Who Watched the Watchmen?

[kingdom2000]

Didn't see a thread for the latest comic related movie so here ya go.

Did the midnight showing thing. The movie was great. Long, entertaining, dense. It is the most faithful adaption of comic book anything ever put to screen. Sure there is no giant squid but my response to that is "thank god". The effects was top notch, the visuals are fantastic. The music...was odd. I think a soundtrack would have improved the film over the odd musical choices that were made. A good example is Hallaluh played at one point...the audience laughed.

The opening credit sequence was inspired genius and example of how to turn usually pointless opening sequences into something meaningful for the movie. The acting was very good. The weak link was Malin Ackerman (who is just jaw droppingly stunning throughout) who still needs more acting classes. She just can't go to that dark place and display raw emotion, just fake it (poorly).

The characters, warts and all remain intact to the screen. Especially Rorshach. The raspy voice got old but a huge improvement over the Bale's version. Earle deservers accolades for his performance. He owned that character in everyway from voice to body language If I had one complaint is they changed to origin story of mean Rorshach just a touch probably because of the Saw movies that copied it.

The movie is accessible to fans and non fans alike. There is a lot that faithful readers of the graphic novel will pick up and enjoy but reading the novel is not a requirement to enjoy the movie. It is about as dense as the comic and will require repeat viewing to get it all. Personally I am just going to wait until the director's cut comes out on DVD in the summer to take it all in. It will be fun to have the book open and the DVD playing and just flip along with the movie to compare panels and lines and the like.

[jesse_custer]

It is the most faithful adaption of comic book anything ever put to screen.

But the ending and other things are changed, right?

Whereas Sin City was all the way faithful.

[Christopher Cross Is God]

My cousin saw it with a few friends. None of them liked it........They said it was kind of boring, too long, etc....

My cousin said he only liked 20-minutes worth of the film.

None of them had read the book, but he did ask friends what they thought of it, compared to the book, and all his friends who had read it said the book was far better.

I don't know if I'm going to bother watching it. I might wait until this comes out on DVD.

[KevinTBrown]

This is what I just posted elsewhere:

I throughly enjoyed this movie, I definitely want to see it again, in IMAX hopefully.

Now then, I haven't read Watchmen since it first came out. I made it a point to not read it again before seeing this movie because I wanted it to "wow" me on its own level and not go into it with any pre-judgments. So any changes made, beyond the squid, I truly didn't notice. There were some minor things I did remember from the comic, like Laurie making a point of going back to her mother's original surname, that weren't in the movie. But in no way did it affect my enjoyment. It was just a few things I remembered.

Overall, I REALLY liked this movie a lot. Quite a lot actually. Now while I seriously doubt there will be any Oscar consideration where this movie is concerned, the one who definitely deserves to be thought of when the voting process comes around is Jackie Earle Haley. My GOD the man IS Rorschach!

People are going to complain, rightfully so in some cases, about the acting. Especially with Matthew Goode (Veidt/Ozymandias) and Malin Akerman (Laurie Jupiter). With Akerman, she had a very tough role to portray. I think she did a decent job, but that's about it. In the scenes that she was noticably wooden, those were the scenes when you can tell she's alone and having to deal with a CGI Dr. Manhattan. Otherwise, she did better than I was expecting.

With Goode, I think he took the wrong road in how he portrayed Veidt. He was too cool and distant. He did have the confidence level there, but it was extremely over-shadowed by the distant demeanor. If he the intensity throughout the movie that he did during the assassination attempt, he would have shone. Otherwise, he was probably the weakest part of the movie.

All the other actors did well, none really had me going "wow, that's just how I read it" other than Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Morgan and Haley freakin' made this movie better just by being in it.

As far as the story, like I said I pretty much went into it "cold". I was "20 years removed" from reading the story originally, so any tweaks and changes didn't bother me. And personally I rather enjoyed not having to deal with where "Tales of the Black Freighter" fit into it all. The big change of it not being the squid makes a lot more sense in terms of the theatrical story, though the fanboy sticklers will bitch & whine about it.

The movie overall is a tremendous success on many levels. It's not perfect, but it's damn near the best Watchmen movie one could have hoped to get. Also, with it being nearly 3 hours in length, it felt just right. This is an EXTREMELY GOOD movie. Period. Possibly even better than Dark Knight.

The more I think about it, the more I'm going to try to get to that IMAX showing now..... this is a movie that has you coming back and wanting more.

[Pariah74]

...and all his friends who had read it said the book was far better.

Nah...really? A movie that wasn't as good as the book? Go on!

[Christopher Cross Is God]

Nah...really? A movie that wasn't as good as the book? Go on!


Shocked me as well.

[Tommy]

I loved it. Outside of a few minor quibbles, and the occasional line from Malin Akerman, I had no complaints.

Although I am loving reading the critics assessments of the film, since so many seem to just not get it.

[FemGeek]

I just saw it there. I thought it was a good movie, and only some little things annoyed me about it. Only the change at the end really irritated me. I like the squid monster theory.
Anyway, the small things I didn't like were, firstly, how they got Ozymandius' code; Worlds smarted man leaves password in plain sight. that was dumb. the book marked rameses was unnessessary, if anything it implyed the audience were stoopid. Alos, i was hoping for more Bubastis. oh well. though a lot of audience members said variations of 'what is that?' when she appeared, so maybe a little explaination might have served well. But of all the little things, repeating things like' its all a joke' or 'thats the punch line' or lameness like that was odd. it kept bringing everything back to the Comedian, the audience were actually groaning when nightowl said the last joke related punchline.
And what what with the diary at the end? it was supposed to have been ignored! I thought that was one of the most important things in the comic; that the true hero goes forgotton and ignored.
Anyway, I like the acting (not the guy played Veight), I disliked the modernised costumes, the action was good, the soundtrack was good and the effects were good too. As a movie alone it was excellent. As an adaption, it was fairly faithful, in fact one of the most faithful adaptions I've seen.

[Ian Boothby]

But the ending and other things are changed, right?

Whereas Sin City was all the way faithful.

The ending was better than the one in the comic.
Very good film, amazing opening credits, the crowd I saw it with loved it. So did I.

[K-DoG7p7]

I just "sawded" it..

I have to say.. the only bad thing was in fact the soundtrack..
The ending was... better? naah.. equal I would say.
They successfully removed what would not work and replaced it with stuff that would work .. but it was not better for it.. just different.

and i had hoped that the "did it 35 minutes ago" line would have been delivered better (NITTPICKING TIME!), it didn't have the punch it deserved..
Also.. best part was Rorschach screaming "I'm not locked in here with you! You're locked in here with ME! "
It actually got applause in the theater

[Linkara]

Why do people keep saying "it worked better than the squid?" That's bullcrap.

We can accept a giant naked blue man who teleports and builds structures of glass on Mars, but ZOMG giant squid leaves us baffled?

I'm putting my full reaction to it and the Wonder Woman animated movie in a VLOG that I'll post a link to here, but more or less with this movie...

Eh, there were parts I liked and parts I didn't like, the ending being one I really didn't like.

[Hybrid2]

I just "sawded" it..

