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Watchmen Watched
In a blatant attempt to make my movie-going a valid business expense, I'm putting together some notes on Watchmen, and providing a place for you all to discuss it. The first thing I want to say is that I had high hopes: If you ask any serious comic book nerd what the most important book is, they will probably give you one of two answers, and "Watchmen" is the right one. So really Snyder, the director of 300, could only do wrong. Fortunately for me, he was very true to the book: just like 300, many sequences are shot-for-shot from the comics. Some stuff didn't make it, and the new ending has a different meaning to me (one that really isn't as satisfying, but is certainly cleaner). But what I can't say is if it was a good movie or not. I sorta wish I could get an impartial opinion of someone who isn't a nutty fan of the book to tell me how it stands as a movie. I imagine a bit slow, wordy and maybe a bit confusing in parts. I'll leave full reviews to others, but I enjoyed the picture and suspect you will too.
You want replies from people who aren't huge fans, but you posted this before most people get off work today. Only a true fan would skip work/school to watch a movie.
I've not read the book (I just finished chapter 1), and I'm seeing it tonight at 9:30; if you still want the viewpoint of a non-obsessed fan, check back tomorrow for my reply to this post.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
I am a non-fan (ducks). Over the years I have heard all the hype about how important it is, Time 100 Top Novels, etc. 2 weeks ago I bought it, read it, and then found the script for the movie on the 'net and read that too. I didn't like the book. In reality, it's not a book but just 12 comics pasted together with a bit of fluff inserted that really didn't have anything to do with the plot. The whole "Graphic Novel" thing just doesn't do it for me, I read comics as a kid, this is no different. The characters are weakly written, because of the format there is very little real information on a page (I especially remember the one page with 4 or 5 panels with only the words "Ahhhhhhh" or similar. The plot itself wasn't bad but the ending in the 'novel' was totally weak, and from what I read in the script should be very much better in the movie. The whole pirate subtext was awful. I would have been much happier without reading it. I understand that it's going to come out this summer in the extended DVD edition. Oh, and the whole manic depressive omnipotent mass murderer in love with a human was just ridiculous. Ok, now with all the bashing out of the way I'll say that I have high hopes for the movie as a visual implementation of the book, and must say that I think the book must be a perfect ready-built storyboard for the movie. From what I read Zach Snyder lived with a copy under his arm and so for once, mostly, the novelist and artist's vision are going to be implemented as they intended. So, yes, I will go see it, I'll probobly even like it, but I've given my copy of the book away. BTW, I'm not the only one that just isn't feeling it: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/popvox/archive/2009/03/04/don-t-believe-the-watchmen-hype-really-don-t.aspx
Ultimately, Watchmen was a faithful representation of the source material. You can read the book and base your opinion of whether or not you will enjoy the movie on your opinion of the book.
I found that the actors portraying Nite Owl II, Rorschach, and Dr. Manhattan were excellent in their roles. There were so many little atmospheric touches, I missed them all (looking through the credits, you'll see acknowledgments and thanks for use of clips from various shows and movies, I didn't see half of those in the movie itself).
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Too much graphic sex and foul language.
It's rated R for a reason, and several plot summaries I've read use words like "dystopian" and "gritty" so it boggles the mind how so many people are upset the movie isn't "family friendly", like they somehow expect an R rated movie to have fluffy bunnies farting rainbows or something.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
I've read it but asked a friend who hadn't read WATCHMEN to see the movie with me so we could review it. Our discussion is the video at the end of this review (the review focuses more on Alan Moore not wanting to see the movie than our different experiences watching it). http://r4nt.com/article/watchmen-the-what-is-alans-problem-review/ ...and the video itself can be found at either location (use blip for CC license)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY7fCCmUxs8
http://blip.tv/file/1844574/
In a nutshell he never read it, but he is a comic geek, and he loved it and is seeing it again today.
I HAD read the comic but don't consider myself a comic guy. I also loved it.
Certainly the most interesting Alan Moore adaptation yet. In terms of quality, to ME its the best, followed by FFROM HELL and V FOR VENDETTA.
He was never confused during the screening, and never felt anything was missing. Nor did I. Obviously stuff IS missing, and a longer version is coming. But it stands on its own as an excellent movie.
You're right. I see an "R" rating and immediately think "family friendly".
