Cool News
AICN COMICS: No reviews this week. The @$$Holes were too busy discussing All Things WATCHMEN + A WATCHMEN Set Visit!!!
| #43 | Special WATCHMEN Edition | #7 |
(Click title to go directly to the review)
Ryan McClelland’s THE WATCHMEN Set Report
The @$$Holes Watch THE WATCHMEN: A Roundtable Review
THE WATCHMEN Set Report
By Ryan McLelland
I have a great affinity for WATCHMEN and rightly preach to most who will listen that it is one of the best novels of the 20th century. Not one of the best graphic novels but actually one of the most amazing, layered, and powerful pieces ever written while just happening to have pictures with the words. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons both write here: Alan in words and Dave expanding on that to the most microscopic detail.I’ve been a comic book fan since buying my first comic at 3 years old. I’ve collected, interviewed, reviewed, written about, and written comic books over my entire lifetime and still WATCHMEN remains one of the top stories that no one can come close to. It’s the granddaddy – it is the comic that made comic books the way they are today. The superhero deconstruction really did start with Mark Gruenwald’s SQUADRON SUPREME while Frank Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS helped solidify this new attitude in comic book heroes, but it was truly WATCHMEN that took everything to a whole new level.
I was never sure that they could make WATCHMEN into a movie. Can you make “Catcher in the Rye” a movie? How about “On the Road”? “Old Man and the Sea”? Sure you COULD make these classics into feature films but that doesn’t mean that they are going to be GOOD. I was in the same frame of mind with WATCHMEN. A 12-part HBO miniseries? Absolutely. A two hour feature film? Not so much.I color myself luckier than most as fourteen months ago I was actually on set for WATCHMEN. Before seeing thing one on the set I met with producer Deborah Snyder in what was called ‘The War Room’ – a massive office with all walls completely filled with panels from the graphic novels, pictures from the film as they were shot, and tons of production art. You saw the love already in this room, that this wasn’t just something to be based on the graphic novel but a complete attempt at a true homage.
I walked onto the set of the Owl Cave. I went inside the Owl Ship and was shocked at the detail. This wasn’t some CGI piece of crap. This was the Owl Ship from top to bottom. They even included the damn coffee maker. I walked around Dreiberg’s basement and touched everything, including the closet with the different suits Nite Owl wore over the years. This is something that on camera will probably be shown for seconds, but that didn’t matter to Zack Snyder. He wanted the detail and he put it in there. Other journalists came down upon Patrick Wilson, dressed up in his Dan Dreiberg attire, looking a lot larger than he did in “Little Children” or “Hard Candy”. No one even noticed Malin Ackerman as she sported her black hair wig with the bangs. I walked over and asked her if she walked the streets of Vancouver with it on so to not be recognized and she frowned saying, “I only wish. They make me leave it here.”I’ve been around the world. I’ve seen world wonders like the Egyptian pyramids, staring in awe of these wonders. When we moved locations and stepped onto Karnac, Adrian Veidt’s Antarctic base, I was in complete shock. I could not believe it. Not for one second. This was a massive set straight out of the book. Every detail. Every nook and cranny. This was Karnac and I was truly IN ANTARCTICA, not on some film set. I had hoped that WATCHMEN would be a good film but standing there in total awe, standing there truly INSIDE A COMIC BOOK, I started to believe. WATCHMEN was here. It’s going to be a film. It’s going to be flat out amazing.
I met the cast: the overweight Patrick Wilson who has huffing and puffing along telling of how he prepared for the role by eating donuts, the beautiful Malin Ackerman, and the notorious Matthew Goode who seemed to love his role as Ozymandias. It wasn’t until I met Jackie Earle Haley, who truly was an icon to me thanks to his phenomenal roles in “Breaking Away” and “Bad News Bears”, that I had the feeling that this was going to be special. Haley got WATCHMEN. He got what the comic was about and loved the things I loved about it. He got Rorschach completely. The fact that it was Haley behind the mask and not some big Hollywood giant like Steve Buscemi just spoke to how right this casting was. Haley was the perfect choice for this character and here he was.I left the set in amazement. I couldn’t believe the level of work put into the film. I loved the casting and truly felt every dollar spent on the film would make it actually INTO the film. The only bad thing was I had to wait 14 months to see how it all would translate onto the big screen. The great thing? It is finally 14 months later.
Ryan McLelland has worked in movies and comics journalism for the past several years before joining the @$$holes here at AICN. Ryan’s comic work has already graced comic shelves with Arcana’s PHILLY, WISE INTELLIGENCE, UPTOWN GIRL, and THE SENTINELS ANTHOLOGY. He rarely updates his blog but when he does it can be read at www.eyewannabe.com
The @$$Holes Watch THE WATCHMEN
A Rountable Review
Hey folks, Ambush Bug here. You guys asked for a WATCHMEN review. You got a WATCHMEN review. In fact, ALL of the @$$Holes chimed in on this one. So we set aside our regular reviews week in favor of dedicating our column to the most anticipated comic book film of all time. 8 years into this gig, and the ‘Holes still don’t have the pull to score Sneak Preview tickets, so we had to wait just like you guys to see the damn thing. And that we did. We even invited back the Original @$$hole--the guy who brought the very first League of @$$Holes together; The Comedian for his thoughts on how the book measures up to the movie. So over the weekend, we decided to chat non-stop about the film, our expectations, our hopes, our dreams, and as you’ll read, one by one, we all saw it and gave our two cents. This is a meaty read, but if you’re looking for what the @$$Holes thought of the film, scroll down. And hopefully, you’ll still have stuff to deliberate in the Talkbacks.
Take it away, Holes!
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): Alright, guys. THE WATCHMEN…SUPERHERO (SUPES): Wait...WATCHMEN? You mean they're making a movie out of WATCHMEN???? We're not here to discuss the straight to DVD WONDER WOMAN release????
SQUASHUA (SQUASH): We're going to see it tomorrow at 9:30PM. My mom is babysitting the kid while we go to Muvico at the Premiere Balcony Level, Front Row Center, couch. Comes with bonus popcorn. Of course, I paid for the whole seat and Zach Snyder expects me to only need the edge!!!!!!1!1!cos(0)
And therein lies the problem. I read the book (my only DC Absolute Edition) again last night. Those first few pages put the image of a hard-luck, gritty Rorschach climbing up the building, hand-over-hand in a 60's BATMAN TV style, sans any appearance by Lurch. I picture him hauling himself bodily over that window ledge, not dramatically leaping up onto it from below via a zip-line, pouncing like he's King Leonidas. Going in, only prejudiced by the trailers, I'm going to say I'd have preferred if it was filmed with a little less emphasis on stunts. Or rather, "x-treme stuntage".
SUPES: Yeah, that's been my problem with it from the beginning. I always expected the WATCHMEN world to look grimy, gritty. Much like NY back in the 1980's before it became a corporate Disneyland. THE WATCHMEN in my head looks like THE FRENCH CONNECTION or MIDNIGHT COWBOY. It's set in reality, not so much fantasy, which is why I was so psyched when Paul Greengrass was set to direct. I'm afraid that Snyder's visual palette will make WATCHMEN way more stylized than what it needs to be. But then again, I heard Greengrass's script sucked so...
VROOM SOCKO (VROOM): I've gone the opposite on this point: Excluding the first chapter (issue) I haven't reread Watchmen since the movie went into production. I'm planning on a reread after I see the movie on Saturday, though; I just wanted to go in with as little bias as I could.
PROFESSOR CHALLENGER (PROF): Aaa. That kind of stuff doesn't bother me. Wouldn't be MY choice as a director, but it goes with the style of everything else about the picture. Now, quick background on the book for me. WATCHMEN came out when I was a teenager in college. I bought these babies off the rack one by one and it was lifechanging for me. I know it is cliche' now, but at the time these were on the racks, they completely gutted what my preconceived notions were about what can be accomplished in a mere super-hero comic book. Everything from the structure of the plot, the intricacy of the fictionalized (yet familiar) world they existed in, to the hyper-formal panel grid and the color schemes. WATCHMEN (and SWAMP THING which I was already heavily into at that time) completely turned me upside down on what the possibilities available within graphic literature are...and they are limitless. In what it appeared to set out to do to me, the comic book succeeded. As well, in what the film appeared to me to have set out to do, it succeeded much better than it had any right to succeed given the source material and the disastrous last 20+ years of aborted and horribly misguided attempts to adapt it for the screen.BOTTLEIMP (IMP): Way back last summer when WATCHMEN-mania was reaching fever pitch, my little brother mentioned that he needed to read it. I told him to wait until after he saw the movie so he could both be surprised by the plot and not risk being disappointed by the adaptation. As it is, I'm going to have to work really, REALLY hard to turn off that little voice that'll be whining, "That's not how it happened in the comic!"
STONES THROW (STONE): Me, I’m worried people who come to WATCHMEN from the film will be disappointed. Case in point: Ozymandias being the villain in the book is a massive, but brilliant plot twist that gets that “oh, shit!” reaction because it’s hidden in plain sight, but you’d still never have guessed. In the movie they’ve got him played by the step-brother from MATCH POINT. With a German accent. Luckily, the appeal of WATCHMEN is way more than just plot.
VROOM: I'll tell you what I have been reading though. First is the parody that PVP ran this past week, which was genius. Especially the bit with "Dr. Manhatten" on Mars. Genius. Anyway, the second book is WATCHMEN AND PHILOSOPHY, which features just about everything I love about comic book discussions. It rationally compares Rorschach to Kant, the Comedian to Kierkegaard, AND uses the Keene Act to point out the flaws in Marvel's CIVIL WAR storyline. Now THAT is what I love about this book. THAT is what makes it great. That there's this level of character insight and nuance that is still miles beyond anything that's being done in superhero books today. If even a tenth of that is in the film, I know I'm going to enjoy this sucker.SUPES: Visually the trailer was impressive but it just didn't say WATCHMEN to me. It said just another comic book movie...which is not what I want to see when I go see WATCHMEN. And don't even get me started on Nite Owl's costume...very disappointed with that visual.
SQUASH: Agreed. Nite Owl should not look like Joel Schumacher's Batman, and Silk Spectre isn't from THE INCREDIBLES. Again, predisposition. Here's hoping it's at least maintained the IRON MAN / BATMAN BEGINS / THE DARK KNIGHT level of quality.
JINXO: I keep hearing reviewers who say, "Oh, it sticks so much to the comic in every way possible that THAT is its flaw. Fanboys will be happy but it is just too much a copy of the comic and not its own thing."
SUPES: This is what I'm most afraid of. From what I know of Harry Potter that's just what ruined the first movie...which I hated. It was boring because it had no heart of its own. It was just working to impress the fans...
IMP: I was thinking that about the Harry Potter franchise as well--my favorite movie of the series was PRISONER OF AZKABAN, which worked so well because Cuaron chose to make decisions that would serve the movie itself, rather than a slavish page-to-screen translation.JINXO: Meanwhile I'm sitting here with a reaction opposite to that idea and more in line with what you guys are saying. To me the places I wanted the film to stick to the comics are the places it clearly doesn't: making it feel very REAL world. A gritty crime drama where there happen to be weirdos who run around in tights. And it should feel weird there are people in frickin' tights. But from the start I also went in knowing it would get Hollywood-ized. One of the subtler things the comic did that struck me was that it drew the heroes in a not entirely flattering way. Night Owl is old and pudgy. Silk Spectre looks hot but not "hero" hot, ya know? A little less glossy than slightly slutty. When the first images from the movie came out and Owl and Spectre were both heroically buff and attractive I knew the tone would be off. I did expect it! Hard to sell a super hero movie with less than perfect looking leads. But just because I expected it doesn't make it okay. Then to see the clips with the hyper cool slow mo battle scenes? Exactly what I did not want to see. But, again, expected. I'm going to try and just judge the film for what it is.
PROF: I've been hearing lots of complaints about the slo-mo. But to me, that's the director's choice and if he feels he can get maximum impact out of the scene by doing that, I'm ok with it. It’s just like directors who repeatedly use that shaky cam. For the effect the artist/director is going for...it's his thing and not mine as the viewer. It doesn't take me out of the film. And, in fact, the type of slo-mo I noticed Snyder doing in the trailers and ultimately in the film to a much greater extent seems to me to be the closest approximation on film to the snapshot style of a comic book panel. The comic book panel is snap-shotting the maximum point of physical and/or emotional impact and the reader is filling in the surrounding moves. In film, you see all the movement but the type of slo-mo Snyder employs pretty effectively stops the action for a moment at the maximum impact like a comic book panel. Works for me.
