RC sez,

"i have this impression that he is thinking from a perspective of someone looking at watchmen as “watchmen, the movie” and not “watchmen, a graphic novel turned into a movie”."

I am actually doing that, i.e. looking at Watchmen as a movie. I'm of the belief that a great adaptation movie should be able to stand on its own without inconsistencies and bad acting, and with plot, setting, and characters that the audiences can connect to. There are actually a lot of adaptation movies that succeeded in all those. I'd say some Harry Potter did well. And Godfather is just brilliant I'm not sure people speak of the book as often as they do of the film.

‘an “unfilmable” comic book was filmed, and the result is largely faithful to the source material.’

and that’s the feat that matters on this movie. it has flaws movie-making wise, but it is expected if you attempt to concretize a source material such as this.

I dunno, I think it's being cut too much slack. I just can't help but wonder that, had Zack Snyder released Watchmen with all the special effects unaltered, but before the geek/fanboy generation (of which I think I also belong to) came to be and before the internet became available for mass consumption, would anyone have cared?

And while I consider myself a hardcore geek, I don't really think I need Hollywood to give shout-outs to our kinds, so I don't really think Watchmen is lucky to have a fanboy like Snyder making the film. I would've preferred it to stay film-less.

If you can, try to read my review of the movie, though you probably can already predict that it's not a very positive review.

I'm also in the very slim minority who think that the squid-alternative wasn't very compelling. Yeah, I can understand not using the squid, but I thought using the, well, you know what they used, sort of defeated the purpose of the movie a little bit. I'd explain this, except someone from this forum had already written similar thoughts on it. So I'll just quote him:

"I take issue with them changing the explanation for the catastrophe at the end. I believe IIRC the comics, Ozy made the climactic attacks look like the work of invading aliens. And that element in the comics worked well because it tied into something Reagan said previously about how mankind would drop its petty bickering and work together if attacked by an unknown force from outside our world, making the concept very timely. By changing everything to look like Dr. Manhattan did it, I feel that they've almost justified the nature of the Cold War: In the Cold War, everyone behaved out of fear of the nuclear bogeyman. And now that it looks like Dr. Manhattan attacked the world, humans must now coexist peacefully out of fear of the superhero bogeyman. One bogeyman has replaced another, and by agreeing with the situation the Watchmen may in fact be advocating the principles of the Cold War. I find the change a bit too significant."

I also thought that since the general population already hated "superheroes" since the beginning of the movie, making the catastrophe look like it was caused by Dr. Mahattan changes nothing because people will just hate "superheroes" even more. One can argue that from the comic book, people would realize that the Squid threat could've been thwarted had they not outlawed costumed vigilantes.

also, just want to say something while reading nightdreamer's comments. i have this impression that he is thinking from a perspective of someone looking at watchmen as "watchmen, the movie" and not "watchmen, a graphic novel turned into a movie". i liked the movie because as you said,

'an “unfilmable” comic book was filmed, and the result is largely faithful to the source material.'

and that's the feat that matters on this movie. it has flaws movie-making wise, but it is expected if you attempt to concretize a source material such as this.

i'll watch it later, after work.

i guess i'll just have to settle for etits y betlogs de azul

I do admit that the movie could be better, but I'm just happy that a movie was made out of that dense multi-layered graphic novel and that Hollywood didn't shit on Watchmen.