Watchmen Film — Page 2

Yeah, I am looking forward to seeing it too.

@ Johnny Ringo, thanks for the link. While others have probably seen those pictures before, I had not. It is kind of cool getting a better look at the costumes. Easier to catch details on them in those pictures than it was in the trailer.

I am not too worried about them messing it up, if they do we still have the original graphic novel. 300 was actually almost frame for frame exactly like the graphic novel, other than the inclusion of extra scenes (a few that made absolutely NO sense at all, like the orc and the sword arm retarded giant thing, others such as the scenes back at Sparta made sense though, otherwise the whole movie is just one big fight scene).

The fact that most of what is shown in the Watchmen trailer is immediately recognizable as a scene from the graphic novel, give me the feeling they will stay pretty true to the source. Since unlike the 300 graphic novel, the Watchmen graphic novel has a ton of substance to it, there is no way they will need to add stuff, only remove it. SO our biggest concern ought to be what is left out. I have even heard that they are making an animated short of Tales of the Black Freighter that will be included on the DVD.

Hopefully the real movie uses new music and not music from batman and robin like the trailer.

Whoever made up that trailer should be fired as memories of batman and robin need not be associated with Watchmen.

I am hoping the movie is not another excuse to badmouth bush and the war on terror.

Those elements In V for Vendetta and Dark Knight took me out of the movie.

I go to the movies to be entertained and forget about the real world for 2 hours of fantastic entertainment.

Hollywood needs to be reminded i could just stay home and watch Fox News or cnn instead. 

My 12.50 need not pay for a directors personal politics and using a movie to flip the bird at GW Bush is kinda a waste of time.

I have to agree that it is kind of dumb to throw your political biases into your films. If it suits the film fine, but throwing them into a comic book film or a sci-fi action flick for kids (ROTS) is pretty dumb.

It is funny, when 300 came out every one took it to be pro-Bush propaganda. Sometimes we read things into movies that simply are not there.

skyjedi2005 said:

Those elements In V for Vendetta and Dark Knight took me out of the movie.

I go to the movies to be entertained and forget about the real world for 2 hours of fantastic entertainment.

Hollywood needs to be reminded i could just stay home and watch Fox News or cnn instead. 

My 12.50 need not pay for a directors personal politics and using a movie to flip the bird at GW Bush is kinda a waste of time.

Agreed

If and when the "Watchmen" film comes out on DVD, I see some great Fanedit possibilities here guys.  Below is some info taken from Wikipedia.



"Tales of the Black Freighter", a comic within the "Watchmen" comic, will be adapted as a direct-to-video animated feature, which will be released on March 11, 2009. It was originally included in the script,  but was cut due to budget restrictions, because the segment would have added $20 million to the budget, as Snyder wanted to film it in a stylized manner reminiscent of 300. Snyder considered including the animated film in the final cut, but the film was already approaching a three hour running time.  Gerard Butler, who starred in 300, voices the Captain in the film, having been promised a role in the film, which never materialized.

"The Tales of the Black Freighter" DVD will also include "Under the Hood", a documentary detailing the characters' backstories, which takes its title from that of Hollis Mason's memoirs in the graphic novel. The actors were allowed to improvise during filming interviews in character. The film itself is scheduled to be released on DVD four months after "Tales of the Black Freighter", and Warner Bros. is thought to be considering releasing an extended version, with the animated film edited back into the main picture. Snyder expected this final version will be three hours and twenty-five minutes long. In addition, a dozen short films (each around twenty minutes in length) will be released on the internet, using narration over animated panels of the comic strip to familiarize newcomers to the story. These may also be released on DVD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen_(film)

Now if Warner Bros. does not do this, It might be fun to edit all this stuff together to make a super long Watchmen film. Or it may be possible to cut it into 12 Episodes.  We will just have to wait to see the finished film (and also what they plan to do with the DVD release of "Watchmen" that is set to follow the feature film 4 months later) to be sure. But I am up for doing this edit if Warner Bros. (or Fox) is not.

How about fox may block watchmen ever being allowed to be released.

How do you like them apples?

