Alan Moore and David Gibbons’ “The Watchmen†will always be regarded as one of the most thought-provoking, intense and iconic graphic novels of all time.
Unfortunately for the motion comic based on the series, sound issues in particular destroy what could have been an amazing adaptation of an equally amazing piece of source material.
It shouldn’t really come as a shock though, considering how poorly produced most motion comics have been over the past decade. A medium that has never been truly supported by the mainstream media or by casual and hardcore comic book fans, it’s weird that it was even released in the first place.
Upcoming movies do weird things to film companies though and in collaboration with the theatrical release of the Zach Snyder’s “The Watchmen,†this motion comic was given the light of day.
Although it’s beautiful to look at and has given new fans a version of the comic that is 100 percent accurate, the voice acting is so off the mark that it practically ruins the entire experience.
With a script like the one in “The Watchmen,†with excellent plot-development and dialogue, how could it all go wrong?
Well it’s easy… when only one person does every single voice during the entire five-four performance.
As a result, in spite of all the drama, a one of a kind story and small, yet solid pieces of animation that have been streamlined into the production, the whole thing ends up being flat.
When Sally Jupiter sounds like Rorschach is having his privates pinched by Adrian Veidt, it’s obvious that there’s a huge problem. It’s not that narrator Tom Stechschulte isn’t capable of performing possibly two or three different characters, or maybe even all the male characters, but he’s just given too much to handle here. With an impressive resume, spanning over 30 years in entertainment, he does an excellent job as the narrator of the production, giving the motion comic an old school feel.
Ultimately, it isn’t enough.
In all fairness to Stechschulte, not even Mel Blanc himself could have handled all the voice-acting duties for this thing.
Had as much time and effort went into the voice-acting that went into making sure the look and feel of the comic was well-represented, this could have been the motion comic that got the world into the medium.
However, with the sound being as bad as it is, it’s hard to sit through the entire production, nevertheless acknowledge its overall brilliance.
I totally agree. I’ve been waiting for a group of fans to record their own audio to replace the motion comic’s.