Laurie.

I will point you to Alan Sepinwall’s review of the movie, which is probably 90-95% in alignment with my feelings.

Lisa Schmeiser: I read that Tom Cruise had been in talks to play Ozymandias and — this is the only time in my life I expect to type these words — I really wish that deal had worked out. Because he would have been perfect in the part.

I cracked open my copy of “Watchmen” yesterday because, like Jason, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I think. I’m relieved that I don’t automatically overlay the images of the actors and film over the comic. I think I really hated how ultra-violent Snyder got with some of the scenes, because the violence feels dehumanized and gratuitous, and that is sort of the antithesis of the point of the Watchmen. But I think he did a good job with a lot of the background details that broadcast how different this world is from ours, so kudos for that.

Chris Rywalt: The bit where Laurie and Dan are jumped in the alley and they KILL EVERYONE, that was WAY TOO MUCH.  But that’s Zack Snyder.  If it ain’t WAY TOO MUCH, it ain’t Zack.  Why have Spartans fight human beings when they can fight MUTANTS with SWORD BLADES FOR ARMS and PIERCED NIPPLES?

The Zack Snyder I saw in the “Watchmen” previews — about twelve years old, with that stupid quiff men have actually been convinced is a decent hair style — saying “They said it couldn’t be filmed!”  God, he’s the total fratboy douchebag who would say, “No, we can’t just slit his throat, we need to cut his fuckin’ arms off, man!  That’d be badass!  Yeah, bra, don’t leave me hangin’!”

Greg Knauss: See, I thought this made more sense, from a criminal sociopath perspective, because they wanted to get into the cell, and a fat corpse hanging on the bars just makes it harder.

Believe me.

Lisa Schmeiser: I hate that I am now forced to sing Tom Cruise’s praises to make my freakin’ point, yet here I am:

Adrian’s entire persona is this very gracious, generous and self-deprecating ubermensch, which, in my opinion, Cruise can nail. And then we find out at the end of the story that Adrian is, in fact, possibly even crazier than Rorschach, but he’s an even more dangerous type of crazy because he thinks bigger and he still manages to hang on to his social skills while doing it. There’s a sequence in the book where, after launching the alien squid, Adrian tells Laurie and Dan something to the effect of “Well, now that I’ve saved the world, I’m off to meditate in the orrery. Please make yourself at home and feel free to freshen up.” And that is simultaneously one of the funniest things in the book and the most chilling, because of his clear manipulation of societal convention to gain control of a situation. Know who can carry off this whole “I use your social protocols to disarm you, o naked ape” act? Tom Cruise.

That turn-on-a-dime-then-turn-again thing is what Cruise was born to do. I had also made an argument for Jude Law — who else can carry off the charming, I-do-things-effortlessly-but-don’t-make-you-feel-bad-about-it golden boy? But the more I think about it, the more I dig Cruise in the “If I were casting …” game.

Chris Rywalt answers Gregg Wrenn’s “Watchmen” questions:

What’s all this about an alien squid?

In the comic, Veidt’s scheme to unite the world against a common enemy involved cloning the brain of a telepathic human and putting it in the body of this immense creature designed and built to look like a scary alien squid.  The brain was encoded with the work of artists and musicians to be filled with as much sensory overload as possible, since the idea was it would teleported into the middle of Manhattan, where the teleport process would kill it, causing its psychic death scream to kill all the people in Manhattan, along with giving nightmares and headaches to psychic sensitives around the world for years to come.  Humanity would assume the squid was the advanced front of an extradimensional invasion force and band together against the menace.

Very sensible, yes?  I’m not sure which was harder to believe, that someone would think this up or that it would work.

Aside from Dr. Manhattan, do the others have actual superpowers or are they more like Batman-type badasses?

Dr. Manhattan is the only one with true superpowers.  Veidt is the epitome of the perfect human, super intelligent and with amazing physical abilites — including being able to catch a bullet — but he was not, strictly, endowed with superpowers.  Everyone else is just Batman, especially Nite Owl, who pretty much is Batman.

Did Dr. Manhattan actually run around with the others fighting crime? Seems a little beneath him.

