Watched.

Wow.

I went and saw the Watchmen film today, at the 12:00 PM matinee show, day after its opening. I skipped the opening night event for four reasons: 1) Thought it might sell out and my non-Fandangoing buddies might show up and not be able to get a ticket to view it with me, 2) I'm trying to save money now, so matinee prices are a good idea, 3) the schedule worked out best for all the others I was going with, and 4) it seemed the best chance to witness what I was looking forward to almost as much as the film - idiot parents bringing their children to see it because, after all, it's a super-hero movie! Biff! Socko! Pow! Rape! Wait...what?

The group that could make it was me, Tim, Barrie, Jessica, Kyle, Sarah, Rich and Travis (Rich's son, who, unlike his other who stayed home, is not a kid. Rich has a brain). It wasn't a sellout, but was nicely full. And soon enough, there were the parents with their eight-year old kids. I turned to Rich and said "Golf clap for crap parenting", and we did so. They weren't the only ones. It's called the internet, parents. Or it's called knowing your alphabet and being able to recognize the letter "R".

I really don't want to go fully into the film until I've had a chance to see it a second time, which I plan to, next weekend, at the IMAX theater with some peeps who couldn't make it today. Just wanted to give some non-spoilery basic thoughts here.

It's difficult to put the reaction into words, as there are a lot of contradictory emotions for people like myself who are very familiar with the source material - the 1986/87 graphic novel (which was a 12-part comic initially before it got collected into a graphic novel) written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons. You have to understand, first, how much that graphic novel meant to those of us who were comic fans in the 80s, just how revolutionary and mind-blowing it was. It's still considered by many, to this day, to be the pinnacle of the art form. Ironically, it's been imitated so many times that people I know who read it this century weren't as impressed, as they felt they'd seen so much like it before. But this is the one that started it all, the deconstruction movement in the super-hero genre, the move to stop treating comics like children's literature and speak to adults, and the raising of the bar of the genre and form to literary levels. In context, there's nothing else like it. It still stands up.

And those of us who are such big fans have been waiting a very, very long time to see it reach the screen, and have debated endlessly on whether such a thing should even be attempted. There have been several attempts in the past two-plus decades to get the project going, but all have ended in failure, and it took the perfect storm of heightened interest in super-films and the resume of visionary (is he just going to punch the next person who uses that word to describe him?) director Zack Snyder to finally flip the light to green. Expectations have been, to say the least, high. The courage to even attempt such a thing, knowing what was on the line, says a lot about Zack's testicular fortitude.

The wait is over, and, twenty-two years after my friend Kevin, up in his attic bedroom, got wide-eyed and said "You haven't read Watchmen?!" to me and handed me issues 1-9 (all that were out at the time), I have seen it. How am I feeling? Overwhelmed is a pretty accurate word.

Yes, I dug it. This world and its characters were brought to life on screen with painstaking attention to detail, and we, as fans, were treated with the same respect that was paid to the source material. It's all there. The costumes. The sets (right down to Gunga Diner and the news stand). The flashbacks. The brilliantly alt-universe 1980s, filled with the familiar (Nixon...Kissinger...Pat Buchanan?!) and the not-so-familiar (the airships, the electrics cars). This is what we wanted, and we got it. And it was glorious.

But with all this gratitude for what's included comes the unavoidable feeling of loss (that you walked in expecting) for what was left out. Key scenes, key characters...the ending. But there was forgiveness for that from most all of us, knowing from the start that it was impossible to capture EVERY part of the comic epic in one film, even one stretched to two hours and forty-five minutes. So I was grateful for what was still there, and felt they made good choices on which parts translated to film and which didn't. You wanted the weird plastic ball-in-them cigarettes, but you were aware that they'd just look too weird in "real life". But for every loss, there was a treat, from the Tijuana bible to the Rorschach mask that we were TOLD in the comic was always shifting, but were now able to SEE shifting. In short - a full-on dorkgasm for the informed.

But it's that part that concerns me for non-informed movie-goers, stepping into this thing for the first time. It was clearly made for those who know. Does it stand on its own as a film for those who didn't read the graphic novel? I have no accurate way to gauge that. There were a couple people with us who fit into that newbie category, but I don't think they felt completely able to voice their true opinion, surrounded by as fawning fanboys (the rest of us) after the credits as they were. I'd like to check with some more folks who just wanted to see what all the talk was about, and gave it a try. I fear that, for them, it's going to be a big head-scratcher, and come off as a big, convoluted (yet stylish) mess. And that's too bad, if that is the case. As much as I'm happy with the love shown to the faithful, the first responsibility to any translation is to make it work in the new medium, accessible to all. The Lord of the Rings films did that for me. I never read any of the books (pause for the collective geek gasp...), but experienced them for the first time as films, and they're some of my favorite films ever. I'd like the new Watchmen curious to be able to have the same experience, not feel like they paid their money only to find out they were required to study up first to be able to enjoy it. I'll get more people's thoughts in the days to come. This should be interesting.

Me? Very happy. Can't wait to check it out for time #2, and find more neat details that I missed the first time around (I'm sure there are many). And of all my friends that have now seen it - the ones who either read it one time twenty years ago or multiple times since - have been uniformly raving. Good stuff for us. Hope it's good stuff for you.

I got home and found out that there's a web link to a video showing the opening credits (a five minute sequence) of the film. There's a HUGE amount of backstory involved in Watchmen that's explored in the novel, but since they didn't have time to get into all that, they very cleverly chose to summarize the history of this America's super-heroes in this sequence that ended up being one of my favorite parts of the film. So if you know nothing of Watchmen, give this a go and see if it interests you enough to get you to the theater. If you haven't seen the film yet, and you're already a Watchmen fan, this WILL get your ass out the door and to the multiplex. And if you're like me and have seen it, and just want to relive part of it...here's your chance. I definitely recommend expanding to full screen. And cranking up the volume! Let's all sing along!

Watchmen Opening Credits