Just finished reading "Watchmen" the graphic novel.

[Archae]

I haven't seen the movie yet.

But the book was just so damn depressing.

(Disaster in New York, only instead of starting a war it prevents one.)

[arcane1]

1. It was hard to read since I don't read graphic novels. The movie, I thought, was pretty good!

I didn't follow the written story well since I was skipping over the pictures to read the next words. I didn't adapt to the format very well, in that sense. As a result, I went into the movie with only about 10% of expectations, and no real idea of how the original story played out.

As a stand-alone movie, it was a visual masterpiece, and yes, depressing, but still a pretty damn good movie. But I do understand how fans of the novel might have issues with it. It wasn't the quality that led to bad reviews, it was the divergence. IMO, of course

[Maedhros]

5. There is an entire story told in the background.

The visual element of Watchmen (the graphic novel) is important.

[d_r]

2. you should see the movie

I watched it after reading the graphic novel and thought it was a good job. I mean it doesn have depth of novel but thgat would be hard copy especially with tyhe way the comics did different pov. It is dark stuff but interesting.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

3. I enjoyed Watchmen

The graphic novel, not the film. Alan Moore's best work, IMHO is the Batman one-off Killing Joke. It's dark, and considered canon in the Batman universe. My absolute favorite graphic novel ever.

[cemaphonic]

4. The movie is very mediocre.

It's a decent summary of the story (with some divergences, at least one of which is actually an improvement) and good art direction/sets/special effects. But the story in "Watchmen" isn't really what makes it interesting. Watchmen is neat because it plays around so much with the format of superhero comics, and things like panel layout, and the whole parallel pirate comic storyline aren't really things that can be adapted well to another medium.

Also, the soundtrack has some questionable choices. Most of the songs either fit the 80s setting, or are referenced in the comic. But there's several songs that don't really fit either category and stand out. In particular there are two scenes that I remember that use music from much better movies that pulled me completely out of the story.

[SwankyXomb]

6. If you've only seen movies based on Alan Moore's work

and never read the comics, you'd think he was a talentless hack.