Now let me just say, I'm not a fan of Watchmen but I understand why many of you are. However, you gotta view that trailer through the lens of the casual movie-goer. You got some odd glowing Blue-Man Group guy floating around without his boxers on. You got RDJ's stunt-double mugging in front of a green screen. You have that queer blonde guy, who I suppose is the owl dude. You got that hot chick from The Heartbreak Kid somehow looking creepy and awkward and not at all hot.

Then you finish off the motherfucker with that weird clockwork contraption floating out of the ground. NOTHING MADE A LICK OF SENSE! And its all filmed in that cheeseball Zach Snyder style, all glossy and CG and claustrophobic on small-ass sets, with Wachowski-wannabe frame-rate shifts. All in all it has to be one of the worst teasers I've ever seen for such an ambitious project.

In the interest of full disclosure, I went from loving 300 to completely hating it. It just rings so false upon repeat viewings. I fell for the gimmick at first, but have grown weary of it; just point a camera at some real shit for once (that goes for Lucas, too). Yes, I have soured on Zach Snyder. I know many of you have, as well.

Back then, all of the "normals" (lol great expression) would have been like, "What the hell?", but it a good way, instead of now, when my date turns to me and is like, "What the fuck?" in a way that could only mean, "if you like this bullshit, you will never get in my pants."

So I had to pretend I had no idea what the hell Watchmen is, like 98% of the audience; yeah, I'm a sell-out. I sold you all out, my fellow geeks, FOR A WOMAN!!! (89 Joker). And in the interest of full disclosure, I'd do it again. TDK excluded, of course. No.4 @ the IMAX coming soon!

The only thing I found interesting about it was the Twin Towers in the Manhattan skyline pan.

And for God's sakes why does Malin Akerman not look hot in this movie?

Oh, and has the telepathic octopus of the finale been reduced to a cloud of smoke, like Galactus?

If this is the case, is there any way of not bumping up the side story project that was going to feature on the DVD up to a minor theatrical release and labelling it with "The Watchmen" prefix? Let that cop the brunt of the dispute, if it crashes and burns then they still have the $100million wide-release feature in the clear.

Undoubtedly they have a crack legal squad to think of things like this already but technically the side story IS a Watchmen property. It was just a random thought, ignore away.

And anyone who dresses up as a Giant Bat or a Spider IS psychotic. No getting around it I'm afraid.

While Moore might be strange the likes of Ditko makes him look flat out boring whereas Stan Lee is a cheesy publicity whore who really needs to STOP with the CAMEOS already !

As has been said the large Watchmen book sales run is proof the trailer worked and a rising tide lifts all boats in a Box Office summer and brings people out with every big picture. So FOX will take what mone they can and scamper off.

We are talking about ENTITIES here - not people - who have only one mission. Make money. Think of it this way - remember the line from Terminator that it's a mistake to treat him like a person because he ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT STOP until you are dead - sub STUDIO for CSM-101 and YOUR WALLET for Sarah Connor...

Hey, maybe some teen pretty boy from Watchmen will die from an OC OD before it's released and then we'll see some huge bank at the box office.

I doff my cap to the Fear And Loathing reference. Manifesting my respect are these links to some of Aintitcool's Hellboy 2 reviews(Harry's, Mr Beaks' and Moriarty's...

http://www.aintitcool.com/n ode/37388

http://www.aintitcool.com/? q=node/37233

http://www.aintitcool.com/n ode/37285

My personal expectation of the movie is that it will be a marginal improvement over the amiable but meandering original, but nowhere near approaching the euphoric thrills of, say, the first Star Wars, as I've been led to believe by some. The trailers have been glorious to look at but haven't really resonated with me emotionally in any way... nothing particularly funny, nor scary...

Luke Goss's villain seems pussified and unsure of himself, rather than Blade 2 badass (as he ought to be)...

