watchmen, the movie

[pavlova cakesworth]

anyone else looking forward to this?

it's by the same guy that did 300 and dawn of the dead but even a blind squirrel with only three legs finds a nut every now and then

[lestat]

^ alternate universe batman??

[FJO]

I'm excited to see what it looks like, but I didn't really like the re-vamped outfit for the Adrien character, plus, what happened to the whole freaky colour-scheme the graphic novel employed?

[Fookums]

I don't mind changes to the color scheme but yeah, Ozys suit.. and actor.. I'll wait for the trailer to figure out my opinion on how his suit looks.

However, the Comedian and Rorscarch look badass.

[watchman]

yes... 1234567

[Charlie Delta]

Yes excited!

[sybaritical]

Yes, looking forward to it, think it will be spectacularly watchable but can't shake the apprehension that they'll completely miss the point and massacre a classic.

[sushijerk]

The characters and sets look good but I just think there's a 0% chance of it telling the story the same way Moore wants to.

I see this becoming a M. Night Shamlayn (sp?) type movie where it's all zomg twist ending!!! and not the character study Watchmen was. Alan Moore books just don't translate to movies like other properties do, because half the fun is the way he delineates a story and messes with timing/panel placement. You just can't film it because it's so exclusive to the comic medium.

I actually really enjoyed the 300 movie but this is a totally different ballpark.

[doctorworm]

Yes, looking forward to it, think it will be spectacularly watchable but can't shake the apprehension that they'll completely miss the point and massacre a classic.

Yes, looking forward to it, think it will be spectacularly watchable but can't shake the apprehension that they'll completely miss the point and massacre a classic.

Yes, looking forward to it, think it will be spectacularly watchable but can't shake the apprehension that they'll completely miss the point and massacre a classic.

exactly how i feel about this. i hope it's great, but i just don't think it could be done proper justice. it was such a great novel, all graphics apart, and one of my all time favorites, so it better not suck. also, wan't there an attempt to make it into a movie before that failed?

[doctornick]

I'm bracing for a massive failure, like all the other moore films.

[pavlova cakesworth]

exactly how i feel about this. i hope it's great, but i just don't think it could be done proper justice. it was such a great novel, all graphics apart, and one of my all time favorites, so it better not suck. also, wan't there an attempt to make it into a movie before that failed?

yeah watchmen has a massively storied history of failed attempts, including one by terry gilliam, which would have been, in all probability, terrible. i cannot stress how much i agree with the doctor and the chimp on this^^^^ point^^^^ -- the thought that snyder is going to make it into a "kickin' criminal ass all the time" superhero movie that only has any value because of the source material, a la dawn of the dead, keeps me up some nights. dave gibbons seems to have signed off on it, though.

[Guest jmatsu]

is there a trailer floating around? if so, pls link. thanx.

[pavlova cakesworth]

i wish, release is still a year away

[landho]

I want to kill myself.

Getting Zach Snyder to direct this seems like a terrible decision. Watchmen is all about subtlety and development. They should have kept working with Terry Gilliam; he has the stylistic idiosyncracies that would make a Watchmen movie totally badass and he doesn't give a fuck if his movie ends up running seven hours long. Condensing Watchmen into two hours; reducing Dr. Manhatten's and Rorscharch's storylines to mere flashbacks (which is almost certainly what is going to happen); ignoring critical alternate-history information (like homosexuality being openly accepted in the Watchmen universe); etc. I can't stomach any of this happening.

Better, I think, something like this not be done at all rather than have it done poorly. Anyone remember the From Hell movie directed by the Hughes brothers (of all people)? Those of you who did probably wish you didn't.

[pavlova cakesworth]

what i want to know is how they can reconcile nite owl having a goddamn suit of armour all of a sudden with the separate goggles. look at them up there! the strap goes around the friggin' helmet!

[AstroWolf]

i honestly think it looks pretty good. the only thing it kinda lacks is that he has not used the suit in years and it would be kinda outdated when he starts up adventuring again.

i have a lot of hope for this film, lets be honest, that does look like the night owl layer. im in to it, i want it, god please let it be good.

[jubei]

The pictures definitely piqued my interest, but I remain cautiously optimistic. The best possible outcome would be for the movie to not suck.

what happened to the whole freaky colour-scheme the graphic novel employed?

That, my boy, is because the book was originally printed and coloured in the days of the dot matrix printer. Ever since maybe the late 90's Comics started being coloured through computer programs. This has allowed for more subtle nuances in coloring and has even begun to affect the line art itself (i.e. some pencillers now leave details such as face shading and smoke effects to the colorists).

