The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: dejavroom on November 19, 2008, 05:22:20 pm
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Show this one some love, the movie is getting nigher and nigher. To get things started, here's the latest trailer (http://www.watchmencomicmovie.com/111308-watchmen-movie-trailer.php).
Yes. Yes. Yes.
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I am definitely of two minds on this one.
I cannot imagine this movie being anything than amazing or one of the worse movies of all time.
One of the other. Definitely nothing in-between there.
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I always imagined Rorschach's voice to be more devoid of expression, kind of like flat grating.
I agree with LFM on this one, either it will be great, or it will be utter shite.
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I'm pretty confident about this. They've certainly got the look right and the director sounds slavish enough that what cuts they've made were made in the interests of maintaining the core story instead of trying to put a different spin on it. How well received it will be is another matter. There's already forums full of people raging about how terrible it is just from the trailers but people were always going to hate it just for existing and make up any stupid reason to support that position. I have a friend who's pissed to this day that Tom Bombadil got cut from the LOTR movies.
Rorschach sounds about right to me, I read him as a bit more emotionless in general but his lines in the trailer are pretty dramatic ones, I'm hoping his conversation is a bit flatter. The growl is right though. I've heard a lot of comparisons to Christian Bale's Batman voice and that sits in about the right place, big R being basically the fascist vigilante type turned up to 11.
What about Manhattan's voice? I always read him as being more Voice Of God boomy with a touch of electronic echo but hearing Billy Crudup just speak normally really works somehow. Just flat and totally detached but not in itself unusual. Fits the character well I think.
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Tom fuck*ng Bombadil mother fuckers.
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That is, of course, one of the few areas where my geek-cred does an epic fail...
My experience with the swords-and-elves stuff is shallow and sporadic at best.
The Lord of the Rings books bored me to goddamned tears... so so SO much universe-building and ridiculous tiny goddamn details about the world that had little of nothing to do with the characterizations or the plot and I just had to give up. Never finished anything by Tolkien. It is what damns Dickens for me and what partially redeems Hemingway for me... Dickens writes good plots but as he was writing by the word for serials, there is so much absolutely unnecessary fluff that I want to rip my hair out whereas Ernest wrote dick-swinging jingoist gun-worshipping bullshit most of the time but at least he was quick about it.
I witnessed a game or two of DnD and was absolutely mystified as to how that kind of thing would be anything other than an ironic punishment worked up by an English teacher who's like "oh, you wanna doodle axes and wizards-with-big-tits in class, huh? well you gotta do THIS for a day." Overly structured, everything has to be intricately memorized... fuck*ng kabuki for people who want to pretend they're a knight.
Not that I have anything intrinsically against people wanting to pretend they're a knight but... can't you just do it in your imagination then, instead of needing the structure of arguing in a basement with other people about the interpretation of certain rules and if that dice roll counted and the strange psychosexual politics of four or whatever teenage boys dickering over whose fantasy this collaborative clusterfuck belongs to, who gets to fuck the half-orc barmaid and who has to BE the half-orc barmaid or whatever?
Boggled my mind that such a thing could be considered pleasant.
Those were always my two epic fails as a dork:
I was not a gamer/fantasy guy at all and I understood very little about how the computer actually worked other than Microsoft Word, e-mail, message boards and so forth. I could not fieldstrip my computer nor could I code or build a webpage.
Oh, I could describe the mechanism wherein Ego the Living Planet and the Phoenix both had infinite power but how one could be more infinite... I had my cred in other fields, I was the king indie-film dork of my high school and a leading rock nerd and the only baseball nerd who didn't play on the team but...
Elfs and tech. Never understood.
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I think I'm going to take Paul's advice.
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Cold War NYC, 1985-ish.
A world of mostly-non-powered superheroism with a few exceptions and some old skeletons in the closet but a while back, costumed vigilantism was cracked down on hardcore... most of them retired, a few stayed on in government service and one, just one, went rogue and kept up the good fight. The way the retirements went down left a lot of the former heroes with awkward kind of unfulfilled lives but whatever. They deal.
Absolute height of the fears of atomic war and a world of despair where quite literally all the heroes are gone... quietly, secretly, former heroes (most of them surprisingly subtle pastiches of superheroes both major and obscure) start getting killed off one by one.
Pressure builds for them all to kind of "get the band back together" to figure out who's gunning for them and... as it does... it starts to seem like maybe it's part of a much larger scheme than just killing off vigilantes who've been on the shelf for fifteen years.
It is hard to say if you should pick up the graphic novel beforehand.
If the movie turns out to be good, then... no, so it isn't spoiled.
If the movie turns out to be bad, then... yes, so that the movie still kind of makes sense.
The big problem with "Watchmen" is that it is such a large dense work... and so many aspects are married in symbolism and structure to the exploration of the medium of comic books... that it conceptually difficult to picture it as a two-two-and-a-half hour movie, no matter how talented the filmmakers or true the adaptation.
Even if it were a six hour animated mini-series on HBO, you'd still feel like something was lost in the medium change because... it is so much an exploration of the medium.
I mean, why did the adaptation of "Breakfast of Champions" suck so bad? Because the book itself is a deconstruction of the 1970s middlebrow novel... and when you put that into a film, a whole layer of meaning drops out no matter what you do.
I mean, that famous painting of a pipe, right? "Ce n'est pas une pipe". Because... it ain't a pipe, it's just a drawing of a pipe?
See how expressing that in a messageboard posting just fuck*ng obliterated the value of it even though I expressed all of its literal information?
Yeah.
This is the ultimate fear with "Watchmen".
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The graphic novel is ten pounds of kill in a Ziploc sandwich baggie. Must to get.
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Yeah you should totally own the book either way. It made Time's 100 books of the 20th century list for what that's worth so it's bona-fide lit-oo-rat-toore.
I was going to say hold off on reading it first since the movie's here in a couple of months anyway but some of the plots developments are so great it would be sad to read the book later and know what was coming because you'd already seen a watered down version. So yeah, get the pure stuff first time round.
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I'm just pissed they cut the pirate ship.
edit:
I wasn't going to watch any further trailers, I usually avoid them at all costs - the dark knight, for example, i successfully saw zero trailers for - but I went ahead and watched this one, my curiosity got the best of me. They fuck*ng nailed the look of it, which should come as no surprise considering the director's resumé. Rorshach's voice is pitch-fuck*ng-perfect. Downey looks great for the Comedian, which is cool because this story is so completely unrelated to Iron Man. Crudup's voice for Dr. Manhattan? Complete failure. It should be completely flat, a slight tenor- that part's almost right- but it's missing the psyche-shattering overcurrent of muddled mid-range feedback I always heard when reading (and re-reading) the book. The look is great. I hope the characters resemble the book in more than look. And I hope the story isn't just the flashbang from the book but deals with the heart of the plot. I hold out hope.
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I cannot imagine this movie being anything than amazing or one of the worse movies of all time.
One of the other. Definitely nothing in-between there.
Exactly. Either it will be an embarrassment to all involved, audience included, or it will be the movie experience of 2009, doing to "The Dark Knight" what TDK did to other mainstream movies when it was released. Melodramatic as it might be at times, Watchmen's "Gordian knot"-style resolution is untouchable, if done right, and its plot is tight as a duck's nether-regions (unlike TDK, so rife with plot-holes that you had to squint hard in order to ignore them).
...what cuts they've made were made in the interests of maintaining the core story instead of trying to put a different spin on it.
