Anticipation

Right now, I feel about like I did in the days leading up to the release of Fellowship of the Ring.  I know that just outside of my reach, there is a movie that does justice to my favorite book.  There is a movie that, logic considered, should not be made.  We've just been blessed with two fantastic superhero movies (Iron Man, The Dark Knight), but now we're about to get something that I do not believe the uninitiated are prepared for.

I don't think there's any question that Watchmen is the single greatest superhero story ever told.  The mythos and history of heroes like Superman, Batman, and Spider-man may be more ingrained in our collective conscious, but none of those heroes have a story quite like Watchmen.  No writer has been able to delve as deep into the psyche of the superhero with those characters.  They're just too familiar, which is why it took Alan Moore creating an entirely new set of heroes for Watchmen.  The reader needed no prior attachment.  If Bruce Wayne was dealing with impotence, and could only get it up in the Batman suit, then that would have ruined the character forever.  But if Nite Owl does it, well... who the hell is Nite Owl anyway?

I read Watchmen before I knew it was going to be adapted into a movie.  It was something I had seen for years in book stores, and one day I just decided to research it.  Once I read all the praise, I had to read it, and I couldn't be happy until I did.  (SIDE NOTE:  I get like that sometimes.  I'll just get one thing stuck in my brain, and it is like I can't go on with my life until I've done or bought that one thing)  Once I got around to buying it, I devoured it.  Then I turned around and read it again immediately.  I'd say that to this day I've read it anywhere from 8 to 10 times, and I'm currently rereading again.

When I first heard about the movie, I considered it unfilmable.  I even went through and tried to find the the scenes that you could cut, and there just aren't any.  I don't know how you go about adapting that book.  However, from the early word, Zack Snyder has done it.

I read something the other day that said that Zack Snyder was the only man who could have made Watchmen, and while that might sound crazy, it's true.  Now, he's not the best filmmaker.  Not by a long shot.  But he has one thing that other filmmakers don't have, and that is the fact that he turned 300 into a hit.  He stuck to the source material, made a hard R-Rated movie, and the thing became a massive success.  Now, he's proven his worth to the comic community, while proving that he can make an incredibly violent movie a hit.  He is the only man for Watchmen, which is why he is the guy to finally bring it to the screen after 20+ years of development hell.

Needless to say, I'm excited.  I can't wait to see it, and I can't wait to discuss it with people who know the book.  I want to pick it apart and dissect it and see all the little things there for the fans.  I can't wait to see this movie.