Saw the Watchmen
Was pretty surprised to see Moocher from Breaking Away 
Push
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trojannite90
Moocher.. That was Kelly Leake dude.
Viva BrisVegas
Aha, Moocher. I was wondering why he was so familiar, but I just couldn’t place him.
It looks like he is lined up to be the next Freddie Krueger.
Charon
You can probably skip Push. I liked it a lot, but the seven people who went to see it with me all hated it and since I have a real weakness for sci-fi they are more likely to be right than I am.
El Tiburon
Just watched it last night and again today.
I know nothing of the original comic book or whatever it came from.
But yes, very dark. I like the hero/anti-hero set-up w/ The Comedian and the Veidt character. But was kind of annoyed how much Rorshach sounded like Christian Bale’s Batman.
As far as ‘superhero’ movies in the past few years, this was far and away my favorite.
I didn’t catch that Rorschach was Kelly Leak from the Bad News Bears. Leak from BNB was one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite movies as a kid.
Any word on a sequel for The Watchmen?
jon
There’s almost no chance in hell of a sequel, but there’s a chance for a non-sequel using the characters the Watchmen guys were based on. Yes, those guys are based on other comic book guys who the creator of Watchmen, Alan Moore, wanted to use but couldn’t for some licensing reasons. And now that Moore created the more famous version but doesn’t own the rights to the old version, it would be possible that someone could make a sequel that isn’t exactly a sequel. And that’s a good thing, since the more interesting characters wouldn’t be around for a sequel.
And I’m glad that Kelly/Moocher isn’t better known from his role in Little Children, since that would be too spooky for most of the Rorschach fanboys to handle even if they could see Kate Winslet naked.
Yutsano
I know nothing of the original comic book or whatever it came from.
You might want to watch where you say things like that. Calling a graphic novel a comic book is kind of insulting to the fans of said graphic novel. Especially in this case where the devotion lashed on it is rather cult-like. And I haven’t read it either, mostly because I refuse to pay jacked up E-bay prices on it (that and I think E-bay is a tool of the devil).
Glenn Fayard
I don’t think Alan Moore would object to the use of the term comic book. I mean, when he wrote Lost Girls, he insisted on calling it, quote, “a pornography.”
General Winfield Stuck
I’m getting ready to watch it too on Dish PPV. i see it’s almost 3 hours long.
Texas Dem
Another recommendation: The art house flick “Moon,” starring Sam Rockwell and (the voice of) Kevin Spacey is quite good. Saw it this afternoon. Sort of reminds me of that 70s flick “Silent Running.”
Mr Furious
Got a free pay-per-view coming my way from DirecTV. I’ll be using it on Watchmen… looking forward to it.
As for the “graphic novel,” it remains one of the watershed books of the genre. Worth a read for anyone—comic fan or not. At this point you should be able to find the book in the library, or buy a fresh copy at a bookstore that isn’t jacked up.
And it’s comic book. Those who protest otherwise need to get over themselves. I was an art director in the industry so you can kiss my ass.
Jason Bylinowski
Well what a coincidence, Mr. Cole, as I just saw the Watchmen: Director’s Cut with my wife last night – all three hours of it. I have read the series at least three times, and my wife had just finished reading it for the first time last month. It’s never been my favorite series, though at the same time it’s easy to recognize its importance to comics as a medium of art and storytelling.
My take was that it was a movie that had some REALLY GREAT PARTS, and Zack Snyder was REALLY RESPECTFUL OF THE MATERIAL. But surprisingly enough, that didn’t make it a great movie for me. I just think that Alan Moore is right: some things work when translated to movie form, but Watchmen is just totally not one of those things, since the whole was kind of a metacomic anyway.
And I have to say, playing the original version of “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen was just about the worst mood breaker for an already bad sex scene that I have ever witnessed. Just epic.
edit – PUSH is actually a pretty cool little movie in a lot of ways, nicely filmed with some neat quirky characters – although at this point I’m just about ready to push Dakota Fanning off a bridge – she’s just everywhere these days.