How many fanboys are going to boycott and protest fox over that.

And will it hurt fox on the wolverine film if enough fans refuse to see that movie is watchmen is not released.

As it is there is no way Warners will be able to make the original release date.  If the film even comes out it will be delayed by a few months possibly.

Fox gets distrobution  rights, but they don't even want to release it.

And nobody knows if it is because Fox may want to make their own watchmen film, or is just doing this because of the haggling over the old batman tv rights between the studios, you know the sixties tv show.

Which is funny because i bet after what fox did to the Marvel comics properties Marvel has since set up their own studio, and probably wants the rights back to X-men,lol.

skyjedi2005 said:

How about fox may block watchmen ever being allowed to be released.

How do you like them apples?

How many fanboys are going to boycott and protest fox over that.

And will it hurt fox on the wolverine film if enough fans refuse to see that movie is watchmen is not released.

In a what if scenario.  What if Fox decides to release the film as a distributor and get most of the profits since they own the license to watchmen, and they are allowed final cut and recut the film.

That is what some fans fear.

Like if they cut it down to an no more than 2 hours 10 min tops including the end credits.

The worse thing they could possibly do is cut it down to an hour and 40 minutes, but that would be the real nighmare scenario.  I personally think they will not allow it ever to be released.  and the only way people could see it is if it leaks via torrent sites.

Then fans who download it get slammed by Warners lawyers.

They both have a case as far as I can tell, so for both parties to then give and take in an arbitration is fair.

I think this movie is going to rock!  I don't know for sure, but I get a great feeling from all the footage and interviews I have seen so far (and the source graphic novel has allot to do with it too).  The complete opposite was true last year in regards to Indy 4, and how I felt about the trailers, interviews, and other promo footage that came out before that release.

I'm also happy to see that Jack Earle Haley is in Watchmen.  I saw him in a Broadway production of The Slab Boys back in the early 80's when on a high school class trip. He is one hell of a good actor. Sad that he does not get that much work on major films.

I just wanted to add some links to the best videos I've sen so far on this film.

http://www.spike.com/video/watchmen-comic-con/3076857

FanFiltration said:

In addition, a dozen short films (each around twenty minutes in length) will be released on the internet, using narration over animated panels of the comic strip to familiarize newcomers to the story. These may also be released on DVD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen_(film)

They've released 7 of these so far.  They are more like 5 minutes each, but they are animated panels from the original comic with narration akin to an audio book.  The only place I've found them is on Verizon's cel phone video downloads.  They're pretty well done.

-T

EDIT: They're called Watchmen Motion Comics, and apparently they're available over ITunes too.  And I just checked, Demonoid has them.

My mistake, they are 20+ mins long.  Apparently the versions available from Verizon are shorter edits...

So, anybody else see this yet?

Had the day off work and I really wanted to see this. All my friends were working, busy, or didn't want to go, but dammit, I really wanted to see this. I have never gone to a movie by myself before, just always seems like the kind of thing you don't do, because you just don't want to be that guy that goes to the movies by himself. Giving into my desire to see the movie over my desire not to seem like a pathetic loser, I went by myself, only to discover a theater full of mid-twenty to forty year old white guys all sitting by themselves. It was kind of depressing. At least I enjoyed the movie, and the knowledge that I have a wife who will be home from work in about an hour makes me feel less loserly :)

I thought it was an excellent adaption of the graphic novel. Not perfect, but damn near it.

Only... I just don't feel the new ending quite packed the punch of the original. Maybe that is because I am used to the original ending, and that I have already read the spoilers for the new ending. The ending just didn't work that well for me.

A few other minor things were:

Rorschach's moving mask, it moved around so much that it was actually kind of distracting and took some focus off of conversation for the first bit of the film. Got used to it after a few scenes though.

Richard Nixon's nose. He actually looked eerily like Nixon from the distance shots, but in the close up shots, he felt like a characature of Nixon. The nose just seemed way over done (okay, maybe slightly over done), and for some reason it really bugged me throughout the film.

