WATCHMEN Movie Discussion (SPOILERS allowed)!

[CelticPredator]

You should read the book. Its really good. And will help with some of the issues you had with the movie.

 

[endless1]

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Bendis saw watchmen...
Bendis saw watchmen...



its not the disaster the trades are making it out to be, but it is a fascinating failure.

it has some truly great parts to it. all the rorshach and niteowl stuff, moloch... it's all great.

but when it slavishly holds to the book it falls flat on it's ass. humorless, flat, passionateless. when it decides to be a movie, it sings.

but it is the victim of some truly bad choices made in pre production. as seen on the movie posters and trailers, dr. manhattan does not work. it looks like a rejected character from soul caliber circa ps2. it's a distractingly bad effect that hurts what looks like a pretty great turn by billy crudup.

same with some of the costumes, or at least how they were lit. every ten minutes or so it veers into sci fi channel original programming bad. only to be saved a few minutes later by some visual kick assery.

i was not bored. not even for a second. but as we walked out of the movie the words: too long, too long, too long echoes through the theatre. i didn't care. it only points out that the movie shouldn't have been a movie, maybe a longer mini series.

maybe the director should have gone with his first instinct and not even bothered.

like chinatown 2 and godfather 3, this movie was inevitable. none of those movies are bad btw, just judged by thier weakest parts.

alan moore's name is not to be found, and that is truth in advertising.

at least we'll get an end ot the alan moore: i don't read comics or go see movies because i know they all suck interviews. they make me feel bad for him.

i will now take these lessons and apply them to the powers pilot.

i'm not dc bashing, loved dark knight.

 

[CelticPredator]

What?........

 

[darthviper107]

That's kind of funny because they stuck to the graphic novel pretty well with Rorschach and Nite Owl.

And I thought Manhattan was one of the best parts of the movie.

 

[The Mike]

You should read the book. Its really good. And will help with some of the issues you had with the movie.

This is honestly not that great of advice for someone who already didn't like the film. I love the book, its one of my absolute favorites prose readings even though its a comic book. I liked the book more and I think people who do which is just about everyone I've spoken with will agree that it'll actually make you like the movie less when you see "what could have been."

 

[Scar]

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Bendis saw watchmen...
Bendis saw watchmen...



its not the disaster the trades are making it out to be, but it is a fascinating failure.

it has some truly great parts to it. all the rorshach and niteowl stuff, moloch... it's all great.

but when it slavishly holds to the book it falls flat on it's ass. humorless, flat, passionateless. when it decides to be a movie, it sings.

but it is the victim of some truly bad choices made in pre production. as seen on the movie posters and trailers, dr. manhattan does not work. it looks like a rejected character from soul caliber circa ps2. it's a distractingly bad effect that hurts what looks like a pretty great turn by billy crudup.

same with some of the costumes, or at least how they were lit. every ten minutes or so it veers into sci fi channel original programming bad. only to be saved a few minutes later by some visual kick assery.

i was not bored. not even for a second. but as we walked out of the movie the words: too long, too long, too long echoes through the theatre. i didn't care. it only points out that the movie shouldn't have been a movie, maybe a longer mini series.

maybe the director should have gone with his first instinct and not even bothered.

like chinatown 2 and godfather 3, this movie was inevitable. none of those movies are bad btw, just judged by thier weakest parts.

alan moore's name is not to be found, and that is truth in advertising.

at least we'll get an end ot the alan moore: i don't read comics or go see movies because i know they all suck interviews. they make me feel bad for him.

i will now take these lessons and apply them to the powers pilot.

i'm not dc bashing, loved dark knight.

All the Rorschach was great? Really? Have to say I overwhelmingly disagree. The alterations made to his backstory and scenes involving him were my biggest disappointments.

In terms of humor, the whole love-making scene, while hot as hell, was intended to be humorous, and numerous other scenes were laden with humor, albeit often subtle. In terms of passion, I didn't find there a derth of this in any way. Care to elaborate and be a touch more specific? The film certainly didn't contain the philosophical depth of his comic origins, and often was laughably violent, but passionless is an interesting comment. Just want to see what you mean here.