Dave C
I liked “Watchmen” the movie, but the comic/graphic novel is a thousand times better. Even if you’re not a fan of the genre, you should read it.
El Tiburon
I use the term ‘comic book’ with the utmost respect.
I don’t know how much I would have enjoyed this movie in the theater. It was definitely interesting but I’m glad I had the ‘pause’ and ‘rewind’ button. It was not a movie I was able to sit and watch in one setting.
Either way, I’d love to see some kind of prequel with the Comedian, et al.
Also, if they could find a way to include Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman) that would be awesome. Malin is really starting to grow on me, I really like her.
Bobby Thomson
The reason people call these things graphic novels isn’t always to be pretentious. The Watchmen graphic novel is a compilation of a series of 12 comic books that were each published separately.
Craig
There’s almost no chance in hell of a sequel, but there’s a chance for a non-sequel using the characters the Watchmen guys were based on.
They’re not really that close to the characters that Moore and Gibbons created. And none of them interact all that much. I really can’t imagine DC doing a Blue Beetle/Captain Atom/The Question/Peacemaker/Thunderbolt team-up movie.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@Yutsano: Calling a graphic novel a comic book is kind of insulting to the fans of said graphic novel. Especially in this case where the devotion lashed on it is rather cult-like.
You may be right, but fans who can’t handle hearing it being called a comic book need to put it down and take a breather.
Jim Kakalios
I actually saw the script, roughly a month before the started filming (did some minor consulting for the pre-production). It had a Hollywood type ending where the villain of course is killed by the hero, with a James Bond-esque quip.
That Snyder managed to bring so much of this dark story to the screen intact is nothing short of amazing. I am convinced that in ten years few will still be watching Dark Knight except from Heath Ledger’s performance, but the Director’s Cut of Watchmen will be an evergreen.
John – did you see the Dir. Cut with Hollis’s death scene?
Favorite lines from the book – and in the DC of film:
We’re all puppets Laurie. I’m just able to see the strings.
and
I did it 35 minutes ago.
Yutsano
You may be right, but fans who can’t handle hearing it being called a comic book need to put it down and take a breather.
Not arguing that point, I’ve just been on the wrong side of that anger. Not zesty.
plaindave
My first look at Watchmen also. Never heard of it before. Enjoyed it way too much. Kinda ashamed. But absolutely struck by the morality issues. Absolutism versus relativism was something I didn’t expect in a movie with electric saw amputation action.
zmullls
The storyline is a little dated, but the story itself is compelling. I did read the original (and you don’t need to pay jacked up prices on eBay, the normal paperback price should be reasonable), and the mini-bios of each character are what WATCHMEN is all about. The over-arching plot (who killed the Comedian and why?) is a little silly, and for me, the last chapter was hard to swallow. But everything leading up to it was stunning, visually and storytelling-wise.
The movie has to cut some things, truncate some things, but overall, yes, it was VERY RESPECTFUL of the source material. I’m really not sure how it works as a movie — I was happy that many of the incredible visual moments in the “novel” were realized.
And yes, WATCHMEN was a total game-changer in the field of comic books/graphic novels. (Along with Dark Knight and Sandman).
As for “Lost Girls” — it *is* a pornography. I had my wife spring for the uber-expensive hardbound copies, and all it is, is Alan Moore pastiching every known form of pre-1900 pornography (mostly Victorian age). It’s extremely graphic and boring at the same time. If Victorian erotica and sexual nihilism are your things, you’ll love “Lost Girls”
Steeplejack
I’ve got “movie night” issues–i.e., DVR is
almostfull, and I need to clear something off there, preferably by watching it. I’ve got everything from cooking shows to last week’s Daily Show and Colbert, new movies, old movies, etc., etc.I wonder whether Cox Cable has a bigger DVR. Mine dates from early ’06, holds about 35-40 hours (non-HD). Anybody got a newer one? This is the Cox cable box with DVR built in.
Yutsano
I wonder whether Cox Cable has a bigger DVR. Mine dates from early ‘06, holds about 35-40 hours (non-HD). Anybody got a newer one? This is the Cox cable box with DVR built in.
