The Black Freighter and other Tales From Under the Hood

In adapting any existing story/idea for the big screen, there's always stuff that's going to be left out, rewritten or re-imagined.

Watchmen is a great example of this. The novel had a lot of keen fans and following the announcement of a film adaptation, it's understandable that there would be high expectations. Suffice it to say, without going into a lot of detail, there is far more depth to the pallet of watchmen's story featured in the graphic novel than could be squeezed into a commercially viable film. Studios just don't believe that everyone wants to watch an exact 5 hour recreation of the source material. For the most part Snyder tried to fit as much as he could without encountering Lord of the Rings style length and division of story.

What he could fit in was great but in a very coi move he managed to squeeze some of the remainder into two relatively short films, "Tales from the Black Freighter" and "Under the Hood". Having never read the book, I found these to be intriguing and assumed to some degree they would add significantly to the story arc.

"tales from the Black Freighter" is an animation piece and makes me think of the anime short films that were a part of the Matrix/Matrix Revisited DVD release. It's story further focuses on some of the issues that the film arises, Do the ends justify the means? Does killing 1,000,000 to save 10,000,000,000,000 right?? However it doesn't really add any detail to the narrative of the film. You don't need to see the black freighter in order to understand Watchmen.

But "under the Hood" is different, for one it's live action. It's a biographical documentry about the first Nite-Owl, Hollis Mason, and the after effects of the publication of his autobiography from which we get the title of the film, "Under the Hood". Again whilst it doesn't reallly add anything extra to the overall story of the film version, it does deepen some of the minor character's, such as Carla Gugino's original silk Spectre, but unless you've read the books and crave more than what the film gives you, it's a little unnessecary.

It's very much like the intertextual links found in Spaced. Unless you understand that the scene in which Tim burns his Star Wars memorabilia is a recreation of one of the final scenes in Return of the Jedi where Luke finally lays his father to rest, then the scene doesn't really mean anything.

You can see these two short films in different ways depending on your experience. Either they're an attempt at reconciling the novel with the film adding extra layers to ideas and narratives or they're a passable novelty that's really not meant for your benefit. Both are well made and interesting to watch but there true worth is in the eye of the beholder.