Again another story ripped from the web pages of Empire
I like Snyder's direction so I'm staying cautiously optimistic.
It's pretty much guaranteed that it will not end with NYC obliterated, Manhattan leaving for Mars, and Rorschach reduced to his component molecules.
You people are missing the worst part of this news.
Veidt is "a costumed adventurer who retired voluntarily, disclosed his identity and built a large fortune. He hatches a plot to avert a global catastrophe he believes will be caused by Dr. Manhattan."
What?
Might I ask why?
Snyder + Warner Brothers = Huge Budget
Not sure how I feel about Snyder directing. He doesn't have much experience and he hasn't proven he can direct serious material. Grand, stylized action flicks aren't the same as the dystopian drama of Watchmen. I'm not familiar with all the actors but I am glad they didn't cast a bunch of big names who can't really act. Too often this happens and the film generally suffers as a result. This cast seems pretty decent to me and has me more excited for the film than I was, albeit still cautiously optimistic.
Now, I don't agree with Alan Moore's idea that his work is somehow unadaptable - get over yourself man, what's good enough for Austen or Shakespeare or Dickens or Burgess etc...
Originally I was content to just simply accept the money, that was offered when people had adapted my comic books into films. Eventually I decided to refuse to accept any of the money for the films, and to ask if my name could be taken off of them, so that I no longer had to endure the embarrasment of seeing my work travested in this manner. The first film that they made of my work was "From Hell" Which was an adaptation of my "Jack the Ripper" narrative... In which they replaced my gruff Dorset police constable with Johhny Depp's Absinthe-swigging dandy. The next film to be made from one of my books was the regrettable "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"... Where the only resemblence it had to my book was a similar title. The most recent film that they have made of mine is apparently this new "V for Vendetta" movie which was probably the final straw between me and Hollywood. They were written to be impossible to reproduce in terms of cinema, and so why not leave them simply as a comic in the way that they were intended to be. And if you are going to make them into films, please try to make them into better ones, than the ones I have been cursed with thus far.
Was offered the lead role of Rorschach in the doomed movie adaptation of the comic book mini-series, The Watchmen. He turned it down because it would become too "Simon Pegg IS Rorschach."
It's perhaps the most surreal experience of my life.
There they are, in a shadowy clubhouse, standing around a map of the USA, just as we'd imagined them. The smoke of the Comedian's cigar hangs in the air as I drink in the details of the scene. Framed old copies of The New York Gazette tell stories of past exploits; trophies glint in glass-fronted display cases; Moloch's solar weapon shines in a dusty corner and over there, on its mannequin stand, the faded costume of the original Nite Owl keeps silent vigil.
Then, a sudden flash of unearthly blue light announces the arrival of Dr. Manhattan and the tableau comes to life. The voices of quarreling heroes rise and fall, a Zippo flares and the map catches fire.
Somewhere, someone shouts "Cut!"
And I'm standing amongst them. Nite Owl shakes my hand. The Comedian slaps me on the back. Silk Spectre smiles a dazzling greeting. I'm overwhelmed by the depth and detail of what I'm seeing.
But more than that. I'm overwhelmed by the commitment, the passion, the palpable desire to do this right.
I'm starting to feel a glow that eclipses even Dr. Manhattan's...
-Dave Gibbons
December 2007
Watchmen's strength and staying power is in its narrative, which in my mind should be easy to capture. I mean, I know everyone else would rather see a miniseries, but I really think there's a central essential story in Watchmen that could be pared down and lifted into the movie, it's not really an ephemeral storyline guys.
I tried explaining this to a friend and it came off as superheroes with problems. But it's so much more than that.
Zack Snyder must shoot for a R or else the book-to-movie translation will feel stale.
In other words, sucktastic.
I dunno though. I wish they kept the original costumes.
I think the whole point with some of them were SUPPOSED to be geeky and 60's batman. I think modernizing it took away from the whole ideal of glory days and stuff.
I dunno though. I wish they kept the original costumes.
I think the whole point with some of them were SUPPOSED to be geeky and 60's batman.
considering how relatively few Watchmen fans there really are
I mean, the parallel isn't perfect but look at Serenity. Firefly had a massive cult following but yet barely broke even, despite the fact that Browncoats saw the movie ridiculous numbers of times.
I just realised how much more of a fan of Sandman I am than Watchmen because when I thought about that I was outraged at the thought of them trying to do justice to Sandman in a movie instead of the full miniseries it so obviously deserves.
Yet I don't really mind that Watchmen is only getting the movie treatment!
i think the deal with sandman is the same deal with pratchett adaptions DON'T FUCK WITH THE SOURCE MATERIAL
Warner Bros., probably (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_%28film_series%29).
i think the deal with sandman is the same deal with pratchett adaptions DON'T FUCK WITH THE SOURCE MATERIAL
Huh? Hogfather was really great, and I haven't heard anything too bad about the animated ones, either. The upcoming Colour of Magic seems like it will be pretty good, too.