The somewhat garish color palette of the original Watchmen, therefore, is a product of the technology at the time. I find it charming and even essential to the story; since Watchmen is so firmly set in the 80's, it only makes sense that the comic LOOKS like an 80's comic. I do appreciate DC's later efforts to tweak some of the colors and make things look a little bit smoother, but I think it would lose something if the whole thing was just completely recolored.

A book like Sandman, on the other hand, would definitely benefit from a huge recoloring overhaul... some of the coloring in that book is pretty awful, imho.

[pavlova cakesworth]

i always thought it was a nod to gold/silver age comics on john higgins' part, the same way gibbons' art is. y'know, to drive it home that the superheroes of watchmen are essentially anachronistic.

[jubei]

I've read through pretty old copies of the trade (like ones printed in the early to mid 90's) and it never seemed to me like the effect of the coloring was purposely anachronistic. It seemed to me like that was about as high tech as coloring was at the time.

Same with Gibbons. It's not like he was purposelly drawing anachronistically. It's just his drawing style. He recently did a backup in Green Lantern Corps and it looks exactly the same as his style back then.

[RFKorp]

The making of this movie gets me seriously nervous. The whole point of Watchmen was Moore making a comic that proved there are things the graphic novel can do of which other storytelling mediums are incapable. It's a work that simply cannot be transformed into a film without being drastically changed or else it will seem silly and contrived. Neither potential result is really an exciting one to me.

That said, I'm probably going to have to see it anyway when it comes out....

[landho]

Re the whole discussion on color in The Watchmen:

The colors in Watchmen (Absolute Edition) are outstanding--very vibrant, highlighting a lot of the details that didn't get highlighted as it was colored in the original work.

One of the things that bothered me, however, was Absolute's treatment of Tales of the Black Freighter, the comic-within-a-comic in Watchmen. Frames showing Tales are pixelated, emphasizing that it is a comic. But Watchmen takes place in 1985 and was published in 1986; part of the importance of Tales looking like the rest of Watchmen was because it was a comic book supposedly published at the same time as the comic book (i.e., Watchmen) in which it appears. This context is removed once the images are pixelated.

[pantheist]

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=43692

video of parts of the set...

[Charlie Delta]

Looks pretty spot on to me...

[mpcec]

Not feeling the updated costume designs. Also Nite Owl isn't fat enough. But besides that I think the movie will be cool, I'm interested in seeing how they will do Ozymandias's half lynx cat. What I hope for most is that they keep the snow owl suit in the movie...

[Lt smash]

Watchmen is far too deep to translate into a 2 hr film, theres just going to be too much taken out and with this novel espicially. everything has a purpose and a deeper meaning with the story as whole.

Moore has never endorsed any of his story adaptations, simply because he knows they'll never live up to snuff.

[Reignman]

Hooded Justice looks (charmingly) retarded in that pic.

And I agree that Nite Owl looks too buff, it misses the point of his character.

[Charlie Delta]

...What I hope for most is that they keep the snow owl suit in the movie...

This I second x1000!

[jeepster]

mSrgvJ2JyHs

ahhhhhhhhhhhh
!!!!!

[wrong_move]

Lots of peeps already going wild over the trailer. Can't really say how the movie's gonna turn out, but the trailer by itself is really well done. It built up anticipation while waiting for The Dark Knight to start.

[jyoni]

Re the whole discussion on color in The Watchmen:

The colors in Watchmen (Absolute Edition) are outstanding--very vibrant, highlighting a lot of the details that didn't get highlighted as it was colored in the original work.

One of the things that bothered me, however, was Absolute's treatment of Tales of the Black Freighter, the comic-within-a-comic in Watchmen. Frames showing Tales are pixelated, emphasizing that it is a comic. But Watchmen takes place in 1985 and was published in 1986; part of the importance of Tales looking like the rest of Watchmen was because it was a comic book supposedly published at the same time as the comic book (i.e., Watchmen) in which it appears. This context is removed once the images are pixelated.

hm...maybe the common everyday existence of superheroes would have delayed the evolution of comic books, so the "modern" technology in Watchmen would have been more crude than it actually was at the time. iirc, the whole basis of Tales is to posit a genre that would be pulpy and sensational in a world already filled with heroes.

Also, speaking of Tales, is that included in the film? I've always thought it would be awesome to include it as animated cartoon that the mass public really loved.