SQUASH: I believe firmly that if they went with a less showy outing, the movie would actually be more accessible and audiences would be just as, if not more, receptive. Costumes less like MYSTERY MEN, more like... I can't even say THE SPECIALS because they did that too. I guess, more like motorcycle-riding, half-helmet CAPTAIN AMERICA. I can't believe I went there.SUPES: That's the thing...It seems like they got The Minutemen costumes right and The Watchmen costumes wrong. I always thought that Nite Owl was a bit of a nod to the Adam West Batman. Heck, that's my problem with so many "hero" types in TV or Movies these days....everyone has to be ultra-buff. You can still kick ass and not look like you work out at the gym 24-7. I think that's what they've missed with Nite Owl...he's not supposed to be intimidating like The Comedian or Rorschach. He's just an average dude with training and some gadgets...but he's not scary.
JINXO: I just don't think Hollywood would have the guts to ever let that happen. But any which way... the comic was a game changer for its medium and beyond the story itself that impact is part of what made that comic so important to its readers. Even if the movie was a dead on perfect interpretation of the comic it still would never be capable of that sort of impact. Even if it changed the rules for the superhero films as a medium (which it won't) that still would not be nearly as big a deal.
SUPES: This bugs me as well...mostly I will miss the Squid. I just don't get why that had to be changed. It's what bugs me about stuff like changing the Hulk's origin in the first Hulk movie or giving Spider-Man organic web-shooters. Hollywood and some fans think that the audience won't buy those conventions but it's like...hello??? You're going to see a movie about a guy who turns big and green when he gets angry or a kid who can climb a wall like a spider so I think you're ready to buy the rest. So why get rid of the monster Squid? There's already an omnipotent glowing blue guy in the movie...so the audience won't buy the squid? Please...
JINXO: As a comic book reader I do want to see the story told correctly. And the squid is just such a huge HUGE part of the comic that taking it out seems 100% wrong. On the other hand, having written scripts I can understand wanting to keep things tight. I love the long cut of THE ABYSS. But when Cameron had to shorten the film, he found one whole plot he could excise. Logically I get it but, realistically, I see hardcore fans grumbling to their non-comic-reading friends, "You don't even know. That's not the REAL ending." And they'll be in the right.SUPES: That's not even the part I'm most worried about...the bit with the journal at the very end is what I hope stays intact. But my question is if the Ozymandias plan is even really believable at this point in our history. Slaughtering half of New York to shock the world into peace? I mean the real life events of Sept. 11th created great sympathy for us around the world but all it took was one bugfuck President to screw that up. If anything, real world events have possibly proven Ozymandias wrong. Then again...it was people that caused September 11th, not an imaginary interdimensional alien invasion.
BUG: See, I can't do that. I love the comic. I've read it many times, but haven't read it recently. I understand tweaks and nips and tucks that have to be made in order to translate something to film. I don't think that I need to see every panel cut and pasted on the screen. And I’m definitely glad portions like "The Black Freighter" stuff won't be in it until the expanded DVD version.
RYAN MCLELLAND (RYAN): I'll easily agree with that - to me “The Black Freighter” stuff is the part of the book I skip over in my multiple reads of Watchmen these days. I know the story and know how it interjects into the main story, but I just don't care in the overall scheme of things. I'm up for changes. I welcome them. I don't care if the costumes are changed. I don't look at the panels of the book and think, "Wow, Nite Owl isn't supposed to be menacing" then think him Batmaneque in the film. I just don't care - I just hope for a decent adaptation. Because no matter what it is going to be an adaptation and I'm not going to nitpick at every little thing that is different from the book itself.
SUPES: But, to me, Nite Owl's appearance isn't just a nit-pick...it's an integral part of the book. I'm fine with changes...small ones. But Nite Owl looking the way he does in the film misses the point of the actual character of Nite Owl. He was designed that way for a reason. The same way Rorschach was. What if Rorschach's costume in the film looked like one of Gibbon's earliest designs of the character...a full body stocking suit with the pattern all over it? Wouldn't that change the way the character is supposed to be percieved? That's my problem with Nite-Owl. I liked him the way he was in the book. Hell, I was even disappointed in who they cast for the role...STEVERODGERS (STEVE): I am also wicked happy that “The Black Freighter” isn’t in the movie. I always skip it when I reread. Boring. Boring. Boring. I’m seeing this tomorrow and I am reaching new levels of geek anticipation by the minute. I have done my best to ignore all the early reviews, news etc. about this movie, so every time I see a preview I get a big fat surge of comic book fanatic excitement that is almost disturbing in it's intensity, – it’s THE WATCHMEN, it’s on a big screen, and I’m sure there will be things that drive me bonkers, but jeez it looks like everyone involved gives a damn, it’s like Pats winning that first Super Bowl all over again, the impossible has happened, it’s unfathomable that this thing is even happening – I love the future, give me a flying car.
PROF: I am so glad that they got rid of “The Black Freighter” in the film. No way that works in film, it is one of those things entirely a product of the comic book medium. I sort of think the creation of the animated feature as an extra DVD is a possible good way to deal with it, but I hope like hell they don't try to intercut it into the movie itself for the DVD of the film. Alan Moore is right though when he says separating the parts like that is akin to taking a great symphony and deciding to separate it out into discreet parts on their own when the work is intended to be a whole.
SLEAZY G (SLEAZY): Moore is right but he's wrong, as is often the case. Comics are not movies are not music, and attempts to translate from one medium to the next are extremely difficult. What works in one won't work in the other, and pulling out “The Black Freighter” stuff was the only possible way the transition to film would work.SQUASH: Did you ever try JUST reading “The Black Freighter”? Certainly there are direct artistic and thematic parallels to the story at the points where it appears, but the story itself is an entertaining, stand-alone descent into madness. You know saying, "You're not paranoid if they are out to get you"? Well, “The Black Freighter” relates the exact opposite.
STONE: Yeah, beyond a comment on the story itself, the sailor in “The Black Freighter” actually becomes a direct parallel to Ozymandias by the end—and I quote, “I dream about swimming towards a hideous…no, never mind.” He tried to save the world but became a monster in the process. That’s the kind of density of story and images that you get in WATCHMEN--but it also would *only* work in comics, cuz how exactly do you show the panels of a comic on film? Or cut from the action to an animated movie without disrupting the story? WATCHMEN does a load of things that only a comic book could do, so I hope “The Black Freighter” isn’t a more endemic problem with adapting it.
STEVE: Sure, sure it's great stuff, not taking anything away from it, but I've read it a few times, and at this point I just find reading it to be a chore, and think it would really slog down the movie. Calling it "boring, boring, boring" was probably an overstatement on my part.
SQUASH: Part of the impetus for having “The Black Freighter” in the comic was to add the subplot regarding the writer's ultimate fate. Since he is no longer a tool of Ozymandias in the film, it would make sense to have excised “The Black Freighter”. I think fewer fans are "up in arms" about the loss of the comic-in-a-comic than the overall ending. HUMPHREY LEE (HUMPH): The reason WATCHMEN the comic is the piece of genius it is has a lot to do with how dense and almost insanely meticulous it is, down to something as slow and deliberate as a Rorschach scaling a building instead of zip lining it. It's one of the best comics ever made simply because of how much all of Moore's wordage and all the 9-panel pages just completely absorb you into its atmosphere and these characters. Now, just the way you feel about the movie as a movie is one thing, but how you feel about the actual ADAPTATION of WATCHMEN as a movie really depends on how much you're willing to let go of things like that in concession of its run time and what it has to do to engage the audience and tell its story in just under three hours. I walked out of the midnight showing of WATCHMEN at 3am last night completely satisfied about it on a movie front, but feeling disappointed that people like my girlfriend next to me, who hadn't had a chance to expose herself to the book, couldn't get the full tour "behind the veil" that I've absorbed near a dozen times now, even though she seemed to enjoy it a lot for what it was in front of her.
SQUASH: Alright, alright. I'm taking my leave from this discussion for now to drop trou in prep for the three-hour marathon. When I return, I will have watched the film. And washed my hands. Not necessarily in that order.
SUPES: Ruh-Roh...a woman in my office just compared it to BATMAN FOREVER...! Another friend took her teenaged son to it who was totally cyked to see it and the kid was disappointed. And then another friend called me this morning from NYC and went berserk for it...This thing is all over the place!SQUASH: I'm back, and I ache from having had the plot points of this movie BEAT ME ABOUT THE HEAD AND FACE REPETITIVELY. The Watchmen Drinking Game: take a shot every time someone says the word "Comedian", and you'll have died of cirrhosis fifteen minutes in. If I have to say one thing about this film is that it is WATCHMEN, if the entire book was distilled and dumbed down for general consumption with the assumption that the audience is a bunch of leering twats who don't give a shit about plot but only want to watch extended generic fight sequences, somewhat unnecessarily longer-than-originally-imagined sex scenes, and the same damn six characters (or six-point-five if you count Big Figure) incessantly chew the scenery. I have no desire to ever watch this film again, extended DVD or not.
SUPES: Ouch...Fuck, fuck, fuck FUCK!!!! I'm going to see it TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!! Oh, well...maybe someone can get the BBC to do an adaptation in, like, 10 years...
SQUASH: Go see it because you'll always ask yourself about it. I simply don't see the need to ever watch it again. There was nothing that I didn't catch, and that's not because I read the book. It's because when you figure out that The Comedian is Silk Spectre's father in the first flashback, then they have a second flashback later where you're made to figure it out again in case you didn't figure it out before, and then Spectre comes back from the flashback all "realizin'", and just in case you still didn't get it, Dr. Manhattan outright states, "The Comedian was your father." NO SHIT!
THE COMEDIAN AKA THE ORIGINAL @$$HOLE: Yeah, they did have to spell out some stuff and it's funny that most of the mainstreamers in my screening still didn't get stuff either. You can pretty much pin point all the studio notes. But maybe I'm not as hypercritical. I think the overall problem with Laurie in the movie is that a lot of her arc has been condensed and compromised. I don't think Malin Ackerman is really that awful, I just think they didn't really do her character beats right. They totally throw away the reveal the Eddie Blake is her dad by having that stupid flashback cut in with Sally's husband saying "Why don't you get your buddy Blake to help raise your child" or whatever the quote is. But I don't want to go too much into it until everybody's seen it. To those of you who haven't seen it yet, see it in IMAX if you can. It's the first 35mm film I've seen that actually looks just as good in the blow up. JFK's head splitting like a sliced loaf of bread is just way more "Oh Shit!" in IMAX. "The Comedian is your father" was a lol moment for me too, though.VROOM: No...that's not true! That's IMPOSSIBLE! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! No...
SQUASH: And Nite Owl is your brother! No...that's improbable! Man, I love “Robot Chicken”.
I do want to say that my misgivings regarding them "action-ing it up" (Rorschach's zip-line), as well as the costumes, were not as jarring as I had originally anticipated them to be.
STONE: Call me crazy, but I just don't feel all that curious about seeing the movie. If I was hearing good things then I'd probably be more interested, but I kinda thought we knew all along what kind of WATCHMEN adaptation the director of 300 would make: almost fetishistic reverence for the source material, little of the depth, rocking soundtrack and slo-mo action scenes. It'd probably just piss me off for two and a half hours. Still, I've yet to see V FOR VENDETTA either.
COMEDIAN: You should see it and form your own opinion about it instead of going on hearsay. You say that you haven't heard that many good things about it. There are many GREAT things about this film that well outweigh its shortcomings. The opening credits alone are better than any Marvel superhero film ever made. So is the first hour and a half.STONE: The difference for me is the respect I have for the source material. Like, I didn’t think the recent HULK movie was all that great, but then I’ve read plenty of poor Hulk comics. Maybe I have a black and white view on this, but I think it either gets it or doesn’t. From what I’ve seen, I’d rather stick with the book. Never compromise, even in the face of the WATCHMEN adaptation.
