Watchmen is receiving a new adaptation from DC as a two-part animated movie. Warner Bros. recently shared the first look at the new Watchmen movies, which promise to delve into Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ graphic novel in a way that has not yet been possible. With a rich legacy of un-filmable comic book adaptations behind it, DC animation has the opportunity to pull from the existing Watchmen adaptations while creating something new and true to the spirit of the original graphic novel.

Moore has always distanced himself from adaptations of his work, even beyond Watchmen, including From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. As one of the most celebrated writers in comics history, many of Moore’s books are specifically designed to evoke or inform on themes and ideas that are uniquely and specifically expressed in their medium. In the translation to film, much of what Watchmen intended in its story was lost in bombastic, big-budget filmmaking. Understanding this can help to see why a new, animated story adaptation could be beneficial.

DC’s New Animated Watchmen Movies Can Adapt The Comics In Ways Zack Snyder’s Movies Couldn’t

With two movies to tell the story, this new Watchmen adaptation can tell the entire story from the comics, including the Black Freighter cutaways. Zack Snyder’s movie undeniably pulled directly from the panels with his visual sensibilities and wrapped the scenes in his usual slow-motion effects, culminating in his movie being generally well-regarded and successful. However, it made some significant changes to the end of the story and could not include some components in the movie due to theatrical constraints.

While a longer film cut exists that weaves the Black Freighter animations into the movie, this was a cheaply produced afterthought that feels inconsistent with the theatrical movie. The animations are not from the same team and shoehorning them into an already adjusted narrative feels more like a fan edit. Thankfully, aware of these issues, the filmmakers behind the new animated adaptation can rectify these missing components of the Snyder movie.

DC’s Upcoming Watchmen Movies Could Be The Most Accurate Adaptation Of The Comic Yet

This new Watchmen adaptation is going to be told over the course of two movie. While Snyder’s film ran for 163 minutes in its theatrical cut, these animated movies will have the opportunity to take much longer between the two to tell the full story from the comic book pages. With this in mind, and based on the trailer, it appears that the filmmakers intend to create a definitive new edition of the story in this two-part animated Watchmen movie. To do so, they will need to focus on the source material.

There are many things that Snyder changed in Watchmen, particularly in the ending, where the destruction of New York was attributed to a giant squid. However, the new team has a unique opportunity in the portrayal of violence. The original comic was a critique of superhero violence, a theme that the movie, with its big-budget spectacle, instead celebrated. Characters like Rorschach, originally designed to be uncool vigilantes, sometimes felt like they were glorified in the movie.

Watchmen has expanded greatly since the Snyder movie was released in 2009 with additional comic book stories and a celebrated HBO miniseries. Despite the small, one-off structure of the original story, Watchmen has grown as a brand and franchise that is ripe for further exploration in other media. However, it is only by having a comprehensive understanding of the source material that audiences can understand the significance of these offshoot properties. As a result, this new Watchmen two-part movie can solidify the story’s legacy.