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Post by Andy Turnbull on Mar 6, 2008 9:28:44 GMT
Zak Snyder has updated the production blog with stills of the principal characters here. Silk Spectre looks a bit naff, though Nite Owl and the Comedian look pretty good. Ozymandias puts me in mind of Batman and Robin! Andy |
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Gav
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Post by Gav on Mar 6, 2008 11:05:08 GMT
The Comedian is top-notch.
I hope they get this one right.
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kayevcee
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Post by kayevcee on Mar 6, 2008 17:23:33 GMT
I reckon the Comedian and Ozymandias look great. Nite Owl, if anything, looks *too* cool. There's a hint of the Adam West paunch, though, so it should work out okay. Rorshach looks good but it's the character's mannerisms and body language that'll sell him. The Silk Spectre does indeed look naff, but like Nite Owl I'm pretty sure she's supposed to. Mildly amused that she seems to be wearing PVC thigh-boots rather than actual silk stockings, though.
-Nick
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Post by Philip Ayres on Mar 6, 2008 17:46:03 GMT
Anyone got a link to the shot of the newstand ?
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 6, 2008 22:24:37 GMT
No interest in this film at all, no matter who is making it. Watchmen is so of its medium, translating it into any other seems utterly pointless.
-Ralph
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Post by Dark Stranger on Mar 7, 2008 9:02:14 GMT
Have to agree with that, I'd find this hard to take as a movie.
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Post by legios on Mar 7, 2008 19:42:43 GMT
I'm of much the same mind. "Watchmen" is not just of the medium - in term of its construction - but very much about the medium. In the sense that it uses the medium of comics to examine some of the "tropes" of American superhero comics. I don't see how you can do that in the same sense when you are working in another medium. It won't function the same way, and will by default become something other than "Watchmen" was.
I have a kind of morbid curiosity about it , but I wouldn't actually say I was excited about it or anything.
Karl
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Post by Mark_Stevenson on Jul 18, 2008 12:17:07 GMT
watchmen--trailer.blogspot.com/Hmmm. Part of me's thinking, 'The cast are too young, and there's a hell of a lot of whiz-bang and slo-mo in there', and part of me's thinking 'They've really got the feel of Dave Gibbons' art, I can identify where pretty much every shot in that comes from, and it looks like a hell of a lot of the book has made it to the screen'. Considering how much I was dreading seeing this, it doesn't look half bad at this stage. We shall have to wait and see next year... Mx
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Rich
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Post by Rich on Jul 18, 2008 14:41:42 GMT
Leaving aside what the film is gonna be like, 'cause I still have my doubts, I think it's a bloody good trailer.
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 18, 2008 15:48:57 GMT
I'm still not sure what the point of turning it into a film is. The trailer appeared to be for a Matrix spin-off, unless I knew otherwise.
-Ralph
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Post by Mark_Stevenson on Jul 30, 2008 12:06:45 GMT
I've heard that My Chemical Romance are doing a version of (brace yourself) 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' for the soundtrack. Abandon all hope...
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jul 30, 2008 12:14:05 GMT
FFS!
Andy
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 30, 2008 14:24:24 GMT
Children, can you hear Alan Moore screaming?
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 30, 2008 20:23:35 GMT
The trailer was on at IMAX. I have to say, at 70mm screen size it just looked really naff.
My friend who I was with turned to me after it and said: "You'll know all about that then?"
"Yes," I replied, "it makes me sad."
-Ralph
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Rich
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Post by Rich on Jul 30, 2008 21:46:00 GMT
RE MCR. That could be the most genius thing ever; I'm not sure if it willl be better if they do a really heartfelt version or if they send it up (seems unlikely given the film). Either way it will be funny.
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Post by Mark_Stevenson on Jul 31, 2008 23:01:32 GMT
Children, can you hear Alan Moore screaming? -Ralph I think I can hear Alan Moore grumbling menacingly as he chalks a pentagram on the floor, preparing to cast another hex on tinseltown... |
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Mar 6, 2009 19:18:53 GMT
Saw this today. Not a patch on the comic but quite good.