I’m sure Cox has a better version out there, it’s probably just a matter of contacting them and how much more dinero they want for the new box.
AhabTRuler
Fuck ’em!
Singularity
Why would you buy it on Ebay?
I bought my original copy in a bookstore long before the movie was even rumored for around $15 at least 10 years after its initial run by DC. I bought abouther copy when the movie was near release, also at a bookstore for about $20, which is average for large form paperback graphic novels. Currently, you can buy it on Amazon.com for $13.49.
Jim C
@Yutsano: You might want to watch where you say things like that. Calling a graphic novel a comic book is kind of insulting to the fans of said graphic novel.
I’m not sure who insists on calling Watchmen a graphic novel, but I know my first exposure to the story was when I bought it in 1986 & 1987, when it was first published by DC Comics – in 12 comic books. Perhaps the people who object aren’t aware this happened.
Also, to you and anyone else who hasn’t read it and might be curious: consult your local library. Their Comics/Graphic Novels section (or Dewey Decimal 741.5x section) should have a copy. If it doesn’t, move.
(I suppose you could camp out in a comfy chair in your local Borders/B&N and read it, too.)
Nylund
The Watchmen is next on my viewing list too. Might watch it tonight.
Someone mentioned “Moon”. I went and saw that to celebrate the anniversary of the moon landing. Pretty good flick. I’d recommend it as well. Although, truth be told, I couldn’t help but wonder how much better it would have been if someone like Charlie Kaufman had a chance to tweak the script a bit. It could’ve had some really intense psychological moments, but it ended up being more straight-forward and conventional than I expected it to be based on the reviews I read.
Nonetheless, a pretty good movie that deserves to be watched. And its by David Bowie’s son! Not bad at all for a first movie with a small budget.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
The price is not an issue for me–$5 or $10 extra a month for a DVR box over the basic cable box. I was thinking that maybe with the inevitable advances in technology the current models have bigger capacity. Probably should give them a call or check the Web site.
Yutsano
(I suppose you could camp out in a comfy chair in your local Borders/B&N and read it, too.),
Ha. If I didn’t have this little thing called employment to worry about I’d probably be doing that anyway. It does kinda help there’s a second-hand bookstore two doors over from my workplace, but it’s closed when I get off.
bago
That’s the thing with DVR. Paying ten dollars a month to upgrade to 200 gigs of storage when you can pay that much for cloud service just really chaps my hide.
Steeplejack
@bago:
Well, first, there’s the convenience of having it all at your fingertips in the cable remote (no computer doinking necessary), and, second, I try to ignore that (not always successfully) and just think in terms of “Well, $10 is one trip to the movie theater–without snacks–and in exchange I get total control over my home viewing experience.”
I’ll say it again: once you have had the experience of DVR-mediated TV viewing–pause, fast-forward, rewind in real time–you’ll never go back to regular TV.
The other tantalizing thing is that the cable/DVR box has all sorts of interesting ports on it that raise luscious visions of hacking/modding. Haven’t been successful in finding any good information on the Interwebs. (But I haven’t looked in a while. Hmm . . .)
Andy K
@Glenn Fayard:
Yeah, but he did that in order to control the conversation. Moore and Gebbie knew the accusations were going to be flying anyway, so they decided to make a pre-emptive strike against that sort of criticism.
@Jim C:
Yeah, you tell ’em! And don’t forget those damned lit geeks who insist on referring to the vast majority of the works of Charles Dickens as novels. Nothing but a bunch of short stories, published consecutively over the period of a year, only to be collected in novel-like form later. Yeesh!
cj
PLEASE DO NOT WATCH PUSH. IT IS A WASTE OF TIME.
Push was the most boring “action” film that I have ever seen.
Waste of time and a waste of money.
AhabTRuler
No one was suggesting that one can never call it a graphic novel, it was more in response to the idea that one can only call it a graphic novel.
Legalize
Posting from the iPhone tonight.