I have to say.. the only bad thing was in fact the soundtrack..
The ending was... better? naah.. equal I would say.
They successfully removed what would not work and replaced it with stuff that would work .. but it was not better for it.. just different.

and i had hoped that the "did it 35 minutes ago" line would have been delivered better (NITTPICKING TIME!), it didn't have the punch it deserved..
Also.. best part was Rorschach screaming "I'm not locked in here with you! You're locked in here with ME! "
It actually got applause in the theater
I agree with the 35 minutes line. I would have said "cut!"and did it again.

Rocharch part was PERFECT!! it got reaction here to.
I expected a lot more editing from what I heard.
the blue weiner distracted me a little. <_< >_>

[Tobias March]

Well I'm off in four hours to the Imax. Lets see how it goes.

Oh and as for the squid - warning Godwin's law imminent - well there's this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIhHema5PNg)

[Lester C.]

They trimmed 30 minutes so I might wait for the DVD to come out.

[heystacy]

I saw Watchmen. Enjoyed it.. I do question some of the music choices as well. Still, I had a good time.

[Tobias March]

I saw Watchmen. Enjoyed it.. I do question some of the music choices as well. Still, I had a good time.

I like how the Times They Are A Changin' is used for a montage. Never seen that before. Nope. Never. :tongue:

[kingdom2000]

Well I'm off in four hours to the Imax. Lets see how it goes.

Oh and as for the squid - warning Godwin's law imminent - well there's this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIhHema5PNg)

LMAO! That was brilliant.

But yeah, I am the rare fanboy that thinks that suspicion of disbelief has a breaking point, that point being shorter for laymen. A giant p#!@y-lipped squid would have broken it. If money isn't an issue, sure go for it but if I invested 100 million dollars in a film that was already taking a crap load of chances, the squid would be my line in the sand too.

[heystacy]

I like how the Times They Are A Changin' is used for a montage. Never seen that before. Nope. Never. :tongue:

LOL Bad music choices.

Barring that I had a great time.

[Sabrinaset]

But we ALREADY watched the WatchYABSers!

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f336/sabrinaset/BreeToons/7-18-200832852PM.jpg

[Pink Bat Maxine]

LMAO! That was brilliant.

But yeah, I am the rare fanboy that thinks that suspicion of disbelief has a breaking point, that point being shorter for laymen. A giant p#!@y-lipped squid would have broken it. If money isn't an issue, sure go for it but if I invested 100 million dollars in a film that was already taking a crap load of chances, the squid would be my line in the sand too.

I always thought the squid was pretty stupid.

And I like the Legion Of Super-Pets!

[Bob Violence]

I though they telegraphed Veidt's intentions too much, he acted like the bad guy, he should have been more of a happy, clueless adventurer at the start. Also, his accent changed from the beginning of the movie to the end. I was disappointed they didn't play up the 'Alexander' angle more, I thought the cutting-the-Gordian-knot lesson got lost among all the neo-Egyptian stuff.
I thought Snyder enjoys violence too much; the fight Dan and Laurie (or Hair Girl, as I call her) had with the gang of muggers was ridiculously savage and out of character for both of them. And where the hell were they going, anyway?
Other than these few quibbles, they did an excellent job. They cut the storylines to the point where the values of the graphic novel were preserved, but the needs of the movie audience were served. The stories of the psychiatrist or the newstand guys or the Black Freighter would have been nice, but the story was already full of digressions, and studios get a bit irrational about keeping movies under 5 1/2 hours.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

I know that the whole point of the squid was that it was supposed to be big, and over the top, and very comic-booky and strange..... But I just always looked at is as a half-assed riff on a half-assed Reagan comment.

[Tobias March]

I though they telegraphed Veidt's intentions too much, he acted like the bad guy, he should have been more of a happy, clueless adventurer at the start. Also, his accent changed from the beginning of the movie to the end. I was disappointed they didn't play up the 'Alexander' angle more, I thought the cutting-the-Gordian-knot lesson got lost among all the neo-Egyptian stuff.

The thing about Ozymandias is you're supposed to like him. He wants to be liked and so goes out of his way to be amiable and charming. The interview with Nova Express demonstrates this quite well, but then there's his discussion with Rorschach with the Nazi line. You're left seeing the costumed vigilante through Ozy's eyes - I believe the reader is supposed to sympathize with his perception of events until it's too late and you by implication, much like Dan and Laurie, are guilty of genocide.

[Tobias March]

Win. (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/485797) That is what this is full of.

"I'm nutty!"

Saturday Morning Watchmen.

[Linkara]

Well, here's my own reaction, plus the Wonder Woman animated film:

http://atopfourthwall.blogspot.com/2009/03/vlog-3-6-09-watchmen-wonder-woman-and.html

[Paul McEnery]

I know that the whole point of the squid was that it was supposed to be big, and over the top, and very comic-booky and strange..... But I just always looked at is as a half-assed riff on a half-assed Reagan comment.

The thing is, the Squid makes sense in a world that has the big blue dong in it. Why not a tentacle-headed alien invasion?

I mean, aside from the general thing of it being a figure from the unconscious that we all recognize as a symbol of evil that gives us the aracnoid response, in general, it works as the symbol for any kind of crazy demonizing xenophobia (geddit? why yes Mr. Moore, we do).

[Evan Waters]

The thing about Ozymandias is you're supposed to like him. He wants to be liked and so goes out of his way to be amiable and charming. The interview with Nova Express demonstrates this quite well, but then there's his discussion with Rorschach with the Nazi line. You're left seeing the costumed vigilante through Ozy's eyes - I believe the reader is supposed to sympathize with his perception of events until it's too late and you by implication, much like Dan and Laurie, are guilty of genocide.

Strictly speaking, it's not genocide. Genocide is trying to wipe out an entire race or class or culture. Ozy just kills a whole bunch of people who happen to be in New York- it's not systematic, it's the body count that matters.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

The thing is, the Squid makes sense in a world that has the big blue dong in it. Why not a tentacle-headed alien invasion?

I mean, aside from the general thing of it being a figure from the unconscious that we all recognize as a symbol of evil that gives us the aracnoid response, in general, it works as the symbol for any kind of crazy demonizing xenophobia (geddit? why yes Mr. Moore, we do).

Totally, all of that.

Still I dunno. It's always been where my brain revolts.

[Tobias March]

Strictly speaking, it's not genocide. Genocide is trying to wipe out an entire race or class or culture. Ozy just kills a whole bunch of people who happen to be in New York- it's not systematic, it's the body count that matters.


Good point, 'genocidal maniac', tends to be thrown around as much as 'mass-murderer'. That was sloppy of me.

[Village Idiot]

Although I am loving reading the critics assessments of the film, since so many seem to just not get it.

Roger Ebert got it.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090304/REVIEWS/903049997

So much so that he saw it a second time, this time in Imax.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/03/were_all_puppets_laurie_im_jus.html

[Beacon]

I saw it today.

I liked it. It’s been years since I read the comic but the movie hit all of the notes that I expected it to hit. They may not have been in the order I expected (I was really starting to worry that we’d never see Ozy’s super-pet) but they were hit.

I’m not sure how I fell about the new ending. I’d think that that level of paranoia about an American-born threat would cause even more global hostility. At the very least I’d think that there’d be a vigilante witch hunt. An external alien threat makes so much more sense if the goal is to unify humanity.

There is one thing I saw that I didn’t want to see though; there were kids in the theater. Young kids…in the middle of a school day…at an R rated movie … based on a comic that would have been published by Vertigo if Vertigo had existed at the time. When are people going to realize that not all comics are for children?