COMEDIAN: That's cool. But again, you're going on hearsay and having not seen the movie to form your own opinion of it means you're ill informed at best and willfully ignorant at worst. Trust me, by the time Thursday night came I was so jaded from all the fanboy bitching and mixed reviews that I had set it up in my mind that it was going to be a meh experience. It almost felt like a chore to have to go see this movie I didn't think was going to be all that good. I had resigned myself to the fact that it was probably going to be faithful only on a surface level and that it would feel all wrong. All the crystal ball fanboy bullshit. Then I actually saw the film and while it wasn't perfect all of the highs, lows and shortcomings I had perceived in my mind had nothing to do with the actual genius and flaws of the film. All I'm saying is take the time to judge it on it's actual merits and shortcomings for yourself.
SQUASH: I think that might be the problem with me. You went in with low expectations and enjoyed it. I went in with much higher expectations and was disappointed. I believe all of us should just see the damn thing.RYAN: The IMAX Experience was utterly amazing until the 5th time I saw Dr. Manhattan's big blue cock. After that every time I saw blue wang I was laughing out loud no matter what was happening in the movie. Beyond that, WATCHMEN was way too faithful to the graphic novel especially when it didn't NEED to be. The film did run too long and the dramatic elements left me BORED TO TEARS in the theater. A movie of this caliber should be able to keep me interested, not hoping for the next 'good scenes'.
Best of the film: Jackie Earle Haley stole the show. Once again he pwned it. The man owned this entire film and every single scene he was in. Even when he was just chilling on a sidewalk the man was amazing.
Worst of the film: The horrible, horrible, horrible sex scene on the Owl Ship. My god I had flashbacks from “Matrix Reloaded” all over again. It was laugh out loud horrible and made me groan even more. The movie was full of genius even with Zack Snyder's horrible speed-up, speed-down directing technique. The great parts of the film very much outweigh all the flaws of the film, of which there are many. But the flaws didn't need to be there. For once I agree with the studio and they should have cut 20 minutes more out of this bitch.
RYAN: I would just hate to be the guy who worked on WATCHMEN and when asked what he did had to answer, "Yeah, um, I was the person who worked on the blue CGI penis." I'm glad some people stopped noticing but it is all I saw. And somewhere in the world...Papa Smurf is REALLY jealous.SQUASH: Saw DEWEY COX a couple days before WATCHMEN, and I realized that these days, in order for a movie to have tits, they have to also show full frontal male nudity. At least we're back to 70's style movies with ample unnecessary nudes. Anyone else think Ackerman was using a body double for her titty shots? I kept glancing at her head and it was somewhat hidden.
IMP: I haven't seen the movie yet (leaving to do so in a few minutes), but Ackerman had no problem showing her breasts when she played Freakshow's wife in HAROLD AND KUMAR. Maybe she's decided to go the classy route.
COMEDIAN: After the second time I just stopped noticing his dick and paid attention to the story. It's a glowy CGI dick that you kind of have to look for anyway since he has no pubes. But maybe it's because I just got the my screening in time so I had neck breaking front row seats and the screen was so big I had to do pan and scan with my eyes to see everything in any given frame. I think them doing a CGI Doctor Manhattan was more distracting overall than anything. Though the uncanny valley sort of fits him since he's not supposed to really be in the same plane of space and time as everyone else and it makes him more inhuman. In spite of that Billy Crudup really surprised me with the performance. You could really sense the shadow of John's humanity creeping in and out at just the right moments. He was more three dimensional as a character than I ever imagined Doctor Manhattan could be. I think they really should have cast Carla Guigino as Laurie even if it meant casting another actress to play her as a teenager in the crime busters meeting or they could have just "buttoned" her or something. At first I didn't mind Malin and I still think she was adequate but there is so much more world weariness to the character and I didn't really believe her as a 35 year old who's lived this extraordinary life she never wanted. Patrick Wilson was great as Nite Owl but he really should have been Ozy instead. If he were a bigger name he'd make a great Captain America. Goode was such a douche.VROOM: Having just gotten back from seeing this, all I can say is that if I'd never heard of the comic before, I'd probably have loved it. Having read the comic, I only rather liked it. For an adaptation of WATCHMEN that's under three hours, it's probably better than it has any right to be. Also, I think Leonard Cohen may just have been ruined for me forever.
COMEDIAN: Oh, Micky and Malorie Knox bastardized poor Leonard Cohen a long time ago in that OTHER great cult film that all the pretentious 15-22 year old kids love for it's stylized sex and violence, so think of it as passing on the torch.STEVE: Just got back myself. The opening credits with "Times They Are A-Changin'" was mildly incredible. I decided about half-way through that I am not mature enough to handle a big, blue Mangrove Pierce shown repeatedly throughout a movie, and I have a bad feeling that this movie will mostly be remembered for that blue penis.
"Remember the Watchmen?"
"Well, I remember a blue penis."
"Me too."
Overall I kind of loved the movie. Also loved the punked out "Desolation Row" cover at the end. Throw a Bob Dylan song into a movie and i generally like it - the same thing happened to me when I saw "Jerry McGuire." If they put "Simple Twist of Fate" in the closing credits of "Baby Geniuses," I'd probably like that too. Rorschach was perfect. I'm going to watch this movie 100 times. I think that movie made me high. I'm hungry and I can't feel my face.
BUG: Saw it! Yeah, the penis was a bit distracting, but I sort of got used to it after the second hour. The one thing I did notice that Manhattan’s radioactive aura protected him from shrinkage in Antarctica.SUPES: Dear Lord, can everyone just get over the penis already? Are we not adults? Are we not men??? Everyone's acting like they've never seen one before! Yeeeeshhh!!!
RYAN: Adults yes. But IMAX was not forgiving when it came to the wang.
SQUASH: Wait till they do 3D IMAX. Half the time it'll poke you right in the eye and nine months later your girlfriend will birth a glowing baby.
JINXO: The penis didn't ruin anything for me but, truth be told, every time it came on screen... uhhh wait, make that every time it popped up... that sounds bad too... every time it was up there,,, dammit! Whenever it showed up (victory!) I'd always think, "And there's the giant blue penis."
BUG: All in all, it was an entertaining movie, but a flawed adaptation. It dragged in parts, but dazzled in others. I felt that whereas WATCHMEN was a comment on comics, this was a comment on comic book movies, proving that there can be real drama and emotion, there can be complexity of plot, there can be ambiguous characters and actions and it can still be entertaining. If I had to say whether this was a winner or a loser of a film for me, I'd have to go with winner, even though there are plenty of flaws. The aforementioned sex scene in the Owl Ship was just uncomfortable. It lacked any passion and really made me feel wormy sitting there watching Nite Owl's ass pump over and over. It didn't help that Jupiter acted like a UPS box during the scene. Where was that fire she showed in THE HEARTBREAK KID? But the most distracting part of the film was the soundtrack. The cemetery scene was almost completely ruined by the music. I wish Snyder would have gone with a score rather than going all Scorsese with it.
SLEAZY: I felt like it was a really solid attempt to remain as true to the book as possible, and it was certainly technically and visually impressive. I don't think Snyder is a particularly good director of people, however, and as a result the movie felt sterile and uninvolving. It wasn't a failure by any stretch, but it wasn't entirely successful either. I wish I had cared more about the characters and events instead of it all just being eye candy.SQUASH: And that, right there, is the key to why I didn't like this movie. Remember when I said the film was about six characters only? I meant it. In the book, we look into the lives of the non-super-heroic, from the cops who investigate Comedian's death and eventually take down Rorschach, to the lesbian taxi driver, to the newsstand operator and his young non-customer, and more than we're given of the prison psychiatrist. By the end of the book, you're invested in these people, these normal people, their lives, and their struggles, and when all their paths converge and Ozymandias cuts their lives short, you actually give a shit. Not so with the movie adaptation; the faceless masses remain faceless. Sure, we caught a glimpse of a couple people here and there, but let's face facts, they landed on the cutting room floor for the sake of a director who felt the audience was more interested in wasting their time watching faceless prisoners get kicked by a chick in tight leather.
JINXO: I second that. If you are going to strip the ending of the blood then they should have beefed up the development of the supporting players so that when they were vaporized the ending would still have some emotional impact.
OD: I think it's more than just empathy for the “every-man’s” final fate; each of those ancillary characters in the book unfolded different facets of this fictional world that was. I’m going to contest that how this movie was put together made it accessible to two groups of people: fans of the comic and people that go to films solely for eye candy. This was truly a confusing 300. First we want you to come with us to 1985, where Nixon is still President. OK, why? Here are some folks from the 1940’s. We’re not going to tell you why they are important. Now here are the Watchmen. Why are they important? Well, they watch over us. See what I’m saying? It just felt like there was zero acclimation to this world. If there’s no purpose or explanation to a parallel universe, you just moved from social commentary to an episode of “Sliders.”STEVE: 1. "Sliders" was a totally watchable show. 2. I woke up this morning, and thought of lots of things that annoyed me, but overall thought of all the cool stuff. This movie was so much better than it had a right to be. The ending seemed to lack any consequence -but still, it was a really fun, awesome to look at movie. The opening credits? Those guys looked real. Poor Moth-Man getting hauled away - it was so pathetic - so lacking in anything heroic. If this was an episode of "Sliders" it was like the ultimate "Sliders" episode, Corey Feldman cameo as Bob Dylan and everything--"Don't send me no more letters NO, not unless you mail them from, Desolation Row."
OD: Hey I loved “Sliders”, but in many episodes they never explained the catalyst that made that world deviate from our own. In the very first episode red lights mean go and green lights mean stop. Why? That's the problem I had with WATCHMEN. Cool, the 24th Amendment was repealed or never existed, hence why Nixon is still in office. I think the world Moore created is as equally vibrant and interesting as the characters. Someone walking into this blind, I think needs that context to really get the story.SUPES: Ugh. SLIDERS was garbage...
ROCK-ME: No, it really wasn’t. “Sliders” wasn’t garbage. Neither was WATCHMEN. It was an entertaining flick, and as shallow as it was compared to the comic, it will influence a lot more people to get their feet wet in this genre than might have, before it came out. Were there some problems with it? Some bad music choices, some pacing issues, some cheesy makeup? Yeah, there were. But overall, it was a lot better than it had a right to be.
SLEAZY: I already know several people who read the book in preparation for the movie, a few of whom don't read comics at all ever, which they certainly didn't do before IRON MAN. If the movie manages to open some people up to the idea of reading more comics it's a good thing. It's not a GREAT movie, no--but it's a pretty danged good one. Put it up against DAREDEVIL or SPIDER-MAN 3 or SUPERMAN RETURNS and I know which one I'll choose to watch again.
COMEDIAN: I think Snyder got caught up in adapting "The Greatest Graphic Novel of All-Time" and that turned into a trap for him because maybe he equated that "greatness" with grandiose spectacle. It's kind of the opposite of what Singer did with SUPERMAN, which called for the grandiose but settled firmly on something uninspired and pedestrian. Instead of "superheroes in the real world" WATCHMEN” The Movie is "Superheroes in a well-stylized version 20th Century". Sometimes this works beautifully. Sometimes it fell terribly short. When the opening credits played I got a chill because the inner comics fan in me, the guy who stopped reading them, that part of me that was long lost was saying, "Oh my God, this is really happening and it's awesome." Yeah, it's basically a music video but it's one of the best sequences in any film of this type and it completely cements you in this world. I got a good laugh out of The Comedian watching the McLaughlin Group, Veidt taking Lou Reed's Place in Jagger and Bowie's dirty, flithy man-train, even the bit where Lee Iacocca gets it in the chest and between the eyes instead of Veidt's cute assistant. Where this didn't work was all the Nixon bullshit. I think there's like two panels where we see his face in the comic and he's got more speaking lines and scenes than Rorschach's shrink. That was fucking stupid, definitely a studio note. You can pretty much pinpoint all the studio notes in this film.