Saw Watchmen when it came out. Had no familiarity with the graphic novel, but I really dug the movie. As a Billy Crudup fan I was pleased. We saw Hurt Locker tonight and it was damn good. It was perhaps the most apolitical war picture I’ve ever seen. Jeremy Renner was fantstic, as was the rest of the cast. Gorgeous editing and sound work. It was one of those 2 hour pictures that felt ‘long’ but to it’s credit. The quiet moments felt as intense or more so than the ‘action’ scenes.
kdaug
Heh, the ole’ miss and I were discussing Watchmen a couple hours ago…
Remember John, you’re not locked in here with us, WE’RE LOCKED IN HERE WITH YOU!
Sleeper
As someone who’s a huge fan of the original work and has read it probably 15 or 20 times since it came out, I found the movie strangely uninvolving. It hit a lot of the right notes, there was some good acting, it looked great for the most part…I don’t know. I didn’t hate it, necessarily. Just was not wowed.
For all of the fan fears that Hollywood would mutilate this story (back when Terry Gilliam was still attached to direct, there was a script floating around that revolved around time travel and gave it a happier ending), I feel that this movie was TOO reverent to the source material, to the point where the life of the story was trampled out of it. And the major change they do introduce – the different plot device for the ending – is simply illogical.
Also, that was one of the worst screen Nixons I’ve ever seen. Some unfortunate timing for this movie, following only a few months after Frank Langella’s good-but-not-great Nixon in FROST/NIXON. (The best two movie Nixons, for me, are Anthony Hopkins in NIXON and Philip Baker Hall in SECRET HONOR, which is a fantastic one-man-movie that everyone here should seek out.) It’s weird when you can accept the reality of a flying owlship or a huge glowing blue man reshaping matter, but something as mundane as a bad Nixon impression yanks you out of the movie so jarringly every damn time the guy shows up.
AhabTRuler
@Sleeper: Shut up, damn it!
Kirk Spencer
It suffers from the same problems most novels suffer when put on the screen.
Inevitably some things get cut (Black Ship, for example), and there is always the fact that things which take advantage of one medium (parallel panels showing simultaneity, for exmple) that are bluntly impossible in the other – and at the same time the new medium has its own strengths and requirements which may or may not work with the story.
Those who haven’t read it see the movie on its own merits – and an awful lot of them liked it. Most of us who have read it – particularly those who read the dozen little books way back when – see what’s missing. Of course, that latter group also knows (usually) the history of the impact this had on the whole industry. OMG, heroes can be FLAWED!?!?
Sleeper
…okay, okay. Honorable mention for Nixon’s head in FUTURAMA. Fair is fair.
General Winfield Stuck
Well, just finished Watchmen and will say it was Ok! With some better editing into a tighter storyline, it could have a really good flick. Too long though, too much talk, and too little action for a comic book action hero movie.
Watchfan
I’m REALLLY looking forward to the series!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w
Batocchio
Some sections of Watchmen were brilliant, such as the credits sequence. I also thought Haley, Crudup, and Wilson were very good, and Morgan wasn’t bad. Ackerman was pretty weak, though, and that hurt her key scenes. It’s a good companion to the series. I’m getting the director’s cut shortly, and we’ll see how those 25 extra minutes improve it.
Ty Lookwell
Strange coincidence – I after putting it off for so long, I finally started watching The Watchmen last night… and, while I’m not surprised, I think that the writing and acting and casting are simply terrible and ruin the film.
I don’t think Zach Snyder “got” the Watchmen, and what made Moore’s work real, palpable, interesting, intriguing, at all. I think it’s terrible in the areas that made Watchmen so great – and I don’t mean the fights or the “cool” high tech gizmos, etc. Snyder, his writers, and actors, completely failed to make a believable, authentic world.
The whole thing feels phony and cheap and ersatz.
It’s like a sci-fi movie made in the “uncanny valley” of realism… it looks somewhat like a real world, but the plastic-ness of the writing, the poor dialogue, the inauthenticity makes it repellent (and boring). OK, I hated it.