I guess I'm in the minority of being a Watchmen fan and also excited about the film.
At this point, my last hope for this movie is they go crazy meta and make a comic book movie based on a comic book that deconstructed and analyzed comic books to do the same to comic book movies. That is my last hope.
They feel like it's a movie, and they get it now, and they're into 1985, and they're into the Cold War and Nixon and all the cool bits.
All that said, I'm still waiting on a damn Sandman adaptation.
Mothman's costume is slightly wrong and Sally Jupiter's arms are supposed to be crossed.
I like the fact that the image looks like it was taken by a group of people who really dig the comic and decided to dress up as The Minutemen for a dress up party.
You, sir, just made my day.All that said, I'm still waiting on a damn Sandman adaptation.
'Death and the High Cost of Living' is being made into a movie adaptation from the comic book spinoff series.
Malin Akerman (upcoming Farelly brothers movie The Heartbreak Kid) is The Silk Spectre aka Laurie Juspeczyk, token female superhero of the band who resents being the token female and was once involved with Dr Manhattan.
God, Snyder has such an eye for gorgeous style.
Still no faith in this movie, but damn that's pretty.
Fuck me backwards if that wasn't the worst trailer I have seen in a good while.
Of course - but throw a glance at what a spectacular job the major studios have done at screwing over every single comic book adaption as well. The trailer reaffirms my fear that Watchmen will join the ranks of butchered comic books. If you read backwards into the thread you'll see how excited I have been for this movie, because I really did believe it had great potential, but after seeing some actual footage my enthusiasm has faltered quite a bit.
Saw the trailer, it looked...okay. The trailer song was pretty horrendous, the CGI looked horrible (ship coming out of the water and sort of hovering there for us to see how fake it looks), and none of the actors look that good. The fact the 300 guy is directing it isn't very encouraging either.Picky picky picky. Actors all looked just fine, CGI was on par with just about everything else and 300 was a decent film. I have faith.
That's a seriously awesome trailer but I don't really remember any of that shit being in the comic. :?
Not quite how I would have taken the Rorschach voice, but it seems to be a liberty that could work.
Fans of Alan Moore's seminal graphic novel Watchmen have another reason to be excited (or apprehensive). The upcoming Warner Bros. Pictures film adaptation is already faced with the daunting task of capturing the nuanced and layered story of the original comics, but the studio's interactive entertainment arm today announced it would further adapt the film into games.
I never said it would be good, I just said that the actors aren't too young, though I don't know whether they look too young, as I only know how the actor playing the comedian looks all that well.:wink: I was just teasing. I know better than to depend on the word of somebody on the internet with whom I have exchanged two sentences :laugh:
Does anyone else think Rorschach sounds like Christian Bale in Batman mode?
Well see there? someone finally found the right word. :laugh:
The New Yorker reviewer doesn't like it (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2009/03/09/090309crci_cinema_lane?printable=true) (link contains major untagged spoilers) and takes a few cheap shots while expressing his dislike. His beef is is the ever-increasing fetishization of violence and the ever-growing abstraction of suffering. Which is a legitimate beef to have, by and large, but I'm sure there are better points to make about the film's weaknesses.
The New Yorker reviewer doesn't like it (http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2009/03/09/090309crci_cinema_lane?printable=true) (link contains major untagged spoilers) and takes a few cheap shots while expressing his dislike. His beef is is the ever-increasing fetishization of violence and the ever-growing abstraction of suffering. Which is a legitimate beef to have, by and large, but I'm sure there are better points to make about the film's weaknesses.
Yeah, I get that, and I enjoy Ebert's reviews in part because I like that about him. But I still didn't expect this movie to really turn out very well. I find the idea that my trepidation may be unfounded slightly disorienting.
Some of the audience didn't seem to get at first that the violence is supposed to make you kind of uncomfortable but I think they got it by the end. Still didn't justify a bunch of scenes where they BEAT UP THUGS except Snyder actually managed to include a subtext (!) that suggests that the heroes kind of got off on the violence and the idea of vigilante justice which isn't morally vindicated at any point and in fact gets morally muddled when Silk Spectre knocks out a cop. Nixon's nose was dumb as hell.
When Rorschach said his famous, "I'm not in here with you, you're in here with me," line, half the audience laughed hysterically.
The more things Zack Snyder says, the more I suspect he may genuinely be an idiot.
Like Alan Moore's graphic novel, the final confrontation in the film begins when we find Adrian Veidt sitting in front of a massive wall of televisions. As the world's smartest man takes in all the information, director Zack Snyder delights in goosing his audience with dozens of in-jokes. "The original '300 Spartans' is on one of them," said the "300" director, referring to the 1962 movie that predated his tale of King Leonidas. "There's also 'The Road Warrior' that you can see, which was a really influential movie for me in the '80s. ... There's some porn, some real porn — which is cool.