I wonder if the conservative media will miss the point of the film and embrace the movie like they did with Dark Knight. I figure it’s fifty-fifty on either that or parents’ groups freaking out about Manhattan’s blue winkie.

[Village Idiot]

And what what with the diary at the end? it was supposed to have been ignored! I thought that was one of the most important things in the comic; that the true hero goes forgotton and ignored.

You may be right, but when I watched the scene, I seemed to remember it the way it was on the screen. Of course, I may be misremembering.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

I saw it today.

I liked it. It’s been years since I read the comic but the movie hit all of the notes that I expected it to hit. They may not have been in the order I expected (I was really starting to worry that we’d never see Ozy’s super-pet) but they were hit.

I’m not sure how I fell about the new ending. I’d think that that level of paranoia about an American-born threat would cause even more global hostility. At the very least I’d think that there’d be a vigilante witch hunt. An external alien threat makes so much more sense if the goal is to unify humanity.

There is one thing I saw that I didn’t want to see though; there were kids in the theater. Young kids…in the middle of a school day…at an R rated movie … based on a comic that would have been published by Vertigo if Vertigo had existed at the time. When are people going to realize that not all comics are for children?

I wonder if the conservative media will miss the point of the film and embrace the movie like they did with Dark Knight. I figure it’s fifty-fifty on either that or parents’ groups freaking out about Manhattan’s blue winkie.

I dunno... Dark Knight seems to justify all sorts of privacy violations if it's 'really, really, really, needed, and I promise I'll give them up when I don't need them..... pinkie swear!' Seemed very apologetic to domestic spying, wiretapping, etc. What am I missing?

[Tommy]

From JUST the midnight screenings alone Watchmen has already made $4.55 million. (http://www.the-numbers.com/interactive/newsStory.php?newsID=4078)

[Violently Apathetic]

I
And what what with the diary at the end? it was supposed to have been ignored! I thought that was one of the most important things in the comic; that the true hero goes forgotton and ignored.


Actually, I'm pretty sure the comic ended with Seymour's hand hovering over the 'In' box, without us ever seeing what he decided to run.

From JUST the midnight screenings alone Watchmen has already made $4.55 million. (http://www.the-numbers.com/interactive/newsStory.php?newsID=4078)

Doesn't surprise me, there were no empty seats at the 6:50 show here, and the lines to get into the next showing were massive.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

And what what with the diary at the end? it was supposed to have been ignored! I thought that was one of the most important things in the comic; that the true hero goes forgotton and ignored.

As I recall, the diary gets picked up by the office assistant told to find anything to print from the 'crank file'.

I'm interested in your assessment of Rorschach as the 'true hero'. I've never thought of him as such, but it strikes me that you're probably far from the only person to feel this way. It strikes me further that there are no heroes, and that's part of the point. What do people think?

[CaptainCanada]

The book and the film both end on the ambiguity of whether or not it will be printed (though, really, there's no particular reason anyone would believe it even if it was; the newspaper in question is a white nationalist tabloid).

Moore's repeatedly expressed frustration with people thinking Rorschach is a hero, though he's frankly a crank, so I'm not sure if he's really a reliable source in how his own work should be interpreted these days. He certainly has some heroic qualities, but he's also a ultra-right psycho.

More broadly, the point of Watchmen is that superheroes are mostly fascists and otherwise messed-up mentally, even if in the case of say, Dan and Laurie, it's fairly moderate (though they agree to keep the secret from everybody).

[Tommy]

I'm interested in your assessment of Rorschach as the 'true hero'. I've never thought of him as such, but it strikes me that you're probably far from the only person to feel this way. It strikes me further that there are no heroes, and that's part of the point. What do people think?

My opinion is that no one was involved in Superheroics for being a hero. Rorschach and the Comedian were sociopaths who found a channel their misanthropic qualities. Silk Spectre I wanted publicity. Night Owl I wanted adventure. Hooded Justice, Night Owl II, and Silhouette were all getting off sexually from it. Ozymandias viewed it as nothing more than a springboard for reshaping the world in his image. Silk Spectre II was struggling against her mother's shadow. And lastly Doctor Manhattan was lost, living in a world he wasn't truly a part of anymore.

Which is fundamentally the point of the story. These are psychologically crippled people, not the Heroes-On-A-Pedestal of the 50's, nor the Heroes-With-Feet-Of-Clay-Struggling-In-A-Hostile-World of the 60's. These are US. With all our sexual hangups, our thinly veiled desires, our passions and our rages.

[Red Jack]

it was pretty good.

no complaints.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

The book and the film both end on the ambiguity of whether or not it will be printed (though, really, there's no particular reason anyone would believe it even if it was; the newspaper in question is a white nationalist tabloid).

Moore's repeatedly expressed frustration with people thinking Rorschach is a hero, though he's frankly a crank, so I'm not sure if he's really a reliable source in how his own work should be interpreted these days. He certainly has some heroic qualities, but he's also a ultra-right psycho.

More broadly, the point of Watchmen is that superheroes are mostly fascists and otherwise messed-up mentally, even if in the case of say, Dan and Laurie, it's fairly moderate (though they agree to keep the secret from everybody).

The saving grace with Dan and Laurie is that they come to understand their own dysfunction, and are able to make peace with it, and so are able to not be ruled by the torment of it. They understand why they do what they do, and in the end are comfortable with it. They're almost like the Comedian in that, albiet far more benign. Rorschach..... he was the result of torment, and his dysfunction was his best coping device, and yet it was always, by necessity, self-destructive. Ozymandius was blind to what was, in the end, his own self-aggrandizment. He had to find 'The Solution' and measure up to his legendary hero Alexander because, as the Comedian pointed out, he was 'the smartest man on the [soon-to-be] cinder'. He was lost, believing his own press..... hell, generating it, and committed atrocity in a twisted will to power. And Manhattan....? He was post human, but not yet God. He set himself apart from all, but that which could be explored through physics.

Were any of them heroes? I don't think so. Although Laurie and Dan, in the end, found the most benign outlet.

[Linkara]

See, I've never interpreted Nite Owl II as being in it for the sexual aspect, it's just a side-effect of it all and it makes him feel alive.

One of the things that I knew they'd cut was the scene where he's telling Laurie about how it felt like a calling, like Arthur and the round table, and how he genuinely wanted to help people. The movie does give off the idea that it's more sexual in nature, though. And Laurie was only in it because her mother pushed her into it.

[jerrymcl89]

My opinion is that no one was involved in Superheroics for being a hero. Rorschach and the Comedian were sociopaths who found a channel their misanthropic qualities. Silk Spectre I wanted publicity. Night Owl I wanted adventure. Hooded Justice, Night Owl II, and Silhouette were all getting off sexually from it. Ozymandias viewed it as nothing more than a springboard for reshaping the world in his image. Silk Spectre II was struggling against her mother's shadow. And lastly Doctor Manhattan was lost, living in a world he wasn't truly a part of anymore.

Which is fundamentally the point of the story. These are psychologically crippled people, not the Heroes-On-A-Pedestal of the 50's, nor the Heroes-With-Feet-Of-Clay-Struggling-In-A-Hostile-World of the 60's. These are US. With all our sexual hangups, our thinly veiled desires, our passions and our rages.