Maybe they're upset because Watchmen, despite its fairly uncompromising storytelling, was not what you would call and R rated comic. With the exception of Manhattan's big blue genitals, sexual references were fairly tame. Violence, while present, was rarely all that graphic, relying more on setting, dialogue and subtlety for it impact rather than outright gore. As to foul language, Watchmen contained it, but I cannot recall the novel being excessively laced with profanities in the manner of, say, Killzone 2 for example.
Regardless, this movie will disappoint fans. It must. As a medium, film is inherently incapable of producing a work with as much breath, depth and contrast as Watchmen, or any other graphic novel, or indeed any other type of novel at all. Movie buffs may disagree with me, but I think it stands to reason that no film of any reasonable length has the time and opportunity to engage with the viewer in the same way that a novel consistently engages with its reader.
A reader can hover over every frame in Watchmen for five minutes if they desire. A reader can dwell over a paragraph for a similar amount of time. A film director simply cannot avail of this kind of engagement in his movie, except in a handful of scenes. It is both a strength and a weakness of film as a medium, but it puts serious limitations on the medium.
People seem to have an irrational desire that their favorite novel/comic/game/whatever be paraded in front of the masses in the form of a movie. I cannot understand this point of view. If something is good, then it doesn't need validation in the form of a Hollywood epic complete with marketing campaigns and happy meal toy lines. If anything, good works should not be subjected to this kind of crass spectacle.
When I see "pundits" debating the "themes and imagery" of the Watchmen movie on TV talk shows, a little piece of my love for the novel will silently die.
May the Maths Be with you!
Even if they assumed that, when they went to order the tickets and saw the R rating that should have made them at least question why the movie was rated R. I'm not much of a fan of the MPAA (for various reasons including that they're a psuedo-official form of censorship), but they at least do give some hint as to what the content of a film is even if they're a bit heavy handed sometimes. Anyone that takes their kids to go see a R rated movie and then bitches about the movie content should have their kids taken away by child services as they're clearly not capable of looking after themselves let alone a small child. To be clear I'm not saying there's anything wrong with taking a child to a R rated movie, that's for the parent to decide, but it has to be the parents decision, and bitching about having your kid at an R rated movie means that you didn't see it yourself or even look into it so you're failing as a parent.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Actually you can show someone under 17 an NC-17 movie, it's just that movie theaters have all essentially agreed not to. There's nothing stopping a theater from doing so other than the fact that it would probably lead to massive protests by the nanny-state faction, and quite a few conservatives, plus fallout with the various movie studios and most likely the inability of the theater to ever get movies from the studios again.
As for the movie, yeah it was violent, but I don't think it was unrealistically so, which is kind of the point. Probably the two worst scenes in the entire movie are at the end with the exploded body (not going to say who's cause I don't want to spoil it for anyone), and when that one guy gets his arms cut off, but aside from that it wasn't particularly bad. Personally I feel movies like SAW are much worse in terms of gore and violence. As for the sex and nudity, they did an amazing job of making it realistic which is something that can be said of very few movies out there which is perhaps what so many people are upset over. Everyone seems to want to make sex and nudity out to be some huge deal in one way or another when the reality is much less so, and I think this movie captured that very well.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
It does miss the whole point. The post right above yours (replying to same parent) hits the nail on the head. With the new ending, there is fear and little hope. Eventually once people realize Dr. M is gone for good, they'll squabble again. With the original ending, there is a little fear, but there's also a lot of hope! Also, the Dimension X, being fake, will lead people to continue searching for it.
That said, both endings are nullified by the _very_ end and the crank file.
The movie was very faithful to the book, much more so than LOTR. Since Watchmen is ONE book and not a franchise, who cares if brain dead critics who never read the book (or read it and didn't understand it) complain about it. Those of us who enjoy the book now have a film version that's one of the most accurate transitions from book to film ever made. The movie was not "too long", it actually could've been a little bit longer and fit in more of Ozymandias' back story (his was the lightest of all characters in the movie) and included the last conversation between Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias from the book.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Hilarious... ly backwards.
Especially since in Dr. Manhattan's case, no one is capable of understanding his point of view. The man just decides to appear on Mars and then wills into existence a huge glass fortress. The level of power necessary to bend time and space to your will like that is staggering.
While, all Rorschach does is complain how he is the only one capable of seeing things as they are and bitching about the state of the world.
Watchmen is interesting because each character represents a facet of human nature.