Yes, and this makes all the difference. With every single movie adaptation of a work by Alan Moore, some muttonhead in a suit thought that movie people of all people could improve on Moore's writing! Just the fact that the movie got the "R" rating relieves me to no end.
Ash, I'd recommend you read the book first as well.
Choopernickel, the pirate ship story will be included in the DVD, so yay you. It will be animated and inserted into the appropriate ins and outs of the movie, with the kid reading the comic book near the newsstand. Also, they found a way to include a large chunk of the book's background story in the form of a mock interview-type show celebrating the anniversary of Hollis Mason's "Under The Hood". But that's also only for the DVD.
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I hated the pirate comic so much. I haven't been this happy about a movie-cut since LotR dropped all the ridiculous songs and stories from every freaking time they make camp.
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Choop, that's not Downey jr, that's Jeffery Dean Morgan. I thought it was ol' iron boots at first as well.
Also, not to pick on a guy but it's lines like this:
Crudup's voice for Dr. Manhattan? Complete failure. It should be completely flat, a slight tenor-
That I expect to see filling messsage boards to the brim come march.
Also any idea where the Niteowl screaming scene fits in? I don't remember it. The snow suggests it's deep in the spoilery section of the book so a page number would probably suffice.
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A world of mostly-non-powered superheroism with a few exceptions and some old skeletons in the closet but a while back, costumed vigilantism was cracked down on hardcore... most of them retired, a few stayed on in government service and one, just one, went rogue and kept up the good fight. The way the retirements went down left a lot of the former heroes with awkward kind of unfulfilled lives but whatever. They deal.
Absolute height of the fears of atomic war and a world of despair where quite literally all the heroes are gone... quietly, secretly, former heroes (most of them surprisingly subtle pastiches of superheroes both major and obscure) start getting killed off one by one.
Pressure builds for them all to kind of "get the band back together" to figure out who's gunning for them and... as it does... it starts to seem like maybe it's part of a much larger scheme than just killing off vigilantes who've been on the shelf for fifteen years.
Oh man, I loved that movie. The Incredibles rocks.
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Doc Manhattan's voice seems about right to me, I always read it to be very quiet and detached, maybe with a slight echo or crackly feedback somewhere. It's not that he doesn't care that you hear, he just is too detached to realize you want to hear him.
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Oh man, I loved that movie. The Incredibles rocks.
Yeah, when I heard the thumbnail sketch of "The Incredibles" I was definitely struck with how much... in very very broad strokes... it was a rip on Watchmen.
Happily, though, when you literally Disnify an idea like Watchmen, you have to lose so much of it that is has to become a thing of its own in the small details.
ALSO: the pirate stuff? Yeeeeeah, I'm not gonna miss the pirate stuff. I realize that I'm not one to speak on "self-indulgence" here but... like... yeah. A parallel telling of the main story, with pirates as a comic book, because Moore metafictionally decided that in a world where superheroes were real, pirates would fill that space culturally as the comic books/pulp books in their stead... yeah.
One of those things that are a lot more interesting stated than as a fifth of the entire book.
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Also any idea where the Niteowl screaming scene fits in? I don't remember it. The snow suggests it's deep in the spoilery section of the book so a page number would probably suffice.
His mushroom-cloud nightmare, maybe?
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I think it's a response to what occurs with regard to Rorschach in that part of the book. I loaned my copy to a friend, so I cannot give you a page number.
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So.
Someone at the Watchmen Movie Forum posted an assessment of the so-called "Orci/Kurtzman draft"; in hir words, "something that shows definitively what said script changed/left out, etc". It must be pretty reliable information - it's certainly being treated/discussed as such at the board, and their mods seem to be the people who would know.
I myself didn't read it, but in the interests of providing temptation for those who want it, I'm pasting the whole thing below.
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There's no opening scene with the newsvendor and Kovacs with the sign. Rorschach's opening journal entry has been moved (more on that later). As the script opens, Edward Blake is watching The McLaughlin group in his penthouse. Pat Buchanan, Eleanor Clift, and McLaughlin give their take on world events. We learn about escalating tensions between the US and Russia, about the situation in Afghanistan, and we learn about Dr. Manhattan, and about just how different the world is than our own. Then Blake gets killed by an intruder. You all know what happens there. The pin gets caught in the drain (or gutter).
Next comes the sequence we've all heard so much about, the montage of how the world changed when heroes began to operate. I suspect that many of the smaller, simpler elements that were removed or unseen later in the draft will be seen here.
Detectives Fine and Bourquin were gone in the Tse draft. They're back, but for some reason, Bourquin is still called Gallagher (I will call him Bourquin in my head, as his name is never spoken out loud. Go figure). The scene is shortened and streamlined, but retains it's significance for the most part. There are no flashback "puns" to The Comedian's death sequence.
That night, Rorschach is heard reading his journal which we were so afraid we wouldn't hear, complete with "Dead dog carcass, whores and politicans", and blood in the gutters. You know, the entry Tse and Hayter didn't include in their drafts. A few elements of it are cut out, but it still feels pretty classic and complete. Rorschach comes upon The Comedian's pin. As in prior drafts, he grapples up. There's no hanger investigation, there's a secret compartment, and there's a picture of the new heroes along with the Minutemen in Blake's closet. Rorschach encounters a cop guarding the penthouse as he leaves, and attacks him, as in prior drafts. That's the major change to the material. But there's no speech about being turned on, Rorschach just strikes him in the throat.
Dan Dreiberg's visits with Hollis Mason. This sequence, while not being uber faithful (No Screaming Skull story) is still a fantastically realized scene, incorporating material from Mason's book, and some new lines that really throw what happened with the new heroes into sharper focus, elaborating on how the older heroes feel about it. It also has an added element that hints at how everyone feels about Rorschach. I will admit, Tse's script handled this scene better, but the later draft does set up Dan's character better than Tse's did. It's more personal, played less about the era of heroes, and more about Dan's wasted and unfulfilling life.
Rorschach visits Dan. This scene basically plays out as it does in the novel. All the requisite classic lines and moments are here. The writers add a few lines of dialogue to the scene that make Dan's conflict more layered, and his relationship with Rorschach more of a failed friendship than simply being former partners. No sugar cubes moment (Boo!). It was about the time I saw that Orci and Kurtzman took Tse's "Maybe someone's killing off costumed heroes" to "Maybe's someone's picking off costumed heroes" that I saw what they were doing. Changing the dialogue back, to me more faithful, and less blatant in it's explanations. Hopefully Snyder will add the sugar cubes back in. Major changes? Dan does say "The Watchmen are over", and the "Those were great times" line becomes "We used to respect each other", which...layers their conflict. How, you ask? You'll see.
We get more Rorschach then, but no abbatoir full of retarded children. Sorry guys. No Happy Harry's bar scene. It's missed, but made up for later on. But surprise! Most of the good lines in it are put into the conversation Rorschach has with Dan in the earlier scene, and put into context there as well. What we do get is "Soon there will be war..." and all it's trappings.