You didn't like Dr. M? Really? This is the first I've heard a single complaint in terms of his effects. How would it have possibly been altered to be improved upon?

Bad lighting on the costumes... Silk Spectre? To whom are you referring? Reason I'm asking is I can't think of many of the characters that have polished costumes so as to capture light magnificently.

I'm glad Snyder "bothered". As you said, the project was inevitable and if someone was bound to tackle it, at least it was done with a great measure of faith to the source material though with noteworthy alterations. It would be a shame if people judged it by its weaknesses... and here I thought I was one of the few cynics on this board.

 

[Scar]

This is honestly not that great of advice for someone who already didn't like the film. I love the book, its one of my absolute favorites prose readings even though its a comic book. I liked the book more and I think people who do which is just about everyone I've spoken with will agree that it'll actually make you like the movie less when you see "what could have been."

I have to agree. I wager I would have adored the movie as an action-fest had I not read the book, though still found the movie to have moralistic holes. I don't personally know a single person who saw it, hadn't read the book beforehand, and didn't love it. Having familiarity of the source does seem to invite comparison, but I enjoy them both.

 

[Entropy]

Bendis doesn't hear you, Scar.

 

[CelticPredator]

I just ment the side stuff like Laurie's hatrid for The Comedian.....actually that really is my biggest problem in the whole movie.

 

[Scar]

Bendis doesn't hear you, Scar.

He's always listening, and you know it.

Actually glossed over that those were Bendis' comments, and instead directed them at endless. I guess I shouldn't expect responses to be forthcoming. Still can't say Bendis' comments make complete sense. Sorry, endless.

I just ment the side stuff like Laurie's hatrid for The Comedian.....actually that really is my biggest problem in the whole movie.

Laurie's hatred for the Comedian in the movie is a bit much, being that she, like her father, is a sex-crazed murderer. Technically neither of them are rapists, but he did savagely attack Sally and attempt to rape her, so there's reason to dislike him. My biggest gripe was that they made it so that Sally didn't really love the Comedian for who he was, but for the daughter that he gave her. You get the sense in the book that there was a deeper connection between them, grounded in mutual love and affection for each other, even after such a horrific incident.

 

[plasmid303]

Laurie's hatred for the Comedian in the movie is a bit much, being that she, like her father, is a sex-crazed murderer. Technically neither of them are rapists, but he did savagely attack Sally and attempt to rape her, so there's reason to dislike him. My biggest gripe was that they made it so that Sally didn't really love the Comedian for who he was, but for the daughter that he gave her. You get the sense in the book that there was a deeper connection between them, grounded in mutual love and affection for each other, even after such a horrific incident.

Many of the non-Watchmen initiated people I watched the film with were confused. They thought Sally was impregnated during the rape scene in which ostensibly no actual rape occurred.

I don't think they focused enough on Laurie's hate for the Comedian in the movie. Understandably it could've been result of the sacrifices required to achieve a reasonable run time, but they could have at least tied that plot arc with Hollis Mason's book. No one would have guessed solely by watching the film that Laurie learned of her mother's assault from reading Mason's book.

I have to disagree with you about Laurie being a sex-crazed murderer. murderer, maybe, but why sex-crazed? Her sexual habits weren't altered from the graphic novel. They were a bit more graphic, but hey, it's an R rating, go nuts.

 

[Ven]

but hey, it's an R rating, go nuts.

and I thank zack for that.



I also saw the heartbreak kid yesterday, hah it was hilarious

"JACK HAMMER ME"

 

[plasmid303]

and I thank zack for that.



I also saw the heartbreak kid yesterday, hah it was hilarious

"JACK HAMMER ME"

You know what, now that I've thought about it, does Malin Akerman appear nude in every movie she stars in? I've only seen her in 3 films total, and she has shown some copious amounts of flesh in each.

Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle
Heartbreak Kid
Watchmen

Can't keep her clothes on. Not that I'm complaining, but still.

 

[The Mike]

Another review...this time from MTV

'Watchmen': Behind The Masks,
By Kurt Loder
Hollywood finally does right by Alan Moore.