I know Moore has expressed in interviews his surprise at the degree to which people identified with Rorschach and consider him the hero of the piece. If there are any heroes, they are Dan and Laurie, who are screwed up, but still basically human, and if they aren't genuinely altruistically heroic, they are relatable and mostly good. The other characters are all certain worldviews taken to extremes, be it Ozymandias's utopianism, Comedian's utter cynicism, Dr. Manhattan's near-total detachment, or Rorschach's self-deluding moral absolutism. I thought the book made it clear that he was deluding himself, which is less clear in the movie.

I always thought a big point of the story is that we ought to be glad we don't have superheroes. I think the movie conveys that as well.

[Pariah74]

I know Laurie was initially into it because her mother pushed her, but I always got the sense that she liked it more than she let on. She was sort of an action junkie too, or got off on the power trip. Least it seemed that way to me.

[hellokittykat]

Ozymandius was completely botched, almost unrecognizable. Rorschach was awesome though.

I've a lot more to elaborate on, but I'm runnin' on too little sleep to write coherently. :tongue:

[hellokittykat]

But we ALREADY watched the WatchYABSers!

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f336/sabrinaset/BreeToons/7-18-200832852PM.jpg

I still love this so much. :biggrin:

[Beacon]

I thought Nite Owl was the (present day main cast’s) hero in Watchmen comic and even he made a LOT of bad decisions before eventually completely giving up in the end.

Rorschach is crazy. Silk Specter is in it for the thrills. The Comedian is a crazy person who is in it for the thrills.

Manhattan doesn’t really care about anyone outside SS and maybe a few friends.

Ozy is, well, Ozy.

I dunno... Dark Knight seems to justify all sorts of privacy violations if it's 'really, really, really, needed, and I promise I'll give them up when I don't need them..... pinkie swear!' Seemed very apologetic to domestic spying, wiretapping, etc. What am I missing?

Batman danced along the line a lot (after reading your post I see that he did it more than I initially thought in my first couple viewings) but the only one that initially came off as blatantly Right-Wing was Dent and he turned out to be a villain.

[Evan Waters]

I dunno... Dark Knight seems to justify all sorts of privacy violations if it's 'really, really, really, needed, and I promise I'll give them up when I don't need them..... pinkie swear!' Seemed very apologetic to domestic spying, wiretapping, etc. What am I missing?

All that paranoia ends up benefiting the Joker, though. He wants the law to act as scared and crazy as everyone else, and takes advantage of that at several points.

That, and the climax seems to spell out that A) just blundering in with a bunch of dudes and shooting at what look like the bad guys is not a good idea and B) we ultimately have to put some of our trust in humanity's better nature.

[Lester C.]

Ozymandius was completely botched, almost unrecognizable. Rorschach was awesome though.

I've a lot more to elaborate on, but I'm runnin' on too little sleep to write coherently. :tongue:

Like that's ever stopped you before.:tongue:

[JumpingJupiter]

IMO, both movie and book are masterfully crafted when viewed in their respective context.

[Shades0077]

I just came back from seeing it and I thought it was excellent.

I've only read Watchmen once, back in 2002, but from what I could remember it was a pretty faithful adaptation.

I thought I was imagining the squid, so I'm glad to see that I was remembering it correctly. I thought that they hinted at the squid briefly, there was a moment where the flashy blue lights coming off the reactor looked distinctly squid-like.

Hurm. Human bean juice.

[Infra-Man]

Just saw it and I liked it a lot, but with some reservations. Lotsa spoilers below.

I think its greatest strength was its faithful (mostly) translation to the screen, which was also its greatest weakness (more on that later). I don't know that someone unfamiliar with the source material would be able to follow what's going on, though I think they did an admirable job at trying to condense the source material into a feature film, particularly that deft summary of this alternate history's backstory through the opening credits. The translation of certain moments were remarkable, such as Manhattan's meditation of his origins while he's on Mars.

The movie demands the audience accept a lot, which really dawned on me when Bubastis is on screen--there's a blue penis, there's a clockwork castle on Mars, there's an owl jet, there's that exaggerated proboscis on Nixon. If the audience doesn't buy into the concept at the beginning, it's all too ridiculous to accept and the result is a farce (which some found to be a case in The Fountain). The best that can be said about that, though, is that the film plays it all with a straight face.

I'd say the best performances belong to Patrick Wilson and Jackie Earle Haley. The former nails Dan's ineptness and awkwardness with just enough pudge to seem a little past his prime; the latter nails the nihilism of everyone's favorite vigilante sociopath (though it seems like he's almost too heroic a vigilante sociopath). I liked Crudup's detachment quite a bit as well, and that gentle quality of his voice adds a great melancholy to all of his observations.

But then there's the so-so and bad stuff that stuck out. The pacing may have seemed glacial to people unfamiliar with the book, which maybe be due to its faithfulness to the source material (or Snyder's overuse of slow motion). I haven't read Watchmen since college (five or six years ago, though I read it twice before that in high school), but it seems like lots of beats were straight from the comic, which means while it is an adaptation, the nature of the adaptation at times seemed more like a transcription from page to screen rather a transformation from one medium to another (if that makes any sense).

Veidt is portrayed as sinister from his first post-opening credits appearance on screen, which makes the reveal seem obvious rather than surprising. That was one of the more disappointing things about this adaptation, really. Everything from his line reads to his outfit and posture suggested "Hey, I'm a baddie!" from the beginning.

That sex scene was about as silly, gratuitous, and uncomfortable as the one in 300. Snyder's got a knack for clunky film sex. Thankfully there was no sex by the pool, but sadly that loses the line about nostalgia, one of the many recurring symbols and overt themes lost in the translation.

And then there's the new ending, which doesn't quite jive with me. Beacon pointed to it. The unifying act of murder doesn't quite work. Since Manhattan is an American creation, it seems like the international community would be more inclined to blame The United States (Manhattan was their big gun, after all) for the tragedy even though one of its own cities was decimated. Space squid works thematically because the threat is external to the planet; Manhattan may be a god, but god is an American. I suppose it was the best they could do without risking the supreme absurdity of the space squid conceit, but perhaps they could have come up with something else that was internationally unifying as well as entirely external.

Anyways, that ending stuck out to me a lot, but overall, if a movie can at least be given points on balls and a good poker face, Watchmen gets those.

[Tobias March]

As I recall, the diary gets picked up by the office assistant told to find anything to print from the 'crank file'.

I'm interested in your assessment of Rorschach as the 'true hero'. I've never thought of him as such, but it strikes me that you're probably far from the only person to feel this way. It strikes me further that there are no heroes, and that's part of the point. What do people think?

This was what I found most interesting about the film. It came alive whenever Rorschach was on screen. The black and white morality he represents (mocked by Ozymandias in the book) excites the audience and the actor seizes his unmasked scenes, really blowing us away with his rage and frustration.

When he runs around in Moloch's Kitchen moaning 'nononononono' it's quite poignant.

However, Laurie's story is truncated and her character is literally a go-between from The Comedian, to Doctor Manhattan and finally Nite-Owl. Ozymandias is given a speech on resource wars, but when his plot his discovered, a file on his computer titled 'Boys', is shown beside the material on Pyramid (bizarre). Hollis vanishes after his one scene, his death being one moment I cried at while reading the book.

So when the film is pitched at the adolescent vengeance kick of Rorschach, it really works. When Night-Owl and Ozy discuss morality it slows to a crawl.

