Swamp Thing (1982).  Director: Wes Craven. Starring Louis Jourdan, Adrienne Barbeau, Ray Wise.

Ok, admission time: When you're talking about the first Swamp Thing film, you're not talking (surprise!) about one of the movie industry's great achievements.  Then again, at least you're not talking about Return of Swamp Thing, the 1989 cheesy, ridiculous rubber-suited-monster-on-the-loose-so-bad-its-funny-one-star-crapfest-time-waster of a sequel.

That's not to say the original Swamp Thing film is the Citizen Kane of vegetable monster films.  Oh no.  (Is there a Citizen Kane of vegetable monster films?)

Suffice to say, the original Swamp Thing film, while not the world's greatest comic book film adaptation, is far from the worst.  Further, I would argue that if it wasn't for Swamp Thing (the movie and, before it, the Wein/Wrightson comic book), we might never have had Watchmen (both comic and coming film).

Confused?

Don't worry, all will be clear.

If we were to look at the events that, like falling dominoes, lead from one to another, then quite obviously Swamp Thing (the movie) would never have existed without Swamp Thing the comic book.  Swamp Thing first appeared in House of Secrets #92, a horror anthology published by DC Comics, in 1971.  Within this particular issue was a short story entitled (wait for it) "Swamp Thing", by emerging writer Len Wein and artist Berni Wrightson.  The short story was a hit, and by the following year Wein and Wrightson were working on a Swamp Thing continuing series.  Their collaboration lasted only 10 issues (their final issue, I would argue, may well be one of the greatest single comic book ever created, despite Wrightson's more negative feelings, as he expressed in the excellent book A Look Back).  With Wrightson gone, Len Wein wrote only three more issues of the series before also leaving the book.  Others hands took over until Swamp Thing was finally cancelled with issue 24 in 1976.

And that might well have been it for Swamp Thing (the character), but then, like another domino falling, came the 1982 film.  Focusing on the Wein/Wrightson collaboration of a few years back, producers Benjamin Melniker and Michael Uslan (yes, the same man who would go on to produce a number of comic book related projects, up to and including The Dark Knight) managed to get director Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street, the Scream films) to direct the feature.  To cash in on the movie, DC Comics revived the Swamp Thing comic book, first with a movie adaptation and then with a new continuing series, titled Saga of the Swamp Thing.  The series, alas, floundered, despite some stunning Tom Yeates artwork and some decent Marty Pasko stories.

It didn't help that the movie the comic was hoping to cash in on didn't do all that well at the box office, either.  A year into its run, The Saga of the Swamp Thing was on the ropes and on the verge of cancellation.  That was when DC Comics (and, if memory serves editor Karen Berger in particular), decided to turn the writing chores of the book to a relatively unknown newcomer from England.

His name?  Alan Moore.

Up until that point, Alan Moore's was mainly known for his work in native British titles such as 2000AD and even more so for V for Vendetta and Marvelman (later re-titled Miracleman), two serial stories published in another comic magazine, Warrior.  However, Warrior was cancelled well before Moore could finish up either story (he would do this later), but his work up to that point was enough to attract the interest of the editor of Saga of the Swamp Thing.  Mr. Moore was offered the job of writing the series and formally took over the book with issue #21.  Along with primary artists Steve Bissette and John Totleban, this trio provided readers with one of the most mind-blowing comic book runs in comic book history.  The success of the revitalized Swamp Thing in turn made Moore a budding comic book superstar.

As it turned out, his higher profile came at an especially propitious time: DC Comics had just acquired the rights to a bunch of heroes originally published by the now defunct Charlton Comics group and the last domino was in place, ready to fall.  For Alan Moore was interested in using these particular heroes and pitched a story proposal involving them.  His concept, however, was deemed too radical and would have negated any further adventures involving these heroes.  DC bought the Charlton heroes to use them, not to use them once and let them go.

But there was a solution: Alan Moore altered the heroes a little (actually, very little.  If you're at all familiar to the Charlton heroes, you should see the following similarities: Comedian=Peacemaker, Rorschach=The Question, Nite Owl=Blue Beetle, Dr. Manhattan=Captain Atom, Ozymandias=Thunderbolt, etc.) and, presto, Watchmen was born.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Would Alan Moore, in some alternate universe, have eventually created a work similar in scope and depth to Watchmen?  Given his white-hot 1980's era creativity, I have no doubt that if Alan Moore was not been hired to writer Swamp Thing, he would have eventually made his mark in some other way in the comic book field and left behind some very tangible legacy.  However, the timing (pardon the pun) for the creation of Watchmen was precise:  Alan Moore was in the right place at the right time and had the right inspiration, and all these things were made possible by the second Swamp Thing comic book series, something that probably never would have happened had it not been for the release of the Swamp Thing movie.

So there.

But, kind reader, I'm sure you're thinking: Weren't you supposed to be talking about alternative versions of films?  Why the hell are we getting all this crap about Alan Moore?

Ok, fine.  Let's get back to Swamp Thing (the movie).

If you purchased the above DVD, and you noted the PG rating the box claims the movie has, and had some quasi-nostalgic memories of the film and, on a rainy day, decided "hey, the kids are bored, let's show it to them", then you may have been pretty damn surprised when your significant other smacked you over the head with a very heavy object while screaming "how can you show a film with this amount of nudity to your kids?!"  Fret not, dear friend, you have not entered into an alternate dimension where PG means "Pretty Graphic".

And yes, what you are seeing is most definitely not the original PG theatrical cut of this film.  Somehow, the folks of MGM accidentally (or sloppily, who knows) released the non-rated version of the film to DVD.  Now, before you run out the door looking thinking you're going to get your hands on the video equivalent of Swamp Thing Does Dallas, relax.  The nudity presented in this unrated version of the film amounts to perhaps a minute or less of run time, featuring a more graphic version of Adrienne Barbeau's nude bath (a scene that was present, in a more restrained form, in the original theatrical release) as well as another sequence involving a party that gets more than a little hot and heavy.  If the film had been released in this form, it would have most certainly earned an "R" rating.

Ultimately, these two extra scenes don't add all that much to the film, other than a few more thrills.

You'd do better looking up either the Wein/Wrightson original comic book issues or the Moore written ones that followed.