Instead of Rorschach visiting Veidt, Dan does. As in earlier drafts, this is done to highlight Dan's relationship with Veidt, and to flesh out the idea that the heroes were a fraternity, and some of them even close friends. As in prior drafts, Doug Roth is in Veidt's office, and so is Annie Leibowitz, and the scene serves to flesh out just how successful and capable and concerned about mankind Veidt is, using some of the material from the novel, and some of the material from the chapter-end interview with Veidt in later chapters (Much better written than the Tse draft) He also reveals that he and Jon are working on something to prevent war. Veidt reasons that the impending war is over resources, so he is working on a new kind of cheap energy with Dr. Manhattan. Same basic idea as the Veidt/Rorschach scene was, but with more emotion to it, and far more relevance to the events of the story. Essentially, this scene raises the stakes of the impending nuclear conflict, which the prior TV program only began to show.
Rorschach tells us, via his journal, what happened to all the heroes, and then he visits Dr. Manhattan and Laurie. The reactor Dr. Manhattan is working on is now significant, not just a random search for supersymmetrical theory. There's an interesting twist here on Laurie not wanting to be called what Rorschach calls her. Now she abhors the name "Silk Spectre", not "Miss Jupiter". It's handled well (except no sugar cubes! Boo!). Other than that, this scene plays out as you'd expect, and as in the novel. with the reveals about Blake trying to rape Sally, Rorschach's feelings on that, his accusations, etc. When Rorschach "leaves", Dr. Manhattan is trying to get Laurie to see how time works on more than one level, because he is having trouble with his "vision". He helps her flashback to when she was little. The snowglobe/fighting Sally/ sequence. She doesn't want to go there. There's a rift forming between them, and has been for a long time.
No "Rorschach walking the streets" scene, since the dialogue from the journal was used in the prior scene with Dan.
Dan and Laurie meet for dinner. This sequence contain almost every classic exchange, and some new dialogue that fleshes out the fact that Laurie was forced into crimefighting and that now she is being watched by the military and kept around to make Jon happy. This is part of her arc in the movie, moving beyond this conflict. It's not just mentioned, it's seen. She's actually being watched, and growing restless and frustrated with her situation. Roberto Orci and Kurtzman don't write with the same flair as Moore, but they understand these characters quite well, and the dialogue sounds real and flows well. Everything they add is relevant to the story and these characters. The "Captain Carnage" bit is intact.
The Comedian's funeral is interspersed with Laurie's visit to her mother. This is the first time we see Walter Kovacs and his sign. Much of the scene between Laurie and Sally is shortened or gone, but the relevant bits and thematic pieces are there. There is a flashback to when The Comedian tried to rape Silk Spectre.
At the funeral, Orci and Kurtzman have added the priest's words back into the script and story. The order of the funeral flashbacks are altered a bit. Jon's flashback to The Comedian's time in Vietnam is first. We see Jon and The Comedian killing enemy soldiers, there's an appropriate transition to fireworks, and then it plays out as you'd expect, with Blake gunning down the pregnant woman and his observation about Jon drifting out of touch.
Dan's is next, with him having a bit more action along with The Comedian. The riot sequence is realized well. Minor alterations to dialogue, but the same feel persists.
Adrian's flashback is last. Captain Metropolis is gone. Now, Dan is hosting the meeting of "The Watchmen" (Not The Crimebusters). Everything else plays out like you'd expect, but the writers add more to The Comedian's point. Now it goes beyond nukes flying, and as in Tse's script, The Comedian talks about how mankind is able to destroy itself now, and how it's all just a matter of time. Pieces of Dan noticing a young Laurie and her only having eyes for Jon once he arrives are added.When the funeral is over, Dan, Adrian and Manhattan talk briefly. Adrian mentions postponing his and Jon's announcement about their work until it's perfected. No one sees Moloch place roses on the Comedian's grave.
Rorschach confronts Moloch at his home. Minor changes here. The first and second visits to Moloch are now combined into one. Rorschach now slams Moloch into the refrigerator instead of hiding inside it, with the "Look behind you" Rorschach note. We are treated to Rorschach listing some of Moloch's crimes now, fleshing out his time as a real-world terrorist/supervillain. Moloch's flashback with The Comedian is intact, but shortened a bit, streamlined to the essence of the Comedian cracking because he's discovered something terrible. He doesn't reveal the plan's elements, and it works. It should still be very powerful. Laetril is still present. Moloch still has cancer. In an added bit of plot, Rorschach notices a payroll envelope from Pyramid Industries while snooping and finding the medication.
The "cheap glass" and "coke bottles" sequence is gone. Which makes no sense because you can see it in the trailer, so Snyder probably added it back in at some point. Rorschach visits Blake's grave to pay his respects. We do not see him break in. His musings on the nature of mankind and what's happening in the world are streamlined, but there, and the "Pagliacci" moment is intact, complete with flashback's to Blake's attack and death, "Roll on snare drum", and "curtains".
No newsstand. No vendor, no kid reading the pirate comic. No Tales of The Black Freighter. No Kovacs asking for his paper. But they built the set, and filmed the scenes with the Freighter, so...here's hoping this stuff makes the film...and that even more if it makes the Director's Cut.
Laurie and Dr. Manhattan try to make love. Three Dr. Manhattans is intact. Actually...there are FOUR! Hilarity and high emotions ensue. One major change. This time, when Laurie finds the “real” Jon, he is working on his project with Veidt and talking about teleporting a reactor to him, not just a beaker (but the beaker is there). She also has a great, great line. When Laurie storms out, Jon stops working and looks at a photo of Janey Slater. No lesbian cab driver.
No scene where Janey Slater talks to Dough Roth.
Meanwhile, Laurie goes to Dan’s. Truncated version of her gripe session in the novel, with the same basic meanings (and no sugar cubes, damn it!). She talks about losing the Secret Service in the subway in order to see him. Puns and parallel scenes and Jon dressing and “shadows in the mist” are still there. Dan and Laurie leave to see Hollis Mason.
And then time, which is multi-faceted, shows us a stenciled radioactive Fallout Shelter sign on a door, and we're at the news stand, where a kid is reading Tales of the Black Freighter, and the Newsvendor is arguing with Walter Kovacs about his paper not arriving. A Pyramid Deliveries truck arrives, and SEYMOUR tosses out a stack of New Frontiersmans. We don't see the headline.
Dan and Laurie, walking to Mason's, get mugged. This is intercut with Dr. Manhattan's interview, complete with puns and transitions. Jon's interview, which is with Ted Koppel, and the interview has been agreed to by Richard Nixon for strategic purposes. There is a panel consisting of Richard Weiss, Janet Lee, and Doug Roth. The discussion is far more relevant and interesting than the novel's, about the impending war, Manhattan's role in it, etc. Janey Slater is there to accuse Jon, which causes him to lose it and teleport everyone in the studio to a rooftop, not a parking lot.
Dr. Manhattan doesn’t go to Arizona to get the photograph. He just goes straight to Mars. He doesn’t say he is to anyone, either. He is discovered there. There are some minor sequences added where the government agents assigned to be his handlers are freaking out, interrogating Laurie, etc. Laurie essentially kicks the crap out of Forbes and escapes her handlers, marking a turning point for her as a character.
Dr. Manhattan’s time on Mars has been shortened, in terms of dialogue and the
events that we see, but we see still see and hear quite a bit: him meeting Janey Slater, falling in love with Janey, the accident that led to his creation. We see his struggle to form (With Wally now involved in it) and his birth. We see his introduction to the world and some of his history, fighting with Janey, meeting Laurie, etc. The main difference is that he begins building the clockwork palace as he reminisces, and this is tied into the “putting things back together” theme that is found in the novel, not after he is done. Some of the better, longer passages have been omitted, but most of the truly relevant ones remain intact. The stuff about his father is there, and there are references to Einstein as well.
