Posts Tagged ‘Watchmen’
Second Take: Watchmen
… work it out. As with all my Second Takes this will have spoilers.
I really love the Watchmen graphic novel, it is amazing, I still remember reading it the very first time and being blown away by such a complex story that really thought about comic book heroes. I’ve found more everytime I go back to that book and so it was natural for me to be excited over the idea of a Watchmen film. Excited but really cautious though, anyone care to remember League of Extraordinary …
Tags: Alan Moore Nite Owl Rorschach Second Take Watchmen
Well I’ve done the ‘good’ list for movies this year so it seems only natural and fair to draw up the naughty list of movies before the year completely comes to an end.
This is potentially a much harder list as I generally don’t like to hate on too many films but there were at least a couple of films this year that deserve to get lumps of coal in their stockings or at the very least a good frowning. I’m sure there are some worse films too but I had to limit it to what I’ve actually seen and not just assumed!
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine – This is a really bad-ass character, everyone generally loves him, he’s on nearly every cover for Marvel, so why then did we get a weak ineffectual version of the character? I mean it’s not the actor who has already shown he can play the character? The writers just seem to soften the character so he was all bark and no brain popping claws through the jaw. And then the film degenerates into a who’s who of mutant appearances including a very young Cyclops who later on doesn’t recognise Wolverine because he had his eyes closed. So I guess no one liked Cyclops back then enough to describe the guy who saved them?? Oh yeah and if there was an Academy Award for worst way to handle the character Deadpool then this film would have it in the bag!
- Watchmen - Great comic book translation onto the big screen for Watchmen fans, horrible film for everyone else. I don’t mind Watchmen as a film, I’ve revisited it and grown to appreciate it as a literal translation onto screen. For anyone else though it is confusing, awkward and hard to get into. I completely get that. Maybe Alan Moore was right, it was never intended for any medium outside of comics.
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian – The first one was generally funny, not the greatest comedy in the world but certainly enjoyable. I have no idea why this one apart from financial concerns would ever even considered being made. It doesn’t add anything to the storyline and you know what Hank Azaria, you do voices, fine we get it, we got it, practise some restraint now.
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – The absolute best bit of the film: giant robot balls. The worst part? The fact that the best part was giant robot balls.
- Terminator Salvation – I feel bad putting this on the list now because I bought this today on Blu-ray, but only because I have the others including T3 and I think it’ll look pretty on the big telly. Other than that to me this film shows why Bill Murray might have head butted McG. There are a lot of dumb ideas in this film designed to look good only so that idiots will buy it on Blu-ray because it looks pretty… hang on… doh.
And there you have it. So any films that should be here that I’ve missed? Any films that shouldn’t be here? Let me know your biggest let downs when it came to film in 2009!
I’m often asked by people who would really love to get into comic books where they should start, what’s a good beginner’s comic and is that teddy bear wearing a ninja outfit?
I must admit that more often than not I’m at a loss for an answer because:
- it depends on the person and their tastes just like other books and movies
- Watchmen is more often than not the wrong answer
- I’ve read comics pretty much all my life
- I have no idea who’s teddy bear that is and where it got the weapons or costume.
So I thought I might commit some time and thought to the matter and put together some lists over the coming weeks that are really great comic books to start off with. But first a couple of things that you should know before we start.
The big two.
There are two companies that dominate the comic book publishing industry and they are Marvel and DC. I’m going to keep this as simple as possible but DC can also be broken down even further but basically what you need to know is that:
DC = Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Blue Beetle and G’nort*
Marvel = Spider-Man, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, X-Men, Captain America, The Hulk and Daredevil
*I mention these two only as a joke, you don’t need to know them!!
DC is the older of the two as you can image since it publishes the 78 year old Superman and has characters that epitomise the archetype of super heroes as powerful beings that embody heroic qualities. Often colourful costumes with capes and masks. 
Marvel’s characters were often developed to have flaws or different motivations closer to the issues that the readers might have. Spider-Man for instance was constantly bullied at school and later on had to find ways to make money.
Now the Marvel universe is different from the DC universe in each of the companies’ comic book lines they live generally in the same world. Batman and Superman could visit each other for instance and in the Marvel universe Spider-Man could have tea with the Fantastic Four. But only on extremely rare occasions do the universes/companies cross over.
DC have fictional locations such as Metropolis and Gotham City whereas Marvel is set in the real world locations such as New York and Los Angeles.
Really all I’m trying to do here is to give you the briefest idea that there two big companies in the comic book publishing world. There are a bunch of other brilliant companies that bring out just as good and better books but I don’t want to confuse the issue now!