There's a Marvin the Martian [cartoon], which is the one where he's trying to destroy the Earth — which speaks to the annihilation of the planet that Ozy's having an issue with at that time. There's 'The Day the Earth Stood Still,' which is featured heavily in the graphic novel, and there's 'Fail Safe,' which is another Cold War-era epic."
The one thing I hated was the sex scene, it went on for way to long and I may never be able to listen to Hallelujah the same again.
ALSO MISSING: cheesy lounge keyboards
some of the music choices
i am pretty sure the squid thing would have torpedoed the filmA blue-skinned pipe-swinging God-man, that's okay. A giant psychic squid, that's pushing it.
I was not delighted or disappointed with the film. I thought it was pretty solid in the end.
A blue-skinned pipe-swinging God-man, that's okay. A giant psychic squid, that's pushing it.If you can't see why a gigantic horror squid with a vagina eye and an exposed brain – literally a nightmare made flesh – teleporting into Manhattan is kind of a ridiculous concept even in the face of an invincible blue superbeing and especially compared to your garden-variety atomic explosion, something that has actually occurred in the real world, then you really need to readjust your perspective.
A lot of the soundtrack cues came from the comic itself.
Like, it literally has no basis in reality. The comic's reality, I mean.
The comic was good, though.
Besides, that alien was cunt-ugly.
Watchmen walkouts? Watchmouts? (http://www.avclub.com/articles/mass-watchmen-walkouts,24907/)
having a flaming ejaculationi was so weirded out by this being in the comic
All of this, combined with the film's not-bad-but-definitely-weak box-office take spells trouble for Watchmen.
Man, I started writing about the movie and just couldn't stop. If anyone's interested in my long rambling review it's here (http://adamantiumbrains.blogspot.com/2009/03/watchmen-watched.html).
goddamn education
I can't say I've heard from anyone who hasn't read the novel that really loved the movie.
EDIT: Also, sales for the graphic novel have already experienced a bump (http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/introducing-the-new-york-times-graphic-books-best-seller-lists/?hp). Like, it's not "maybe it will happen." It already has happened.Is it place on the Times fiction list? That graphic novel list was just created, and Watchmen's standing in it could be entirely relative. I wouldn't dispute that the movie has raised the book's salience and thus bumped sales somewhat, but I want to know just how much better the book is doing compared to before the movie came out (or a few weeks prior to the movie coming out, as I know plenty of people who made it a point to read the graphic novel shortly before seeing the film)
Maybe someone who knows comics history can shine some light on how the popularity of Superman and Batman comics changed as their movies came out? Maybe I'm wrong.
Is it place on the Times fiction list?It probably isn't at the top of the actual list but it's still selling more copies than any other paperback graphic novel and I sincerely doubt that it would be sitting on top of the list like Thriller for months on end.
Moreover there will probably be a good portion of people who buy the novel but don't really read it, because of either the deliberate pace and unrelenting grimness of the book or the way that it was written (I know when I read it, it was only a short time before I became aggravated with Rorschach's clipped, broken inner monologues)
Is it place on the Times fiction list?It probably isn't at the top of the actual list but it's still selling more copies than any other paperback graphic novel and I sincerely doubt that it would be sitting on top of the list like Thriller for months on end.
ALSO HARRY: PICK UP FUN HOME BY ALISON BECHDEL AND PERSEPOLIS MAYBE?
Well like I said, the graphic novel list is new. How do I know that Watchmen wasn't already selling well consistently going back into times before the list was compiled?I dunno man, how do I know I won't crap out gold tomorrow? This is a twenty year-old book, dude. Maybe we don't know for sure but we can probably take a pretty good guess.
ALSO HARRY: PICK UP FUN HOME BY ALISON BECHDEL AND PERSEPOLIS MAYBE?
The worst thing is the fact that he signs off with "Trust me. You'll come back, eventually. Just like Sally."
How does the world uniting against an enemy they know to be invincible and know they can actually just blame the US for make more sense than an alien threat?
I still don't understand the hate for the alien-squid-ending.
Just the phrase Alien Squid Ending should be self explanatory in itself.
Was it just me, or was the lady playing Sally Jupiter Jr. incapable of acting?Heh, look at any non-fanboi review of the film and you'll see the same complaints. Honestly I thought she was better than Matthew Goode, but not by much.
Nixon's nose, Nixon's nose.
Is it Apocalypse Now? Is it Blade Runner? Is it Kubrick, or Starship Troopers?
as a caricature of the actual Nixon (whom I have no experience of outside of Futurama)
A bunch of the secondary characters were pretty bad too. The pedophile? Mickey from Seinfeld and his cronies?