Confession and Watchmen

After reading MJ, I have a confession of my own.

I actually didn’t read LOTR. I read the hobbit which got me interested and then bit of the Silmarillion.

The book that got me hooked on fantasy was The Magician by Raymond E. Feist. There are five books in the series, don’t remember all their names but, for me it was a true adventure to read them. I was able to completely loose myself in them.

There are a lot of similarities between Feist’s work and LOTR. When I first watched the movie LOTR, it was as if MY imagination of The Magician were being brought to life. Now some might say that Feist ripped off Tolkien, but I think it was more of an inspiration. I am still able to appreciate both of them for what they are. And LOTR movies is my favorite movies of ALL time.

It has occurred to me to that there is a greater movie vs. book debate…but for now…

Watchmen really did have too much nudity in it, and I could have so done without the sex scene. It was a movie that was made by boys for boys but I actually really liked it. It is not your conventional comic movie. I have to watch it again to be sure, but it has like different paces, its like when they started the movie that wanted to achieve something but as soon as they got to the middle they changed their minds. Fight scenes were good, and the shots and colours were very pretty, but the lesson from Max Payne was that just because something looks pretty doesn’t mean its going to be a worth watching. I really liked the clothes and the atmosphere they created. But my ever end was the naked blue man…and I didn’t realise until he was on Mars or wherever that his jiggly bits where out for like half the movie!!!

I like movies that bend my reality. And Watchmen does just that. It is unconventional and I am sure that reading it, is much better.

But it seems to me that the lesson here is to watch the movie for what it is. When we read we create the world our selves, we create expectations when we watch the movie, its our expectations that see the gallows.

No matter what movie makers do, they can never replace the human imagination. Because there, each person is the director, actor, gaffer, costume designer etc. There we can imagine it the way it was intended AND the way we want to and not focus on the bits that will sell movie tickets.