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Originally Posted by loopydate
I, too, loved the movie, but I thought it was odd that Snyder upped the violence of what was already a very violent book (Dreiberg breaking the guy's arm, Rorschach's Norman Bates impression, etc.) and took away some of my favorite character development stuff.
For example, I love the scene where the powers-that-be are trying to get Manhattan to wear a costume. Gives him a reason to burn the hydrogen atom symbol on his forehead and gives a bit of insight into "Why isn't he wearing pants?"
Also, the Veidt-as-villain thing was too obvious too early. The first time I read the book and Dan and Rorschach are in Adrian's office, and Dan finds out about Pyramid, I had to go back and re-read that panel to make sure I got it right. "Wait, it was ADRIAN?!?" Here, pretty much everybody could tell as soon as they saw him that he was the villain.
Also, why is everybody super strong? Part of the point of the book was that these are normal people (like someone said earlier), which makes Ozy catching the bullet that much more of a HOLY SHIT moment.
They also did nothing to set up the New Frontiersman. The ending with them going into the Crank File works better in the book because they've been established as the sort of right-wing conspiracy nuts that Rorschach would relate to, hence the only ones he trusts with his journal. Here, they just sort of appear.
Other than that, though, I thought the movie was fantastic. Great performances all around, and I actually liked the Dan/Laurie romance. The sex scene to Hallelujah was ridiculous, but I thought they really helped ground the movie. While everything else was going to hell, here were two people finally realizing what it means to be human.
Haley was fantastic as Rorschach. Pretty much exactly how I always heard it in my head while reading the book. I got goosebumps the first time I saw the trailer when they played the "And I'll whisper 'no.'" That feeling stuck with me throughout the film. He was just about pitch-perfect.
Bubastis also looked pretty bad-ass (although I wish they'd done more with her). And I loved loved loved the last scene between Rorschach and Manhattan. How fucked up is it that the only person willing to tell the truth at the end of all of this is the murderous sociopath whose "face" is never the same twice?
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It'll be interesting to compare the experiences of a viewer who has not read the book with someone who has:
I liked the violence in the movie. Nite Owl breaking the arm of that guy was just sick, and got a reaction out of everyone. It was just very cool, and while a lot of the movie is deep in a medium most people do not accept as such, something like this really grounded the movie in the "cool" comic book sense. The heightened violence was a way for the movie to appeal on the most basic of levels, while the heightened concepts are gems for those who can appreciate the thematic material of the story.
Costume discussion with Doctor Manhattan would have been great. It would have been good for a laugh and eased the tension that a lot of people got from seeing a blue penis dangling in front of them. Truthfully, though, I did absorb those sort of things through the movie without it being explained. I could imagine exactly how the government would have tried to commercialise Dr. Manhattan. I think Snyder may have overestimated his audience, though.
Veidt as the villain was not so much obvious to me, and it surprised me when I did discover it, but I agree that something was missing that really added "oomph" to the reveal. I think an original story for Veidt would have been good. Something that also set him up as being stronger than the others, and the definite leader of the group. It seemed Nite Owl got all the attention, and I almost forgot that Ozymandias was part of the group.
It's probably pretty sad that when Veidt was revealed to be behind Pyramid, that I couldn't help but think of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
The super strength of the charatcers was weird, I'll agree with that. Snyder did contrast that by blatantly showing how mortal they actually were, but some of the fights scenes were ridiculous. Veidt catching the bullet did hold my attention, because of that one line about him bragging about being fast enough to do it. When it came to crunch time, though, he didn't seem sure he could, and it was interesting to see if he could achieve it. "Holy shit!" certainly wasn't the reaction I got, though. More of a "Hey, look, he can do it."
The New Frontiersmen obviously played a bigger part in the book? To get them, I think you must really need to read the story, but I just took them as any newspaper that were out of stories to print because the world is fucking perfect. Rorscharch was not an idiot, so he sent his journal to any newspaper because he knew they would be foaming at the mouth to print the story, and it'd dispute the "false truth" Veidt had created for the world, and restore things to the honest chaos they were. The New Frontiersmen were not the point to me when I saw that scene, but rather Rorscharch getting the last laugh.
The Dan/Laurie romance was pretty interesting. I really liked the way she just seemed to crave human affection after having sex with a radioactive men for all those years. I liked the insecurities Dan seemed to have in comparison to Doctor Manhattan and his blue lightsaber. I think those could have been played up more. The whole being impotent thing was a bit lost, and seemed more for comedy than to really flesh out Dan Dreiberg as a character.