so, I'll whine at length about something else - **Watchmen spoilers.**

So. So. The Watchmen is my favorite graphic novel, okay? Hands-down, ultimately number one. So.

So, listen. It was a good movie, okay. I cannot deny that. The action was FANTASTIC. The acting wasn't half-bad. The love and sorrow and fear and all those delicious gritty things that made me love the books so much were pretty well executed. It was dark and wonderful - Rorschach and The Comedian especially were so perfect. The opening credits drove me to tears of joy and relief within the first twenty seconds. I am a very visual person, so by and large, I LOVE adaptations.

But, with Watchmen, I was left wanting.

I think it comes down to this: I must agree with my pal, Penny, when I say that I wish that they hadn't cut out the humanity. I use that word carefully, because the book spent so much time down in the streets with the regular folks. The Bernies, especially. Something tells me that they shot more than what made it into the film as the make-up and casting for the Bernies were great. For the two seconds of screen-time they got.

See, Alan Moore tells a hell of a story. He is very good at sucking you into the minutae of human emotions, and that, my friends, is what I missed most.

In print, we saw Josephine's [one of my favorites] conflicting feelings about her sexuality. And Dr Long's slow, painful withdrawal from reality during the course of his treatment of Rorschach. I missed the New Frontiersman, even. It just didn't feel right to not cut to the newsstand every once and a while, check in with the fellas.

And even with the backstory of our Heroes, I felt they came up short.

But still, despite all that, I was enjoying myself. Right up until the end. [I'm not going to actually discuss the ending, because I don't want someone to not see it because I gave it away.]

I cannot shake my dissappointment with how they chose to end it. It brought down my whole enjoyment. I could see it coming, creeping up on me from the corners. "No way," I told myself, "they can't be doing what I think they're doing..."

And they did. They freaking did. I was spitting TACKS the whole way home. My father, who did not read the book, was doing his best to console me. He made some good points - some of which I mentioned above with regard to the action and such.

But, I was just so bitterly dissappointed. And I know I'm biased. But I feel like they changed something huge and important that didn't need to be changed. They used so much CGI throughout the movie, how hard would it have been to keep to the story-line?

And the worst part is - I can sort of see the reasoning. AND I DON'T WANT TO. I am a stubborn person by nature, so when I have an idea in my head, god forbid it doesn't work out. So. This may be more a meditation on my own inability to let go, rather than the actual short-comings of the movie.

Or something.

If anyone wants to go see it again, though, I'm totally down. I need to form a really solid, rounded opinion, you know?

Yeah, that's the ticket.