Tuesday, August 26, 2008

My Obsession is growing

I am fucking obsessed with the Watchmen. I didn't realize it until about an hour ago, but I am. And it's not new. It just re-entered my atmosphere thanks to Zack Snyder.

In addition to a lot of movies, my Dad introduced me to Graphic Novels shortly after i got out of the hospital when I was 15. About the same time as I discovered THE MAXX, my dad got me Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight", which then led me to The Killing Joke, A Death In the Family, Hard Boiled, Frank Millers Daredevil, and Alan Moore's WATCHMEN. With the exception of The MAXX, Watchmen felt the most real, despite the whole particle teleportation to Mars thing, and the airships. Maybe it was because most of the watchmen didnt even have powers, they just WANTED to be superheroes, and the world hated them. Or maybe it was because Silk Spectre fell out of love with Manhattan because he was a workaholic, or because Rorshach saw dead dogs when he looked at an ink blot, but never really told anyone what he felt, or maybe it was the fear and the desperation of the guy who was scared of the Black Freighter, and where else can someone like the Comedian be a rapist AND a hero?
Regardless, I was unknowingly obsessed with it back then, as most of the superheroes i drew at that time were just bunk combinations of those characters (and probably Spawn).

Looking back now, a lot of things from Watchmen stuck with me, i always said my first tattoo was going to be a Rorshach test. I have always looked at owls as lonely but heroic animals. I BELIEVED that when you teleported, you vomitted, so much so that I called bullshit on Seth Brundle in The Fly. I never saw anything wrong with Dr Manhattans work ethic and his complete disregard for the rest of the world and his relationships. I subconsciously adapted his work ethic, which is probably a bad thing. I kept sugar cubes in my pocket when i worked at the credit card processing company in sacramento. I liked the 12 monkey's movie marketing because it reminded me of "who watches the watchmen?". I dreamt of going to Mars for a day.

So yah, I was pretty pumped when Zack Snyder took over the Watchmen movie from Darren Arronofsky or whatever hundreds of people started to work on it, but didnt really have high hopes, as it had been 15 years since i loved the Watchmen book. I liked the trailer, didnt think there was enough footage shown, but it had some imagery i remembered, and it looked dark, which was good. Then i realized that they used the fucking "SHITSTAIN-OF-A-MOVIE-BATMAN AND ROBIN" SMASHING PUMKINS SONG in the trailer!!!! So i disregarded the trailer until further notice.

Then....i decided to read the book again.
And I decided to watch the trailer again.
And i decided to research the cast.
And I decided to imagine the book with the cast.
And I decided to watch the trailer again.
And i decided to download the smashing pumpkins song from the trailer.
And I have listened to that fucking Smashing Pumpkins song repeatedly for the last 3 days. And its INCREDIBLE, and i have no fucking idea how that was used in Batman & Robin. It was made for Watchmen. And I love it.
So now the Watchmen movie has taken over my life...
and its not coming out until next year.
Gay. I guess i will just watch Batman & Robin now that the soundtrack is cool.