Agent Forbes and other agents debrief Laurie, trying to find Dr. Manhattan. Finally they locate his energy signature on Mars. Laurie asks for a smoke, and as she does, flashes back to her meeting with The Comedian after the Crimebusters/Watchmen meeting.
No scene with Dan and Rorschach bringing him the paper. No scene with the Bernies and "inna final analysis".
Dr. Manhattan’s time alone on Mars has been shortened, in terms of dialogue and the events that we see, but we see him meeting Janey Slater, falling in love with Janey, the accident that led to his creation. We see his struggle to put himself together again (With Wally now involved in the scenes) and his birth. We see his introduction to the world and some of his history, fighting with Janey, meeting Laurie, etc. The main difference, apart from the streamlined string of flashbacks, is that he begins building the clockwork palace as he reminisces, which works pretty well, and this is tied into the “putting things back together” theme that is found in the novel. A few of the better, longer introspective passages have been omitted, but most of the truly relevant ones remain intact. The stuff about his father is there, and there are references to Einstein as well.
Nixon and Kissinger hang out in the War Room to talk strategy and deal with impending nuclear attack. There are some pretty good lines here.
No scene where the man kills his family. No scene with newsvendor and the kid reading the comic.
Laurie, tired of being used to draw Jon back, essentially kicks the crap out of Forbes and escapes her handlers, marking a turning point for her as a character.
At his building, Veidt holds a meeting where he tries to sell the head of several major automobile companies (Including Lee Iacocca) on his new brand of energy, a meeting that shows that he is someone who could lead the world, given his vast resources. It is here that we learn about his reverence for Alexander and the Gordian Knot solution, and Veidt’s history. Adrian Veid is attacked, as in the graphic novel. Gone is the “death was comforting to the Egyptians” element, which is missed. The rest of it is fantastic.
Dan and Laurie discuss what happened to Veidt. Dan's clearly getting interested in what's going on. He offers to let Laurie stay with him, given current events. As they leave, Rorschach is watching them in the diner. He doesn't return to his apartment or confront his landlady.
No newsvendor/kid with comic book scene here. Note: I suspect there will be in a Director's Cut. Otherwise, why would the Veidt attack scene be moved after the Dan/Laurie diner scene? Because the scene after the Veidt attack scene in the novel is a Black Freighter scene, as is the scene before it.
Rorschach investigates Roy Chess's apartment, finds a Pyramid Industries check, and a matchbook for Happy Harry's.
No scene with Dan wanting Laurie and going to bed without any. No newsvendor/lesbian/poster scene. No Raw Shark scene (Boo!).
Rorschach goes back to Moloch’s. His second visit is removed, and in the movie, this is when Rorschach finds Moloch dead. The police sequence plays out much as it does in the novel, complete with the relevant dialogue and Rorschach’s “resourcefulness”. As in earlier drafts, Rorschach disables several officers before going down. Fine and Bourquin (Gallagher) are present here.
Rorschach goes to jail, where he is taunted. He then meets with Malcom Long, goes over the ink blot tests, sees the dog, says "butterfly", "nice flowers", sees his mother the whore, and the time he attacked two other children who were mocking and spitting on him. We do not see the origin of his “face”, or hear the story of Kitty Genovese. He talks about his history with the other heroes. When Long presses him, Rorschach tells Long about the murder of the little girl. This scene is faithfully realized for the most part. He does not set the house on fire, at least in the script. Instead, he subjects the man to the same basic fate as the girl, killing him with the cleaver. This is the source of the blood on his coat, and the “tremor of impact” line (Probably done to avoid problems with PETA). Rorschach’s monologue at the end of this sequence has been truncated to something a bit more basic, which gets the point across, but doesn’t feature the same poetry. This is greatly missed, but it still works. "God does not" is still intact. The scene ends with Long telling the guards he cannot help Rorschach. Long’s home life is not seen. After leaving Long, Rorschach is accosted, and injures the prison inmate.
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CONTINUED
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Laurie hangs out in Dan's workshop. Dan finds Laurie in the basement when she sets fire to the Owlship. This scene is shortened. You learn the basics of where Dan and his methods came from, but not all the details the novel features.
Later, after eating, and not watching a Veidt charity special or the news, Laurie tries to get him to make love to her, and he can’t get it up. They go to sleep.
At the prison, Big Figure confronts Rorchach to tell him about his impending death.
Dan has a nightmare, where, instead of the Twilight Lady, he sees Laurie. This plays out as in the novel. Waking, he heads down to the basement, where Laurie finds him
in conflict.
They go out in the Owlship and rescue fire victims, Laurie actually going inside the building. They make love.
No Sally/Hollis phone conversation scene.
No scene with the Bernies and Malcom Long.
There is no planning scene for Dan and Laurie.
At the prison, Big Figure and his goons come for Rorschach, who does his thing.
Steve Fine doesn't come to talk to Dan, which means the sugar cubes being omitted no longer is a story weakness (though they are still missed). Thank goodness.
Dan and Laurie decide to rescue Rorschach.
No Jack-O-Lantern carving with Hollis Mason.
Rorschach disposes of sewage with a toilet. At this point, Dan and Laurie descend into the prison, and begin kicking ass. Rorschach finds Long and demands to know where his "face" is. Long is terrified. Dan and Laurie find Rorschach hunting down Big Figure. Rorschach disposes of more sewage with a toilet. Dan, Laurie and Rorschach escape via the roof as rioters close in. In a change to the story, Dr. Manhattan appears walking across the clouds, and enters the Owlship. This is where he tells Laurie they will talk on Mars, and they vanish. Dan and Rorschach leave the prison as police helicopters arrive.
Laurie and Jon materialize on Mars, and Laurie can't breathe.
An unnamed gang of Knot-Tops finds out about Rorschach’s escape, and decides to murder Hollis Mason. They do so. The flashbacks to his time as Nite Owl are intact. The scene is what you'd expect.
Dan and Rorschach are laying low underwater. They make up.
Dr. Manhattan and Laurie hold their conversation on Mars. This scene is shortened, but still effective. There is no topographical lesson, but the clockwork palace does rise and travel over the surface of Mars as the scene takes place.
Rorschach and Dan head to Happy Harry's for answers. Dan finds out about Mason's death and goes nuts.
Nixon goes to Defcon One.
Dan and Rorschach break into Veidt's office, into his computer, and find out he might be behind everything.
At Karnak, Adrian Veidt hosts a group of scientists and engineers. He kills them with champagne and buries them in snow when he opens his biodome.
Rorschach and Dan do not go back to Rorschach’s apartment, but Rorschach does drop his journal off. For some reason, the "catch a bullet line" is added to Rorschach's journal, possibly to make Veidt seem more dangerous.
Back on Mars, Laurie cannot convince Jon to save the world. She realizes The Comedian is her father, and then he confirms it to her. The palace shatters, etc. The “thermodynamic miracles” monologue is intact, but has been streamlined a bit here and there. It’s still very effective. The Argyre Planitia is still a Have a Nice Day face.
In Antarctica, the Owlship ices up, and crash lands. There are no hoverbikes, but Dan does have his Snow Owl suit. In Karnak, Veidt watches a wall of monitors with Bubastis. He sees Dan and Rorschach approaching, and slices the Gordian Knot (Yay!). Dan and Rorschach reach Karnak and break in, confront Veidt, who is eating a vegetarian meal. The scene plays out as you'd expect. Veidt's explanation of his plot, as you'd also expect, is streamlined quite a bit. The "greatest practical joke in human history" element is intact. Veidt's observation about Blake's realization of what was happening is not (Boo!). Now Veidt says "I triggered it thirty minutes ago" instead of "I did it".
