{"id":33285,"date":"2025-05-14T14:57:35","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T18:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=33285"},"modified":"2025-05-14T15:56:51","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T19:56:51","slug":"guest-contributor-tregonsee-14may2025-review-watchmen-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/14\/guest-contributor-tregonsee-14may2025-review-watchmen-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 14MAY2025 – Review – Watchmen (2009)"},"content":{"rendered":"

So the original story is by Alan Moore. He was fairly famous in the comic book industry in the 1980\u2019s when this was originally published. Take a moment and find a picture of Alan Moore on the internet, I\u2019ll wait\u2026 Are you back? Given that image you will likely be unsurprised to find out he is a notorious and unrepentant anarchist and rather unhinged (even for an anarchist). Other efforts by him include\u00a0V is for Vendetta\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Batman: The Killing Joke<\/em>. The\u00a0Watchmen\u00a0<\/em>Series was a 12 issue mini-series from DC published in 1986-1987 set in an alternate history where the US has Dr. Manhattan (who is more overpowered than even say super man, his abilities verge on the godlike).
\nIt was rather cutting edge for its period with its serious antihero vibe.<\/p>\n

The movie came much later in 2009 after many years of wandering into development hell. In many ways its cinematography and dialogue come straight from the comic series art by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore\u2019s dialogue. It does skip\/compress several subplots, and change the method of the ending though not its source (Ozymandias\/Veidt) nor its intent (forestall or avoid WWIII). It was one of the first R rated comic book movies (previous having limited themselves to PG-13\/PG) and also one of the first to release in the late February slot to take advantage of College spring break.<\/p>\n

As a fan of the original comics I thought it rose to slightly above meh say 6\/10. It loses much of the complexity of the original, which given the size of the 12 issue series was somewhat unavoidable even with its bloated 3 hr+ run time. As Chemist notes if you don\u2019t\u00a0already know<\/strong>\u00a0some of the plot points it is going to be a whirlwind. Heck as the original comic book doled out over a year it was confusing until the last few comics at the end where all the threads got tied together and many of the hints in the original lurk in the subplots that were excised.<\/p>\n

There is an animated retelling done by DC Animation scripted by J. Michael Straczynski and Dave Gibbons from the original It is split into 2 90 minute subsections. It does a better job at keeping more of the necessary beats to help you see the solution and keeps to the original ending. It is maybe a 7.5\/10.<\/p>\n

Honestly, if you\u00a0like<\/strong>\u00a0comics, find a perfect bound version of the original comic books is available this is available for ~$20 the price of 4-5 fancy coffees. It is less than the $24 I paid in 1986-87 for the original comics. Do\u00a0not\u00a0<\/strong>try to go buy these at a comic book store (except for the perfect bound single volume version). They\u2019re moderate collector items at $20-30 a each for even poorish quality copies and the first the last and (potential Spoiler) the one where they break Rorschach out of prison run for probably twice that each. As much as a crazy tinfoil hat wearing jerk as Alan Moore can be this is easily in the top 5 of comic series I have read in 50 years of reading comics and is probably better than 90% of most comic\/SciFi writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So the original story is by Alan Moore. He was fairly famous in the comic book industry in the 1980\u2019s when this was originally published.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,1489,239,237,4,242,243,4833],"tags":[1274,1596,43,38,1355,1176,4897],"class_list":["post-33285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-guest-contributors","category-movie-reviews","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-book-reviews","category-sff-movie-reviews","category-tregonsee","tag-comic-books","tag-guest-contributors","tag-movie-review","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-science-fiction-and-fantasy","tag-tregonsee"],"yoast_head":"\nGuest Contributor - Tregonsee - 14MAY2025 - Review - Watchmen (2009) - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/14\/guest-contributor-tregonsee-14may2025-review-watchmen-2009\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Guest Contributor - Tregonsee - 14MAY2025 - Review - Watchmen (2009) - Orion's Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So the original story is by Alan Moore. 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