He did, sort of.  I don’t think he was ever part of a team, but he was convinced, earlier on, that America needed him as a superhero.  He did not, however, cause people to explode, leaving their remains dripping from the ceiling.  That is strictly a douchebag fratboy Snyder invention.

What was it that The Comedian knew that sent him crying into Max Headroom’s bedroom?

The Comedian had found out about Veidt’s plan and was actually horrified at the mass murder involved.

Is there only one comic or did it turn into a series?

It was a 12-issue series.  It was intended from the start to be just 12 issues.  For nearly 20 years it’s been available combined as a paperback, so people think of it as one book, but it’s really a serial.

For some reason the discussion about different casting choices got me wondering what the movie would have looked like if it had been done by the Judd Apatow team. Seth Rogen as Night Owl, Elizabeth Banks as Laurie, McLovin as Rorshach, maybe Bill Hader as Veidt and Paul Rudd as Dr. Manhattan?

That movie would’ve been awesome.

Nathan Alderman: Actually, Dr. Manhattan did cause people to explode — there’s a panel in the comic, recreated in one of the trailers from the movie, where Doc is giving several of Moloch’s goons the very last bad day of their lives — but he did so in a clean, clinical manner, neatly vaporizing them. I am dismayed to hear that Snyder’s love of blood and guts apparently trumps details from the comic that help reveal further insights into the characters’ personalities (see: Rorschach and the child killer).

Also, I can totally live without Judd Apatow’s “Watchmen.” Half the dialogue would be improvised, the other half would be about how really great it is to smoke weed all the time (or how women, man, no one can figure them out), and only 20% of it would actually be funny.

Chris Rywalt: I looked this over and, no, he’s not clearly vaporizing anyone.  There’s a goon with his head in a cloud of some kind and Dr. Manhattan pointing at him.  That’s all.  Dr. Manhattan blows up no gooks in Nam (which struck me as especially wrong) and in fact is only responsible for one death in the whole series.  That one leaves a stain on the snow, yes.

Greg Knauss: Oh, please. A pink cloud.  The remains of his head.  Or maybe Manhattan just threw a Bloody Mary at him, right?

Man, you’ve demonized Snyder to the point that you’re refusing to see what’s clearly in the comic book. Maybe Manhattan was sent to Viet Nam to just walk around as a giant and look impressive?  I mean, are you sure Manhanttan even killed Rorschach?  Maybe he just happened to be pointing at him when he spontaneously blew up.

Manhattan kills people, kills them willy-nilly.  He’s totally detached from the human condition, and the life of any one person (or all of them) really doesn’t enter into his thinking.  He’s the first one to buy into Viedt’s plan, after it’s explained, because human beings don’t mean anything to him. There’s no difference between a living body and a dead body. Spectre’s great victory was to get him to acknowledge that the very idea of life itself may have some value in its uniqueness.  But people? Pfft. The Comedian is a greater humanitarian.

I think that the bar scene looks gratuitous on film because of the fundamental differences between the media: comics are static, so you don’t see: goon, exploding head, splash of gore, oddly lingering shot of gunk on ceiling.  You seen: exploding head, and not even a photorealistic one at that.

But it’s in the book, in almost exactly the same way it’s in the movie.

Steve Lutz: To be accurate, the cloud is more of a bright yellow due to the lighting in Moloch’s den.  But even as a kid it was clear to me that Manhattan was calmly, detachedly, exploding a guy’s head. Especially in light of the narration at the bottom of that panel, which reads “The morality of my activity escapes me.”

And when Rorschach is vaporized at the end of issue 12, it leaves blood all over the place.  There’s plenty of gore elsewhere in the comic, too.  Maybe there’s stuff to be pissed at Snyder about — I’m planning on seeing it tonight to find out — but I don’t think he’s gone far afield in interpreting Moore’s world as a wet and goopy one.

Lisa Schmeiser: I had always taken that as the final meta-statement on Rorschach — he’s turned into a Rorschach blot and it’s up to the reader to decide what they see in his decision to die and in Dr. Manhattan’s killing him. I figure that for Dr. Manhattan, what he sees is the first — and last — purposeful and moral death he’s committed, and the only reason he sees it that way is because of Laurie.

