Originally posted by Alpha CentauriI'm just judgning from a movie fan standpoint. The overall performances, not accuracy to the book. But if we go by this, most everybody I've talked to have said Watchmen is as close as you'll gome to the graphic novel and the only thing paramountly missing is the squid arc at the end.
How would you even know? You've never read the book, so you won't know what I'm talking about.
Originally posted by Alpha CentauriWay better? No. I thought he was spectacular, but so was JEH as Rorschach. And if your so geeked up about accurate potrayals to source material Ledger's Joker, while great, had little in common with the comic book character.
Don't use that as an excuse. His role was leagues ahead of anyone in Watchmen,
And for the record, I thought Bale is underrated in his potrayal of Bruce Wayne in both films.
Originally posted by Galan007
bale's voice was outstandingly ridiculous in "the dark knight" imo. i fully understand that he had to disguise his true voice, but it was just WAY over the top [in a horrible kind of way.]
Originally posted by Nihilist
The Dark Knight was overated, although it wasn't a bad movie, it only did so well because of the tragic death of Heath Ledger sadly.. imo.
Originally posted by Darth Martin
I'm just judgning from a movie fan standpoint. The overall performances, not accuracy to the book. But if we go by this, most everybody I've talked to have said Watchmen is as close as you'll gome to the graphic novel and the only thing paramountly missing is the squid arc at the end.Way better? No. I thought he was spectacular, but so was JEH as Rorschach. And if your so geeked up about accurate potrayals to source material Ledger's Joker, while great, had little in common with the comic book character.
And for the record, I thought Bale is underrated in his potrayal of Bruce Wayne in both films.
Well everyone you've talked to clearly hasn't read the book properly. They cut insane amounts of important stuff out. Hence why there are multiple different cuts and they STILL don't fit it in.
It's nowhere close to being the most accurate comic book movie. Is it the best Watchmen movie possible? Yes. Does that make it close to the book? No.
As for Ledger, not really. He was based on The Killing Joke, and he did so quite well.
-AC
I'm not sure why people are complaining it was closer to the book that most comic book movies. After all they had to cover the whole novel in one movie which is a daunting task in itself. So cutting stuff out for a movie was excepted even with cutting many things out it was still to long for a movie. This was expected no point bitching.
I mean is Spider-Man , X-men , Hulk, FF movies any better at portraying the comics than Watchmen? No it had many flaws even morose than watchmen in terms of comparing it with it's comic counterpart.
Heck Watchman had most of the movie copy scene by scene for most parts of the movie. What other comic book movie have you seen do this? Not many
Overall it was a good enough movie it kinda sucked knowing beforehand what would happen so people who have never read watchmen might enjoy it more. But if you are a comic book reader you should defiantly read the comic first. Like any other comic book movie the comic it always better.
Originally posted by kgkg
I'm not sure why people are complaining it was closer to the book that most comic book movies. After all they had to cover the whole novel in one movie which is a daunting task in itself. So cutting stuff out for a movie was excepted even with cutting many things out it was still to long for a movie. This was expected no point bitching.I mean is Spider-Man , X-men , Hulk, FF movies any better at portraying the comics than Watchmen? No it had many flaws even morose than watchmen in terms of comparing it with it's comic counterpart.
(all the following is opinion, I'm not going to stick "IMO" after everything)
The Spiderman, X-Men etc films explored the characters, gave a specific glimpse of who they were (with varying success). This was only possible because they concentrated on the characters over specific stories. The recent Batman movies have been so good because, they took the idea of Batman and made a movie out of it rather than copy a story out of the comics. The movies were written to be movies.
When the script for Watchmen was drawn up they had to stick close to the book, because no one wanted an attempt to expand on the book. Unfortunately that made it a doomed endeavor because comics simply don't translate to the screen so simply. In fact pretty much nothing can travel from medium to medium without a great deal of change in recognition that it's a completely different style of storytelling.
