Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic

Strong together, united forever, they're the best of friends... But when trouble's about, you'd best watch out... For The Watchmen! I can remember someone asking me in 1992 if I’d ever read the Watchmen comic.

That seems so long ago now, it sometimes feels as though I’ve always known the story of the Watchmen… but that’s impossible.

Recently I was asked a similar question, only this time the question was asking if I’d seen the Watchmen movie.

I have not seen it yet… not even now. I’m skeptical. I don’t know if I could like it, and despite the decent reviews and friends telling me “it’s good… different, but good”, I still don’t know if I could actually watch it and enjoy it.

There were points in time where I even allowed myself to get excited about the movie; I think I remember mentioning the trailer here at some point, but soon after the hype wore off I’d come back to my senses and start to dread it again.

So when I politely answered “No. No, I’m probably going to skip seeing the Watchmen movie…” I am happy that he didn’t just drop the conversation about the movie there.

[as usual, I skip spoilers - it is safe to continue]

Turns out what my friend was asking is if he could interest me in borrowing Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic on BluRay.

I was a little surprised, I did not even know this existed! I think my frustration of the comic being made into a movie forced me to expend so much energy trying to ignore it existed that I somehow missed this motion comic getting made.

So I gladly accepted his offer, and a couple of days later I had it in-hand. I’ll admit that it took me some time to sit down and actually watch it. I was still skeptical, but more open to watching an animated comic-version of the story over a live-action film.

Eventually the 5+ hour movie made its way into my BluRay player an up on the big screen - I watched the entire thing in one sitting, I was totally engrossed right off the bat.

I’d never re-read the story. I’d never owned the comic, so the chance to re-read never arose. But here it was in front of me. As I remembered. Only animated and narrated. The text bubbles moved around, flitting in and out as characters spoke, cars zoomed down streets, birds flew through the skies - and everything moved so comic-book like it was incredible. I am so happy they stuck with what I suspect was the original artwork and animated it - it simply looks awesome.

The narrator does all the voices. That might freak you out a little, but even though a male voice is used for all featured voices, he is one talented voice actor. Tom Stechschulte is that voice, and although I personally don’t know his voice, it’s obvious that he’s a hell of a reader.

When I started up the movie, I was concerned that I’d be totally weirded out by the time a love scene would kick-in, but I can’t remember that happening. He is so talented that you allow yourself to forget that he is voicing a female character and just listen to the story - that’s true talent at work there folks!

And the movie’s length? It was such a non-issue that I was totally surprised when the movie came to an end; 5 and a half hours had simply melted away. The pace the movie moves forward with is perfect, you are never bored and always looking forward to the next chapter.

And now that I’ve seen it, I am adding it to my wish list - I’ll likely want to watch this again… and if you were a fan of the comic and avoided the live-action movie for the same reasons I have, do yourself a favor and pick this version up, it is so totally worth it.

Thanks for lending me your copy of the movie, Tim - truly appreciated!