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The Daily Mail....hmmmm
You know I wouldnt give much credence to anything they publish considering their headlines today include
"How a chance meeting in a chippy saved this man's sight"
"Yes Milday! Posh Steps out dressed like Parker"
"Catherine Zeta Jones goes for dramatic all black look, but did she really need to wear leggings AND Stockings?"
Honestly.... you're going to take a review seriously from this site? A site that considers what victoria beckham is wearing as news?
Please.... go back to your womens magazines and continue eating cake.
This movie wasn't family-friendly for a lot of families of all-adults. It was not marketed as it should have been (as the gruesome and ugly story it is). Every trailer I saw looked nice; not quite fluffy bunnies farting rainbows, but maybe real, slightly dirty bunnies pooping real rabbit poop. It should have been marketed as vampire bunnies let loose in a movie theater, biting people's heads off. Then parents would know not to bring their kids.
Ah but then there's the dilemma: how do you put R-Rated content into a commercial that's supposed to be screened for all audiences? They have to show the commercials on public TV to advertise the movie, thereby forcing them to tone it down. I don't think the fault is in the advertisers but in parents not fully investigating. Heck, even the ratings description 'urges' parents to do their homework. People are lazy and stupid, and it's hard to get around that.
*woosh*
that is the sound of the entire movie going over your head.
That's one of the major themes.
You had basically good normal people in costumes trying to save the world with rose colored glasses back in the 40's.
Before the 40's even ended, it started to go bad. Heroes in the real world face real world pressures.
by the time the 80's roll around, some of the "heroes" have been reduced to sociopaths by interaction with the real world.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Parents routinely take kids to movies where only one or two of the above things exist because it's not too much trouble to explain to a 12 y/o: "we don't say those words in public" or "that's a bad man, and he'll go to jail".
If those are the kinds of conversations you're having with your 12-year-old, your kid is developmentally retarded. If mental inadequacy or destructive parenting have reduced your child to such a state, don't take it to anything above G-rated films.
Not that I can't spare the few dimes to see this in the theater, but I'd rather download this one and see it in the comfort of my own home.
Preposterous! The only way to truly appreciate Dr. Manhattans' giant blue penis is to see it on a big screen.
You can't take the sky from me...
So you watch porn on the Internet, and accept that humanity only exists because of "huge massive sex scenes" for eternal ages,
but you got problems with sex in a movie?
Don't you see the problem in there?
Double standards at its best.
No, I don't see the problem there. I see that you're jumping to conclusions about the GP's reasons for wanting the sex scene cut down. You're acting like he complained about there being sex in the movie at all.
I don't care if tits get shown in an R-rated film, but I don't want to sit for several minutes watching people pretend to have sex, while listening to Leonard Cohen. That's what this one was, and it detracted from the point of the movie.
I'm an avid fan. I purchased the original comics. I picked up #1 mostly because of the cover. i had never heard of Alan Moore, but as soon as I flipped through the pages, i knew this was something completely different from the Teen Titans and Justice League books i had been reading. It has been vindicating to see it become one of the most lauded books in comic history.
The problem with the violence, is that comic book violence needs to be brutal and extreme to evoke some emotion in the reader. The director was true to those scenes, but they are MUCH harder to watch when brought to life. And i actually turned away in a few.
If the watchmen is tasteless, it is only because it is a reflection of our world. Rape, murder, abuse are realities. The point of the Watchmen is about the risk of sacrificing our humanity in the service of saving humanity. It really would have been more topical before the election of Obama, because the US response to 9/11 was an example of a country destroying itself to save itself. Now, i think the country has moved back towards a more sane, less destructive path.
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It's not really hard to do better than "oh I can't adapt a thousand-page book in less than three movies OH HERE'S A BUNCH OF UNNECESSARY SCENES, HERE'S LIV TYLER BEING PRETTY FOR THIRTY BORING MINUTES, also, ELEPHANT-TRUNK SURFIIIIING IS HOW WE ELVES ROLL, DAWG"
It's a really dick move to wait for the film to be over before asking for the money back for the anti-piracy dots.
If you were a good person, you'd walk out in the middle and ask.
Waiting until you've enjoyed the whole film before asking for your money back is like eating the entire meal and then complaining to the manager that it was too cold.
Proust wrote about cake. Joyce wrote about the pleasures of a good turd. Kafka wrote about a giant spider. There's no received wisdom about "acceptably literary topics".