Watchmen Movie

This will probably seem like an odd entry considering yesterday’s rant about the viral campaign and Snyder’s respect for detail, but today I want to look at what’s missing from the film.

Fans who have been going over the trailers again and again have begun to notice certain bits and pieces that are notably absent. I was most concerned by Timothy Callahan’s observation that Captain Metropolis seems to have disappeared in the transition from page to screen. (Click here to read Callahan’s article courtesy of Comic Book Resources) Captain Metropolis is a fairly prominent figure in the book who’s responsible for (amongst other things) bringing the various heroes together to form a group.

Now, from an objective film student perspective, I know that the movie can live without Captain Metropolis. He’s important, but not so important that the narrative can’t function without him, and he’s not a major point of identification for the audience. That being said, I still really, really want to see the Captain and his middle-aged paunch shoved into that sweet red jacket. I can’t help it – he’s funny, he’s engaging, and he’s one of the best examples of just how problematic a real-world superhero would be.

But, alas, it looks like I may not get my wish.

Because as much as I may want it to be so, there’s no way everything from the graphic novel can make it into the film. Even with the viral campaign, and even with the Black Freighter DVD (more on that soon!) some things won’t make the cut.

So my question is, when working with a text as critically and commercially successful as WATCHMEN, what’s acceptable to leave out? There’s already been much commotion over the rumored absence of a certain eight-armed beast, but what else needs to be in the film?

As far as I’m concerned, there are only three scenes that need to be in the movie that I haven’t seen proof of yet, and those are the flashbacks explaining the histories of Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, and the Silk Spectre. These are the scenes that really make the graphic novel for me, and I could see them being glossed over in the film as they’re not directly linked to the overall plot. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed…

But what about you? In the comments section below tell us what you think needs to be in the WATCHMEN movie.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 5:57 PM and is filed under World of WATCHMEN. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.