STEVE: I just can't find too much to complain about. It was a fun movie and what they got right, they got right and the rest was just an enjoyable movie. What they got right was Rorschach, the Comedian, Dr. Manhattan, and Nite Owl (even if he wasn't a pudgy dude) and so even if they weren’t in the same adventure as the comic, it was fun to me to see them adventuring together. I got a geeky thrill when I noticed something directly from the book, and what wasn't exactly the same, hey that just what it is. Clearly to me everyone involved gave a shit, and I appreciate that, tremendously. This wasn't the FANTASTIC FOUR or some other piece of crap comic book movie adaptation where they made wholesale changes and just took a wild Taco Bell dump on the source material, making me spit out my movie Coke in irritation. All the things they changed, I might not agree with, but I could see where they were coming from.BUG: Yea, changes were necessary. I don’t mind a tweak here or there to translate from comic to film. And the end result was better than most. The worst parts of THE WATCHMEN were ten times better than ELEKTRA or the latest PUNISHER films.
STEVE: The two major flaws that keep this movie from being more than just another beautiful, masterfully made but profoundly flawed cult film in waiting are how they handled the two biggest reveals of the comic, Laurie's true relationship with The Comedian and the reveal of Ozy being the villain. We've gone over the Laurie stuff already. Say what you want about Malin Ackerman but they gutted most of her arc anyhow by cutting in that stupid flashback way earlier into the movie. The problem with Goode's Ozy isn't just the tacky accent and all the mustache twirling douchery.
BUG: I hated Ozy, but I gess that was the point. I would have liked it if they would have covered the fact that he is the big bad a little. I mean nothing screams, “VILLAIN!” me than a bright purple suit.STEVE: The main beef I have with his character so obviously being the villain isn't just that it kills the twist at the end but on top of that they took out the one scene where he gets a spiritual come-uppance in his final conversation with Doctor Manhattan. He's not actually sure he's done the right thing. The weight of his horrible actions are creeping in and Doctor Manhattan doesn't give him the easy out. He leaves him hanging trapped in his own mind fuck. Instead we get Smuggy McDoucheypants with the same pleased with himself Bond villain expression and that's it. That ruined the ending for me more so even than them going for the "clean" holocaust instead of the bloodier one.
OD: I'll totally agree that it was amusing from our wealth of knowledge view-point. It was a smattering of panels that we only thought would ever come alive in our imaginations. I still have to look at it, though, from the newbie perspective--and I just mean the 14 year old boy newbies who got to see ass and boobies. I went to see it with a very diverse cross section of non-comic fans and they all felt the same - "looked cool, but I still don't know who these Watchmen are and why I should care. Do they have anything to do with the Justice League?" Statements like that lead me to believe that Snyder or whoever wrote the script fell short on the job. There was too much focus on character building and not enough focus on the world they inhabit, which was a pretty fucking spectacular and subtly nuanced alternate reality in the original book. Honestly, it was always the world that entranced me more than the actual Watchmen.
ROCK-ME: What I mostly hear is a bunch of complaining about little things… things most people will never notice, or notice, not care much about. But at some point, one must look for and appreciate the things that were done RIGHT, and not be driven mad by the things that were done wrong.
COMEDIAN: There was definitely a lot of love for the medium put into this film. Did anybody catch the easter egg of Nite Owl saving an ersatz Thomas and Martha Wayne in the 1st shot of the opening credits? That's love, my friends. Most of the cynical opportunists we've seen cruise through this genre (yeah, I'm talking shit about Bryan Singer again) wouldn't even spend time on that kinda Alex Ross stuff. I may doubt Snyder's understanding of the source material (though I could say that about any fellow fan since people never have the exact same perspective on anything) I will never doubt his genuine respect of it. This guy's had a three film career of opportunities at imaginatively adopting and reinventing cherished works and he's never treated them merely as stepping stone opportunities like others in his place would have. If he could come this close with something as complex as WATCHMEN I think he could clean up Superman or do a Justice League film in his sleep. Just don't cast poor Malin Ackerman as Lois Lane or Wonder Woman.
SLEAZY: I have to agree to a certain extent, and I don't want it to sound like I'm hating on the movie. The soundtrack was awful, and the movie felt sort of cold and stiff, and I wish I cared more about what was going on. Still, it was far closer to the book than I would have expected and fit far more of the important stuff in than I think anyone else could have. It wasn't a perfect movie, but it wasn't a train wreck either. I've seen far worse comic book adaptations, and it was a very faithful adaptation. I wasn't everything the fans wanted, but it accomplished much of it rather well.COMEDIAN: Most of the music Snyder used feels like back in film school where everybody wanted to use songs they knew they would never get the rights to use professionally and then the professors would chastise us for making music videos instead of movies. Snyder just had the toy chest of the Warner Bros. music library and went with it. Which I guess works in the "Gump" aspect of the film framing it as a commentary on the 20th century. I didn't mind it so much with "Sounds of Silence" at Eddie Blake's funeral but maybe he should have used Zappa's "Dirty Love" for the Owl Ship sex scene instead...cause it was dirty...see what I did there....ok, I'm drunk.
SLEAZY: I don't know who put together the pop soundtrack for the movie, but they should never be allowed to work in film again. Every single song choice was godawful. Most were cliched, many felt inappropriately crammed in to the movie, and every single one of them pulled me out of the movie and annoyed the shit outta me. I can't even decide which was most egregious: "99 Red Balloons" was stupid and pointless, "Hallelujah" was so poorly utilized I could barely stop from laughing out loud, "All Along The Watchtower" and "The Time They Are A Changin'" were completely unnecessary, the use of Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" was lame and insulting and already done in a shitty Ray Liotta movie over a dozen years ago...they really should have just used the original score and used it to maintain the mood of the film instead of abusing pop songs to completely jar us out of the scene.JINXO: Bigger for me though was (don't think this spoils things anymore than the song actually being in the film) them putting in “99 Red Balloons”. I get it. It's on topic and it's from the 80s. The thing is...this isn't OUR 80s. This isn't a time where Regan became president and culture became cheesy pastel fun. This is an 80s where Nixon stayed in power. I always thought of it like our 80s got chopped out and the 70s got stretched longer and thinner. Reading the WATCHMEN I always thought of a world where the music was a bit edgier. The 60s/70s reinention of rock smearing into punk. I bought the disco song because that felt like spoiled 70s cheese and so had a weird edge. But “99 Red Balloons”? Come on.
IMP: On the whole, I thought the movie was good, but not great. The first half (up through Dr. Manhattan on Mars) was excellent, but after that the film's weaknesses started to show. It seemed almost as though Snyder and Co. worked on the movie linearly-- as if they spent a lot of time carefully crafting the film up through the Mars sequence, then looked at their remaining time and thought, "Shit-- we need to start wrapping this up!" The second half of the movie felt very compressed, especially Rorschach's time in prison with the psychiatrist (although my girlfriend thought that the prison time went on for too long, so maybe I'm just too used to the comic). And while I admit that the revised ending of the movie (Manhattan-energy rather than space-squid) works, it lacks the emotional and visceral punch of the comic. Plus, the choice of giving some of Manhattan's conversation with Ozymandias to Laurie and Dan ("Nothing ever ends") took away a lot of the drama that the scene as originally presented possessed. I completely agree with you in regards to the music. The use of "All Along the Watchtower" was particularly jarring.SQUASH: I think a lot of the time spent glamorizing each scene could have been spent better elsewhere, enhancing the characters.
IMP: One last thing: can we all agree that Malin Ackerman is a terrible, terrible actress? Granted, her character lost a lot of personality in the transition from comic to film script, but even so, Ackerman clearly stood out as the worst member of the cast. Since Snyder already had Jackie Earl Haley and Matthew Goode in his cast, he should have just made it a LITTLE CHILDREN reunion and brought in Kate Winslet to play the Silk Spectre. The scene where Laurie realizes who her father was would have been much better if it had included the flashback of her drunken confrontation with the Comedian at the government function. The sex scene could have easily been pared down to allow time for this much more integral moment.JINXO: Plus side, I do think all of the actors playing the WATCHMEN did a pretty good job, bringing subtlety work in there even while having to seemingly be over the top. The sex scene didn't bug me too much except for the symbolic climax. That just was a bit too much for me. That said, two supporting players chewed the scenery so much and with such lack of subtlety that they pulled me out of the movie a couple of times.
HUMPH: Losing all the Hiroshima references with the shadow graffiti, the newstandman and his plucky "sidekick", and little character moments that would have emphasized just why they were the way they were. It kind of appalls me that Rorschach is going to come out of this overwhelmingly as the favorite because some of his tendencies, the ones that make you realize that, yeah, he's the Wolverine of the story, but also a complete fucking nutjob without any sort of forward thinking given the kind of stakes the rest of the group were playing for. Given though, Haley did a hell of a job playing him, and what was left in the movie was definitely all the sympathetic bits so it's understandable people are going to think of him that way, but that's something in the book that I've always thought defined it: what you thought of the blotch test dude by the end of it.
JINXO: I think they got an amazing amount of stuff right. But regularly throughout the movie they'd get stuff wrong too. Mostly nothing outrageously wrong but just wrong enough to pull me right out of the movie. Music was mentioned? Wow. Perfect example. Sometimes the music would be dead on for me and then at others it would be glaringly dead wrong. Spot on with the funeral. In some ways it fit. That song would exist in the world of Watchmen, it is of the right era for the Comedian to an extent but...it's wrong. It's a song with some warmth to it. For the funeral of The Comedian you need something with some bite to it, something right but just a little dark or off. Maybe something that feels slightly older. Like... some 60s/70s Johnny Cash song with a dark edge about death.BUG: Actually the “Hallelujah” song used during the extended humping scene is a much better song for the Comedian’s funeral. Like you said, it was a dirty version of the song and…you know, the Comedian is kind of a dirty character.
OD: “Watcht
-
+ Expand All
-
keep up the great work, Fellas.
-
Great take on Watchmen...for next week, can you guys PLEASE review Battle for the Cowl, and some of the stuff that led up to it? I'd love to read your take on what's going to happen to Batman.
-
That was the stupidest fucking read of my entire life.
-
"You asked for it, you got it" is a great way to sum up the Watchmen movie, and everything that led up to it. People are complaining about the movie, but I feel like, for years, people were begging for this movie to be made. And now that it's made, they seem upset with the results. From the get go, however, more people should have been against this movie being made if they didn't want to see it adapted. Most people I talked to were crazy-excited to see this. They WANTED Watchmen made into a movie. Now that it's out, we have to sort of say, "Well, we got what we asked for." It's like the day after Christmas, when you're a kid, and you get all your toys but then, you're sitting there thinking "Now what?" because the hype is over. Plus, once you make the "Holy Grail" of comics into a movie, where can you go?
-
...but it sure smells good!
-
Those harping on Zach's "failings" brought too many pre-conceived notions and too much baggage about the director's previous efforts into the film. It's like if Ratner directed the next "A New Hope." Even if it was mindbendingly great, many people would hate it simply because you're supposed to hate Ratner on this site.
Ditto for those obsessing about the movie being either too near or too far to the book. When I see these "problems" mentioned in a review, I just skip it. The movie is its own entity. -
What a bunch of assholes...
-
...talking about this movie in a video debate:http://tinyurl.com/b6ybnuIf nothing else, it's nice to see what you guys look like.
-
Also: the new ending makes WAY more sense. Sorry, but it does. Of course, the novel is, overall, MUCH better, but the film adaptation is very, very good; moreover, the new ending makes more narrative sense. I get what Moore was doing with the squid, but the new ending makes more narrative sense; especially in terms of Doc Manhattan's character arc.
If anything, I think the tone Snyder strikes is a weird mix of too reverent and too bombastic; but, I still think he did a remarkable job and the film was MUCH better than I was expecting. -
Flawed? Sure, but what isn't?
-
...Just stop trying to see it as the GN come to life. It's not. It exists as its own entity. If you look at it that way, it's not disappointing.
-
...for fucksake. It's over until the DVD comes out.
-
What a cunt, he looks like a latino pimp. And I thought he wasn't a geek? So whats with the fuckin Star Trek top? fuckin asshole
-
Did you actually skip through the whole thing just to get a comment in "FIRST"?
Cunts. -
Good work guys.
-
I really do think this movie is on par with Blade Runner. You could rip the hell out of that movie too for leaving out huge parts of the book and cutting a lot of the meat out. But you'd miss the fact that the film is still a brilliant work of art. How can you not watch this film and realize how juvenile most of our superhero movies are? What superhero movie stands up to this, in terms of characters, subject matter and execution? The Dark Knight? Rorschach makes Christian Bale's Batman look like a hack. They do similar voices, but Rorschach's works. And this film is a much more interesting answer to what superheroes would really be like than the "realistic" Dark Knight. I think some of you guys at the round table are missing the forest for the trees. My guess is you'll be kicking yourselves in ten years when this movie is a classic.