Some things were as you'd expect glossed over or omitted which is a bit annoying but hopefully there will be an extended DVD cut thingy. Difficult to keep track of the omissions (not that I tried) but I wonder if it'd make sense if I hadn't read the original? I did worry about the reworked ending going in but it worked out OK actually.
There was a change that annoyed me as did My Chemical Romance murdering Desolation Row.
In other news Optimus Primal teams up with Nixon.
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Post by blueshift on Mar 6, 2009 19:29:55 GMT
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Dave
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Post by Dave on Mar 6, 2009 19:34:17 GMT
OK that is the greatest thing ever!
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Mar 6, 2009 20:24:33 GMT
Saw that yesterday and it was tops - the Saturday Morning Watchmen thing I mean!
Andy
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Post by Mark_Stevenson on Mar 9, 2009 11:14:04 GMT
Me and Jai have been singing the Saturday Morning Watchmen theme all weekend.
So, saw the movie, quite liked it. It looks pretty much amazing throughout, stays very true to the story, there's a fantastic attention to detail, and it crams an impressive amount of the book in there (this is also a weakness because it is LOOOONG). There's certainly plenty of love for the book on display. Some of the casting was a little hit and miss although Rorschach was spot-on and it was good to see some of the peripheral characters in the book have their cameos. The 'revised' ending was a little lame but at least they didn't try to shoe-horn anything new in for the sake of the director stamping his identity on it. The action sequences are awesome and the special effects seamless, and most of the book's iconic images are recreated perfectly.
My problem with it is this: it's all surface but no feeling. The emotional and political weight of the book just doesn't come across. These ARE fleshed-out, psychologically rich characters, lifted wholesale from Alan Moore's text - but there's no display of depth behind the gloss, latex and pixels. This is the trouble with squeezing so much of the book in - despite it's somewhat languid pace, very little time is spent scratching away the surface veneer. for example: Rorschach's back-story - which is on paper one of the most traumatic, haunting things I've ever read in any medium - just winds up feeling like a spacer between the most god-awful cheesy sex scene I've ever seen and the bad-ass slo-mo prison riot sequence.
And don't get me started on Nixon's nose.
I'll definitely pick up the DVD, and savour the no-expense-spared visual detail with which Moore and Gibbons' world has been brought to the screen. At least then I'll be able to take a tea break, too. Did I mention that it was very, very long?
Mx
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 9, 2009 18:12:42 GMT
I saw this film this afternoon, as I felt I deserved a treat after a few hours of gardening. I have no knowledge of the comics, so I could judge it only as a standalone piece.
I did enjoy it, and was quite happy with its length. The thing that stopped it being in the first league of superhero movies for me (with The Shadow, the X-Men films and the new Batman franchise) was the 'Dr Manhatten' character, who deadened every scene he was in. I have no idea who the actor was who played him, but the dialogue really needed someone with a smidgeon of charisma to carry it off (which McKellen had when he pulled off Magneto - that and a dry wit). Every bit of the film with him in it was dull dull dull. Which was a pity, as I suppose he was fairly key to the plot. But the other heroes were entertaining and likeable.
Oh, and as soon as the main villain first appeared I thought "You're obviously the villain." I hope they weren't expecting to surprise the audience with that revelation.
The special effects ranged from superb (Rorschach's face, and the papers blowing off a desk in the far background when the Archimedes lands back at base) to pointless CGI (that thing on Mars).
Martin
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Post by karla on Mar 10, 2009 11:00:27 GMT
I hope to see it over the next few days.
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Post by jameso on Mar 11, 2009 13:13:47 GMT
Pretty much as good as it could have been really. Some nice touches, some not as effective bits. Cast were generally good I felt (apart from the lookalike real life stars who were weak).
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Hero
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Post by Hero on Mar 11, 2009 14:36:06 GMT
I watched this on Monday and really enjoyed it.
Rorschach was easily my favourite character.
===KEN
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Mar 12, 2009 19:05:27 GMT
This post is full of spoilers for both the film and book.