(the exception to this is Billy Crudup's Manhattan, though the Vietnam scene plays wrong somehow)

[Tobias March]

Laugh? I nearly cried.

Oh, and don't forget another superhero's swinging computer-generated penis frequently in your face on-screen. (http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/03/the_watchmen_li.html)

[Tommy]

Laugh? I nearly cried.

Oh, and don't forget another superhero's swinging computer-generated penis frequently in your face on-screen. (http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/03/the_watchmen_li.html)

Do you actually expect a fan of Ann Coulter to be anything other than willfully obtuse? Although it's funny to watch the hypocrisy of her diatribes.

[hellokittykat]

Laugh? I nearly cried.

Oh, and don't forget another superhero's swinging computer-generated penis frequently in your face on-screen. (http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/03/the_watchmen_li.html)

Holy Hell, who is this moron? Y'know, she has a point-this is not a kid's movie at all, but her exaggerated, biased, and inaccurate review is ridiculous.

Just looking at a few of her bullets:

* Dogs fighting over, tearing apart, and eating a six-year-old girl--we're shown them chowing down on and tearing apart the remaining leg and leg bone, with the sock and shoe still on the bone as the dogs wrestle over it;

This conjures an image of a six year old girl screaming as she is torn apart and eaten alive by two dogs. The leg bone is shown to confirm what Rorschach has just figured out-that the kidnapper did kill the little girl. Finding the girl's underwear in the incinerator, seeing the bloody chopping board, then the saws are all leading up to that moment when Rorschach sees the bone, so that you can understand why he just snapped when that last piece fits into place.

* A close up of man repeatedly getting an axe-blade driven through his skull while he's being butchered;

Only the first blow is actually shown, and it's hardly a closeup. The rest of the blows are silhouetted. Still brutal, still not meant for kids, but if she comparing this killing in "Watchmen" to the killings in "Friday the 13th", this scene was hardly remarkable.

And personally, given that the guy had killed a little girl and fed her remains to his dogs, I would not have minded if they had shown every blow. The previous lead-up to finding the bone builds your anger right along with Rorschach, so that you can understand why he would kill the kidnapper instead of taking him in.

Side note here: I still think that they should have kept the original death of the kidnapper, even if it had been copied by "Saw".

* Superhero "The Comedian" (a bad Robert Downey, Jr. look-alike) brutally beating and raping another superhero--tis movie concludes that the rape was a good thing b/c the slutty superhero had a slutty superhero daughter from him;

First all, what pisses me off the most about this, is for all of her bullshit talk about what's inappropriate, she thinks that it's acceptable to call two woman slutty? Nice.

Next, Laurie was not the product of a rape because Comedian did not rape Sally.
Yes, he is about to, but is stopped by Hooded Justice. Laurie is from another consensual sexual encounter between Sally and Blake years later.

Granted, this does bring up something that I thought was an error on the movie's part. I think that it was a mistake that Sally tells Laurie that she couldn't stay mad at Comedian because he gave her Laurie. This is wrong because Sally couldn't stay mad at Comedian because she loved him which is why she slept with him in the first place, leading to her becoming pregnant with Laurie. I could see where that line would lead someone to believe that Sally had been raped and became pregnant if it had not be explicitly shown that Comedian was prevented from actually assaulting Sally. Does this bloggist not have eyes, or is she just as moronic as she comes off from this "review"?

[hellokittykat]

Do you actually expect a fan of Ann Coulter to be anything other than willfully obtuse? Although it's funny to watch the hypocrisy of her diatribes.

Ah. Should've know. :rolleyes:

[FemGeek]

As I recall, the diary gets picked up by the office assistant told to find anything to print from the 'crank file'.

I'm interested in your assessment of Rorschach as the 'true hero'. I've never thought of him as such, but it strikes me that you're probably far from the only person to feel this way. It strikes me further that there are no heroes, and that's part of the point. What do people think?

I found the final seem showed that the diary was defenetley read in the end, rather than leaveing it in the audiences hands. The Rorschachs voice over beginning again really seemed to show this.

As for Rorschach being the true hero, I've always seen this. He's not perfect, but his one goal was very simple - to make the world better, to bring justice to those who deserved to be punished. Nite Owl gave up, Silk Spectre did it for her mom, Manhatten never seemed to really care and Comedian would have been a bad guy had he not craved adoration so much. Rorschach stuck by his principals to the very end and he goes forgotten. Ozymandius had similar goals, but the question with him will always be; does the end justify the means?

[heystacy]

Laugh? I nearly cried.

Oh, and don't forget another superhero's swinging computer-generated penis frequently in your face on-screen. (http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/03/the_watchmen_li.html)

Willfully obtuse does not even describe this writer.

The writer clearly has a disdain for this kind of content. She calls parents "morons" for taking the kids to see it, but she's in the same category. She goes to a movie without heeding the rating herself. Now she's outraged by it? :redface:

[PatrickG]

I still see Ozymandias as the only real hero.

Laurie is somewhat of a cipher for me. Dan is the one I both relate to and am repulsed by.

But Adrian, IMHO, is the only true hero and the embodiment of what price is paid and what is lost by assuming that role.

Still, humanity's survival required Adrian's actions. There was no alternative. I definitely see him as the true "Superman" of the piece with Dr. Manhattan as a kind of red herring for who the Superman figure of the Watchmen's world is.

And as is a frequent theme in Moore's work, the hero sacrifices his heroism (rather than his life) as the ultimate expression of heroic sacrifice.

The traditional ultimate expression of ultimate heroic sacrifice is giving one's life, martyrdom. But in Moore's work, the sacrifice goes deeper. You must give up your soul to be a hero. The hero's ultimate act is to accomplish a heroic feat that requires him to be unheroic, giving up his very being on a level beyond physical death.

In Moore's paranoid world, a hero is a scary thing.

To do what a Superman must do, the Superman must undo himself, must violate everything he believes in and is fighting for to save everything he believes in and is fighting for.

Anyone who falls short of that is a likable but pathetic schlub. Anyone who refuses to compromise is a pitiable monster. And anyone who is a hero is a butcherous monster.

Everyone in Moore's world is a failure, a creature or a transcendant sociopath. (And Moore's takes on the ultimate Superman, whether Superman, Supreme, Majestic or Ozymandias all fall into the last category although Moore's distinction between Superman and the analogues is that Clark has the necessary duality of mind to be aware of what he risks becoming.)

[KevinTBrown]

Do you actually expect a fan of Ann Coulter to be anything other than willfully obtuse? Although it's funny to watch the hypocrisy of her diatribes.

Only one line in that entire article is accurate: "If you take your kids to see "Watchmen," you're a moron."

[4PointOh]

NY Times:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/movies/06Watc.html?ref=movies

[Sabrinaset]

I just saw it with Kris, lil sis Sam, and her boyfriend, whoever he is. Some guy with two first names. Those always confuse me. Oh, yeah ... that movie!

Uhm ... The three of them had never read the graphic novel. I thought Kris did, but she had just skimmed it. In any event, Sam and whatzisname never had. They didn't understand much of it, kept asking who Mothman was and what he did to be dragged off to the funny farm, thought the politics in the movie was kinda stupid (I had to tell them there was a lot more in the graphic novel that explained it) ... well, lets just say that Sam came home and said it sucked except for the porn scenes. Meanwhile, Kris has informed me that my planned geekification of the world has just hit a snag.

