Why I'll Be Missing 'Watchmen.'

I don't take very many things seriously in life. A general sense of hilaritas seems to rule my life because frankly, I find it to be healthy. Life is far too short to take as if everything matters. Granted, things do matter in my life and I do find aspects of my lifestyle that I must come at from a somewhat mature angle. But a prevailing sense of joviality appears to be the most overriding function for me at this time.

Except for one thing. Art.

Firstly, I'd like to make plainly clear that 'all art is quite useless' to quote Mr. Wilde. It does have it's faculties as well as aspects, some of them very advantageous. Perhaps the most fruitful of these facets is 'arts' ability to change consciousness. Some art seems to trigger such strong ideas within me that it almost seems like a quantum leap. Of course, because it's me, this 'art=consciousness change' balderdash is not so much a belief that I have, but merely a value. But don't get me wrong, in the pantheon of art that I've studied and enjoyed, I cannot canonize very many works of art with this dubious honor. Alan Moore's 'Watchmen' however, is one of them.

Yes, it is a silly comic book, and not one to be taken seriously. Alan has often stated many times that he finds it appalling that people take his work so earnestly and that most have perhaps missed the point of his book. I would definitely agree with him. Even I find myself sometimes embarrassed about how impassioned I am about this comic. These days, I am happy with the delight that 'Watchmen' brought me. The book is a very poignant, touching, ugly, beautiful and down-right funny one. Surely I will read it again, like all the works of literary art that I have found to be somewhat instrumental in my mental development. Of this I can be sure. However, I'll be skipping out on the movie.

It's not some kind of luddite stubbornness which belies my decision to do so. Frankly there have been many comics that have been adapted to film that I have enjoyed. 'Watchmen' however is a very different animal. Alan Moore expressly wrote the Watchmen to show what comics can do, that film cannot. Absolutely, there are very cinematic prospects within the pages of the book, some which even I would love to see be brought to a giant screen. But the detail and character development and other such features which shocked me with their poignancy, all within a twelve issue comic, just cannot be conveyed in a two and a half hour movie. My position on the whole affair is the same as that of Brian K. Vaughan; "...it's like making a stage play of Citizen Kane. I guess it could be OK, but why? The medium is the message." Of course, this is a very shallow perspective and not very open-minded. I do take some art as a serious matter.

So, I say the next sentences without any glibness. I hope people go and see the movie and I hope they enjoy themselves. How can you not make a good film from such wonderful source material? Many critics I admire rave over how stunning the movie actually is, and it's good to finally see the comic to movie genre gaining notoriety. I also hope that at least one out of every ten people that watch the 'Watchmen' will go and find the book somewhere and give it a read. Perhaps the movie will give people a larger perspective then they had before they watched the film.

As for me- it was a comic.