As a result we got a middling quality movie adaptation of Watchmen that is fairly close to the book but loses far too much in the process. It was a good effort and far from a terrible movie, it just should have been less strict about the story.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
(all the following is opinion, I'm not going to stick "IMO" after everything)The Spiderman, X-Men etc films explored the characters, gave a specific glimpse of who they were (with varying success). This was only possible because they concentrated on the characters over specific stories. The recent Batman movies have been so good because, they took the idea of Batman and made a movie out of it rather than copy a story out of the comics. The movies were written to be movies.
When the script for Watchmen was drawn up they had to stick close to the book, because no one wanted an attempt to expand on the book. Unfortunately that made it a doomed endeavor because comics simply don't translate to the screen so simply. In fact pretty much nothing can travel from medium to medium without a great deal of change in recognition that it's a completely different style of storytelling.
As a result we got a middling quality movie adaptation of Watchmen that is fairly close to the book but loses far too much in the process. It was a good effort and far from a terrible movie, it just should have been less strict about the story.
I completely agree with you in principle, however I feel that Watchmen was successful in this endeavour. The movie had to be close to the text, it was, I really enjoyed seeing iconic moments moved directly from panel to screen ✅
But it's all matter of preference like you say ✅
Originally posted by kgkg
Heck Watchman had most of the movie copy scene by scene for most parts of the movie. What other comic book movie have you seen do this? Not many
1) Sin City.
2) 300.
3) No it didn't. What movie were you watching?
There's a wealth of important stuff left out. Hollis Mason's murder, Under the Hood, Tales of the Black Freighter, the news-stand segments, Dr. Manhattan's entire Mars musings, Rorschach's psych evaluation, all the Veidt interviews that make up who he is, the ending with Veidt and Manhattan talking etc. That is the REAL ending, but no.
Not to mention they changed a lot of the dialogue.
Laurie was saying things that Manhattan said in the comics, despite the fact that the reason she didn't get along with him was because she didn't understand him. She was nowhere near the neurotic, chain-smoking wreck she is in the book.
So it had some good scenes that were faithful, so what?
-AC
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
1) Sin City.2) 300.
3) No it didn't. What movie were you watching?
There's a wealth of important stuff left out. Hollis Mason's murder, Under the Hood, Tales of the Black Freighter, the news-stand segments, Dr. Manhattan's entire Mars musings, Rorschach's psych evaluation, all the Veidt interviews that make up who he is, the ending with Veidt and Manhattan talking etc. That is the REAL ending, but no.
Not to mention they changed a lot of the dialogue.
Laurie was saying things that Manhattan said in the comics, despite the fact that the reason she didn't get along with him was because she didn't understand him. She was nowhere near the neurotic, chain-smoking wreck she is in the book.
So it had some good scenes that were faithful, so what?
-AC
Actually not one of those things they had to omit (for the sake of showing what they could) would I consider to be as important as what they kept. In fact a lot of Dr Manhattan's Mars musings was word perfect. But when you are making a movie you have to prioritise certain things. If it was all from panel to page (which I feel a lot more of it was than you appear to be giving credit for) then the movie would be 6 hours long and nobody would watch it with the exceptions of the die hard fans like us and then we'd (along with everyone else) complain it was too long and too faithful!!!!
Of course they couldn't include all the tales of the Black Freighter. That's a separate story within a story to reflect the events and tone of Watchmen. In fact, as shown by the recent DVD release, that's a whole other movie. That's how much space it would have taken up.
Also you say "so what," as if you don't care that there were some scenes that were faithful. Yet all your comments preceding that question are about the things omitted which would suggest you do care about how faithful the movie was. It really seems you didn't think it was faithful enough.