I was wondering what the movie would have been like if Snyder would have been hired just as the visual director and the over-arching directorial work had been done by, say, a Scorsese-level director (the film wanted a 70s New York feel with high tech sci-fi overlay) with casting and actor chops, and if the writing had been done with someone who didn’t specialize in writing comic book movies but had a track record in making humane, true-to-the-work adaptations, like the writer of The Wonder Boys (if he wasn’t currently scripting all the Harry Potter movies) or the Coen brothers (re: their work on Country for Old Men, which is remarkable in how it captures the tone and content of the original piece.)
In fact, I think the Coen brothers are probably the best people to have made this, and even then it needed to be a 12 episode HBO series.
R-Jud
@Ty Lookwell:
Yep, Steve Kloves is good at adaptation. “Wonder Boys” was our flick last night, coincidentally, and I’d forgotten how much fun it is even though Katie Holmes is in it. Best thing Tobey Maguire’s ever done.
“Admit it. You’re mad at me. You’re mad because I shot your girlfriend’s dog.”
Ty Lookwell
R-Jud –
probably the most authentic, most amazing book-to-movie adaptation I’ve ever seen was Young Adam, written and directed by David Mackenzie, based on Alexander Trocchi’s short novel. I couldn’t believe how true and how well made – how loyal to the book – it was. It floored me (and I highly recommend it).
(oh, and Katie Holmes is cute and wonderful and appropriate in Wonder Boys. Another example of a well-casted movie, I think)
geg6
Wonder Boys is one of the very best adaptations for film ever. Perfect, in fact. And the fact that it was filmed in all my most familiar places just makes it even better for me. As for my Saturday movie night, I watched a documentary on the Sex Pistols called The Filth and The Fury. If there are any other aging punks out there, I highly recommend it. Great stuff, politics, social commentary, history, comedy, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Loved it.
HeartlandLiberal
“Breaking Away” (1979), a really good movie. Come visit here in Bloomington sometime and I will show you the sites. They try to keep people out of the famous quarries, but still Darwin reigns, and every year or two some young idiot manages to drown himself in one of them.
If you have never seen it, then go get “Hoosiers” (1986) starring Gene Hackman. I actually consider it a better movie than “Breaking Away”. Based on the true story of the basketball team from Milan, a tiny town in east central rural Indiana, that managed to beat all odds and win the state high school championship in the early 1950’s. But the real story is all the drama of the human elements behind that, the coach, the teacher, the son, the alcoholic father played by Dennis Hopper in a memorable performance.
There is an antique shop in Milan a portion of which the owner has turned in to a museum for the event. When we visited a few years ago, she had original jerseys, shoes, basketballs, all sorts of memorabilia for what in Indiana, a basketball state, was a legendary moment.
Milan Team Museum
Milan Team Museum
** Atanarjuat **
I saw Watchmen the first week it debuted at the cinema; loved every minute of it — especially Rorschach.
If there were ever a “sequel” (and I agree with the others above that a true sequel’s not possible), I would love for it to be all about Rorschach on the mean streets of the Big City.
Not sure how this film translates to the small screen. I guess I’ll have to find out, especially since it’s the only way to see the Director’s Cut version.
As for Push, I pushed myself to finish watching it without screaming in anguished frustration like Glenn Beck (get off my phone!). I found this to be even more annoying than Jumper, which is saying a lot. To those of you who liked Push, I envy you your ability to find a diamond in the rough, or whatever fun you got out of it.
-A
J Price Vincenz
The ending between the graphic novel/comic book and the theatrical movie is jarring. Both are so complex that I don’t know why Snyder (the director) elected the theatrical ending–the faux invasion plot ending was just slightly more complicated than the faux nuke strike plot ending.
I had read the text before I saw the movie so I sat there with my mouth open throughout the movie–incredible! I saw it on IMax in SF at the Metreon. I had subscribed to the Terry Gilliam theory that it simply was unfilmable. My companion, who had never heard of it before, during my second viewing of the movie (this time on a regular screen) thought it was WAAAAY too long and she needed me to explain what the hell was going on. Big screen IMax certainly brought added intensity to the film.
The Mars scene with Dr. Manhattan alone with the photograph is a breath-taking philosophical monologue about love and loss. With Phillip Glass’s Koyannisqatsi (sp?) playing, it is even more moving. Even in the book, this scene is what drew me into the text and held me: like a contemporary Proust.
