the_new_scum

The Rorschach back story - it might not sound significant, but to me there's a big difference between fucking some guy's head in with a meat cleaver and pretending you're giving him a chance. It's between being a violent vigilante and being a violent calculating vigilante. A minor difference maybe, but it annoyed me. Plus they skipped my favourite line from the novel "it was Kovacs who closed his eyes. It was Rorschach who opened them again". It shows a complete psychotic breakdown, a complete divorce between reality and perception.

Veidt - nowhere in the comic does it mention him being made of balsa, being a cyborg or being forced to read at gunpoint. But he delivers all his lines with the warmth and depth of black ice. The comics make him seem charismatic and well liked while the film made him seem like a prick. There was no sympathetic element. See below...

The Ending - Not in itself, bad. The idea could have worked. But it was little bits to it... like the "nothing ends" line. Yeah, it was still in there. But in the comic it gives Ozymandis his doubt, and beyond that, his humanity. He may have been 'the world's smartest man' but even he couldn't be certain he'd done the right thing, whereas in the film he was more aloof and detached than Dr Manhattan. Even he 'I made myself feel every one of those deaths' is delivered in the way I'd say 'I think I may be out of marmalade, I should probably check'. You've just committed the holocaust three times over - it might bother you. Likewise a minor thing but no John catching Laurie and Dan afterwards and smiling - it was nice. He was happy that Laurie was happy, it added a bit more human element. Also, I wanted vagina alien, no matter how retarded

The violence - Not a major thing, but just seemed tacked on. All the compound fractures when Silk Spectre nd Night Owl deal with muggers - they're heroes, not sadists. Likewise, Rorschach taking out 20 of New York's finest before being apprehended - not bad, just unnecessary. Oh, ad the attempted rape scene. Why didn't she twat him with a poolball?

The sex - I've had sex less awkward than that, and that's saying something.

The music - shite. Even my mate, who loved the film, agreed on that. Especially Ride Of The Valkyries during Vietnam (fucking clichd) and a terrible version of Hallelujah during the sex (like it wasn't awkward enough)

Night Owl - HE'S NOT BATMAN, FOR FUCKS SAKE

But it WAS very good. Better than I expected. As I said, it kind of worked against itself in that it was so good it highlighted the imperfections. I mean, a lot of stuff I could easily let go - the unimportance of The New Frontiersman (short of putting the page on the screen for half an hour with a caption saying 'READ THIS - NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT BUT IT'LL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND THE OVERALL NARRATIVE'), Sally not smoking, hell I even noticed the robo-Night Owl suit wasn't in the basement. But just the other stuff... I couldn't let go.