Who Watches the Watchmen? I do.

The moment has almost finally arrived. On Friday, March 6th, the general public will witness a film over a decade in the making. I'm talking of course, about Zach Snider's adaptation of Alan Moore's legendary graphic novel, Watchmen.

Ever since I saw the first trailer attached to The Dark Knight over the summer, I had to know more about the movie, and more importantly, its source material. I looked to Wikipedia for answers to my ever-growing list of questions, and found an overwhelming amount of information. After reading through the brief synopsis of the book, I realized the only true way to see what Watchmen was about was to experience it myself. That November I picked up a Trade Paperback copy of the entire series, and was hooked instantly. I finished the book in two days, burning the midnight oil to find out what would happen next to these fascinatiing characters. March simply couldn't come soon enough.

The early reviews of Zack Snyder's film have been generally positive, with the film hovering at 74% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. I think that by Friday after every review is in, the film will be at around 80-85%. I highly doubt its chances at beating The Dark Knight in terms of critical praise, and it obviously won't make nearly as much money, but I think it has the potential to trump TDK solely in terms of what I consider to be the best "superhero" (and I use that term loosely) movie of all time.

The critics that have panned Watchmen all seem to have the same complaint: It's too much of a reverent tribute to the source material. Though I haven't seen the film, I cannot even begin to understand how this makes sense. Snyder changed the fucking ending in the film adaptation, how is that sticking too close to the source material? And more importantly, since when is it a bad thing to stick to the source material? Isn't that what us fans want?

I'm getting ahead of myself here though. I think Snyder obviously intended the film to be a huge fan service, and if critics can't understand it, then whatever. It's like they say, opinions are like assholes: everyone has one and every one stinks.

One more thing: The Watchmen game is going to suck, but I'll probably still buy it. There is a mall just outside the theater I'm going to on Friday, and I need MS Points anyway...I suppose I'll try my best to resist.

When visiting RottenTomatoes, the number to pay attention to is the top critics number.

Watchmen's top critics rating is 14.

74 on Rotten Tomatoes?  Really?  Metacritic is, like, 36 when I last checked. 

This calls for celebration. Everyone must change their icon to something Watchmen related until Saturday.

"This calls for celebration. Everyone must change their icon to something Watchmen related until Saturday."

"Bulldog19892 said:

"This calls for celebration. Everyone must change their icon to something Watchmen related until Saturday."

Let's just imagine that your icon and my icon represent the people looking up and shouting "Help us!""

"Sir_Ragnarok said:

"Bulldog19892 said:

"This calls for celebration. Everyone must change their icon to something Watchmen related until Saturday."

Let's just imagine that your icon and my icon represent the people looking up and shouting "Help us!""

  No. That would assume that everyone has Skinny Fists, and I know for a fact that I do not."

Done and done. (Rorschach is, without a doubt, my favorite character from the series).

"74 on Rotten Tomatoes?  Really?  Metacritic is, like, 36 when I last checked.  "

"Sir_Ragnarok said:

"74 on Rotten Tomatoes?  Really?  Metacritic is, like, 36 when I last checked.  "

They're different types of aggregate sites.  Metacritic is pretty horrible in general in my opinion, but doubly so for film.  RT is a much better resource for film, and gamerankings for games."

"EvilTwin said:

"Sir_Ragnarok said:

"74 on Rotten Tomatoes?  Really?  Metacritic is, like, 36 when I last checked.  "

They're different types of aggregate sites.  Metacritic is pretty horrible in general in my opinion, but doubly so for film.  RT is a much better resource for film, and gamerankings for games."

Horrible, indeed.  Entertainment Weekly's "B-" review of Watchmen got a Metacritic score of 67.Since when does a B- equate to 67%?"

Also, you should pay attention to what the critics say when they give the review. A lot of the positive ones for Benjamin Button on RT are only high because they credit a lot of the visuals rather than the story itself. Which is fucking shit.

"The critics that have panned Watchmen all seem to have the same complaint: It's too much of a reverent tribute to the source material. "

"Snyder changed the fucking ending in the film adaptation, how is that sticking too close to the source material? And more importantly, since when is it a bad thing to stick to the source material? Isn't that what us fans want?"

The two guys doing "At the Movies" now gave it a positive review and I'd consider them mainstream film critics. http://bventertainment.go.com/tv/buenavista/atm/ An interesting point, though, is that both of them had read the graphic novel while a review I read from Associated Press, which called the movie "bloated" didn't read the book*.  I wonder if this is one (rare) case where reading the book makes the film seem better to the viewer than not having read the book.

Here's an article highlighting the differences between the fan base and the mainstream critics. http://io9.com/5163828/bloggers-love-watchmen-but-theyre-on-their-own

EDIT: *Actually, she did read the book.  I misread her review the first time. However, I still think my question is valid.