In the graphic novel/comic book, by the end, you are literally reading a different narrative thread move forward in each panel, so you are holding together myriad symbols, characters/motivations, locations, and times as the end comes into sight. It is very ambitious, ala Dickens with a post-graduate degree and a meth addiction. The expectations for the reader’s abilities and skills are shocking: how many Americans can actually read a text this complicated and dense? For what it is worth, Time Magazine calls it one of the 100 best novels of all time.
That said, there is a version of a moving graphic novel–six DVDs–that runs through the entire novel with some basic animation, ala the 1980’s movie Heavy Metal, which is surprisingly good.
Some people hate the movie; some cannot wallow through the text. I think it’s just a matter of taste which of the media you like more: movie (3 versions: Blue Ray extravaganza, Director’s Cut, and theatrical release), graphic novel (which has more material than the other two media, such as Night Owl II’s scholarly articles, for instance), and then there is the animated six-DVDs.
steve davis
The graphic novel was grade “A.” The movie was “B-.”
Joey Giraud
“And the major change they do introduce – the different plot device for the ending – is simply illogical.”
Au contraire, the change improves the story greatly. ( that’s probably what pissed Moore so much :)
————PLOT SPOILER ! ———-!!!!
In the book, Ozymandias deploys a gigantic fake monster to frighten the nations into cooperation. This is so ridiculous that it damages the punch of the moral of the story.
It’s much more credible to use Dr. Manhatten’s god-like powers combined with his mysterious inscrutability to frighten the world. And the fact that Manhatten is going to leave us anyway makes it fit even better.
I’m surprised no one here has much to say about the harsh moral issues the story raises.
gil mann
Too long though, too much talk, and too little action for a comic book action hero movie.
Damn, man, that’s like faulting “The Shining” for a lack of vampire boobage.
I’m surprised no one here has much to say about the harsh moral issues the story raises.
Well, the response to 9/11 pretty much disproved Ozy’s thesis, y’know? So now he’s just one more Weather-Underground-times-a-million psycho-peacenik instead of a guy bringing utopia but at a horrible cost. Plus Moore kinda fucked up with Rorschach, in that he’s supposed to be a monster but he’s so awesome the audience identifies with him too strongly. Hey, I just realized, his motivation at the end there is the same as Mal’s in “Serenity.”
The wonderful thing about the world we live in today, as opposed to twenty, or even ten, years ago? (and Watchmen deserves a great deal of the credit, by the way) Guys can talk like this and still get laid.
Oh, and you’re so right about the ending. They shoulda shown the carnage but conceptually it’s far more logical (and elegant). And yet the line “human bean juice,” Snyder considers inviolable.
gil mann
Why won’t it let me edit my unnecessary italicization?
R-Jud
@Ty Lookwell: I remember seeing Young Adam when it came out and being very moved and disturbed by it. Proper film-making. I’ve never read the book (Tilda Swinton and a David Byrne score were the draws for me). I’ll check it out.
And, yes, I am probably being mean to poor Katie Holmes.
skippy
most folks here have already gotten to my points i was going to make.
loved the flick, tho it was far from perfect, and i can’t wait to see the director’s cut dvd.
also, try the library for the original, that’s what i did (i never read it till a few months before the film came out).
and, graphic novels are comic books. read henry miller or clive barker if you want a graphic novel. if it’s got pictures w/thought balloons, it’s a comic book.
General Winfield Stuck
Hit the I’m drunk button. it’s the one in the middle/
GeoX
I hated Watchmen more than I’ve hated just about any movie ever. I can understand how you might disagree, especially if you’ve never read the source material, but I’m perpetually baffled by the claim that the movie is somehow faithful to the book in any but the most superficial way. That is nonsense.
Comrade Mary
I saw the movie before I read the book, and while I was amazed by the credit sequence — when it was leaked online, I knew I HAD to see the film — thought the film was pretty hit and miss otherwise. (Hallelujah. Oy. Co-signed.) Moocher/Rorschach was great, and I really liked Billy Crudup and his blue CGI man-part (because the real word put me in moderation, damn it!), but the rest of the performances and characters were pretty weak.
