If you are a regular moviegoer, you can’t miss the mesmerizing trailer of “Watchmen.” It’s hard to forget those haunting shots of chaos and anxiety perfectly in sync with the Smashing Pumpkin’s song “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning.”
Currently, there are nearly two million viewers registered on the “Watchmen” trailer on YouTube. Despite this popularity and the popular curiosity, the questions are consistent: What is “Watchmen”? What is the story of “Watchmen” about? It seems the majority of the people interested in this upcoming movie are unaware of the comic that inspired this production.
It appears that a large portion of SCAD students also are oblivious to “Watchmen’s” premise. It is only appropriate that we gain some levels of prior knowledge and appreciation for the monumental comic before watching the film.
“Watchmen” is big in the comic world. It is probably the first sweeping graphic novel to eloquently articulated comic champion Will Eisner’s message: graphic novels are art.
“Watchmen” is unique because it was the first graphic novel to receive the Hugo Award, originally only given to traditional literary works.
The story draws praise for the way it effortlessly presents its diverse characters. What’s even more exceptional is how it presents several individual’s experiences simultaneously.
In short, “Watchmen,” set in 1985, revolves around the experiences and the moral compasses of its seven very different protagonists as they deal with the death of one of their own.
To make matters worse, their tragedy is interwoven with an impending global crisis that could bring total nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The world and the largely reclusive protagonists are doomed to collide and confront their long-carried grudges. Apocalypse is near and everything that made the story’s heroes who they are will also be an ingredient used to bring down the existence of man.
The seven characters all encompass certain human qualities while representing certain super hero archetypes. They range from an emotionless super man; a very human crime fighter; a caped crusader that never stops fighting and eventually loses himself; an ID-driven psychopathic patriot; an adult coping with dual identities and dual responsibilities; and a blessed hero who only want to help the world with his genius.
They are all astonishingly presented as “real” people, who cope with very real problems, like parental influences, blotches on the fabric, isolation, rebellion, shyness, stoicism and unbridled ambition.
The more we get into their “grittily real” lives and their inner confessions, the more we come to understand that the story is also very abstractly human, as well. It is about heroism, that very amorphous and spell-like word of inspiration that empowers endless generations of the most mesmerizing arts and graphic novels.
“Watchmen” is a work about the power of the seemingly insignificant, petty and mundane everyman against stark impossibilities. It is a work about us and our amazing capacity to be more. We are the “Watchmen.”
Go and appreciate this work, it will inspire and enrich your artistic careers and make you think.
The phenomenon begins on Friday, March 6.