(no subject)

[msmemory_archive]

[Poll #1362014]

Comments

[iheronimus.livejournal.com]

It would be hard to UNREAD it now...

8)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Err.

I suspect the movie would be intelligible events-wise -- but as with so many such adaptations, many of the symbols in it will have different meanings to you if you've read the original first.

I don't think it was as incoherent as, say, Golden Compass.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

You'll get it. You'll just get more if you read it first. At this point, I'd say to go without reading it. That way, you'll get to enjoy all the added stuff (and the slightly different ending) in the comics when you read it later.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

I agree. Watch it, read it, then watch it again.

[baron-elric.livejournal.com]

We read the comics when they came out, and we enjoyed the movie. We saw it with a friend who hadn't read the comics, and she also enjoyed it. I've spoken to a couple of other people who saw the movie without benefit of having read the printed version, and they enjoyed it.

YMMV, of course. Having a working brain and an attention span longer than the length of a TV commercial will help you get past most of the problems the critics seem to be having with it.

[siderea]

I actually think you'll get more out of it if you read it first. However, the logistical problem is that you don't want to read it in a hurry. It's worth remembering that it was a serial, and it was intended to be experienced slowly and thought about. It's a pretty thinky book. Indeed, it's in some ways a challenging book. If you see the movie first, it's like doing an easier version of a crossword: when you turn to harder crossword, a chunk of the challenge is removed, and with it part of the pleasure of doing it.

In particular, almost all the characters harder to like in the book, which is why it's interesting to the reader as we come to empathize with them as we get to know them. Because they're easier to like in the movie, when one subsequently encounters them in the book, they're "old friends", and one is cheated out of the experience of getting to know them them hard way -- which is part of what made the book interesting and important.

Similarly, there is a very deep and important thematic change between the book and the movie, and I expect that if one sees the movie first, one will have trouble seeing past the movie to perceive the different point in the book.

ETA: Which is to say, it's apparently perfectly possible to see and enjoy this movie cold, but the work you'll be enjoying is a much shallower one, providing a much shallower enjoyment, than if you read the book first.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

I'm most of the way thru the book, but I'm not waiting: I'm seeing the movie (in IMAX) in two hours.

I think the movie qua movie will be understandable and enjoyable, but there's so much real-world back-story here, I think a familiarity with the source would likely enhance the experience. We're talking about a graphic novel...a bloomin' comic book...that's on Time's list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century. That's big. A work in which the author disavowed the film adaptation, because he felt it couldn't be done, because he'd written it so it couldn't be done. That's big. So I felt obliged to know something of what all the hype was about.

[baron-steffan.livejournal.com]

Followup: it was awesome. I loved it. Although I pity the fools who went expecting another two-hour Hasbro commercial. There were a few of them in the audience, overheard in the lobby on the way out. More at my own LJ.

[gyzki.livejournal.com]

Count me as another voice that says you can probably enjoy the movie by itself; but if you're going to do both eventually, then book first and movie second. Which is sufficiently "Other" that I didn't check either option in the poll.

[artisticphoenix.livejournal.com]

I started to read the book, couldn't finish it before going to see the movie (which I wanted to see) and now I am excited to finish the book and probably see the movie again.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I've read enough reviews by reviewers who hadn't read it, and enough by those who had, that I suspect the dreariness and violence of the movie will be mitigated somewhat by having the framework of the novel to hang on to. I can't imagine seeing it without the novel, myself.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I saw the movie and have not read the book. That said, I think that whether one can understand the movie properly with that background depends on whether you're a low-context or high-context person. That is, do you enjoy stories where you are required to infer large quantities of the world-building as you go along? Or do you prefer stories where you're given more up-front to work with? This one is definitely in the former category.

But "understand" and "enjoy" are two different things. I didn't particularly enjoy the movie (although I would have seen it even knowing in advance that I wouldn't). But reading or not reading the book in advance is irrelevant to that lack of enjoyment.

[hungrytiger]

So, I hear that you did go to see Watchmen without having read the book. Since I found that I couldn't compartmentalize my impressions of the film enough to objectively review it as anything other than a flawed adaptation, I'd love to know what you, as a smart viewer familiar enough with the genre to get the concepts, thought of it.