The method of destruction is a blue energy, generated from Karnak, that "infects the clouds". Blue lightning then spreads out across the globe. We see Russians and Afghan soldiers stop fighting, and we see the Bernies talking at the newstand. And then we're in Times Square, and the wind rises, and savage lightning strikes begin, their energy expanding like liquid fire, flooding through the streets, and blowing everything in it's path to ash. We do see what is described as a world montage of destruction. We see the Bernies and their demise.
Jon and Laurie materialize in New York. Dr. Manhattan figures out it was Adrian who did this. He and Laurie teleport to Karnak. The rest plays out as you'd expect, except that Dan, realizing Rorschach's error, tries to stop his friend, and sees him blown apart, as we do, by Dr. Manhattan. Dan can't take what's happened when Manhattan leaves, snaps, attacks Adrian, the fight ensues, Owl Rang, etc. Adrian dies. Ths is the worst part of the script. Not because of the event, because of the pacing of it all. It happens too quickly, there's no buildup, etc. I suspect it has been changed, and most rumors point to that being the case.
Sally visits Laurie, they make up, and find Dan coming home from "work".
And then we come back to Seymour.
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Fuck 20th Century Fox (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081229/ap_en_ot/film_watchmen_suit). Fuck them right in the ear.
Screw your IP investments. Give us our movie.
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Yes. (http://www.cracked.com/blog/fox-can-eat-several-dicks/)
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It's like Roger Waters... in comic book form!
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Yes. (http://www.cracked.com/blog/fox-can-eat-several-dicks/)
Eh.
I'll be honest, I don't know "The Watchmen" from Watchtower (http://www.watchtower.org/). I don't drool in anticipation over seeing this movie. I won't dress up to see it in the theater, I won't watch it when it's available on Redbox, and I won't watch it on TNT in 2016 presented with limited commercial interruption by Nissan ("Driven"). So maybe I'm not in the right frame of mind to appreciate this guy's comments. "Those guys bought the rights to a movie, didn't make it, and then want to sue when somebody else does? Those ASSHOLES!" Um, well, what would be the point of buying the rights to a movie if anyone else can decide they're going to make it anyway? "They're going to make a bunch of money without doing any of the work!" Um, well, isn't that what anyone who owns stock in a company does?
You saw the chance to make a ridiculous sum of money, for no reason, and you’re going to take it.
Who wouldn't?
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Golfhaus canned for speaking my mind.
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Eh.
I'll be honest, I don't know "The Watchmen" from Watchtower (http://www.watchtower.org/). I don't drool in anticipation over seeing this movie. I won't dress up to see it in the theater, I won't watch it when it's available on Redbox, and I won't watch it on TNT in 2016 presented with limited commercial interruption by Nissan ("Driven"). So maybe I'm not in the right frame of mind to appreciate this guy's comments. "Those guys bought the rights to a movie, didn't make it, and then want to sue when somebody else does? Those ASSHOLES!" Um, well, what would be the point of buying the rights to a movie if anyone else can decide they're going to make it anyway? "They're going to make a bunch of money without doing any of the work!" Um, well, isn't that what anyone who owns stock in a company does?
Who wouldn't?
In the end it all boils down to fans being pissed that all these legal shenanigans might delay the movie's release. I think it's a fair concern.
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I mean...
it is hell of a dick move. They have handled this in the most bullshitty way possible. The fact that it is legal says something bad about intellectual property laws.
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Um... wasn't Warner Bros. move more of a dick move? They stole IP they had no rights to, and now don't want to pay the artists or rights holders? Fuck Warner Bros., man. Fox just wants to get paid.
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Yeah, I'm blaming Warner Brothers for getting people's hopes up about a movie that they couldn't legally make. Did they think they were just going to sneak it by, like Fox wasn't going to notice? Fox execs all going to the movies with the kids, looking at the marquee, and being all "WHAT THE FUCK?!?"
I've been amusing myself lately by hypothesizing that the Fox guys have a vendetta against the franchise, and bought the rights specifically so that the movie would never get made - kinda like how the Scientologists continuously check out books critical of them from libraries so that no one can ever read them. And so the lawsuit isn't just about getting gobs of money, but fighting against the release of a movie that they never wanted to see so badly that they spent good solid money to make sure it didn't happen, only to see someone else say "screw it" and do it.
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I mean, it seems like they made it, and I am assuming that they have consulted with Alan Moore. Fox coming in now and saying "OH WAIT, that thing you've been working on for several years, and we had totally heard about it? Pay us for it. You should not have made it."
Basically though, my problem is that so many of the applications of IP make me incredibly mad.
"by signing this paper, i now own the idea of ever making a movie out of this book."
WHAT
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It's not just about signing a paper. I can assure you Alan Moore cashed a sizable check with Fox as the payee.
Sure it seems dickish to step in at the last minute, but I'd like to know more details. Like for instance when did Fox actually learn about this? Was it before production started? If it were it's likely they would have stepped in then. Was it after production started and Warner has already spent millions on the thing? If it was after I would think the best thing for both parties would be to wait until after production to get into the legal shit. If they had stepped in at that point and shut down production then Warner would be out shit loads of money, nobody would get paid except the lawyers, and there would be no movie.
So they wait til the end, step in and take their rightful cut and we all get to see the movie. Everybody's happy.
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Alan Moore refused involvement, either way. Demanded his name not be used in any promotional materials. Refused royalties, too.
Too many horrible or inappropriate adaptations of his work, it seems. Plus it could be argued that as a deconstruction of the comic book form, "Watchmen" is fundamentally lessened by adaptation to another medium, the same way that a deconstruction of the novel in the form of "Breakfast of Champions" failed as a movie and a rap song about that painting "Ce n'est pas une pipe" would fail no matter how good the rapper involved in the project.
It's not to say that there couldn't be merit or some translation of the work but... the parts that are direct commentary on the form are kind of irrevocably lost.
I mean, though I'm fighting with a lot of ideas right now, I have one that only works as a film because it's a commentary on the form. The general narrative structure COULD be a short story or a comic book, I suppose, but some of the meta-commentary would be lost as some of the metacommentary is buried, in this example, in the form of intentional continuity errors.
So, I dunno. There's a lot of stuff in Watchmen where the shapes of the frames or the page layout are part of the message. Mirrored sequences, the use of Rorsharch's journal as thought bubbles, the pirate comic within a comic... I don't know. These things don't MEAN the same things in a 24fps live action presentation.
I mean, Moore is awesome-crazy to begin with, he's just opposed to the idea idealogically but... especially "Watchmen".
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Mike, I love you brother, but that was the biggest load of bullshit I believe I've ever read.
So you're saying Alan Moore is opposed to a Watchman movie so he sold the movie rights to Fox for free?
So you think the graphic novel format is so integral to the Watchman story that a good movie isn't possible?
I say that Alan Moore wants this movie to be made so badly he sold the rights to two studios.
I say if the story can't stand on it's on it's not a very good story.
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I say that Alan Moore wants this movie to be made so badly he sold the rights to two studios.
I am sure that's not the case. First of all, you are assuming the Moore would is the one owning movie rights and not the book's publisher. Second, that's just not what happened.