Ultimately, in a broad stroke method of thinking, the movie makers had two paths to go down. They could either go with their own movie adaptation of Watchmen which explored and captured a completely different feel tone or possibly plot of Watchmen, using only the text as a springboard. I'm sure this would have caused a massive backlash from the comic community (even though we're a minority, we're vocal) so instead they went down the path of creating a movie that was so faithful many, many scenes are panels from the comics onscreen. Of course they had to prioritise what could and should be included otherwise you risk alienating the wider audience (which vastly outnumber the die-hard fans.) That's why in all the buildup to the movie, the filmmakers stress that it is their own adaption remaining faithful to the original material, but it's obviously not the text, the text is the text 🙄
Originally posted by willRules
Actually not one of those things they had to omit (for the sake of showing what they could) would I consider to be as important as what they kept. In fact a lot of Dr Manhattan's Mars musings was word perfect. But when you are making a movie you have to prioritise certain things. If it was all from panel to page (which I feel a lot more of it was than you appear to be giving credit for) then the movie would be 6 hours long and nobody would watch it with the exceptions of the die hard fans like us and then we'd (along with everyone else) complain it was too long and too faithful!!!!
All of Watchmen is about how everything is affected by everything else. It doesn't matter if it drives plot or not. Everything adds up to the over-arching meaning of the story and that was entirely lost in this movie.
His musings were not word perfect to my memory, and if they were, so? There was ONE and it lasted about 20 seconds. They didn't tour Mars in the glass palace, they didn't discuss the simultaneous time thing etc.
Don't say "If they included everything panel for panel it'd be six hours long!" as an excuse. If you can't make it how it deserves to be made, don't do it at all. The same happened with Juggernaut in the X-Men movies. "You can't have him in it as C.G.I., it'd look ridiculous.", but then they had Vinnie Jones. Either have it right or don't have it.
Originally posted by willRules
Of course they couldn't include all the tales of the Black Freighter. That's a separate story within a story to reflect the events and tone of Watchmen. In fact, as shown by the recent DVD release, that's a whole other movie. That's how much space it would have taken up.
Yeah, I can see why what they cut out wasn't important.
It was only a story to reflect the tone and events of Watchmen.
Originally posted by willRules
Also you say "so what," as if you don't care that there were some scenes that were faithful. Yet all your comments preceding that question are about the things omitted which would suggest you do care about how faithful the movie was. It really seems you didn't think it was faithful enough.
Because making scenes faithful isn't hard.
I am well aware that they couldn't have done it all or it would have been impossibly long. My point is; don't do it at all then.
It absolutely was not faithful enough.
Originally posted by willRules
Ultimately, in a broad stroke method of thinking, the movie makers had two paths to go down. They could either go with their own movie adaptation of Watchmen which explored and captured a completely different feel tone or possibly plot of Watchmen, using only the text as a springboard. I'm sure this would have caused a massive backlash from the comic community (even though we're a minority, we're vocal) so instead they went down the path of creating a movie that was so faithful many, many scenes are panels from the comics onscreen. Of course they had to prioritise what could and should be included otherwise you risk alienating the wider audience (which vastly outnumber the die-hard fans.) That's why in all the buildup to the movie, the filmmakers stress that it is their own adaption remaining faithful to the original material, but it's obviously not the text, the text is the text 🙄
I think you are misremembering, because it wasn't that faithful at all.
You're almost making it out to have been Sin City faithful. It wasn't.
It couldn't be, though. Thus, it shouldn't have been made. Snyder said he respected Moore's wishes not to be on the credits, why didn't he respect him enough to not make it?
-AC
It couldn't be, though. Thus, it shouldn't have been made. Snyder said he respected Moore's wishes not to be on the credits, why didn't he respect him enough to not make it?