-
Can someone explain to me why Watchmen is regarded so much more highly than The Dark Knight Returns? They both came out roughly at the same time, but while Watchmen is kind of a regular Super Hero story with some funny twists and old fashioned artwork Returns is a totally new way to use the medium done in a style that's so pretty a lot of people think it's ugly! Vastly superior characters, story, atmosphere, drawings, everything. Yet all the time i see Watchman being refered to as the end all be all best comic book ever (one of the 100 best novels ever? come on!) and no love for the Dark Knight! What's the reason?
-
Mar 11, 2009 9:09:19 AM CDT
I was wondering when AICN would cover the Watchmen movie
by the penultimate gunslinger
Fucking hell, more Watchmen stuff. I was looking forward to comic reviews but I get more Watchmen! I don't think I'm gonna be able to read the graphic novel again until a few years have passed, as these past few months I feel like I've had a massive blue dong forced down my throat the whole time.
-
Batman Year One is far better
-
Oh man, I never thought about the DVD. AICN is gonna go Watchmen crazy again in a few months, with everyone blabbing on about how much better the extended cut which makes the film 24 hours long is. I love the graphic novel, thought the film was average to poor, but I'm just fed up with hearing about it.
-
It remains to be seen if this IS on a par with Bladerunner..as only time will tell. Many people loved Batman Forever when it came out because it harkened back to the colourful 60's show.
The Dark Knight is a worse movie plotwise, but handled so much better. Right, I'm finished with this film until I get a copy. No more Watchmen coverage please AICN, it wasn't THAT great. -
...looks just like a young Chevy Chase.
-
I'm talking about the comics now; Watchmen is a multilayered post-modernist deconstruction of the super-hero idiom, as well as a socio-political commentary on the Cold War and 80s arms race. The Dark Knight Returns is just a more violent version of Batman with some cool dystopic twists. It also doesn't hold up AT ALL. I LOVED TDKR when it first came out, I re-read it recently and thought a great deal of it was kinda dumb. WATCHMEN, on the other hand, keeps getting better; I'm still finding new hidden things in that book that I missed on previous readings.
-
listen to the queen of freckled bossoms and shut the fuck up about the Watchmen...because the book was overrated and the movie sucked blue dick
-
Year One is MUCH better than TDKR.
-
...Dark Knight Returns has aged pretty poorly. Sure, it seemed shocking and cool at the time, and it was certainly different, but reading it again it's clear that it's what a 12 year old boy thinks is "adult". Year One stands up to the test of time better.
-
But the owlship would? Come on, that's a problem with the story surely? If Dan can create a little owlship all on his own but can't make a tough armoured suit, I'd be surprised. None of you seem to note that the Owlsuit in the comics is a direct rip of the batsuit in the comics, replacing blue with brown and slightly altering the mask shape. So for the film to replicate this by almost mimicking the movie batsuit seemed not only acceptable, but a natural choice.
Also not sure why so many don't like the soundtrack - an awful lot of which is directly linked to the book's quotes. The 'All Along The Watchtower - "Two Riders Were Approaching" line - that was really well linked in, quality.
The one complaint I'd totally agree with would be the bloodless ending, it just didn't feel real enough, we've seen exploding cities thousands of times - and as well executed as it was, you needed to see Laurie beg Jon to take her away from there - to show the true horror of what Veidt did.
But minor nitpicks aside, I loved the film, and eagerly await the extended cut, as I did feel it needed some scenes added to allow it to breathe. I want to see Hollis' fate and Dan's reaction - it looked like that was a clear cut in the film, as we saw Dan turn away from Rorschach in the bar, and in the foreground was one of the Knot Tops, just like in the comic. -
was a fun look into the future, and was a mature book nerd's dream. Watchmen is far superior I agree. But as a film...Spiderman pisses web fluid all over it.
-
I still don't get what's supposed to be the big deconstruction of the genre in Watchmen. It is a pretty straightforward super hero detective story. The characters are a bit darker and more fleshed out than was customary for the time it came out i guess, but still, it doesn't seem very far from your typical comic book story. This goes for the artwork as well, which i always thought was way behind the curve in it's old fashioned stiff way of depiction...
-
Without the bodies piled dead and dying in the streets the ending to Watchmen does not work. I liked the movie, and am actually hopeful that a lot of the pacing issues caused by the editing will be fixed in the 40 min longer Director's Cut, but just having Manhattan and Laurie stood on the edge of a big crater is crap.
-
Essentially, that the self-appointed super-heroes are basically neurotic, insane, fascistic costume sex fetishists. They're glorified furries and kind of ridiculous. Thats one point Moore makes. That kind of stuff goes WAY over Miller's head. Miller seems like a 12 year old who just discovered the joys of masturbation. Moore, clearly insane, is also brilliant -- the closest comics have ever come to a Kubrick.
-
That's pretty much exactly the point Miller makes, he only wraps it in a much denser atmosphere and high class artwork. Anyways, this won't lead anywhere - agree to disagree (as Ron Burgundy would say). Let's get back to talking about Dr. Manhattan's penis...
-
An excellent read. This, and the DuPont write-up were by far the best to appear on AICN. Your criticisms were totally valid. I kept nodding as I read, "Yep, yep, yep." What was interesting about Snyder and company's Watchmen was that they took what many considered to be an unfilmable story, and actually did a decent job translating it to film. I don't know of any other curent filmmaker who could've done that, but just imagine if a director of great talent, like Coppola in his prime, had remained as faithful to the source material as Snyder had - we would all be discussing not only a great superhero film, but one of the best films ever made. Surely Coppola could have nailed the character nuances and the emotional beats of the story, but of course, we'll never know. Snyder is talented to be sure, but he just wasn't able to bring the translation home. And, as Steve stated in his comments, the man made an earnest effort. He really tried to do the story justice, and he should be commended for that. It's a pity he made some of the decisions he did - the bad casting, the compromised ending, the poor music choices, some truly awful added dialogue (to name but a few of the film's many flaws). He nearly pulled it off though. Parts of the film were downright astonishing. That certainly diminished any disappointment I felt as I left the theater.
-
Just read it through, and you guys probaly gave the best Watchmen write-up on the site. I take back what I said - there was some room for some more Watchmen coverage on AICN. I can only hope this is the last of it though!
-
Rightfully so.
And really, the squid has so little to do with the problems people mention above. -
Re: "JINXO: I keep hearing reviewers who say, "Oh, it sticks so much to the comic in every way possible that THAT is its flaw. Fanboys will be happy but it is just too much a copy of the comic and not its own thing."
SUPES: This is what I'm most afraid of. From what I know of Harry Potter that's just what ruined the first movie...which I hated. It was boring because it had no heart of its own. It was just working to impress the fans...
IMP: I was thinking that about the Harry Potter franchise as well--my favorite movie of the series was PRISONER OF AZKABAN, which worked so well because Cuaron chose to make decisions that would serve the movie itself, rather than a slavish page-to-screen translation."
.
Did y'all feel the same way afterwards? None of y'all mentioned it directly (maybe I missed subtle hints in y'all's discussion) so I was curious if you did feel this way afterwards. -
Search your geek hearts. You know it to be true.
-
i loved the bit where someone incredibly suggested that if it was down to rewatching either daredevil, superman returns, spiderman 3 or watchmen, he'd know which one he'd watch!
it's nice to see people keeping high standards -
Congrats guys. Takes a village I guess.
-
Just my two cents. Awful performances from everyone but Jackie Haley-- I don't know, maybe Billy Crudup gave a good performance, but who can tell. The fidelity to the actual panel layouts seemed to indicate sincere adoration of the material, but lines and scenes were often presented without the context that gave them emotional depth in the book, and so much of it just came off as silly and ridiculous. Notice how the Comedian's Vietnam looked like Max Fischer's stage-play Vietnam in 'Rushmore'.The whole thing was far more juvenile than the graphic novel. At the same time, I can't imagine anyone who hasn't read the graphic novel finding this an engaging film in the slightest. Lots of people walked out the theater when I saw it.My overall feeling is that the movie was made by someone whose heart was in the right place, but whose brain was in fourth grade.
-
Watchmen just seemed to be rushing from one scene to the next, ticking off boxes, just like the first potter film, without ever letting the film breathe.
Just like the first potter lacked any real magic, watchmen did also.
I too also found myself thinking, right this is boring, next scene please, waiting in vain for an emotional kickback. nothing, nada, zilch, niente. instead i got a huge amount ambivalence, confusion, boredom, embarassment, ennui and disappointment. -
about the sensation that someone was ticking off boxes, rather than telling an engaging story with compelling characters. Boring, and ultimately just plain silly.
-
Mar 11, 2009 10:35:40 AM CDT
This is why the comic book talkbacks are the best on this site..
by the penultimate gunslinger
Because they're generally places where people have a reasonable debate without pricks saying shit like: "THAT WAS THE BEST SHIT EVER. IF U DONT GET IT YOUR A FUCKING MORON". Personally thought this movie was very dissapointing, but with a few great bits. I dunno if it's actually possible to create a good Watchmen movie. Escpecially since you have to make it accesable for people who haven't read the book as well as pleasing all the fanboys. They did that shit with Lord of the Rings, but I think that's the exception to the rule. I agree it was done pretty much like most of the Harry Potters were: as a box ticking exercise rather than an actual compelling narrative.
-
Batman as sociopathic "freedom-fascist", stripped of any other personality. It's OKAY as a story. But a lot of people resent it more because it turned Batman in the "World's Biggest Asshole" for twenty years.
-
I agree with that. Friends of mine who don't read regular comic books basically think Batman is that asshole from The Dark Night Returns, and it pisses me off. They think of Batman as being a real bastard and Superman being a sissy little boyscout when, to me, there's so much more to those characters.
-
...that the unfilmable has been filmed, or that leaving out "The Black Freighter" and the devastation at the end is cheating?
-
It's far from the definitive comic story and isn't even in the top 5 Batman stories, really. Miller's depiction of Superman as a dickless government wrecking ball ruins the story, although Superman is given much more respect here than in Dark Knight Strikes Again, where not only does Miller cut off Superman's balls, but affixes a Kryptonian vagina. No offense to the females...
-
will have some more devastation at the end. We really need to see the foundation of corpses. The one criticism I don't agree with is the soundtrack. I think it was absolutely necessary to have those songs, to drive home the "parallel history" point. I thought they were great choices.
-
snyder (which i didn't expect) failed to give sufficient context or create a cohesive world.
acting was dreadful apart jackie haley. billy cudrup was pretty good despite cgi's best efforts at hiding his performance. i was expecting good things from mathew goode, but he was awful, as was the rest of the cast.
I don't want to get bogged down in criticising little details because I thought the film suffered in major departments eg. narration, dramatic tension, acting and direction. -
is currently up at Newsarama and DC Nation; sample page from the new series out in June. And I think that's pretty clearly Dick Grayson and Damien Wayne in the title roles.
-
But yeah, you're right. Why pick apart performances when there was so many fundamentals done badly. I almost feel bad for Snyder, because you get the clear sense that he reveres the material... but also that maybe he doesn't understand why it's good.
-
Click on most of the pics for Alan Moore photos. A little disappointed you didn't use my Arnold Horshack shot, Bug.
-
And that's all anyone needs to know. Fuck anything else.The film being only ' about ' the 6 heroes is part of the point. And a great one at that. Oh, and overly emphasizing the ancilliary characters would be ' The Dark Knight ' really, which already tackled that. ' Watchmen ' will simply have to be ' Watchmen ' in ANOTHER way in order for it to succeed.Most these people excoriate Zach Snyder for being only nothing but fillial to the material, but he's the one who looks beyond that more than anybody else here. ' Watchmen ' is suppose to be, for all intents and purposes, a phenomenon, and an iconoclasm all its own vis a vis the superhero trope. The comic did that for the novel, and this one has been successfully doing that, on a larger extent, on film. The fact he understood it enough to metatextually bother commenting on the ' Batman and Robin ' bit should be an absolute plus.Oh, and Matthew Goode's ' Ozymandias ' may be a completely different, even jarring beast of a creation, but it's a damn impressive one. Disturbed, haunting, and messed-up sick. His operates on perhaps a whole set of other contexts, but it's quite a feat all the same. It makes you realize that the comic version is stuck within the fabric of ' Silver Age ' tropes, design and personality-wise, that's why his character seems more impressive and admirable than he actually is. Goode and Zach took the poisonous meat of that character's concept, and brought it into the screen. Made it even more menacing with the normally most wholesome, toy-friendly type of superhero movie garb ( the latex, neon-colored, Joel Schumacher-esque ) one and appropriated it on a rat bastard who just slaughtered 15 million people. Aren't you impressed by that ? Doesn't that make you gasp in awe once you see the film character's conception for what it is ? Who's being anemic ? I'm standing by their Ozy treatment now. Truly subversive feat. Coz that character design ? That, I realize, is another mcguffin that could easily be switched. And, in this case, obviously for the BETTER. And I couldn't believe I'm defending Zach ' 300 ' Snyder on anything, either.
