Could you elaborate on the flaws of Zack Snyder's Watchmen in capturing Alan Moore's original ideas?
Alan Mooreās original Watchmen is a profoundly deconstructive approach to superheroism as a concept. If superheroes existed, Moore argues, they would be fascistic headcases virtually to a man, psychologically and sexually warped by their relationship to the costume and the allure of might making right. The problem is that Snyder doesnāt really recognize this as a bad thing.
An instructive example is the depiction of violence in both mediums. Dave Gibbons doesnāt shy away from depicting violence throughout Watchmen - itās an incredibly brutal book from beginning to end - but he goes out of his way to make the violence look ugly and scary and above all not cool.
Zack Snyder cannot do that. If thereās one commonality to all of Snyderās work -from Dawn of the Dead to 300 to his DC films to Sucker Punch - itās that he is an aesthete of violence. He makes violence look beautiful, balletic, and sensual (this is especially clear in Sucker Punch where burlesque and action are directly equated) at all times.
I think this gets at a fundamental disjuncture of attitude: Moore is critical if not to say contemptuous of many of his characters. For all that Rorschach was adopted by a whole generation of grimdark-loving bros as the ultimate badass, Moore clearly loathes him. The anarcho-syndicalist depicts Rorschach, a John Bircher-style ultraconservative who worships Harry Truman for having the moral courage to use nuclear weapons, as a conspiracy theory nutter who spends his days wandering around Times Square with an End Is Nigh sign, as a homophobic Travis Bickle profoundly warped by an abusive childhood, as a murderous vigilante inspired by the myth of Kitty Genovese and urban apathy,whose literal black-and-white worldview makes it impossible for him to grapple with the ultimate moral dilemma and who chooses suicide instead, and whose actions result in the sacrifice of all those lives being for nothing.Ā
Zack Snyder thinks Rorschach is cool.
I think you could do this for pretty much every character in Watchmen.
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