In 1991, Fox entered into an agreement with Gordon, a former Fox studio chief, under which Fox transferred some of its "Watchmen" rights to Gordon. The studio believes the 1991 deal gave Fox distribution rights to the film and a share of "Watchmen" and any sequel's profits if Gordon made the film elsewhere. Three years later, Fox entered into another agreement with Gordon, this time saying that Fox was putting the film in turnaround (meaning the studio would not be making it at the time and Gordon could try to sell the project to someone else), according to court documents and people close to the dispute. As Fox interprets that 1994 deal, Gordon wouldn't fully control "Watchmen's" production rights until he reimbursed Fox its development costs (with interest, now in excess of $1 million, Fox says), a payment Fox says Gordon never made. Furthermore, if Gordon changed any of the key creative elements behind "Watchmen" (such as director, screenwriter or principal cast), he was obligated to resubmit the movie to Fox, which would have a few days to rejoin the production if it wanted, the studio maintains. (Fox says Gordon never informed Fox of the change when Snyder came aboard.)
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/movies/la-ca-watchmen16-2008nov16,0,5337353.story
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I don't believe he ever held any rights to the story.
I'm fairly certain it was a work-for-hire, owned by DC and by extension by the Time Warner Corporation.
I believe he had some kind of deal where he would've had some partial royalties, had he wanted them as is a leverage maintained by some of the bigger names in comic books, but the controlling interest behind the intellectual property was DC Comics, I am almost entirely sure.
These days, the most premiere creators might be able to negotiate creative control over their characters but not back in the middle 1980s, not for DC or Marvel. Back then, you had to be pretty damned big to even get residuals or royalties on, like, your characters at all. You were lucky if you got paid what they promised you and returned the art. Independent publishing was shut out of the major distribution system and the smaller presses had almost no reach.
If you wanted to work for the big boys, they owned the rights on your work.
I can't find an online image of the theatrical one-sheet but I swear I remember only the artist being credited at the bottom of the poster.
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Why am I arguing about a movie I could give a shit about?
I'm sorry Jorge, sorry Mike. I don't know anything about this and made some assumptions.
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I guess you kinda gotta be a nerd to know how few rights comic book creators had until the early nineties and, even then, only big names.
But yeah. On the Watchmen website, at the bottom of the "photos" section, they have the official MPAA and unions-approved credits masthead...
It refers to the source material as "based on the graphic novel illustrated by DAVE GIBBONS and published by DC COMICS".
Moore refused credit and, I believe, may have even demanded that his name not be on any of the promotional material via legal channels.
And, I mean, if you had people running around associating the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film with your good name, you'd be like that too.
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I actually did know that about the creators rights and such, I'm a comic book geek too, but things aren't like that anymore. I guess I assumed that Moore fell into the latter category.
My Dad liked the League of Extraordinary Gentleman movie so it's got that going for it. I think I've got that actually, the comic that is. That was right about when I stopped buying so I'm not really sure.
I should dig my comics out of storage. Some of that stuff's worth some money I think. I've got the first appearance of Wolverine. I've got the first appearance of the Punisher. Got lots of great Marvel stuff going back to the 60's.
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It refers to the source material as "based on the graphic novel illustrated by DAVE GIBBONS and published by DC COMICS".
"written by ALLEN SMITHEE" ?
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Moore's Wikipedia page is an amusing read. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Moore
I kind of picture him as a fellow whom what is compelled to write comic books, even though it makes a huge vein in his forehead throb.
Further, I picture every movie made from his work as an attempt by DC to psychically assassinate him.
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Again, the dude's right in my wheelhouse.
I'm just a huge fan of crazy people.
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I got the biggest thrill I think the movie could offer just from the first trailer, with the Smashing Pumpkins music in the background. Just enough recognizable moments, and I was left tangibly haunted by it, being a big fan of the original. A great (if long delayed) aperitif to the experience of reading the GN.
That said, the Watchmen is about the writing, not the action. If the movie doesn't do for superhero movies what the comic did for superhero comics, what's the point? I think a lot of bullet time is going to be substituted for Alan Moore's brilliance. Think I'll pass.
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I saw the trailer for Gran Torino and thought it was a comedy. I mean, doesn't Clint Eastwood actually grumble at some kids to get off his lawn? But apparently it's not bad.
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I enjoyed Gran Torino very much.
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I'm looking forward to that one, maybe tonight. It's cheap movie night after all.
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I have pot and it's 8 hours until I'm off to see it - so, mildly contented, yes. Even if the bloated beast fails to work as an integral movie, as I'm almost certain it will, there might be at least some nice visuals/isolated scenes to keep a man's tired brains a-buzz. In what I perceive now is a bizarre, overwrought way of expressing myself, my face will be a battlefield being fought over by the cringe expression and the idiotic, ear-to-ear grin. Please don't take my cans.
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I have tickets to go see it this afternoon. I think I'm at the place where as long as it doesn't suck I'll proclaim it a success.
A lot like Metallica's Death Magnetic, really.
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I'll keep this as non-spoilery as possible...
I read in a place that they didn't keep those things that that one guy eats, and they didn't keep the scene of those two guys riding the things through the place with the stuff in it, and the one guy's wearing that thing that fits his general theme in a really cute way. Those were some good elements.
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I am disappointed that I have not heard any 'who will watch the Watchmen' jokes.
That is my only opinion on the matter.
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Watchmen graffiti (http://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/03/03/watchmen-graffiti-appearing-around-cities-as-movies-release-date-approaches/).
A somewhat exhaustive list (http://forums.questionablecontent.net/index.php/topic,22688.0.html) of differences between the movie and the book. (I know, I know. Questionable Content Forums. I know.)
Edit: Also, the AV Club's take (http://www.avclub.com/articles/book-vs-film-watchmen,24746/) on how the movie stands up to the book.
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Saw it. Liked it.
Weirdest moment: Watching a bit of gore, and realizing that while the teenage boys behind me are saying, "augh!" and covering their eyes, I've just leaned forward and said, "Sweet!"
So...I started to post this...yesterday? And I just sat back down at my laptop and realized that I got interrupted and never came back.
Sigh.
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Saw it yesterday. It was all right but I had some issues with it.
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Anyone read the New Yorker review? Basically the main thrust of it was that the reviewer doesn't like comic books or comic book movies, but this is line, I thought, was kind of interesting and was interested in hearing any responses:
The problem is that Snyder, following Moore, is so insanely aroused by the look of vengeance, and by the stylized application of physical power, that the film ends up twice as fascistic as the forces it wishes to lampoon.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2009/03/09/090309crci_cinema_lane
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coverage of this movie makes me so sad and disappointed. not in the movie, in movie reviewers/cultural critics/whoever writes about this movie/comic and do not at all understand it or what it is about.
Reviews that seem to not understand that the comic was written almost 30 years ago (watchmen is a sophomoric attempt at social satire of the bush administration?),
reviews that make weird assumptions/statements about modern comic books (watchmen should have started a movement towards comics that were not about super-heroes, but this never happened)
no good.
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I thought a lot of the movie was over the top compared to the comic at the time but then when I started discussing it with people afterwards I realised 'oh that's kind of the point, we're meant to be talking about this stuff'. Maybe we are just too used to modern movies being self referential rather than just playing it straight and expecting us to do the analysis on our own?