-
Mar 11, 2009 12:01:22 PM CDT
I'd rather have comics reviews, but the movie was good.
by homer sexual
I can see why people make the Harry Potter comparisons, and that exact criticism is probably why I liked the movie more than I anticipated. It gave all the characters their respect, it looked great and the action was better than expected. Lots of quibbles, but overall I'd give it a B+.
However, the one person in my group who had not read the graphic novel, and also the only teen, thought the movie was slow. I would have to agree that there may not be much to latch on to emotionally. -
It wasn't the comic, but come on, film can never rival the emotional response a book can bring out in you. For the most part, I understood the big changes and even if I wasn't sure about the little ones (why not have the cop try to warn off Dan and then have the cops raid his house), I wasn't bothered by them.All in all, excellant work for an "unfilmable" adaptation. I'll go see it again.
-
I'd rather have comic reviews too. What came out this week?
-
I'm saying, as a film, as a movie-going experience, that was awful.
-
When all was said and done, I was a bit perplexed by the portions of the comic that Snyder chose to literally translate to the screen-- there were a lot of smaller moments that were nice to see, but not as intedgral to the story as some of the scenes that were either omitted or altered for the film. I mentioned the two scenes that I thought were most important (Laurie's flashbacks to her confrontation with the Comedian and the deletion of the final conversation between Manhattan and Ozymandias), but I also think that by altering the original ending, even though the new ending makes logical sense, a great deal of the emotional impact of what Ozy did is diminished. The manager of my local comic shop made an excellent point: "We've already seen the kind of destruction that was in the movie... IN REAL LIFE." Having seen the ruins of Sept. 11 makes the similar-looking fake destruction insignificant.
-
Not Macguyver bad, but close. If you like these shows without recognizing their stupidity (or with Macguyver that Mr. Anderson must have sucked a lot of cock to get jobs as he is the most wooden man imaginable) then I seriously question your taste in TV.
-
I didn't really have a strong hate or love reaction. Maybe I should've walked out about halfway through, then I would've thought I just watched half of an awesome adaption. The second half was jus meh. I was actually glancing at my watch a couple times. I thought the prison scenes were all a bit over the top and borderline campy. I.e. The overdramatic prisoner getting burned with grease, Kramers bad acting dwarf friend, the strike an action pose everytime we beat down a prisoner hallway riot scene with Silk Spectre and Nite Owl. Also, changing the child murderer scene because of "Saw" is retarded. Because quite frankly if you are trying to cater to that audience, you've already failed. My last point is about the Squid. I was a defender of the new ending, but after seeing it, I was wrong. It just didn't resonate the same way with me. I mean chances are half the audience is still gonna be walking out of the movie with the changed ending confused, so you might as well have just kept the original ending intact. I know a lot of people are pinning their hopes on the Extended Directors Cut... I'm not nearly as confident that that will be much better. I hope I'm wrong.
-
please?
-
Reviews are next week, Laserhead.
-
I love the @$$holes but I could only get about halfway through this. The pre-movie talk should have been edited out (at least). also nitpick much
-
a brief and not entirely fair criticism, it's just that I'm sick to fucking death of reading gigantic diatribes picking every milisecond of this film apart
-
but I'd still like them this week.
-
get over the fucking blue penis. if you "could only stare it and couldn't pay attention to anything else when it was on screen" YOU HAVE SOME FUCKING UNRESOLVED ISSUES
-
If all you could do is stare at the big, blue penis and loudly complain about it afterwards, then you, sir, are a big gaywad.
-
Were just F***KED up. Funny, but F***KED up.
-
was wonderful the first 2 seasons, mediocre during its 3rd, and pretty damn unwatchable in its remaining years.
-
ZZ Top? Heh.
-
had the funniest character write off ever, they wrote the main girl off in favor of bringing on Kari Wuhr and so they introduced these nazi cavemen bad guys and they basically arrest the main girl and take her back to their homeplanet and a minor character goes, basically: "yeah, thy're probably raping her to death right now." and the rest of the cast is like: "Man, that sucks... so... anyone else hungry? I could really use a bite...." I don't know who that actress pissed off, but man, they wanted her off that show for good. And it was only like the second episode I ever saw and I sat there in shock. "Wow." sucks to be her.
-
Watchmen worked for me. We can go on ad nauseum about how the style did or did not mesh with the book, the actors or the change of the ending. But just dealing with it as a MOVIE, it worked. I thought the characters worked, especiall Haley as Rorschach. I would put him up there with Ledger because he took a character and dissapeared into it. That was RORSCHACH up there, and I was amazed. The rest of the cast was good, or at least good enough. The controversy around the Doc being shown fully nude was didn't bother me at all, because it was true to the source. All in all, I enjoyed it, will be seeing it again this week with my family, and will by the Blu-Ray when it comes out.
-
I've never been that impressed by the "meta" commentary of Watchmen. To me, what made the book great was not the story itself, which is good, but the literary tools Moore brought to bear in order to tell that story. To me, that was the revolutionary bit that changed the comic industry, not the story, which is at its core just another basic super tale.
-
Sorry, this is just a huge pet peeve. I agree with a lot of what you said but "it's a long movie" is a criticism that makes me want to punch someone. If you sit and enjoy a movie, shouldn't longer be better? Isn't longer more of a bargain? Paying the same amount to be entertained for more time? I can get behind "there are parts that are boring or don't do anything necessary or interesting," but just saying "it's too long" is criticizing a movie for not catering to a short attention span.
-
The main actress on Sliders probably didn't piss anyone off. She probably just refused to sleep with any of the producers, so they brought in someone who would. A.k.a Kari Wurher of Skinemax fame.
-
Every time it was on the screen I was staring at it. Watching it sway back and forth as Dr. Manhattan moved confidently, powerfully, from location to location, his taut buttocks barely shifting thanks to their sublime tightness, his fine, chiseled abdomen, rippled like frozen waves of pure muscle below his perfectly sculpted pectorals. It was distracting because I'm totally into chicks, man.
-
While I was currious about and somewhat looking forward to your thoughts and coments on Watchmen I have to say I'm disappointed that it took the place of the weekly comic reviews. Also, I read and read and read then I read some more and all I was reading were thoughs and speculations about the movie and that stuff has been rampant on this site and in comic shops for months. I've had these conversations and didn't need to read yours. I never made it to where you actually talk about the movie after you saw it. If you're going to replace the review column at least give us something tighter and not so bloated.
-
They don't give you intermissions in most flicks these days, and frankly a numb ass and full bladder are a distraction. The DVD can be days in length and that's fine by me, but theatrical releases should be manageable.
-
I don't care. Maybe I will browse over it later when I have time. I was just really looking forward to reviews for last week's comics.
-
I enjoyed the movie, thought Snyder did a great job. I let it all soak in, loved the references to the comic. I thought Akerman sucked, but man does she have a hot body. When I got to the end I was surprised at myself. I thought they got it right. I understood the end changing. But I just said, 'Now that was pretty good.' I really wanted it to be great. I agree with Joe that sometimes you can't get the same emotional impact as a book with the same material. Lost in translation, I suppose. But really, I'm just happy it was made well, with heart and care, when I never thought it would be.
-
I wish my balls looked that good though, more hang, less elbow skin, you know?
-
I walked out for a piss right when the Impotence scene (I reckon they kept that in, right?) started, and came back to Dan's butt down in the basement staring at his costume and talking about fear (I also saw the fried prisoner die, don't know which came first). What'd I miss? Did Mickey visit Kovacs before the riot? If so, same as the comic?
-
Can people just agree that this is the biggest event for comics this week and stop bitching. thanks for the effort a-holes. I enjoyed the read. I'll throw a log on the fire: I'm tired of Blackest Night already and it has not even started yet- discuss.
-
The editing, and the pacing was perfect. The only problem that I had, was that this film was way too short. It needed atleast another hour or two. That's why the film has some narrative shortcomings, because alot was taken out. Plus, the supporting characters, and the "Tales of the Black Freighter" is really what made "Watchmen" the masterpiece that it is. So the theatrical is not the finished product. It's good, but incompletel. I think the director's cut, and the ultimate extended cut will be alot better.
-
I went into it with pretty low expectations, but was pretty surprised after reading it. It wasn't grounbreaking, but it was entertaining. Anyone else read it yet?
-
Just what no one asked for!
Jonah Hex concludes the rare two-part storyline "Sawbones" about Hex's second encounter with a truly creepy, if not the most original, villain. This issue also features the return of a supporting character long-time fans will appreciate, but no history is necessary for newcomers. As someone who doesn't care for the Western genre, I find this book to be consistently entertaining. This conclusion surpassed entertaining to become gripping. Last month's issue is probably still on the shelves at your LCS, so if you haven't read it yet, pick up both issues for a story that remains true to its origins as a western, while being an intense read for any comic fan.
Terror Titans hasn't gotten much attention, but it does what I like most in comics: Taking a bunch of lesser-known characters and putting them in an "anything can happen" situation (since these characters are disposable) and mixing action with character development to tell a story that is entertaining and multi-dimensional, if not exactly deep. Rose Wilson aka Ravager is the star of the show, but her fellow Terror Titans are also very interesting. The whole group are "legacy" characters-offspring mostly, but some successors--who dwell in the grey areas. Ravager is basically a "hero" but she is way more complicated than most (while still being a character I can root for). Her team mates are villains. No quotation marks necessary, because they are killers. Yet they are all shown to be multi-faceted humans who aren't 100% bad and have reasons for being the way they are. What I really like is the way they are given complexity without being sob stories we are supposed to pity. Since this concludes the 6-issue mini, new readers probably won't pick this up, but if it is released as a collection, pick it up. The story is fast-moving and action packed, with quality art and decent characters. Fans of super power stories with lots of characters and edge, without being "alternative" or "out there" will not be disappointed.
There are lots of other books for other posters to review: Secret Six, War of Kings, Avengers Reunion (Ronin/Hawkeye and Mockingbird), Dark Avengers (I didn't buy that one but would be interested in a review) are some suggestions. -
but I'll try to read the New Avenger stuff tonight.
-
Watchmen at 3 hours would have been fine if he didn't drag out half the scenes with filler. I would rather have had less filler and a shorter movie, or a just-as-long film with additional plot taking the place of every slo-mo fight scene drawn-out owlship sex scene.
-
What the hell, it was like 30 seconds long, man. Drawn out? There were like 4 cuts. It was a sedate sex scene that only showed a bit of ass and a little boob. Jeez, you'd think none of you had ever seen a Kate Winslet movie, come on!
-
Not the psychiatrist. Both in the movie and the comics. Stupid idiots.
-
Akerman does a lot of nudity in her movies, fwiw. I didn't think the sex scene was too drawn out, but the music is totally Shrek, so it made the whole thing a little funny. Same with the owlship shooting, um, flames, during the scene.
I can see why people might complain about the action, but that was the part my not-read-it friend liked most. And I, an older person whose read it three times, also enjoyed the action scenes the most...though I think of him as the Bad Santa dwarf, not the Seinfeld dwarf. For example, I loved the whole prison scene and I think the prision section and the opening are the most popular parts of the flick. -
Let's at least give them a shot.
Johns dropped Action, I have full faith that extra energy will go into making Blackest Night epic. -
I took a piss at the absolute, exact same time in the film. Cheers.
