{"id":1091,"date":"2009-03-07T11:34:27","date_gmt":"2009-03-07T15:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/?p=1091"},"modified":"2015-03-12T14:43:33","modified_gmt":"2015-03-12T18:43:33","slug":"book-movie-watchmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/book-movie-watchmen\/","title":{"rendered":"Book & Movie: Watchmen"},"content":{"rendered":"

My first book & movie review in one post. I finished reading Watchmen<\/em> on Thursday and saw the movie on Friday. Both were excellent for different reasons.<\/p>\n

The book is actually a collection of a twelve-comic series released by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987. Alan Moore was the author, Dave Gibbons was the artist and John Higgins was the colorist.<\/p>\n

The story is this: The U.S. has a superhero, Dr. Manhattan, by way of a lab accident. He allowed them to win the Vietnam War and has kept the Russians at bay since. However, the possibility of a nuclear holocaust looms larger with each passing day. Preventing this is what the ultimate arc of the comic is about. On less of a superhero and more of an action hero level, the characters of the comic are seeking the mask killer – an unknown person who, in the first scene, killed the Comedian. Eventually, the two stories come together, though I will spare you the spoilers.<\/p>\n

The story is nuanced, insightful and intriguing. It takes a hard look at society as it existed in the 1980s and saw that there was a lot wrong with the way we were living our lives. In one poignant scene on the gang infested filthy streets of New York City:<\/p>\n

Dan Dreiberg:<\/strong> What’s happened to the American dream?.<\/p>\n

The Comedian:<\/strong> It came true. You’re lookin’ at it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Watchmen reminds me of Alan Sorkin’s writing for the West Wing<\/em>. One of the many reasons I like the West Wing is because of the supporting facts, stories, and links between those facts and stories brought into the fiction of the show from reality. Doing so adds a great deal of credibility to the performance. The same is done in Watchmen to an equally effective degree.<\/p>\n

The movie is very true to the book, excepting a debatable minor change to the ending. It is long, though entertaining. I would recommend that anyone wanting to see the movie first read the book. The movie will better keep your interest that way and you’ll have a better appreciation for the depth of the comic and the faithful adaptation of the movie.<\/p>\n

Go read! Go see!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My first book & movie review in one post. I finished reading Watchmen on Thursday and saw the movie on Friday. Both were excellent for different reasons. The book is actually a collection of a twelve-comic series released by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987. Alan Moore was the author, Dave Gibbons was the artist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[128],"tags":[832,52,833,33,32,831],"class_list":["post-1091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-alan-moore","tag-book","tag-dr-manhattan","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-watchmen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1091"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4667,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions\/4667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/yugflog.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}