So did they leave stuff out? How could they not? "Watchmen" adepts will note a significant amount of narrative surgery in the long-awaited movie version of this revered comic-book classic. The lengthy "Black Freighter" pirate segments and the "Under the Hood" back story? Gone. (Both have understandably been shooed off onto a DVD that's due out on March 24.) Likewise elided are a mysterious island, a press-clip mosaic and a rambling "Nova Express" interview. And the grumbly homicide detectives and the two Bernies at the corner newsstand are only glancingly represented. In addition, as more fanatical fans have feared all along, the ending has been tinkered with — but only in its central, pulpy detail (which was always the weakest part of the story); its enigmatic impact remains undefiled.

None of this much matters. In fact, Zack Snyder's film translation of "Watchmen" (directed from a script by Alex Tse that incorporates elements of an earlier screenplay by David Hayter) irresistibly calls to mind one of the more heavily frayed critical clichés: It's a monumental accomplishment. The comic books on which the picture is based — a 12-issue run written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Dave Gibbons and published in 1986 and '87 (and then quickly collected into a celebrated "graphic novel") — are of course a monument themselves in the comics field. The story — essentially a murder mystery set among a group of colorfully flawed costumed crimebusters — is a narrative collage so intricately constructed that it has defeated repeated attempts to bring it to the screen. That Snyder has managed to streamline this sprawling material into a terrific action movie without trivializing its psychological penetration, philosophical resonance and powerful emotional charge is something of a miracle.

The director has a flair for narrative shorthand. He has compressed the "Under the Hood" history of the Minutemen — an early fraternity of masked adventurers inspired by the comic-book debut of Superman in 1938 — into a splendid montage that runs through the opening credits, accompanied by Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin' " (an inspired touch). And he has a witty way of signaling absent elements of the book to knowing fans: For instance, rather than tarry over the speculation in the novel (as I think we can call it) about the true identity of Hooded Justice, the first freelance vigilante, Snyder simply uses the hulking brute's brief appearance in a key scene to demonstrate that he speaks with a German accent. What non-scholars will make of such oblique flourishes is hard to guess. They may be baffled, bored, whatever. Still, the movie stands on its own. (Well, with an occasional twitch: The elimination of that mysterious island throws another scene — a drunken confrontation with an arch-villain named Moloch — slightly out of whack.)

...

What elevated Moore's story above the traditional run of comic-book cartoonery was its concern with damaged humanity, with the characters' fears of a darkening future and longings for a brighter past, and their feelings of obsolescence and irrelevance. The movie retains a surprising amount of this soul-plumbing spirit, although inevitably, even in a picture that runs more than two hours and 40 minutes, it's unable to attain the full emotional richness of Moore's great waves of brilliant writing. Still, we feel the perplexity of aging adventurers wondering whatever possessed them to dress up in preposterous costumes and sally forth to fight crime with little more than fists and gadgets. And we understand the bleakness of their marginalization by Dr. Manhattan, a physicist transformed by a laboratory accident into a genuine super-being capable of viewing time as an ever-present continuum and of teleporting himself to Mars — an empty planet he finds more congenial than their own. (The sequence on Mars in which Manhattan brings Laurie to view the spectacular glass structure he has raised up out of the pink sand, and to debate the value of human life in the face of the mute indifference of the universe, has a resonant beauty beyond the customary reach of computer-generation. So does the dream scene in which Laurie and Dan, both naked, embrace on a vast twilit plain as a nuclear cloud flares up enormously in the distance — another of the many images taken directly from Gibbons' original artwork.)

It's hard to imagine a better cast for this movie. Even obscured throughout most of the film by a head-hugging spotted mask, Haley brings just the right combination of seething hostility and emotional torment to the tricky role of Rorschach, the story's most mesmerizing character. And Crudup gives a virtuoso performance as Dr. Manhattan, imbuing this remote, post-emotional character with a sweet, pensive warmth. Goode exudes precisely the sort of sinister elegance that makes Adrian Veidt such an ambiguous character in the novel; Wilson deploys Dreiberg's mildness as an anchoring presence amid all the action; and Morgan, with his burly swagger and cigar-chewing leer, is a Comedian that even the famously cantankerous Moore might applaud. Akerman seems somewhat bland amid all this vibrance; but then the character of Laurie is less complexly conceived than the others. (The actress seemed more appealing the second time I watched the film. Farther down in the cast, though, the actor playing Nixon has been equipped with a prosthetic nose of Pinocchio proportions — a bizarre miscalculation that ruins the scenes he's in, which are fortunately few.)

