Leandra Jacobson 4/22

The Watchmen graphic novel brings a completely different understanding to the film. At the end of every chapter are magnificent quotes by people like Bob Dylan and Albert Einstein. There’s an entire section of the story left out in the film concerning the pirates, a sub story coming out of a comic book a boy is reading in the novel about the events happening to a shipwrecked pirate. I have not completed the novel yet, but so far there have been a lot of fantastic congruencies with the film that further explain the perplexities of the plot.
The capture of Rawshark is juxtaposed with the pirate’s battle with the shark, an intense and animalistic attack on his fractured raft. The shark brutally attacks the raft, and is quickly stabbed by a “splinter of mast that had snapped off in my hand.” The pirate stabs the shark, a large and fierce great white. It is seemingly impossible how this beast is defeated by such a small man and simple instrument, as its shocking how easily Rawshark is tricked into the trap. Rawshark is arrested, a brutal fight against the police and eventually submerged, shortly following the pirate’s tale. The moment of realization is very powerful in the pirate’s tale, he says the sharks “stained marble eye looked up at me, and in that instant we knew each other.” The beast is staring him in the eye, and the hunter staring at his kill. The connection is passed between them; the hunted knows he will die. The feeling in that moment is powerfully portrayed with the addition of the frames of pictures illustrating the story.