And Selma Blair's character is now wearing pretty much bog standard cliched Matrix/GI Joe cosplay bollocks leather gear. Don't much care for her new 'do either - from the neck up she looks like a 90s Lolapalooza stoner. If the BRPD or whatever it's called is supposed to be a family of freaks, she ought to at least be get up in her 'A Dirty Shame' prosthetics... in which case, I would've booked my tickets on seeing the very first teaser pics.

And if you remember the trailer, the coolest part about analyzing it was comparing individual frames with panels, how similar they were. I think movie will do not so well but DVDs will be a hot sell.

But this will probably get done, even if Warners has to couch up some major cash.

...

That's all that comes to mind right now.

As great as Watchmen is, I feel it's really only going to go over well with those that have read it. And if Snyder tries to dull it so that it can appeal to the masses, then he'll have a slight mutiny on his hands.

http://ultimaspaginas.files .wordpress.com/2007/06/watchme n1.jpg

I have faith. It's going to be as good as it's source material. It's B.O. returns mean nothing.

It was "good" for a comic book, but I think its not as good as most people insist that it be. Now the reactions to this are mostly white-eyed shark attacks like "YOU SUCK AND SHOULD DIE RITE NAO" and "YOU HAS NO TASTE IN ART AN CHARCTERS!" but putting all those exactly where they belong: the garbage - lets examine the most frequently used validation of Watchmen fanboism that doesn't stoop to middle school bullying: "It was innovative. It changed comic books."

Vulcanized rubber was innovative. It changed automobiles forever. That doesn't mean it stands up shoulder to shoulder with innovations like the Space Shuttle or Cellular Telephones, or the Computer. Oh sure "you wouldn't have Space Shuttles without vulcanized rubber" is very true - but that doesn't mean the two innovations are on equal footing. Not even close.

So to rebuke "new fans of Watchmen" for not being "new RABID fans of Watchmen" because they don't appreciate its innovative changes to comic books way back in the olden days, is just not fair. The comic should be judged by its content, and not by its publisher's uncanny ability to find a ripe time to publish it.

So me, a former (and currently closeted) aficionado of comic books to find the Watchmen "good but not great" does not bode well for its acceptance to mainstream audiences.

The best way to evaluate a comic book's mainstream appeal is to rewrite it as a short story - no art. Just story. And if you do that with The Watchmen, it is as predictable as a fall down a flight of stairs - and mainstream 'normals' in theaters are not going to enjoy watching a movie whose plot lines are running exactly 5 minutes behind their own intuitions.

can I borrow your pirate comic later? I have about 15 empty pages of space to fill.

Now Watchmen, good characters and a great story that still holds up today and probably always will.

There has been no secret that WB has been working on this for years, and for Fox to wait until the last moment to file a protest... Of course, WB will cough up some cash because "it's easier" than dragging things out in court even if they think they will win.

part of what makes a great comic book story so great is the anticipation. Lets be honest: If you are walking out of a comic shop with a new comic - one whose story and characters are just blowing you away each month, you'll probably have most of it read within 5 minutes of leaving that store. For the next 3.5 weeks, you read it. and read it. and you read it again. Then you read it and just look for little things in the backdrops of each panel - what kind of harbingers peek around corners of buildings? What does that recurring but obscured graffiti actually say? Is that a blue weiner on that guy?

Its the serialized pacing that makes comic books such an addictive form of art. My first reading of Watchmen was with a complete stack of them on the table and I devoured them in two sittings over a period of 32 hours. I read them without any anticipation. There was no 3.5 week long gaps to make me absoutely stir crazy for the next installment. Im also reading them from a perspective where Jonah Hex is dead. Superman is dead. Hal Jordan is dead. Spiderman went bad. Wolverine went moonbat vigilante. Thousands of mirror universes vanished and others merged with alarming results. The Losers died and were cradled to eternity by the spirit of a great indian medicine man. There have been more 'revolutionary' comic book storylines since Watchmen than you can count on 50 hands. The so called "revolutionary comic book" is now so common-place, its actually no longer revolutionary to make one. EVERY comic hero is an Angry Young Man with a grudge and a secret past. EVERY comic story involves a Judas Iscariot character that you "never see coming" but actually see him coming before he even shows up.