I only recently read Watchmen for the first time. After being on my "must read" list for some time, I made sure of reading it before the film came out, so as not to impact my reading of the original text. (As with The Lord of the Rings and the last few Harry Potters, though some "damage" was already done having seen the first four HP films before reading any books.)
After reading the book, I was dubious about the film. I thought the main plot would transfer to the screen well enough, but the depth of the book isn't in the plot, it's in the minor characters, the prose sections, Rorschach's journal, the background visuals, the flashbacks, the pirate story, and so on. It turned out, I was right: the plot transferred and much of the depth was left behind. But, I was really impressed by how faithful the film was to the book. Not just in the plot, but the dialogue, the camera angles, much of the design. One of my concerns was the flashbacks, but those we saw fitted in perfectly and those we didn't see, as such, were handled very effectively in the opening montage. (I thought Dylan was a perfect song choice for the montage, by the way. In fact, I found the whole soundtrack excellent.) Rorschach's journal/voiceover could have been very corny, but it wasn't overused so worked okay; Dr Manhattan's voiceover, I thought worked well.
There were glaring omissions, of course, especially the missing genetic element of Veidt's plan, whilst the assassination attempt on Veidt was on a far less lavish set that in the book; plus a few other things. But these omission's didn't matter overall in the film, which works on its on merits. (Also, it's easy to see why things had to be left out - it is a different medium after all.) In fact, I found that the film worked so well that it was only afterwards that I noticed some of the bigger omissions, such as the mob attack on Hollis and the missing scientists plot line.
I thought that the film had some excellent visuals, especially the colours on Mars. Also, the actors were good likenesses for their comic counterparts. (Though what was Nixon's make up all about?) The portrayal of Dr Manhattan, I was a little surprised with - he spoke in sympathetic tones, whilst I read him more matter-of-fact, but that's just a matter of personal interpretation. (I didn't read Galadriel's speech to Frodo about the ring in The Fellowship of the Ring anything like the film, either.)
One major criticism I had was that Veidt was pretty obviously the "villain" from the start. I saw it with my Dad who, like Martin, hadn't read the book but saw what would happen with him early on. It's not so obvious in the book, which makes me wonder if it is at least partly an editing issue. I understand that there was a lot of unused footage, so perhaps we'll find out in time.
Having only read the book once, I actually didn't notice the "revised" ending. I noticed the lack of the monster, yes, but the multiple explosions, the Dr Manhattan or aliens as enemy, the delivery system, these all passed me by. Which, I think, again stands as testimony to the film in itself.
Overall, I thought it was a very good adaptation and a very good film. I wouldn't rush to buy the DVD, though; I found it so close to the book, though lacking that depth, that I would rather read the book again.
One last point. How bizarre, that in a big film like this, the most recognisable actor should be someone as little known as Gary Chalk, not just to Transformers fans, but because of his work on Stargate SG1. I suppose that's testament to the film-makers realising that the property is bigger than the name actors they could have used. "The seeds of the future, Dr Manhattan, lie buried in the past, but I suppose you know that already."
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Post by jameso on Mar 13, 2009 22:28:31 GMT
I've heard that Hollis' death was in the second to last cut of the movie and was removed pretty much at the last minute. |
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 21, 2009 15:51:30 GMT
I can't face another Saturday night in the spare room so I have bought a ticket for this at the local flea pit. The long running time sold it to me as cinema tickets are expensive for me, currently! I'm not a huge devotee of Alan Moore (a mediocre writer whose best work by a country mile is the Sinister Duck song - and I'm being serious) so not too bothered how slavishly it sticks to the book which is very good but not as mindblowing as its made out to be. I merely wish to be entertained. Thoughts to follow.
-Ralph
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 21, 2009 23:24:20 GMT
Fuck me, that was dull and boring.
-Ralph
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Nigel
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Post by Nigel on Mar 25, 2009 9:41:28 GMT
LOL! Best review ever!
I was looking at the soundtrack CD yesterday. I was disappointed to see that Ninety-Nine Red Balloons isn't on there. Along with The Times, They Are a-Changing, that was my favourite song in the film.
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