Well, *I* liked the movie!

[Ian Boothby]

Only one line in that entire article is accurate: "If you take your kids to see "Watchmen," you're a moron."

We saw it with my friend David and his 14 and 10 year old daughters. He's not a moron, they were both big fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer which covered the same ground in terms of sex and violence. A parent should know their children and what's acceptable for them.

[shrike]

I'm on call currently for my job, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to tempt fate and try to see this tomorrow.

After all, I have waited YEARS for this thing.

[Tobias March]

We watched a mother leave the screening with her 6/7 year old son after the child murderer execution scene.

The question remains....what was it about that scene that was the straw that broke the donkey's back? Whereas shooting a pregnant vietnamese woman, an attempted rape and arms being broken so viciously the bone punctures the arm - that wasn't?

[PatrickG]

I'm on call currently for my job, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to tempt fate and try to see this tomorrow.

After all, I have waited YEARS for this thing.

Just noticed your avatar.

So, uh, come here often? Care if I buy you an energon? :cool:

[Pink Bat Maxine]

http://www.cracked.com/article_17131_how-studios-would-have-ended-watchmen-storyboard.html

[Alt-World]

Saw the movie last night, its a good adaptation of the book even if we don't have an appearance of the Giant Squid :rolleyes:

Swapping Manhattan for the Squid worked cinematically without having to introduce two or more sub-plots, that would of slowed the movie down a lot more.

They could of even dropped some of the origin stories too, because they didn't really add that much to the movie and felt they were added for us fans of the novel.

I enjoyed it, it stayed true to the themes of the novel and delivered a commercially viable movie (even if the group of people next to me wanted more action).

And I loved the soundtrack :biggrin:

[TomStillwell]

We just got back from seeing. I really enjoyed it. There were some things I didn't like but overall I think it's a very good adaptation of the book.

My wife doesn't read comics and she liked it.

I do want to say one thing about the non squid ending. After the movie my wife and I went to dinner and I explained to her the differences between the book and the movie. When I explained the squid ending to her I got a glazed over look and some half hearted nodding.

Me: That sounded really stupid didn't it?
Her: Yes.

The squid ending is not accessible to the masses. The Doc Manhattan ending is a good one that ties together well and is more understandable to the non-comic reader.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

We just got back from seeing. I really enjoyed it. There were some things I didn't like but overall I think it's a very good adaptation of the book.

My wife doesn't read comics and she liked it.

I do want to say one thing about the non squid ending. After the movie my wife and I went to dinner and I explained to her the differences between the book and the movie. When I explained the squid ending to her I got a glazed over look and some half hearted nodding.

Me: That sounded really stupid didn't it?
Her: Yes.

The squid ending is not accessible to the masses. The Doc Manhattan ending is a good one that ties together well and is more understandable to the non-comic reader.

Hell, I can't get behind the squid ending. And I'm a hardcore comics nerd.

[TomStillwell]

Hell, I can't get behind the squid ending.

The part that got my wife was this.

Me: See, he hires all these folks. Artists, writers, special effects people, scientists to create a giant alien lifeform. And they clone of brain of a psychic but only making it bigger and put it in the alien. And then they teleport the thing into Time Square and it dies, it kills a lot of people and it gives the world the impression that aliens are going to attack us.

My wife: Seems it would be a lot simpler to just blame it on Manhattan like they did in the movie.

[Tommy]

My only complaint about the ending was that it wasn't ONLY New York that was attacked. Part of the power of the original ending was that immediately the Soviets offered humanitarian aid.

[Tobias March]

NY Times:

http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/03/06/movies/06Watc.html?ref=movies

I liked this line:

Indeed, the ideal viewer — or reviewer, as the case may be — of the “Watchmen” movie would probably be a mid-’80s college sophomore with a smattering of Nietzsche, an extensive record collection and a comic-book nerd for a roommate. The film’s carefully preserved themes of apocalypse and decay might have proved powerfully unsettling to that anxious undergraduate sitting in his dorm room, listening to “99 Luftballons” and waiting for the world to end or the Berlin Wall to come down.

[Eliseu Gouveia]

Hitler finds out about the squid (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIhHema5PNg)

[kingdom2000]

Hell, I can't get behind the squid ending. And I'm a hardcore comics nerd.

I have always thought fans put way to much emphasis on the squid. The point of it even in the book was an over the top, OMG moment that only comics can get a way with to unite to planet and stop nuclear war. It could have been a squid, a whale, a flying saucer, pretty much anything. I just disagree with the notion that its a squid or bust. The squid is, to me, actually incidental to the story and its themes.

[Spike-X]

the book marked rameses was unnessessary, if anything it implyed the audience were stoopid.

As did Doctor Manhattan beating us over the head with, "THE COMEDIAN WAS YOUR FATHER."

Yes, we get it, thanks.

[Major Comma]

I thought it was good adaptation,but I did NOT want to see that squid!
so, Good call Zack!

[Infra-Man]

I have always thought fans put way to much emphasis on the squid. The point of it even in the book was an over the top, OMG moment that only comics can get a way with to unite to planet and stop nuclear war. It could have been a squid, a whale, a flying saucer, pretty much anything. I just disagree with the notion that its a squid or bust. The squid is, to me, actually incidental to the story and its themes.

The solution they came up with to remedy the supreme absurdity of the space squid, though, doesn't quite work because the alleged cause of the worldwide massacre (Dr. Manhattan) has a nationality and a political affiliation. The squid works at least as a concept because it is apolitical and has no nationality; it is not of this world, thus giving all nations greater cause to work together to fight an external threat.

Manhattan may be a metaphorical god, but god is an American (one that helped them win Vietnam, no less). Though he did nuke an American city, Manhattan is still linked to and a symbol of a single country's global interests and military supremacy. I think it would lead to some level of goodwill but also a great deal of resentment towards the United States (i.e., the country bears blame for the cause of worldwide destruction); which could also lead to additional escalation should there be more worldwide paranoia (e.g. "How do we know they won't just create another Manhattan?").

[KevinTBrown]

We saw it with my friend David and his 14 and 10 year old daughters. He's not a moron, they were both big fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer which covered the same ground in terms of sex and violence. A parent should know their children and what's acceptable for them.

That's fine..... so you think it's acceptable for a 10 year old to see a rather blatant sex scene then as well as numerous violent scenes. There were definitely not such scenes in any Bufy episode I saw!

Personally speaking, I wouldn't let anyone under the age of 15 see this movie. And believe me, I am NOT uptight these things. There are some very hard-hitting scenes in this movie (the near rape, the shooting of the pregnant vietnamese woman, etc.), as well as the full nudity of Dr. Manhattan.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

There were one or two emotional beats that were 'Hollywooded Up' to make them more dramatikal, but all in all... a pretty good, and very often faithful, film I like that Drieberg was presented just as doughy as he was in the book (from the Nite-Owl pics, I was worried about that.) Momma Spectre was AWESOME, and Silhouette got to kiss a nurse. In Times Square. Lots of it was faithful, and what wasn't faithful was fairly intelligently done.

And the music? *shrugs* It's the music that I was hearing in the 80's.... I don't see what was so awful about it. Everybody Wants To Rule The World? Subtle. Sounds all bubblegum so for a second I thought 'what the hell?' then I realized what song it was and smiled.