I will do as you suggest, and give it a second read - but I still think that its a comic whose legacy is very strong, and whose impact is very strong, but whose story is very not quite so strong.

and everyone must surely agree that the artwork itself, while certainly boundary-breaking for its time, is a bit stale now. I'd love to see somebody do a faithful frame-by-frame redressing with an airbrush to this. Not a redraw, but take the original line drafts and airbrush them instead of using a 16 color dot matrix copier.

As for non-geeks not getting the trailer, I couldn't care less. This is not the beginning of a franchise. It's one cool-looking movie based on a ground-breaking comic book. I remember a few people laughably saying that "Speed Racer" would be like "Blade Runner" and be discovered years later. Um...no. "Watchmen" on the other hand does stand a chance to be this generation's "Blade Runner."

And stop being so indignant that a stupid 12 issue comic book isn't being heralded as the New New Testament for our generation, and that all of our planet's evil would be squashed if everyone would just read a 14 page edition of the new and improved Snuffy Smith with 120% more angst and bitterness and 396.8% more pointless, plot-halting sexual romps. Because that right there my friend, is the biggest reason why some of you 35ish year olds still have such a turgid erection for The Watchmen - it was the first comic book you ever saw in which people had sex, and women's breasts fell out of their Barnum & Bailey trapeze costumes. Oh and a fat balding middle-aged guy boinks a young woman who isn't but probably is supposed to be Wonder Woman's daughter.

Im no prude. If a sex scene is a natural event within the development of a story, then let it happen. But out of nowhere, for a hot young woman to look at a fat slick haired middle aged recluse and say "my but you're ravishing!" because he removed the Cult of Bob eyeglasses from his puffy meat-pie face is the pinnacle of teenage pandering in order to sell a comic book. I was willing to let some of that go as long as this talkback remained outside of the retard zone, but you booked flight for all of us and flew us there personally, so out comes the real criticisms.

Its a poorly written story whose gaping maw of plot holes that are shoehorned with cut-and-paste sex scenes and a little kid reading the back of a box of Captain Crunch.

as for extolling the artwork, sorry but in my universe, orange sidewalks and pink concrete is not 'artistic' - its a cheap stunt that shouts "look how we aren't coloring sidewalks gray like Superman and Batman. Aren't we clever now."

But nothing glares out at the reader brighter than the, for lack of a better term, directing of this comic book. The story's pacing has all the stop-start-stagger-start-stop- start of a first day at driving school. At times, it actually runs out of gas and has to thumb a ride back (ahoy me hearties! Here be me heapin stash o' filler content fer ye!) Oh sure, I get that there are crazy wackadooodle parallels with the pirate story and the actual story im supposed to be reading. The problem is that its not actually running in parallel AT ALL. The main story comes to a railroad crossing and we spend at least one full comic book worth of panels watching a Pirate Train chug its way down the track. When it finally passes, we're so happy that we can get back to moving forward that we dont even mind that after having to sit through all that, there wasn't even a pretty red caboose at the end to honk and wave at. It is an unresolved wait at a railroad crossing that serves only to stop us from reaching our destination too soon (i.e. before buying a few more comics). You can almost hear the conversation: "holy crap we suspected this would take off but look at last months sales for Watchmen! Its insane!"

"yeah - order an extention of 3 more issues. I dont care how they do it, but this property is white hot right now, and why sell 10 issues if we can find room to squeeze two more in there, right? RIGHT?"

I could do this for 800 more words, but you wont care because you still think your precious little comic book is above rebuke and is so Holy that we dare not speak ill of its glaring weaknesses. Just because it was the closest thing to hardcore porn that you were able to get your chubby little teenage fingers around doesn't mean the rest of us have to worship it like a Crayola Koran.

and im out.

bacci I like the cut of your jib as they say, but I think a comic book that insists that the reader brush up on two decades worth of world history and global politics in order to understand what its talking about is a comic book that needs a rewrite. I happen to disagree with you. I dont think you have to pull up a chair and a chicken and sit next to Leeloo as she visually digests the whole of human history in order to understand a guy who dresses up like a hawk and flies around in a giant lozenge shaped owl sperm. I think the comic gives you enough cues to get the world in which it takes place.

and unless there's more to the black freighter than the fact that its big enough to transport a giant hypno-squid across the ocean, then Im missing some subtext somewhere.