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As for the New Yorker's review:
For the most part Lane keeps the movie at arm's length, refusing to engage with it, merely trying to describe the characters humorously, but failing.
The final part of the review is the second blow, attacking the premises upon which Watchmen is built - which is no hard work, given the current political atmosphere, and the original work's admitted shortcomings - but really, all's well: There could not be two more opposite demographics than the New Yorker's, and that of comic book readers.
Personally, I have to say that I find the review biased regarding comic books: Persepolis and Maus, being realistic, grounded in historical facts, get an automatic free pass, while Watchmen, which is not ashamed of working with fantastic elements, is treated like more of the same, run of the mill super-hero stuff, which it clearly isn't.
On to the film itself:
Even though the film keeps the story's plot, structure and resolution, the most noticeable change is in tone in certain scenes, and some fans from the original work might have a problem with that. I did, but obviously I didn't think it to be the wreck I was anticipating (or I wouldn't have paid to see it twice as I did). However, the movie sells short some of the comics cleverest moments. Also, a couple of times it gets hard to shake the feeling that you're watching a big budget high school play (the final face-off between Nite Owl and Ozymandias, which, alas, was inexistent in the comic, hurts).
Expect pacing problems. Scenes don't breathe long enough for some of the big impact moments (there are many) to resonate properly, which, in a story such as this, it's a crime (this might be fixed in the restored Director's Cut to be released on DVD).
My favorite scene was a small Walter Kovacs having his hair tousled friendly by one of his mom's customers while others waited in line (It's in the beginning of the movie, in the montage sequence, only a couple of seconds but I found it really cute, made me grin from ear to ear).
My favorite character was Doctor Manhattan. Everytime he was on screen it was win time; I think Billy Crudup did something really special there. Least favorite was Ozymandias, because he wasn't the same character as in the comics, for the worse, I think.
And that's it, I guess. If you're a fan of the comic, you have reasons to care; if you're not a fan of the comic, why bother? But, if you're a fan of cinema, then this movie offers plenty for you to chew on, both because of its successes and because of its failures. I could go on and on for pages analyzing it, but thankfully being at work prevents me from doing so.
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Ozymandias seemed way too sinister in his delivery throughout the movie.
I haven't read the book in several years so I forget, how long was the plan in motion? Because that whole cancer thing seems like it would have taken a while.
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Yeah the cancer thing was part of the original plot. I think it's implied Ozy was planning it basically from that meeting with the Comedian where he burns the map, certainly from before he retired. That makes it a bit over 10 years I think.
Deja nailed something I hadn't been able to put my finger on with letting the scenes 'breath'. All the impactful scenes are there but it's hard to appreciate them because the film never stops to linger.
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All the impactful scenes are there but it's hard to appreciate them because the film never stops to linger.
Unless it's lingering on Dan and Laurie boning.
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Yeah and that was the one scene that I felt no connection to. I thought the previous incomplete sex scenes were more powerful than that one. I just didn't feel like I had enough of an emotional connection with the characters to want to see that much boning.
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I just didn't feel like I had enough of an emotional connection with the characters to want to see that much boning.
Whaaa??
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(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y181/lprkn/watchmenmod.jpg)
...this is my new answer to everything.
I just didn't feel like I had enough of an emotional connection with the characters to want to see that much boning.
Not much of a porn watcher, then?
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I guess at the time I was in a 'come on get back to the narrative!' frame of mind.
Apparently I watch porn for the storylines.
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I fast forward through the sex scenes in porn. They're the least interesting part.
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I heard it was like 3 hours long? That would be a major deterrent. I don't like to go more than an hour thirty without a cigarette, and that is only when I have to. It is why I VERY rarely go to the theatre.
Also, it is supposed to be an amazing book but I haven't read it. I'm sure it is a better book than movie, so if I am going to see it I'll do it after the book, if I ever read it.
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I heard it was like 3 hours long? That would be a major deterrent. I don't like to go more than an hour thirty without a cigarette, and that is only when I have to. It is why I VERY rarely go to the theatre.
Also, it is supposed to be an amazing book but I haven't read it. I'm sure it is a better book than movie, so if I am going to see it I'll do it after the book, if I ever read it.
It's 2:40 plus previews.
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Yeah and that was the one scene that I felt no connection to. I thought the previous incomplete sex scenes were more powerful than that one. I just didn't feel like I had enough of an emotional connection with the characters to want to see that much boning.
Yes, the sex did go on a bit, didn't it? I was all, "less knocking boots, more knocking skulls."
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I was all, "less glorified violence, and more distasteful violence." But this is Zack Snyder we're talking about here, so I should have known better.
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I guess at the time I was in a 'come on and get back to the narrative!' frame of mind.
Apparently I watch porn for the storylines.
Pun!
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There was a little sardonic payoff that I noticed the second time around: In the final shot of the New York crater, you can see Veidt Industries' construction machinery excavating, clearing the site & rebuilding the city. So the bastard is also making a lil' profit on top of everything. I liked that.
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I saw a movie once where there was a disaster, and in the last scene you could see cranes rebuilding the city; I remember thinking that that was really novel, something that I hadn't seen before. Now I can't remember what movie it was, and I'm gonna spend the whole day trying to remember.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w&fmt=18
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That was great.
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I've seen a LOT of polarized responses to this movie from people who liked the book, and as near as I can figure, it's because of what could have been.
Case A: A Hollywood movie, with a happy ending and likable characters and a wisecracking kid/narrator, with a changed setting and a PG-13 rating.
Case B: A relatively faithful telling of the story, with mostly reasonable cuts, but some questionable decisions.
Case C: The movie that goes on in your head when you read the book, with only the cuts you would have made.
I was expecting A and got B, so I'm pretty happy with it overall. I know some people who expected C and were disappointed.
The Archie love scene, and really most of the fight scenes, were far too long. I feel like Zach Snyder needs to figure out that no one's ever going to make The Lobby Scene again and so he should stop trying. He also needs to learn that implied violence has much more impact than explicit. Many of the performances were lackluster, and weren't helped by the characterization time being cut in favor of people ducking and spinning in slow motion. Rorschach was brutal, but he still came across as a likable guy somehow. Why was Richard Nixon played by a puppet?
On the other hand, Dr. Manhattan was excellent. He gave the impression of being cold, but there were facial tics to let you know he still had humanity in him. You got to see how broken the superheroes' lives were. The world felt right (A CRT with dials on it in the lab! Pay phones! Giant plastic glasses!), and the tension over doomsday was palpable. The costumes were spot on. You could tell the director wanted the movie to be like the book, and I guess that's really the most important thing to me.
I'm certainly not going to see it again in theaters ($16 for a movie and a small soda? Really?) but I think it's worth owning on DVD.
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The costumes were spot on.
I disagree strongly with this statement for reasons that are rather obscure to anyone who is not a comics nerd - but Watchmen has a lot that's for comics nerds anyway, so I feel justified in this.
In the comic, almost all the "current" characters' costumes are mid-lateish 70s-styled designs at the latest (Nite-Owl, who has strong elements of Neal Adams Batman). They're dated, and that's deliberate since the costumed heroes haven't been active since then. The exceptions are Ozymandias, who has kept up the kind of minor design changes that happen over time with a given superhero's costume, and the Comedian, who has an extremely 80s comics design for his 80s costume - and a 40s design for his 40s costume (like the rest of the 40s characters), and.. well, his 70s costume is just a gimp mask, I got nothing there. It is one of many touches that establish the masked hero as a dated phenomenon and the characters as being, to varying degrees, stuck to their pasts.