Moloch's ears. One cool things about The Watchmen as a graphic novel, was that it took the silly premise of vigilantes in gay costumes, and made it real and gritty. Yes, Moloch in the graphic novel had pointy ears, but in the graphic novel, it was a realistic degree of pointiness. In the film, they just look awful and over done. He is suppose to be a criminal, not some sort of evil woodelf, or imp.

The funniest complaint I have heard about this movie so far is that the blood drip on the Comedian Smiley button didn't look exactly the same as it did in the book. If you are one of these types of fans, don't even bother seeing the movie, you'll hate it.

I was 15 when Watchmen Issue 1 hit the stands, and I couldn't believe what I had bought. The issue had so much going on with it that I think I reread it 3 or 4 times, and got more out of it with each reading. And each issue was, to me, more amazing than the last.

I went into this movie KNOWING it couldn't be as good as the graphic novel, even so, my expectations were very high. I believed the hype, which is usually a bad idea. Most movies cannot live up to their hyper-distilled in-your-face trailer. The Watchmen is not a perfect movie, but I wasn't expecting a perfect movie, so I was glad to get a great one.

Zack Snyder found the right tone, the right actors, and the right FX guys. He was able to distill the plot down to a bare minimum, sometimes feeling a bit rushed, but without damaging it. Like any good movie based on a novel, the Watchmen managed to feel just like it's source, even though the bulk of it had to be cut out.

Except for Ozymandias. all the main actors were pitch perfect, dead ringers. But Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach just stole the movie. Rorschach gets the best lines in the graphic novel, and Haley plays them all to full effect. I do not have a single critique of his performance. This actor was born to play Rorschach.

The FX were all great. I was a little afraid, after the movie 300, that the greenscreen scenes would stand out as fake, but they they all looked real to me. Dr. Manhattan looked great too, although some of his animation was a little stiff.

At times the movie did feel a bit rushed to me, but maybe that's only because I know the source material so well. The movie was 2 hours and 40 minutes, and it felt like a 90 minute action movie. They say an extended version is planned for DVD. I could easily see the story feeling comfortable at 3 1/2 hours, and I usually don't like long movies.

Last night it felt a little too graphically violent, but when I flipped through the graphic novel today I remembered how violent the comic really was. It's funny how getting a little older can make me more sensitive to this stuff. Also the sex scene is probably a little too explicit, since it is definitely tamer in the comic. And while I really applaud the studios for not changing Dr. Manhattan's image, there is at times a distracting amount of blue dong. This is without a doubt an R-rated movie.

Last but not least, the ending. Going into the movie, I was bummed at the reports that the ending had been changed. The graphic novel's ending was definitely strange, but I think that's part of what makes it so good. I realize why they felt like they had to change it for the movie. It makes sense, especially since they didn't have the time to properly set up the original ending. Actually, the new ending isn't that different, and surprisingly, may make a little more sense than the original. I didn't feel let down.

Anyway, the two people who came with me who hadn't read the graphic novel, loved the movie. My freidn Jason, who is as much a crazed fan of the original comic as I am, enjoyed the movie too. There was a lot that could have gone wrong with the adaptation. But Snyder pulled it off, in his own style.

I give this 4 1/2 out of 5 stars, and will go see it again soon!

Taolar said:

there is at times a distracting amount of blue dong.

ROTFLMAO

ChainsawAsh said:

Some of the non-original music (Ride of the Valkyries, Sounds of Silence and Halelujah mainly) just didn't work for me

That was another thing I thought about listing among my dislikes, but decided to let go of. A lot of it just felt out of place, didn't work so well, and in the case of Ride of the Valkyries and Halelujah, it actually turned the scenes into almost a bit of a parody of themselves. I appreciate a sense of humor on behalf of the film makers, but in these cases I think it detracted from the film.

Taolar said:

Last night it felt a little too graphically violent, but when I flipped through the graphic novel today I remembered how violent the comic really was. It's funny how getting a little older can make me more sensitive to this stuff. Also the sex scene is probably a little too explicit, since it is definitely tamer in the comic. And while I really applaud the studios for not changing Dr. Manhattan's image, there is at times a distracting amount of blue dong. This is without a doubt an R-rated movie.