-
don't really know where it came from, but I realized it the other day. I think I've got something like "skittles fatigue." I'm just kind of tired of all the colors. Odd, I know, but there it is.I'd rather they left this stuff on the back-burner for a while, I think, and just have GL do straight-up superheroing for a while. Not that one should second-guess Johns, that's just where I'm at.
-
thats awesome. I'm going to say that as much as possible now.Also, Homer, The Bad Santa midget was a different midget.I loved that Ackerman's body was a lot like Laurie's in the book.
-
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f26c4046b0/lex-luthor-bailout-with-jon-hamm
This video is pretty fucking funny. I think Jon Hamm knows all the fanboys want him to play ____________ (insert name of square jawed classic D.C./Marvel hero). The only thing that ruins this is the shitty bald cap.
-
@$$Holes, I have not read this yet, but I will say at a first glance how disheartened I am that you have two fucking pictures of a zoomed in shot of Doctor Manhattan's penis from the book. Fucking A. Anyone that makes such a big deal out of that from the movie or book obviously isn't 'getting' the bigger picture and I've so far just slid their opinions off to the side. It's juvenile quite frankly. "OMG, a blue cock!!! Homos!!! ROFLCOPTER!!!" Blah, blah, fucking blah. Not saying that is your official stance on it, but still, you had probably one chance in your lifetime to do a write-up on Watchmen THE MOVIE and you zoom in on the penis. Twice.
-
"RYAN: I would just hate to be the guy who worked on WATCHMEN and when asked what he did had to answer, "Yeah, um, I was the person who worked on the blue CGI penis." I'm glad some people stopped noticing but it is all I saw. And somewhere in the world...Papa Smurf is REALLY jealous."
Sorry guys, I'm not reading this shit. Love ya, but c'mon. -
1. The blue cock might not have been so distracting if they didnt make him sport the Dirk Diggler Special. I'm kept waiting for him to turn to the camera and be like "I'm a star I'm a star I'm a star". This led to the discussion with the wife on the way home if the Doc could change shapes like he changed colors, and therefore made himself have a giant horse cock just because he could. 2. The ending was fine. If you think a giant squid wouldnt have thrown 60% of the audience out of the film, you have been immersed in geekdom too long. If you think the filmmakers should have not cared that 60% of the audience would have totally rejected a giant squid, you have been immersed in geekdom too long. The ending worked fine and was completely logical within the framework of the story, some might argue more so. 3. Ackerman's body was indeed the bomb. Good god almighty. 4. I found Rorshach's hard boiled "the gutters are filled with blood" dialogue at the beginning much more laughable on the screen then it ever seemed on the page. However, the character settled down and picked up steam as the movie went along, and Haley clearly did an amazing job. 5. I think people who have read the book first (like myself) are always going to have nits to pick. I think peoploe who see the movie fresh without the book (like my wife) will love it, as she did.
-
The one quoted in the book: Roy Orbison's "Comedians". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-vwkbAZ5Kw
-
I've been ruminating in my head a bit, and I was wondering what you thought of this:
What if a movie called Rorshach was made, say 5-10 years from now. It's Watchmen (the comic, not this movie), but the only scenes in the movie are those that Kovacs or Rorschach (or, I guess, his journal for the epilogue) appears in, even if just for a second. Do you think it's viable, or do you think too many scenes important to the story will not be seen? -
Absolutely fine. I disagree, but when you get into what it was specifically that bored you or made you conscious of the discomfort of sitting still for so long, what you say is entirely valid. My issue is just with making a blanket statement of "it was too long" as a criticism. Gandhi is really long, The Godfather is really long, but in neither case is that a bad thing, at least as far as most people are concerned. Some subject matter requires more time to get through, and do justice to. Watchmen, well, hard to say. The impossible orgasm-inducing perfect version of Watchmen would probably be a twelve part HBO miniseries, like people are always saying.
Anyway. By being specific,you've addressed my irritation, for which, thanks very much. I didn't get bored watching the movie, but if you did, it's hardly a revelation to find that people are different. -
Mar 11, 2009 8:40:12 PM CDT
When I click on Hot Naked Malin Ackerman, I get Alan Moore!!!
by tallboy66
Okay, that is C-R-U-E-L!!!
-
I attached myself to the project a number of years ago. I think it was my whole "shoot it without a script" angle that lost me the job...
-
To the guy who hasn't seen the movie but couldn't believe we couldn't get past the big blue penis... when you see the movie you'll understand. I mean, it wasn't some, ahem, huge problem for me but it is... hard to ignore. I think part of the reason for the comic pics highlighting it is to show in the comic it's there but it isn't so... in your face. It's often smaller and vaguely sketched in. In the film? Giant giant wang. Giant wang made bigger because it's also in frickin Vista-Vision. It is also valid to bring up because it has been an issue with some viewers. A woman I work with was totally thrown by it (man, everything sounds wrong when you try to talk about the penis).
For me, maybe the biggest problem was that no one in the film addressed the... elephant in the room. Maybe they felt if the characters didn't make a big deal about it it would be less of a big deal. Or maybe they were afraid of bringing it up and turning it into a bigger laughing point. But in the comic they at least put a line or two in about WHY he would go around naked. I would have liked that. Just one scene of someone going, "Come on man, put it away." -
when that fat tub stops doing it, that would be genius.
-
Osterman is starring as Brock Landers in the sequel to Watchmen. I just cant wait to see Dr. Manhattan being like "Heeeeeeat willllll ROCK YOU.........and HEAAAT will roll you!!!"
-
Forget 'Battlestar Galactica', every time I hears this song, I see an old Mk II Jaguar chugging up the M1 to Penrith.Shit, this song practically IS 'Withnail & I' for me!
-
TDK is a pretty realistic look if superheroes and villains existed.
-
I saw a few people on here complain about the @$$holes' penis comments, and I'm pretty sure they have all seen the movie. Hell, founding COG members The Heathen, Psynapse and I all saw it TOGETHER (COG MEET). And NO I don't understand. It is not IN YOUR FACE and quite frankly you have to look for it a lot of the time to even notice it. Maybe it's because it's more realistic looking than the curved line in the comic? Does that make you guys uncomfortable? And please, the comic pics weren't there to make any grand point. Also you'd think the audience would be smart enough to figure out that if you see all of time at once, can teleport, are immortal, can LITERALLY DO ANYTHING that you wouldn't feel the need for clothes.
-
Uhh Doc Manhattan's wasn't that big, buddy. Maybe yours is just tiny?
-
You guys know any actors? They may act like jerks, but they're more interested in you liking their characters than liking them. What made Laurie so real in the comic -- trying to escape her past without knowing how, rejection and acceptance, contempt for herself and others-- might have seemed bitchy on screen. A more established actress may have played it that way, but then, a more established actress probably wouldn't have done the part, or frankly, had the bod to do the part. You can put Michael Keaton in a muscle suit but that ain't happenin' with say, Chloe Sevigny who would have acted like Laurie but couldn't have been Silk Spectre. So instead of being the Real Person in the story, Laurie became the Normal Person.
-
I saw the movie with my brother, stunt driver Crash Maverik. The only time Crash ever touched a comic book in his life was to step on mine. Take it Crash: "Okay, so Captain America is a war criminal and Superman doesn't care about people and one Batman guy has a fetish and the other Batman guy is a psycho and Catwoman doesn't own a cat and the little sissy guy wants to be a Pharoah. I think I'll see this one again."
-
...I'd have cast Tanner as Rorshach and not Kelly! And Amanda Wurlitzer could have been Silk Spectre 1.
-
Who keeps saying that was a huge cock? It was like the size of Michaelangelo's David's.Which is to say: I don't think you guys should be advertising how small your dicks are by fixating on a very average-sized blue wang and saying, 'so... so... big.'
-
Not distracting at all for me. End of Story. The people who were bothered by it aren't necessarilly closet homosexuals. Some might be, most are not. Why people are bothered by things they see is a complex issue. It's not limited to their sexual orientation. The taboo of the penis being displayed in movies is slowly eroding ('Forgetting Sarah Marshall', Dr. Manhattan). It served the character that he had no regard for clothing or having his penis exposed. It accentuates his disconnect from humanity and their random mores.
-
You know, I barely noticed it. Maybe all those commenting on how huge it is was viewing the movie on IMAX?
-
Just asking.
-
The new "Yipeeeeee!!"
-
I liked the movie, but that line of dialog made me realize how stupid filmakers think we are.
-
I'm not saying I won't give it a chance. But I am have been skittled as well. I'm waiting for the huge Morrison written Holly Hobby-Rainbow Bright-Hal Jordan smackdown. I need a scorecard for all of these different corps members. 'Agent Orange"???? No thanks.
-
What I take back is my comment wishing there were comic reviews this week. The reason is because I went to the LCS last night and bought....
One comic! ONE! And I am not that discriminating, I often buy 8 or 9 on a good week.
The one I bought is Battle for the Cowl, which seems to have told me everything I need to know for the whole series in one issue, so we'll see where it goes. I am certain it will be reviewed here next week.
Psynapse, Shigeru and Heathen saw it together *sigh* None of my friends are comic geeks, that's why I have to hang out here to talk comics. -
"Beatniks Vs. The Flying Saucers". Good to see you in talkbacks, old chum.
-
to be fair, we live like a thousand miles apart LOL... I just happened to be in their neck of the woods.
-
I watched it with my girlfriend and proposed to her after the movie. The ring was with a card that said, "Anyone who would: A. watch Supernatural and Lost with me, B. Read Watchmen, C. See Watchmen, and D. Still wants to have great sex with me, deserves to be married on the spot."
-
congratulations.Also, I agree with you. Manhatten's nudity is to show how little he is concerned with human society, clothes and shame just don't matter to him, he is beyond such triviality, BUT I disagree with you on another point. Complaining about how distracting the gigantic (really? gigantic? hmmmm...) penis means you're fighting against your own homosexual urges. You may not be completely gay, you're just kind of. Come out, come out, baby, because everyone else already knows.
-
I like it. I have not been reading any Avengers because I am not into the way Bendis writes them - but since i don't care about any of the folks on the Dark Avengers squad it's working for me. I really like the glee that Norman is showing as he runs the show. Good stuff. Plus that old Wolvie costume is awesome.
-
I'm looking forward to more of them. I've been waiting for Marvel Boy to be brought forward and I'd like to see Bullseye/Hawkeye tearing shit up, but mostl, I'm curious about Wolverine's son, Senor Whatshisname, because I don't know anything about him as a character.
-
I'm with you -I didn't even know he had a son. But, there he is... with a wacky haircut. Who's the mother?
-
The Hawkeye Lmt. series is starring Bullseye, not Clint, so that should give you some "Hawkeye Gone Wild" moments. I liked the moment where Ares hung back after Osborn tells them to skedaddle in New Avengers. It harkens back to 'The Incarnations of Immortality" by Piers Anthony. War is a complex subject, and I like how we are beginning to see shades of doubt in Ares character. It will also to see how he develops in iHerc now that Hera has taken over the pantheon.
-
There's a name I hadn't heard in a while. Used to read him 25 years ago, but he is just blatantly racist and subtly sexist.
How sweet, Bluejack. That is really cool.
Wolverine's son, Daken, blamed Wolvie for the death of his mom, Silver Fox, in Wolverine Origins,just finished one story arc all about him, the latest issue starts a follow up. -
I mean, really.
-
I like Senor Whatshisface. Also, the mohawk is the mullet of punk rock... I'm just saying...
-
Four? Ha ha. She said yes. She better, we have the WonderTwins in her belly.
-
Just...no. Next we're going to get Wolverdog or the Wolviemobile. Just stop Marvel, stop.
-
Did Wolverine pick that name out?
-
for naming me Daken. I guess too many people are name Bill or George. I kind of like the sound of: I'm wolverine an I'm the best there is at what I do... and this is my son, Ted."
-
should have been a math whiz."I'm Daken and I'm the best there is at what I do and unfortuantly, what I do can sometimes not be very pretty as it looks like you owe money on your taxes this year, sir... What? Join the Dark Avengers? Well, okay..."
-
Neil Gaiman
-
Was that Lmt. series any good?
-
I haven't read it, but I always heard good things AND its kind of the reason that he's being used now. The limited series made him cool and thats why he got put on the Avengers.