(That said, I am seriously miffed at how Snyder sliced out the scene in the castle where Laurie sort of tries to understand what just happens, fails because it’s too overwhelming to grasp millions of individuals dead, and decides, “Well, all I can do is love the one I’m with.” I thought it would have turned the poignancy dial up to 11 if she still had that reaction after Adrian framed her ex for genocide, because you’ve got to admit, the Laurie of the film should have a huge emotional stake in this resolution for that reason alone. But … that probably would have required a better actress to pull it off. Or a writer/director duo that  was actually interested in her character.)

Jason Snell: Yes, and as I said previously, I find it hard to quibble about sawing off the hands of a guy in the film, when in the original book we see someone open his jugular and, in the next panel, hear him scream as the blood gushes — gushes! — all over Rorschach’s shirt.

I guess the beauty of comics is, you can dial the violence up and down in your imagination. Snyder no doubt dialed it up, but it’s there in the source text if you want to see it.

Chris Rywalt: I’m not saying the comic wasn’t violent.  It was, especially for the time. It opened up a wave of ridiculously ugly comics after it, too.  But…okay, I’m looking at the Dr. Manhattan panel right now and…I’m still not sure he’s blowing the guy’s head off.  I’m closer to agreeing with you on it, but…

Still, I do see a difference between “POP goes the bad guy’s head” and “Hey, check out all these entrails hanging from the ceiling in violation of the laws of physics”.

I’m demonizing Snyder because, in an already violent comic, he had to turn the violence up to eleven.  He’s exactly like Nigel, in fact — he’s Nigel with a fucking budget.  ”They have sex, yeah, that’s okay, but I need some thrusting.”  ”He’s nude through the whole movie, yeah, but I need a massive swinging cock.”  ”They kill their henchman, yeah, but I need him dead as gruesomely as possible.  We need to see bones!”

I mean, it started with JFK’s brains clearly spread out across the trunk of the car — which may be from the original footage, but, Christ, the guy’s a real person, do we need to see that? — and went on from there.

What I think is really too much is turning Dan and Laurie into killing machines.  Killing machines who need that so they can fuck (with thrusting!). The rest, well, I’m willing to allow as artistic license.

Jason Snell: But on one level isn’t that what the whole book is about?

Chris Rywalt: The whole book is about their needing to be vigilantes dispensing raw justice to get it up, not that they’re killing machines.  I mean, Laurie stuck a knife right through the guy’s neck.

That Gregg had some question as to whether everyone else had superpowers shows how far wrong Snyder went.  Or his screenwriters or whatever.

Jason Snell: I agree, the non-powered heroes fight as if they were super-powered types. Hard to believe impotent fatty Dreiberg could really get in a fight like that after not working out for years.

Monty Ashley: Isn’t that true in the comic book, though? When the muggers attack in the alley, there’s no question that they’re going to get wiped out, even though Dan hasn’t done this in years.

Lisa Schmeiser: To be honest, I figured one of the movie conventions was the unspoken implication that the people who survived life as a masked hero were somehow physically gifted, a little better than human. How else can the sixty-something Comedian manage to not die in the first few seconds of being beaten up by Ozymandias? How else does Silk Spectre I manage to take down any criminals in her get-up? I sort of liked the idea that these folks were somehow physically separate from non-masks. I was fine with that conceit being introduced/not commented upon in the movie version.

In the book, on the other hand, it seems pretty relevant to note that really, the point to running around in costume was not that you had superior reflexes and an ability to ignore pain, but that you were a vulnerable outsider who used the elements of surprise and disguise to somehow serve a society you’d never fully belong to. (At least, that was my take. Or why else make so many of the characters sexual, religious or ethnic minorities?)

Chris Rywalt: I’ve been reading “Watchmen” for half of my adult life and this is the second message where you found something I think is right but that never crossed my mind.