Yeah, the book was violent, so I certainly expected the film to be. I went to see this at an afternoon showing, so the theater was pretty sparsly filled. As I mentioned before, mostly young white guys, but there were a few women in the theater. After some of the especially violent scenes with Rorschach, I heard quite a bit of nervous laughter and giggles in the room, especially from the women in the room. Even with such a small population in the theater, I noticed three people or so get up and leave the theater right after Rorschach's meat cleaver scene and never come back.

I liked the scene from the book where Rorschach cuffs the guy up, sets his place ablaze with him in it, and cooly walks away, better than the more graphic scene in the film. Leaving the guy to burn to death was more cruel, and almost more shocking than the meat cleaver.

I'd also have to agree with Taolar about the sex scene in Archie, it goes on forever, and is a bit too much. I am not really a prude, it is just I don't feel the need for long winded sex scenes slowing down story for the sake of showing a bit of boobage. Boobage is cheap, and in this day and age, anyone who feels the need for it knows where to find it.

And finally, I agree on the blue dong as well. I feel no need for staring at another man's bits. I too am glad they stayed true to the book, but in the book it was nowhere near as distracting as it is in the film, usually it was just a tiny blue silhouette and in a small panel of the pages of a comic book. In the film, it is a big blue penis flashing around on giant screen. I wouldn't have faulted them if they had felt like changing that bit. I am still grateful they put pants on the Spartans in the film adaption of 300 though.

Nixon looked ridiculous, but the actor was all right.  I loved the opening scsene, where it basically showed hwat had happened up until the movie started.  And some good old Dylan doesn't hurt either.

Also, Jimi Hendrix.  That's about all I have to say for the movie; not really into long reviews.  It was satisfying, but it dragged on a bit.  Understandably so; remember they're cramming for most people 6 or so hours of reading into about 2 hours 40 minutes.

!!!SPOILERS THROUGHOUT!!!

Just read IGN's review for Watchmen, and I think the guy had some pretty good insights.

He mentioned that the new ending passes by without really giving us a feel for the destruction, rather than seeing bodies in the streets, which a R rated movie could certainly do a lot with, we just see a few people get vaporized, which is something we have been seeing through the entire film. Where as in the graphic novel, we are really shown the gravity of what has taken place, and what a severe crime Veidt has commited. 

Another thing the reviewer brought up was how, in his estimation, the new ending simply doesn't make much sense when you think about it. I thought a bit of this myself, but he really summed it up nicely. If you consider the fact that Dr. Manhattan was America's most powerful weapon that the rest of the world was afraid the US would use against them, and with the world being on the brink of nuclear war, if said US weapon were to suddenly be deployed and destroy several cities around the world, it would stand to reason that these other countries, rather than coming together in piece, would decide to strike back. It would almost be like us bombing a bunch of countries today with ICBMs and saying, "Oh my goodness! Our weapons attacked you with their own free will! We are so sorry, but you know what, they might do it again, let's ban together as one to fight this new common enemy that just so happens to be our very own weapons."

I still think the idea of a fake alien invasion worked a lot better. Everyone says it is very unrealistic, I suppose those readers somehow missed Dr. Manhattan during their read through of the series, he is certainly not the most realistic thing I have ever read in a comic book. With the faux alien invasion, we had the world come together to fight off an external and unknown foe. That makes sense, while these countries are bickering, some extraterrestrial force is out there plotting the destruction of the whole planet, why not come together to see what can be done to prevent this. 

With Dr. Manhattan, everyone knows he is indestructible. Why even bother fighting against him, or trying to find a way to stop him? What good would coming together do? He'll win. That is why Adrian took so much care in getting him to go away prior to executing his plan.

I'd really like to hear from the perspective of someone who had never read the book prior to seeing the film. The film ending just had no real impact or emotion to it to me, when I first read the graphic novel there was a big "Whoa!!!" moment for me. I am really curious if people who knew nothing of the story came out of the theater with that "Whoa" feeling many people got from the book.