Very quick Watchmen reflection

(Still better. From Flickr user dailyinvention.)

*** A few small spoilers follow. Caveat lector. ***

So like many I saw Watchmen this weekend (and by “weekend” I mean “midnight Thursday night with over a dozen friends”). Overall I was pleasantly surprised by how well they handled the story, which readers of the novel will tell you is a very impressive feat. The biggest fear of mine – whether the script would do justice to the ending of the book – was more or less placated; it was not exactly as it is in the book, and I say without hesitation that the book ending is far superior, but the modified ending does justice to the spirit of the book’s ending. Aside from a few groan-worthy love dialog bits, it’s worth the watch (provided you can stomach the content, which is not for the faint of heart).

My single biggest gripe about the movie is the music. Getting the music right in Watchmen should have been easy: nearly every chapter of the book ends with a song quote, and many scenes in the book explicitly state what Alan Moore had envisioned playing in the background. But these were dismissed, for licensing reasons, cross promotion considerations with Warner artists, or otherwise (Wired has a somewhat accusatory read on that subject), and instead we got bad Leonard Cohen covers, bad Leonard Cohen originals, and freakin’ “99 Luftballoons.” So much was missed by not including Iggy Pop, Devo, and Elvis Costello – all of which were in the book.

So, in the spirit of righting a wrong, here’s Elvis Costello’s “The Comedians” off of Goodbye Cruel World. I would have substituted it in place of the scene using “99 Luftballoons” in a heartbeat.

Elvis Costello – The Comedians

Update: seems that my friend Taylor posted a review of Watchmen within seconds of my own. We come to many of the same conclusions on the movie, which is very comforting to me, as the flicks are most certainly Taylor’s domain. In the past this might have sparked a blogagauntlet, but for now it’s just good comparison reading.