I loved the Minuteman costumes, as I say Momma Spectre, both then and 'now' were awesome. Wish the full on Comedian gimp mask was in place, and.....

Well, they give Dr. Manhattan a larger penis in the movie. In the comic it was a nubby little thing and I liked that. I wish I was in the meeting when they had to decide on the penis size though. You KNOW that would be comedy GOLD.

See it. You may just like it.

My favorite line was given to Sally which kinda neutered it, but whatever.

I do wonder, however, if non-geeks will be able to relate to it. Didn't strike me as particularly accessible.

[Tobias March]

I do wonder, however, if non-geeks will be able to relate to it. Didn't strike me as particularly accessible.

I'm really curious about that too.

[kingdom2000]

My favorite line was given to Sally which kinda neutered it, but whatever.

I do wonder, however, if non-geeks will be able to relate to it. Didn't strike me as particularly accessible.

I agree. I guess the box office will tell the tale. And no not referring to this weekend but the next three or so. If the numbers don't drop to much (say Friday the 13th 81% levels) but more like 50% or below (I think Dark Knight only dropped like 30% from weekend to the next) then we will know if this has mass appeal or not. All this weekends numbers will prove is the huge marketing campaign paid off, not that the movie is popular.

As for the note that audiences are not that stupid....do you pay attention to the world? Yeah they really are stupid. Some of the complaints and "reviews" read here and there already back that notion.

[Ian Boothby]

That's fine..... so you think it's acceptable for a 10 year old to see a rather blatant sex scene then as well as numerous violent scenes. There were definitely not such scenes in any Bufy episode I saw!

Personally speaking, I wouldn't let anyone under the age of 15 see this movie. And believe me, I am NOT uptight these things. There are some very hard-hitting scenes in this movie (the near rape, the shooting of the pregnant vietnamese woman, etc.), as well as the full nudity of Dr. Manhattan.

Buffy had an attempted rape, had a guy getting his skin torn off then set on fire, one of the leads getting his eye gouged with a thumb and quite a few sex scenes.
There was no nudity but a lot of cheesecake and beefcake in the show. But like Watchmen with the right context it's fine as long as the parents and their children can talk to each other about the content.

[Tages]

Quoting myself on Comm:

The thing that kills the film is that if you've read and liked the comic, everything about the movie you like will be because it's riding on the comic, and you'll keep getting distracted by the borderline fetishistic way Snyder recreates individual panels and dialogue for the screen. That and it's just so...clean, so photogenic. It doesn't scan.

Brian K. Vaughan was right when he said that making Watchmen into a movie is the equivalent of making Citizen Kane into a stage play. If I'd have never read the comic I would love it, and it stands up well in isolation. But I can't unread the comic, so to me it'll always be just a shiny, soulless replica reflecting the spirit of its inspiration.

Basically, Snyder's pathological literal-mindedness (which some people have confused for faithfulness) has given the world a tidy, marketable little action movie with some big ideas (significantly unbigged if you ask me) and nice visuals. There is absolutely no reason to see it if you've read the comic. There's really no reason to see it if you haven't read the comic, unless you don't like comics.

Also, and I can't claim credit for this observation: exactly what the fuck is so "visionary" about copying the comic to the screen like you're following a goddamn instruction manual? That's the opposite of visionary.

[stealthwise]

Quoting myself on Comm:



Basically, Snyder's pathological literal-mindedness (which some people have confused for faithfulness) has given the world a tidy, marketable little action movie with some big ideas (significantly unbigged if you ask me) and nice visuals. There is absolutely no reason to see it if you've read the comic. There's really no reason to see it if you haven't read the comic, unless you don't like comics.

Also, and I can't claim credit for this observation: exactly what the fuck is so "visionary" about copying the comic to the screen like you're following a goddamn instruction manual? That's the opposite of visionary.

I've been waffling lately on as to whether or not I should see this movie, but you've helped convince me not to, as I wasn't going to see it before, but was kind of curious from all the buzz.

Anyways, my big question for all here is: Anyone bought or seen the motion comic? That's more interesting to me, the notion that someone can try and impose a reading order, voices, background sounds, etc, on the comic itself, when it kind of defeats the entire purpose of buying and reading the book.

So? Anyone seen it?

[Darrell D.]

I've been waffling lately on as to whether or not I should see this movie, but you've helped convince me not to, as I wasn't going to see it before, but was kind of curious from all the buzz.

Anyways, my big question for all here is: Anyone bought or seen the motion comic? That's more interesting to me, the notion that someone can try and impose a reading order, voices, background sounds, etc, on the comic itself, when it kind of defeats the entire purpose of buying and reading the book.

So? Anyone seen it?

I actually wished I had saved my money and bought the motion comic DVD instead of going to the movie.
I saw some of the previews online. The animation looks decent enough, but the voice acting seems pretty hammy.

[stealthwise]

I actually wished I had saved my money and bought the motion comic DVD instead of going to the movie.
I saw some of the previews online. The animation looks decent enough, but the voice acting seems pretty hammy.

Yeah, just saw the initial trailer and it looks pretty bad, almost like those old 60s Marvel cartoons.

[heystacy]

I'm really curious about that too.

I have a few non-comic book friends who already asked me about the film because they were given negative reviews.

I suspect for many people, the Watchman doesn't do what the other hero films have done in the past, which is supply a happy ending, or heroic characters who save the day.

[FemGeek]

As did Doctor Manhattan beating us over the head with, "THE COMEDIAN WAS YOUR FATHER."

Yes, we get it, thanks.

Oh yeah I forgot about that. I recall at that moment someone in the audience said very loudly; "Nawhhh", which is Cork-ish for 'duh'. And that made everyone laugh and took away from the seriousness of the moment.
As did the sex scene. Can Snyder just not do an un-hilarious sex scene?

[Gothos]

I have always thought fans put way to much emphasis on the squid. The point of it even in the book was an over the top, OMG moment that only comics can get a way with to unite to planet and stop nuclear war. It could have been a squid, a whale, a flying saucer, pretty much anything. I just disagree with the notion that its a squid or bust. The squid is, to me, actually incidental to the story and its themes.

The reason I like the movie's ending better than the GN's is because so much of the story revolves around fears of nuclear extinction, as opposed to fears of aliens (though certainly 50s SF films exploited both and sometimes melded the two distinct apprehensions). I like the idea of Ozy using Manhattan's research as a means of demonizing him, though admittedly the movie was weak on expounding just how the world would be convinced that Manhattan would be watching from afar, like the aliens of the recently-remade DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.

Still, you can argue that even w/o Rorschach's journal Earth scientists could have figured out that the squid shared the DNA of Earth squids, so that plan had a pretty big hole in it too.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

The reason I like the movie's ending better than the GN's is because so much of the story revolves around fears of nuclear extinction, as opposed to fears of aliens (though certainly 50s SF films exploited both and sometimes melded the two distinct apprehensions). I like the idea of Ozy using Manhattan's research as a means of demonizing him, though admittedly the movie was weak on expounding just how the world would be convinced that Manhattan would be watching from afar, like the aliens of the recently-remade DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL.

Still, you can argue that even w/o Rorschach's journal Earth scientists could have figured out that the squid shared the DNA of Earth squids, so that plan had a pretty big hole in it too.