Anyone here ever watch Prisoners of Gravity, a Canadian show on SF and comic books? There’s a few episodes up on YouTube now, including an episode on Watchmen, with extensive interviews with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Part 1of 3 is here. (Complete PoG YouTube channel page is here.) And call me a visuals geek, but above and beyond the deep moral themes of the series, I loved the discussion on the use and abuse of the comic page grid.
Mike in NC
Picked up “Watchmen” last week at Best Buy to see the Director’s Cut. They also were selling a DVD containing the animated “Tales of the Black Freighter” and a feature called “Under the Hood”. These were part of the graphic novel but not the theatrical release.
r€nato
I absolutely hated Watchmen. I desperately wanted to like it, but when it was all over I was greatly disappointed.
Sasha
@El Tiburon:
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!
Cyrus
Personally, I liked the movie, but I liked the book too and the movie was so closely based on it that it’s hard to talk about them separately.
Best part of the movie: the little bits and pieces that were new. Lots from the book was left out and not much new stuff was added in, but every last bit of the stuff added in was, as far as I can recall, deft and appropriate. Rorschach’s parting line to the therapist, for example. And Dr. Manhattan’s new dialogue in the talk show scene, which was both expositional (but not ham-handed) and the kind of deeply philosophical thing you’d expect from an energy being. Worst part of the movie: Veidt’s casting and/or direction. I remember he was convincing as a hero in the comics until he wasn’t. In the movie, he looks and acts sinister from the start.
@gil mann:
Disproved? Really? More people died in one day in Ozy’s plot – this is especially true in the movie, where the plot was bigger than in the book – than in 9/11 plus the Lancet’s body count for Iraq over the following years. And in the comic book Veidt was still manipulating people toward peace in the aftermath, and the source of the attack was very different, and…
Sure, the giant squid was comic book logic, but claiming that 9/11
changed everythingdisproves the very idea that people come together in the face of a crisis is ridiculous.I think that’s intentional. Moore would probably be disturbed to see anyone take Rorschach as actually admirable, but Rorschach is a mockery of and/or commentary on a certain type of superhero (in addition to being a specific superhero, The Question, with the serial numbers filed off) and such a hero would, as a person in an even slightly realish world, be a monster. (Besides, Moore is easily disturbed.)
Chuck
The Watchmen graphic novel? It was … okay. Great premise, but the execution was full of some gratuitous self-serving that was mercifully excised from the movie. Unfortunately the movie still took too much direction from the comic, such as the far too clever by half selection of All Along the Watchtower: Outside in the *cold* (Antarctica) distance, a *wildcat* (Bubastis) did growl. *Two riders* (Rorschach and Night Owl) were approaching and the *wind* began to howl (yes it was howling). Gosh wasn’t that clever, even though it doesn’t fit the mood even a little bit. This is the kind of literalism grade-schoolers come up with.
Good line: “What happened to the American Dream?” “It came true! You’re looking at it!”
Bad line: “The city screams like an abattoir full of retarded children.”
The ending was a little better than the book (sorry but Moore’s _Deus ex Machina_ was a Flash Gordon level of corny) but it leaves you as detached from the scope and horror of the event as it possibly could. And that’s what I felt during the whole movie — a detached restraint in order to play it by the numbers and get as much material in as the run time allows.
aironlater
Having been a fan of the Watchmen comic series since 1990 ( I was a late comic bloomer ) I was suprised to see that Snyder was able to remain true to the bulk of the elements from the original source material. Even though the ending was a bit twisted from Alan Moore’s storyline, I was very pleased with the end result.
Watch out for the 5-Disc Uber-Special Edition to drop in December, complete with the Black Freighter storyline put in.
aironlater
@jon:
If anything, there should be a film about The Minutemen. Even though there was substantial reference to them in the opening credit sequence ( as well as Miss Jupiter and the first Night Owl within the film ) there is potential for a second film. But, I don’t see it happening.