-
I can't explain it, but it is leaving me cold. I have some old Modred the Magician Comics and I thought they sucked back in the day. The whole anthro cow is really a turn off as well. They need to trim down the team fairly quickly here. The Scarlett Witch is also a major distraction, some sort of mini bringing her back would have been better. Looking forward to Mockingbird-Scarlett Which catfight over Hawkeye as well.
-
Me too. I like Slott but I just can't get into it. Going to give it another month.
-
But don't diss Macgyver
-
same here... it just seems so formula and... bleah. Its boring, plus where the hell does it fit in with the rest of Marvel?
-
Man, you guys really are @$$holes. Its as though after all those readings, you still don't get Watchmen. IT WAS A PARODY! Yes, it was dark, even while being funny, and yes, it had serious moments and serious observations to make, even while being funny, but if you don't laugh sometimes while reading the comic, you just don't get it.
The superheroes are ridiculous. Look at Mothman's costume, for crying out loud!
Okay, so now the movie. First, the music: Yes, its too on the nose, but that's intentional. Moore does the same thing with on-the-nose but vaguely ironic references ALL THE TIME. Flight of the Valkyries during the Vietnam scene - you don't get that reference? As for All Along the Watchtower, go back and read the title of the issue that ends with Nite Owl and Rorshach approaching Ozy's fortress of solitude - "Two Riders Were Approaching." Hello!
The costumes: Brilliant! The old heroes' costumes all look like something out of the Batman TV show or Reeves' Superman. The second generation look like X-Men or Batman Begins. You don't see why that works in a live-action film version?
The violence/sex: Given that Nite Owl, especially, chose to be a hero simply to feel cool, the over-the-top violence and the laughably corny sex scene (with ironic musical reference) are perfect. The commentary here is perfectly in keeping with Moore's.
The ending: 1. The squid would have been ridiculous and required way too much exposition. 2. While there was no gore in the final New York scene, am I the only one who saw references to ground zero? No emotional punch? Where do you guys live, Nebraska?
Ozy didn't get the "nothing ends" lecture: I'm not sure why this was changed, but frankly, you don't need Dr. Manhattan to make Ozy start to doubt himself. Look at the absolute last scene in which we see Goode's character. He's all alone, with everyone else walking away, and he's in his hero pose, but he has this vaguely semi-miserable expression on his face, like the facade is just starting to crack, and he's realizing that for the rest of his life, he'll be alone. Terrific acting here, but if you were wondering why they changed the ending, maybe you missed it.
The blue dong: Its supposed to be distracting! You're human; Manhatten isn't. A giant blue penis bugs you, and he doesn't care. Its why he's naked in the book, to jolt and jar you, and it has the same exact effect in the movie.
I keep reading reviews and comments about how the movie was somewhat cold and self-conscious or people were laughing at the wrong parts during the movie. The comic was frankly highly self-conscious, too. Can you really say you identified completely with any character? The entire point of the comic is to entertain you while reminding you that superheros only work as entertainment. The violence is both striking and disturbing and funny, often simultaneously, because at the same time its ugly and harsh and ridiculous. Each character is simultanously a real person and a parody, just like any ordinary comicbook superhero is simultaneously a living, breathing character and a symbol of some higher message.
Snyder walked that tightrope brilliantly, but the end result, if one is not in the right frame of mind (i.e. looking for something you think you remember from the comic instead of taking the movie at face value), it is easy to be put off by the weird dichotomy of funny and serious, humor and despair that is as integral to the movie as it is the comic.
The test now is this: Go back and re-read the comic (or watch the motion comic, as I recently did) and see if the movie didn't actually expand your appreciation. If not, then you probably need to watch the movie again (or get the extended version when the Blu-Ray / DVD hits stores) with your preconceptions on hold.
This movie wasn't perfect, but it was pretty damned good. For most of us, the essence of the book was in the layers upon layers; Snyder's inenviable task, which he accomplished brilliantly, was to give us that essence with only the one or two layers, max, possible in the film medium. Some of you guys, though, appear to have missed Moore's amazing forest for his admittedly outstanding trees. -
his father passed on saturday
-
Sir Issac Newton...
-
I was hoping that our founder, the Comedian would show up! I was going to do something like Buzzshach's Journal about the missing Comedian, but I'm too lazy. I will say that the original @$$holes were a lot like the Watchmen. We had the Smart Guy, the Chick, the Tough Guy and me, the blue guy who made the talkbackers feel inadequately endow--...Okay, show of hands on how many of the literal minded out there just blew a gasket.
-
They were heroes with problems! The spider kid was guilty because he got his uncle killed. The blind guy in the devil suit was handicapped. The green monster had rage issues. And Stretch, the Invisible Girlfriend, the Rock and Flame On were like a squabbling family.
-
I just have to say that they didn't need that scene of the Squid on the grassy knoll. Also, I have a Black Freighter like action reel Snyder gave me. Whose idea was it to cast Johnny Depp?
-
I'm the guy who said,"@$$Holes, I have not read this yet." Read being the important word and referring to this article. I've seen the movie, twice, and no, I do not understand. I think for someone to constantly make childish jokes about it and can't focus on anything but that when it's on the screen is simple. I mean, it's a dick and most of the time you can't even see it that clearly unless you're eying for that mother fucker. I'm genuinely creeped out by the fact that you and a few of the others have such an obsession with it. I saw it with friends (COG MEET) from distances afar and we mentioned like once. But, whatever, have fun being a typical internet standard - you made a dick joke - and it's funny because it's blue. Yay.
Homer, yeah, the planets aligned or something and three of the founding COG seven were able to see it together. Kind of an awesome experience. None of my local friends are comic geeks either. Hell, the closest LCS is more than an hour away.
Squashua - No,just better.
Congrats, Bluejack. I don't know you sir, but that is cool news. -
As I said, I didn't say it distracted me to no end. I said when it was up here (so to speak) I couldn't not see it. But I would see it and then... move past it. And, really, the joke for me is in that trying to discuss it every turn of phrase I try to use really ends up sounding wrong. Not trying to think of phrases that will make for nice double entendres or anything. Just keeps happening. So, saw it, was mature enough to see not get distracted by it. That said it is a valid point for discussion because for some people it was distracting. I've talked with non-comic readers who were distracted by it. If we're discussing the film as a mass market entertainment then how people in that mass market take the film in IS a valid topic of discussion.
-
I've seen WATCHMEN and as a supporter of the NO SQUID=GALACTUS IS A CLOUD call to arms, I found the film to be not as bad as I had expected. In fact it was quite good at moments. The fact that the squid should have remained in the film is now an obvious and mute point. The sequence depicted in the comic, the faux alien attack attack at the end, is critical and needed in the any adaptation of this material. That said many of the other critical moments were included, and others where actually overdone in a sad attempt at making it seem more ADULT than truly needed. A prime example of this was the alley fight Dan and Laurie have with the punk rockers, the extra violence was fine UNTIL Laurie KILLS one of the teenage gang members by stabbing him in the throat. OOPS, so, let see...how is she any better or less psychotic than Rorschach. Is it because she looks better. Extra violence doesn't make a film more real, especially when they take a KID's life and don't even think about it or mention it again. She's more concerned with achieving a rebound fuck with Mr. Nice after getting plowed by an immortal God for 5-8 years. The scene was only 30 seconds, if taken out, you'd have a better movie. Next up, the choreographed Karate fights belong in WOLVERINE, not WATCHMEN. To have such slick fighting sequences takes away from the reality of the story portrayed. It should have been toned down, basically it just felt odd. I always felt WATCHMEN was a counter argument against the superhero, showing how living out our diluted fantasies played out on pulp would add up to a nightmare in the real world. The film almost captured that feeling, but then switched course. It was like they wanted to show a gritty real world scenario but then realized people who liked X-MEN UNITED are a part of their target audience so they better throw in some Jackie Chan scenes. It's just a bit overdone and it was unnecessary. Part of this might be do to the many nerd complaints about the fight scenes in BATMAN BEGINS and the fact their visually imperceptible. Then again the choreography of the WATCHMEN fight scenes are very similar to 300's so maybe it's just a Snyder trademark. I don't know, I can just say for myself that they were distracting. Finally, dealing with the ending, it wasn't as bad as I had imagined and it almost worked. The problems are in the delivery and the explanations, why would this cause the Comedian to lose it as opposed to stopping it, what did he discover, why would the world rally around the USA when the spiritual symbol of the United States just nuked them. These are all issues that they should have addressed during script development. Personally, I almost feel bad saying this, but it was an act of cowardice that led Snyder to change the ending, I bet he felt the studio wouldn't allow the correct ending, audiences wouldn't buy it, and the MPAA would stamp an NC-17 rating (if those still exist) blocking the film and the scenes do to the gore. I'm a bit torn with WATCHMEN because, my God, it's almost their, it's almost perfect, but the few mistakes it makes are crucial mistakes, it doesn't make the film bad it just doesn't make it great, which it could have been. Also, as a movie fan and as a comic fan, I want to see the opening sequence of the twelfth issue so FUCKING bad, I really want to see that, and now I'm not. This movie's not going to be remade with this level of production probably ever. I'll be honest, it angers me. That said, this film I think will have rewatch value, and will be a classic for novelties sake alone. Now here is my personal problem with the film, he turned a film which should have been a horror story into a fascist statement. Zack Snyder's WATCHMEN did not focus on the ambiguities that make the comic so rich. At the end of the film it's almost saying that Veidt was right in Killing 15 million people, that Rorschach was right in that it was the liberal masses that weakened the United States in the alternate 1985 world, the ends do justify the means and the strong need to shepard the weak. Of course, luckily, there still is that closing shot on the journal so I might be a little off here. I definitely did not get that feel from reading the comic and I'm almost 100% certain that Alan Moore wasn't trying to make that kind of statement. I'll say it again, WATCHMEN is a horror story wrapped in spandex. I wish the movie focused on that element more. The Armageddon sequence at the end barely showed one dead body. It was as emotionally charge as watching a phaser blast on STAR TREK TOG, their there one minute gone the next, there's no emotional connection. That destruction sequence should have been visceral, powerful and extended but it wasn't. Maybe some of these complaints will be address in the director's cut and the uber-director's cut, I don't know, I'll have to wait and see. This is the longest talkback I have ever written and probably ever will, I guess that alone says something about the movie.
-
the more I hate them.
-
The U.S. WOULD have been held responsible for an attack by Dr. Manhattan. I can suspend belief to accept a super member of the Blue Man Group, but let's face it... France hates us when we try to rescue our own citizens if they're held hostage. But...
I get the squid. You get the squid. Geeks get the squid. The geek dollar doesn't equal a hit movie, though. Step outside the geekosphere and a Lovecraftian horror suddenly appearing could be one expense Ed Wood moment. Same with the action. The modern comic geek has come to accept the lack of action in comics. I mean, the @$$holes barely bitch about it any more. But if the non-geek movie goer is going to watch something with people dressed as owls and inkblots, brother, there better be a big dukeroo. That's why we have THE DARK KNIGHT as a box office hit and not THE KILLING JOKE. -
Like it or not-there it is, and that's what the general public thought, too. YAWN. Zzzzzzzzzzzz
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 425 total posts 425 posts
- Quint travels to Barsoom and visits the John Carter set!!! -- 125 total posts 94 posts
- SPACE 2099!! -- 155 total posts 79 posts
- Rest In Peace Bethesda’s Adam Adamowicz -- 70 total posts 70 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 67 total posts 67 posts
- Friday Brings SWEEPS DAY NINE!! Gab Here About Tonight’s FRINGE!! Plus Einstein on TIM, Wiig On PORTLANDIA, MAHER, CLONE, GIFTED, GRIMM, SPARTACUS, SUPERNATURAL, GOLD RUSH And More!! -- 86 total posts 66 posts
- The Sensorties Revisit The Friday Docback (And Still Smell)!! DOCTOR WHO Story #7 Again, The Coming Of Season/Series 7, And More!! -- 65 total posts 65 posts
- AVENGERS enemy revealed as pink boardgame pieces... You might suffer some form of elation... SPOILERS!!! -- 57 total posts 52 posts
- Ridley Scott's Next Will Be Cormac McCarthy's THE COUNSELOR! -- 48 total posts 48 posts
- Wanna smell like the Hulk? What about Cap? Consider yourself a Thunder God or a unisex God of Mischief? -- 45 total posts 44 posts