I think some of the outsider thing with superheroes was Moore’s take on the genesis of superheroes — the Jewish idea of the golem being retold as Superman.  Comics were a Jewish medium for a long time, which Will Eisner credits to the fact that Jews couldn’t get work any higher in the food chain.

The idea that heroes all had to be psychosexual nutbars is one we could really have done without, though.  Great in “Watchmen”, wrecked 20 years and counting of comics.

Steve Lutz: Just got out of “Watchmen”, and am still processing. Overall, I think I liked it.  As a longtime fan, the many joys overruled the panoply of disappointments.  Hell, Kelly Leak alone is worth the price of admission. Which, by the way, was 11 FUCKING DOLLARS!  No wonder nobody goes to the movies anymore.

But, yeah, just to see Rorschach done almost exactly right on the big screen was enough to make me forgive the movie’s failings.

Of those failings, I’d say the two biggest disappointments for me were:

1. We never really get a glimpse of the relatively normal, pre-madness Rorschach.  As he’s the (a)moral keel of the “Watchmen” ship, it’s critical that we realize what he was, and what he’s become, and how the one lead into the other.

2. I can’t imagine anybody seeing the film and not immediately suspecting Veidt.  His backstory is non-existent, and he’s given almost nothing to do in the present except look conniving and exude a Euro-weasel vibe.  Over the last few days I’ve heard a number of people bash the actor, but honestly, the screenplay is the problem here.  But for the notable absence of Jonathan Winters, I’d have thought I wandered onto a lost episode of Scooby Doo.

Those two things are made worse by the fact that fixing them would have been very simple.  It could easily have been done in the time wasted on proselytizing about eeeeeeevil oil and rolling out the tired, gratuitous dig on Reagan.

I’m also pretty sure that if I hadn’t already read the comic, I’d have left the theater confused and annoyed.  I would have major reservations about recommending the film to anybody who hadn’t already read, and enjoyed the book.  Which is a bummer, because I’d hoped to use the movie as a springboard to introduce a few people to the books.  Then again, Ebert seems to have dug it, so who knows?

Oh, and Philip Kenicott, who complained about clunky dialogue can go cram it.  Yeah, the comic book’s dialogue is occasionally awkward and exposition heavy… because it’s a friggin’ comic book.  You have to jam that much import into a handful of little bubbles, odds are some of it’s going to end up a touch stilted, and that’s only going to be amplified when it’s said by real people.  Never bothered me while reading the books, and it only bothered me a couple of times during the movie; almost entirely during Malin Ackerman’s line readings, as it turns out.  My best guess is they hired her because she fit the suit.

Ben Boychuk: This isn’t a bad take, Steve. I’m probably going to see it again — when, I do not know, but soon I hope. Having now had a few days to think about it, I’m still displeased with the ending, removing the most important line in the book from Dr. Manhattan and giving it to Laurie, for God’s sake. But on the whole, it works. 

Nathan Anderman: So I finally saw “Watchmen” … and I have to agree, I could have done without the over-the-top gore and deeply unsexy porn-star sex. On the whole, I thought it was smart, gutsy, and wonderfully attentive to detail; I was entertained and engaged pretty much throughout. Jackie Earl Haley knocked Rorschach out of the park, and Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan was terrific. I just wish Zack Snyder knew how to do “subtle.” Even if he had kept all the emotions and music turned  needlessly up to 11, the movie would have been better than it is (and it’s still pretty good) if he’d included some of the smaller, human moments from the comic — like the beat where Rorschach apologizes to Dan, then keeps shaking his hand just a few seconds longer than is comfortable.

Still, it coulda been so much worse, and the all little textural details from the comic woven into the background were very impressive.

Jason Snell: You know, the Owlship sex would have been fine if they had done it for 20 seconds and then cut away to the owlship from the outside, floating in the clouds. Like the comic, you know?

But I’m sure the inevitable porn version will do it right.

Chris Rywalt: I went to see “Watchmen” again, in IMAX this time.  Of course it’s not true IMAX in any way, especially in the theater I saw it in, which isn’t a true IMAX theater.  But it is an extra big screen.

I decided, while seeing it again, that although I stand behind my criticisms, the movie is, in fact, totally fucking awesome.