Many new/young writers stumble upon their own wit, and try to be too clever in what they write - so much so, that nobody really 'gets it' without having all of it explained. I think The Watchmen suffers from a small dose of that syndrome - they tried to be too clever and too witty, and as a result, nobody can really get all the subtext without the author standing over your shoulder, pointing to a pane and saying, "you see what I did there?"

"I...uh....there's an indian woman drawing a giant space hypno-squid."

"yeah yeah but did you see what I did there?"

"yeah yeah but did you see what I did there?"

"there's an indian woman....she's..drawing...*sig h* no I dont."

"Well its a reference to the British Monarchy's 20th century efforts to subjugate its colonies by passive-directive force and maintaining a war-like expanding empire by employing benevolent humanitarian efforts."

"ooookay. Giant Hypno-Squid. I see it. *turns page* so then... what does the cherry fruit pie represent?"

"nothing. thats an ad. turn the page again."

There's a lot of people in here telling me that I missed mountains upon mountains upon uncrested mountains of subtext, sidetext, metatext, textatext, and maybe even some sexotext in this comic that is so crammed into every frame, its a wonder it stays shut on a counter.

So can someone give me a solid example citing a series of specific panels and crowbar out an avalanche of every kind of 'text' being referenced here?

Cuz I read it and I see a comic book about horny emo superheros who dont find the whole daring-do stuff fun anymore.

cuz Im not one who automatically likes a movie because I enjoyed the book/tv show/cartoon/original movie. If that makes sense at all.

Anyone care to guess how many of the Watchmen Trade peperbacks have sold over the years ?

I'm betting it's quite sufficient to ensure that even without the unprecedented 1 Million copies printed this year there is a "base" of more than enough people out there who will be interested in the Movie to ensure it has a great deal of interest come opening day.

Will it be a smash ? Nobody knows at this point and speculation is just that, speculation.

Some also seem to be forgetting that the story itself is mostly Rorschach (which is a superb narrative) a large chunk of Nite Owl a good helping of Silk Spectre then Manhattan then Ozy and Comedian and then the supporting characters and minutemen.

As for the acclaim garnered by The Watchmen and Moore, sorry but that certainly isn't about to change because of a few rabidly hostile postings.

That being said...let's go ALIEN COP! Whoo!

And no, this is not shadenfreude on my behalf, because MY beloved franchise, GIJoe (the Hama-verse, not the dumbass cartoons) is about to be ASS-FUCKED, in the ASS!

I called it a "stupid 12 issue comic book" because thats what it is. When I said "I liked it. A lot." I was referring to the narrative and the concept of Watchmen - and trying to segregate my interest in this story as a CONCEPT, as opposed to the flawed diamond that is its implementation. Problem is that there is an angry mob element here and elsewhere that insists we worship this piece of work like it is the natural continuation and completion of Canterbury Tales, or is some long lost and recently discovered work of Shakespeare.

All Im saying is, crank down the volume on the fanboi rage, because all that's going to do is generate more people like me: who read Watchmen with the expectation that they will be absolutely blown completely away by it, when in reality they are blown straight to the outer banks of meh once it concludes.

Remember how everyone panned a bit about how the over marketing and over saturation of Iron Man risked hurting the movie by building its anticipation to hopelessly high levels? Remember people saying that about The Phantom Menace? Thats what Im cautioning against here - but Im just one guy, and you're a whole mob - with torches and shovels.

I also see you seem to have gotten very curiously hot and bothered about the sex scene but completely failed to notice the build up to that preceeds it in the story.