In the movie, the costume designs are aggressively slick in a very 00s way, to the point that I found them jarring in a setting otherwise trying very hard to establish an alternate 1980s. Yes, this kind of design looks less "silly" - but a grown man dressing up as an owl is supposed to feel a bit silly, notwithstanding that his owl-suit is full of very serious and dangerous toys.
Also, Ozymandias's outfit just looked.. really bad. Gold-spraypainted plastic is not regal, and being able to survive close-range small-arms fire is a little less awe-inspiring when the character is wearing a very clearly armored suit.
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I'm with Ben in that I was less than impressed with the costumes, but couldn't put my finger on why 'til he articulated it. They all looked too "new."
The actors, however...the casting director did an excellent job of matching real-life faces with comic-book faces. No small task. Adrian Voight wasn't quite right, but the rest were uncanny.
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I thought Dan looked a little young and lean but it didn't bother me. Rorschach was amazing of course. If nothing else I think the fact that everyone seems to love him despite his completely repulsive nature will spur some conversation.
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I thought Dan looked a little young and lean but it didn't bother me. Rorschach was amazing of course. If nothing else I think the fact that everyone seems to love him despite his completely repulsive nature will spur some conversation.
It's his line about not wanting to interfere with operation of the ship. It makes it all better.
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It was a good line.
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Just saw it today. It was supposed to start at 12:10 and I walked in at about 12:08 (there was some kind of convention thingy next door so parking was terrible) and the murder scene was already like halfway through. Plus, as the scene is pretty low-lit, I was stumbling to find my seat. So I was annoyed from the beginning. But I really liked the credits sequence. I was bored throughout large parts of the rest of the movie, and I wonder if this has something to do with me just having read the book like a month ago (have you seen it yet, Asherdan?). And Veidt? Ridiculous. Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan? Awesome. Everyone else? Passable enough.
Also:
I feel like Zach Snyder needs to figure out that no one's ever going to make The Lobby Scene again and so he should stop trying.
You're right about that. I was disappointed when I learned he was directing because I disliked '300' a good deal. When is someone going to start shooting violence in an original way again? Or not even original, but at least skillfully? It probably also doesn't help that I didn't like The Matrix much anyway.
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According to my friend, the best part of the movie was the look of sheer horror that washed across my face as the synth drums of 99 Luftaballons approached.
<rorschach>
Good movie, but long. Questionable soundtrack. Dr. Manhattan in full swing.
</rorschach>
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No, but the conversation here has made me think it's worthy.
'sfunny, the comments in this thread have convinced me it probably sucks.
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If nothing else I think the fact that everyone seems to love him despite his completely repulsive nature will spur some conversation.
It's possible that Rorschach is a magnetic character because he embodies something many feel to be missing in their lives: dedication to a moral ideal. He will stop at nothing to fix the world. Many feel pulled down by the undertow of relativism and superficiality but know instinctively that this cannot be all. When one rises above, they look to him and feel a thrill of possibility.
Veidt also has this dedication but he had it too easy, he's too rich, too goodlooking, too confident. He's not from Circumstances. Rorschach, like Beef, came up from the shit and struggles for the good, however badly distorted his vision is. The Batman in Dark Knight Returns had a similar appeal.
I recommend the film "Mindscapes of Alan Moore". Moore discusses the magic potency of ideas and creative art and his comments may help illuminate your thinking on Rorschach and Watchmen.
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He is admirable in the way Fëanor in the Silmarillion is admirable. His dedication to his ideal/code/oath will brook no interference, even as his world crumbles around him. You can respect him, but you are not meant to admire him.
He is inflexible in his application of his version of justice. The tree that does not bend in the storm will break.
As for Rorschach and Veidt, they are similar to a degree, but I would not attribute their differences to Circumstances or a lack thereof. One simply has more resources and a grander vision, and perhaps even less humanity, despite his refined exterior. At least Rorschach cares about some of his former friends colleagues.
15 Balrogs, that's all I'm sayin'.
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Meanwhile, man kills self during screening. (http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/04/06/24-year-old-man-kills-himself-during-watchmen-screening/)
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He is admirable in the way Fëanor in the Silmarillion is admirable. His dedication to his ideal/code/oath will brook no interference, even as his world crumbles around him. You can respect him, but you are not meant to admire him.
He is inflexible in his application of his version of justice. The tree that does not bend in the storm will break.
I have realized that what makes the guy across the hall from me insane is that he admires people like this above all. Maybe I'm exaggerating. But he idealizes these people/characters with unbending moral Rules, and wants to live his life in that way.
My theory is that he wants Rules, because he is not capable for some reason of just trying the main rule of life, something along the lines of "don't be a dick all the damn time, seriously dude, lighten up and try not to constantly be an asshole."
"Treat others like you want to be treated."
The other day we spent probably an hour where he was trying to come up with a moral principle whereby it was MORALLY RIGHT that he refused to watch "Midnight Cowboy" with us.
He is one of few people I've met where... a lot of the time, I think he is acting the way he is as some kind of show for all of us.
I have still not seen this movie, also. He went on a rant about how it was stupid and irrelevant, but could not really give well-formed reasons.
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I have still not seen this movie, also. He went on a rant about how it was stupid and irrelevant, but could not really give well-formed reasons.
Did you suggest that maybe he didn't want to?
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Just let him know that appreciating the male bonding and watching the sex acts in that movie won't make him watching it made him officially gay.
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that guy is just... he is a hard guy to handle.
I try really really hard to chalk what he does up to good intentions with an insane mind, but he is actually kind of a jerk.
originally he was going to live with us next year, and somehow that has morphed into "actually, I'm going to live in the horrible cesspit-like basement next door to you guys."
We tried arguing things along the lines of "different people like different things in movies," but he would not have it.
Also: Midnight Cowboy, that movie is FUCKED UP. How did that win best picture? I can't imagine an america where that happened.
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Re: Midnight Cowboy, that movie is FUCKED UP. How did that win best picture? I can't imagine an America where that happened.
I'm sure you meant to say "Midnight Cowboy is one of the greatest movies ever made." I am certain of this.
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Also: Midnight Cowboy, that movie is FUCKED UP. How did that win best picture? I can't imagine an america where that happened.
I'm certainly intrigued. But netflix doesn't have it. Is it even on DVD?
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I'm sure you meant to say "Midnight Cowboy is one of the greatest movies ever made." I am certain of this.
oh, yeah. I'm not saying that it wasn't really good. I saw that it was about NYC in the late 60s, read the description, and thought it would be... freakily gritty.
You know, gritty like Taxi Driver.
Not like... flashbacks to anal gang-rape.
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I... I thought it was about a cowboy. Now I'm just scared.
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Oh, wow. I've heard of this movie before but never understood why it was so revered because it sounded like Dan said, Taxi Driver with Dustin Hoffman and rinestones. Might have to check it out now.
On a related note did anyone see Mysterious Skin a few years ago? That was so great and not at all what I expected it to be.
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At the deli/pizza-shop/convenience-store/video-store in Little Falls, Midnight Cowboy was filed under Westerns.
I can't explain where I grew up much more than that.
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They were just ahead of their time. "Brokeback Mountain" made that ok.
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Now it seems they'll make sequels & prequels & spin offs & reboots & retcons (http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/02/03/get-ready-for-watchmen-2/) out of the original series. [apathetic quip]