Things I Missed From The Book
Death of Hollis Mason (what, Stephen McHattie is too cool to kill?)
Doctor Manhattan’s line on Mars: in a minute you’re going to tell me you’re sleeping with Daniel
Lori and Comedian flashback “only once”

Despite those missed moments, I didn’t have as many mixed feelings against this movie as I did Harry Potter 3 (which I guess is a good thing…I got pretty upset with Potter 3 more on adaptation issues than anything else).

I didn’t mind the changed ending: unless you’re going to make a four hour epic instead of a three hour epic, there’s no way you could actually do the book’s ending…they did what they had to in order to make the movie work and I accept that. What they were able to accomplish with the movie was quite spectacular.

Tim over at CAD.com said it best when he calls the film a delightful companion to the book: that it doesn’t replace the book and shouldn’t be interpreted as such. I also appreciate Scott Kurtz’ take from PVP.com. Also worth looking at is a preview of David Maliki’s novelization on his comic/blog Wondermark

Entertainment Weekly reports that Tales of the Black Freighter (the comic book subplot that runs throughout the book) will be released as it’s own DVD, which to me is bad marketing – release it as the 2nd disc of Watchmen…or the 3rd…however many it takes! Or is that in fact “good marketing” because it forces people to buy 2 separate products? Damned corporate culture!

Also glad that my midnight showing (despite being in the very front row) didn’t have enough giggling teenage boys when Doc Manhattan is shown in the nude…thank God!