*****SPOILERS***SPOILERS***

The fight between Laurie, Dan and the muggers interspersed with the Manhattan interview. There's a blindingly obvious parallel and foreshadowing between the fight and Dan & Laurie getting it on. Which is reflected verbally in the Manhatten scene where his human ties are systematically ripped apart. This also goes to the heart of Manhattan leaving Earth since Laurie is Manhattans last human contact which she severs by seeking out Dan to stay with and then sleep with him.

Hardly "out of nowhere". And as for your devastating critique that Laurie suddenly finds Dan attractive (wrong BTW it's fairly clear she is fond of Dan from the first Rorschach/Manhattan/Laurie encounter) Anyway as for the taking the glasses to reveal a slightly hidden aspect of a character, well does the name Clark Kent mean anything to you ?

And I'm certainly not raging either for or against this Movie or the book as I know the books place in popular culture is justly assured while the film at least looks promising.

But to deal in absolutes, like telling everyone there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that it will be either a sure fire Bomb or Smash, is frankly laughable at this stage.

You also talk about "marketing" and "over saturation" "risked hurting the movie by building its anticipation to hopelessly high levels?" yet you also say "part of what makes a great comic book story so great is the anticipation." I'm well aware that comics are different to Movies but they aren't THAT different in the case of Hype as the Superman "fake out" death clearly shows.

Finally you also say "Cuz I read it and I see a comic book about horny emo superheros who dont find the whole daring-do stuff fun anymore."

Rorschach ? The Comedian ? Manhattan ? Emo ???? REALLY!

And they ALL enjoy it, even Dan and Laurie, once they start doing it again.

I bought and read the comic series when it came out in the mid 80's, I was approaching 30 then and was married with a daughter, so I wasn't too worried about the "Impressing a member of the opposite sex" thing. I'd already pretty much lost interest in classic long-underwear comic books by then, and appreciated "Watchmen"'s slaps at the form, but I was already there. That wasn't the be-all and end-all of the book, though. I read it and liked it because of it's depth and impressive story structure. That achievement stands to this day, and occasionally I turn on a new person to the book. That's fine, too.

I don't give a RAT FUCK if it's a Smash Hit or a Colossal Bomb. I don't care a whit if it's a mega-flop, or does respectable BO, or if it becomes a beloved cult classic. I don't need the validation. I'm perfectly fine with my social standing as it relates to my movie attendance. I think that I'm going to like the movie. I will not allow myself to be jerked around by the hype machine into a screaming, spastic fit of inflated expectations.

I don't buy the "This movie will fail because it is irrelevant to modern comic fans who won't be able to relate to the way the comic deconstructed the classic comic book hero archetype of the time" argument. Fuck that. There have been plenty of successful movies made about subjects that the audience very probably wasn't around to appreciate the finer points of those movies' cultural settings. Examples? Oh....how about "Saving Private Ryan", or "The Godfather", or "Gone With The Wind"? Those movies succeeded because they were GOOD MOVIES, not because of the pre-release opinions of a closed society of obsessive, cranked-up fanatics. As with all movies, "Watchmen" will stand or fall on it's own merits, not on the opinions of the geek nation.

I don't care if any of you like it or hate it. I'm going to see it for myself, not for any of you. I hope to see some of you there, but it won't break my fucking heart if some of you get it or not. We can discuss "Watchmen"'s pros and cons on these boards after it's release. That makes a lot more sense than trying to predict the future of an unknowable quality like the popularity of a piece of manufactured popular entertainment. That's fine, too.

I like Half-Baked will be more than happy to go and see this Movie and then judge it on it's own merits.

And, as bad as Hamm's script is in places, let's not forget how awful Gilliam's is. After terrorists destroy the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan appears too late to save the day, the Comedian chides Jon thusly (approximately) -

Hamm: Manhattan, you asshole! What took you so long?

Gilliam: Manhattan, you cad! While you've been dithering, this lady's gone to pieces!

Oy.

BTW, did you cry when your history teacher spoiled the end of WWII for you? LOL!