"Watchmen" is unlike other comic-book movies because its source material, even to this day, is unlike other comic books. Behind the picture's many masks are recognizably human personalities — twisted exaggerations, of course, but not cartoons. And behind the camera is a director whose love of the original comics shines through in every scene, every detail; his determination to do them justice has finally brought this story to the screen in a rich, stirring form for which even the pickiest fan should be thankful.

("Watchmen" is a co-production of Paramount Pictures. Paramount and MTV are both subsidiaries of Viacom.)

Link: https://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1606439/story.jhtml

 

[The Mike]

Interesting...

'Watchmen’ Dominates Box Office With Estimated $55.7M Opening Weekend
Published by Casey Seijas on Sunday, March 8, 2009 at 1:41 pm.
Call it a foregone conclusion, but with opening weekend box office estimates beginning to roll in, there’s now an abundantly clear response to the question, “Who watches the Watchmen?”

The answer: millions of fans.

While the final weekend gross is still unofficial, the L.A. Times is now reporting that, after an impressive $25 million Friday opening and an $18.7M Saturday take added to that, Warner Bros. analysts are predicting “Watchmen” weekend totals to be $55.7M once the smoke clears from the fanboys stampeding to the multiplexes during the film’s premiere weekend.

While “Watchmen” will easily take the #1 spot on the weekend box office chart — not to mention earn bragging rights as the biggest opening of 2009 thus far — the studio was reportedly gunning for a $60M opening weekend total, if not hoping that the film would eclipse the previous March opening champ, “300,” which raked in $70.9M during it’s debut weekend.

Yet, for a film with a running-time just shy of three hours, no big name talent, oodles of brutality, and based on a comic book that most of the general public has never ever heard of, it’s clear that “Watchmen” is a success, and it will be interesting to see how well the film fares in the coming weeks as more fans who couldn’t get into this weekend’s showtimes make their way to the theaters to check out the flick

 

[Memnoch]

You know, I keep hearing all these complaints about the soundtrack... but I thought it was absolutely perfect. Unforgettable was perfectly ironic to be played over the opening, and All Along the Watchtower was even better (at least for me), not to mention it was there to pay homage to the "Two Riders Were Approaching" Issue. The only problem that arises is they no longer ride but walk.. ah well. If I were to change the soundtrack I'd change it to something in the vein of the track "You Quit" from the soundtrack. But I wouldn't have wanted anything changed soo.

 

[kl241]

I'm sure you guys know all of this, and maybe somebody posted it already, but if not...well...here it is...

https://splashpage.mtv.com/2009/03/...haracters-who-became-dr-manhattan-ozymandias/

 

[Nocturne]

Can't keep her clothes on. Not that I'm complaining, but still.

Definetly better her than Kate Winslet who also has the same problem

 

[plasmid303]

Definetly better her than Kate Winslet who also has the same problem

What?! Titanic-era Winslet was something special. I was younger then, I appreciated it a lot more.

The Reader-era Winslet...understandably time isn't merciful.

 

[CelticPredator]

Many of the non-Watchmen initiated people I watched the film with were confused. They thought Sally was impregnated during the rape scene in which ostensibly no actual rape occurred.

I don't think they focused enough on Laurie's hate for the Comedian in the movie. Understandably it could've been result of the sacrifices required to achieve a reasonable run time, but they could have at least tied that plot arc with Hollis Mason's book. No one would have guessed solely by watching the film that Laurie learned of her mother's assault from reading Mason's book.

I have to disagree with you about Laurie being a sex-crazed murderer. murderer, maybe, but why sex-crazed? Her sexual habits weren't altered from the graphic novel. They were a bit more graphic, but hey, it's an R rating, go nuts.

The lack of hate really made the Mars scene feel out of place. I mean, had they built up the hate, it would've worked...because that was decent acting from Malin...but as it stands, its the biggest piece of overacting of all time...