What was lost in changing that was the xenophobia angle.

[Crowley]

I saw it.

I think if I hadn't read the comic or wasn't familiar with comics and superheroes I'd be totally lost.

for the rest of us I think it was a solid 3 stars. A valiant effort, but untimately I think it's just good, it's not great. Dark Knight and Iron Man don't need to worry about falling to second or third place. Watchmen is merely good.

Some of the choices made were cringe inducing and in certain spots the audience chuckles when there shouldn't.

The change to the ending wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be... but it required extra exposition to make it that way and it seemed as though we were given an odd happy ending where we really shouldn't have... at all.

[The Ray]

So saw the film. My thoughts: I thought they made Veidt not sympathetic enough and Jackie Earie Haley was a really good Rorschach.

I also wished they didn't reduce the thermodynamic miracle explanation and kept the " I Did It " scene.

[Tetsuo_man]

So saw the film. My thoughts: I thought they made Veidt not sympathetic enough and Jackie Earie Haley was a really good Rorschach.

I also wished they didn't reduce the thermodynamic miracle explanation and kept the " I Did It " scene.

The funny thing though is that if they kept the "I Did it" scene Veidt would come off even more unsympathetic then currently in the film. Seeing a still of him with his hand up and saying I did it dosen't seem as douchie.

[The Ray]

The funny thing though is that if they kept the "I Did it" scene Veidt would come off even more unsympathetic then currently in the film. Seeing a still of him with his hand up and saying I did it dosen't seem as douchie.

I thought being the calculating supervillain made him more less sympathetic if he didn't have doubt or fear that his plan wouldn't work. Having complete confidence that his masterstroke would work seems more cold than going thorough with his plan and having some niggling doubt in the back of his mind that it wouldn't work. The " I Did It " scene, for Veidt, is the moment where his plans come thorough fruition and his doubts are excised. Granted, a new doubt emerges later when he speaks to Doctor Manhattan. Those two thing in conjunction, I think, made the character less of a know-it-all supervillian and more of a intelligent man who wants the best for everyone.

[Tetsuo_man]

I thought being the calculating supervillain made him more less sympathetic if he didn't have doubt or fear that his plan wouldn't work. Having complete confidence that his masterstroke would work seems more cold than going thorough with his plan and having some niggling doubt in the back of his mind that it wouldn't work. The " I Did It " scene, for Veidt, is the moment where his plans come thorough fruition and his doubts are excised. Granted, a new doubt emerges later when he speaks to Doctor Manhattan. Those two thing in conjunction, I think, made the character less of a know-it-all supervillian and more of a intelligent man who wants the best for everyone.

I think it would just come off in live action like, "Booya I killed some peopel." I think the subtly is just easier to express in that scene on the page as opposed to the screen.

[The Ray]

I think it would just come off in live action like, "Booya I killed some peopel." I think the subtly is just easier to express in that scene on the page as opposed to the screen.

Yeah, maybe. Probably easier with Gibbon's art.

[shrike]

OK, I saw it, and found none of the changes to be terribly off putting... overall,it was pretty damn faithful to the source material.

[Tetsuo_man]

Man I really butchered the spelling of some of the words in my last post. Anyway I think one thing everyone can agree on is at least we didn't get the modern day war on terror Watchmen adaptation.

[Bob Violence]

Quoting myself on Comm:

Basically, Snyder's pathological literal-mindedness (which some people have confused for faithfulness) has given the world a tidy, marketable little action movie with some big ideas (significantly unbigged if you ask me) and nice visuals. There is absolutely no reason to see it if you've read the comic. There's really no reason to see it if you haven't read the comic, unless you don't like comics.

Also, and I can't claim credit for this observation: exactly what the fuck is so "visionary" about copying the comic to the screen like you're following a goddamn instruction manual? That's the opposite of visionary.
I got a chuckle out of the way they used 'visionary' in the trailer..as if 300 was a work of a mad genius. Snyder is no a visionary, but he did a solid job with Watchmen. Adapting Watchmen for film called for a lot of pruning, not a sudden infusion of fresh new ideas. If you want to see that, go to a different movie. It's an adaptation from something a lot of people revere & that calls for fidelity to the source. It's the safe path, not the visionary one.

[DarkCrisis]

I liked it enough.

2 blue dongs up.

[Pink Bat Maxine]

I liked it enough.

2 blue dongs up.

Yeah, that's what Laurie had to deal with....

[EMeadow]

As did Doctor Manhattan beating us over the head with, "THE COMEDIAN WAS YOUR FATHER."

Yes, we get it, thanks.

After the third time they said it in the theater I leaned over to my friend and went "They're really drilling that fact in a bit much don't you think?"

He looked out at the already drunk/wasted movie goers who were making noises throughout the film and the ones yelling during the movie "THIS IS TOO LONG!" and the guys who kept doing some god awful Wookie mating calls before the film even started and just said to me "Look at this audience. They need it drilled into their heads."

And I couldn't argue with that one at all. Really need to stop going to midnight premieres. Can really ruin the experience.

[Infra-Man]

Movie theaters in general ruin the movie watching experience

[Spike-X]

I disagree. I think people who fail to realise that they are in a theatre, rather than in their own living room, are the ones who ruin it.

[Infra-Man]

Agreed. I think I've just reached a point where I can't justify spending that much money (maybe a matinee every now and then) going to a movie in most cases when I can save lots of money by renting.

[Tages]

I got a chuckle out of the way they used 'visionary' in the trailer..as if 300 was a work of a mad genius. Snyder is no a visionary, but he did a solid job with Watchmen. Adapting Watchmen for film called for a lot of pruning, not a sudden infusion of fresh new ideas. If you want to see that, go to a different movie. It's an adaptation from something a lot of people revere & that calls for fidelity to the source. It's the safe path, not the visionary one.

What the makers of this film fail to understand is that fidelity to the original's emotional and thematic resonance is more important than rote repetition of the original's dialogue and look.

Based on the latter, it succeeds. On the former, it fails.

[shrike]

What the makers of this film fail to understand is that fidelity to the original's emotional and thematic resonance is more important than rote repetition of the original's dialogue and look.

Based on the latter, it succeeds. On the former, it fails.

In all fairness, however, you can't really encapsulate that in a three hour movie...

[Tages]

In all fairness, however, you can't really encapsulate that in a three hour movie...

Exactly right.

It didn't need to all be one movie.

Or any movie really.

[Spackling Compound]

I saw it and didn't think it was all that bad.

I didn't like the choice of music, was hoping for something a bit more original. However, some songs were placed in the "right spots" according to the comic book.

Enjoyable but not a rental.

[Karl O'Neill]

I have seen it twice now and I friggin loved both times. They done a superb job with it i believe.

[shrike]

I just realized I got a free pass to see Watchmen again with my blu ray Watchmen Motion Comic.




Nice. :smile:

[Karl O'Neill]

I just realized I got a free pass to see Watchmen again with my blu ray Watchmen Motion Comic.




Nice. :smile:

me am jealous!

[Village Idiot]

I saw it the first day because I didn't want my viewing influenced by everybody's opinion of the movie.

Most times, I wait until the first Tuesday a movie is showing, as the local multiplex only charges $6 on Tuesdays.

[Briareos]

I saw it in IMAX Today.

[shrike]

I saw it in IMAX Today.

How was that? Is it presented totally in IMAX?