Because if Synder hadn't of made the movie, someone else would have made the movie who was not a fan of the book, and may well of made a complete and utter mess of it, by not trying to be a faithful as possible to the book.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
All of Watchmen is about how everything is affected by everything else. It doesn't matter if it drives plot or not. Everything adds up to the over-arching meaning of the story and that was entirely lost in this movie.[/B]
Well surely if you feel the meaning of the story was lost and I don't then its a matter of personal preference.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
His musings were not word perfect to my memory, and if they were, so? There was ONE and it lasted about 20 seconds. They didn't tour Mars in the glass palace, they didn't discuss the simultaneous time thing etc.[/B]
They did use Dr Manhattan's perspective of time occur all within the same instance. Don't you remember the scene where he's on Mars holding the photo of his ex-girlfriend and reminiscing? So much of that was taken direct from the comic.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Don't say "If they included everything panel for panel it'd be six hours long!" as an excuse. If you can't make it how it deserves to be made, don't do it at all. The same happened with Juggernaut in the X-Men movies. "You can't have him in it as C.G.I., it'd look ridiculous.", but then they had Vinnie Jones. Either have it right or don't have it.[/B]
It's not an excuse it's a valid reason. You're a much more patient man than me if your willing to sit through a 6 hour adaption even if it conformed to your hopes for the "faithful" movie adaption. I'd find it boring, and I thought the graphic novel was great.
And whilst you blame them for the attempt, I congratulate them, because I thought it was good. There's probably movies out there that we both agree to be great, that die-hard fans of the book consider atrocious.
But apart from that you're right. Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut was truly awful. X-3 didn't know which X-men storyline it wanted to be. So it was several and it didn't mesh well.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Yeah, I can see why what they cut out wasn't important.It was only a story to reflect the tone and events of Watchmen.[/B]
I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic here or not. I'm glad they omitted the Black Freighter scene. It felt convoluted to me in the Graphic novel and movie is trying to make the most of every moment. Like you say it's merely a story to reflect the tone and events. Completely unnecessary and betrays a lack of trust in the audience's perceptions of the story. It's pretentious.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Because making scenes faithful isn't hard.I am well aware that they couldn't have done it all or it would have been impossibly long. My point is; don't do it at all then.
It absolutely was not faithful enough.[/B]
Well fair enough sir if you think that. You're absolutely wrong, but fair enough. 😛
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
I think you are misremembering, because it wasn't that faithful at all.You're almost making it out to have been Sin City faithful. It wasn't.
It couldn't be, though. Thus, it shouldn't have been made. Snyder said he respected Moore's wishes not to be on the credits, why didn't he respect him enough to not make it?
-AC [/B]
I don't like the Sin City comics and the movie was crap. It was too far up it's own backside to see that it was gritty noir for the sake of being gritty noir. It forgot to be entertaining along the way. Only good thing in it was Bruce Willis and that's not a compliment.
You can tell Watchmen was directed by the same man as 300. It was visually stunning. It was incredibly faithful to the original text. One review described it as "The world's most expensive motion comic" which I think is a great way of summing it up. In fact here's the review if you're interested.........
Originally posted by willRules
They did use Dr Manhattan's perspective of time occur all within the same instance. Don't you remember the scene where he's on Mars holding the photo of his ex-girlfriend and reminiscing? So much of that was taken direct from the comic.
They didn't have the entire thing, and thus, it felt disjointed and pointless.
Originally posted by willRules
It's not an excuse it's a valid reason. You're a much more patient man than me if your willing to sit through a 6 hour adaption even if it conformed to your hopes for the "faithful" movie adaption. I'd find it boring, and I thought the graphic novel was great.And whilst you blame them for the attempt, I congratulate them, because I thought it was good. There's probably movies out there that we both agree to be great, that die-hard fans of the book consider atrocious.
But apart from that you're right. Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut was truly awful. X-3 didn't know which X-men storyline it wanted to be. So it was several and it didn't mesh well.
A six hour movie is pointless and non-functional. My point remains; don't make it at all.
Watchmen deserved more than a faithful movie, it deserved to be left as it was intended to be by the writer, at the request of the writer. It's honestly not that hard of a concept to grasp.
I don't congratulate them because it was a fun movie, because that's still a failure to me.
My whole opinion on book to movie adaptations is this; if the author says no, don't do it. End of story. Fight Club altered the book, but Chuck didn't have issue with it, he loved it. It was handled responsibly. Watchmen wasn't. Snyder loved his job, but it still didn't make him succeed.
Originally posted by willRules
I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic here or not. I'm glad they omitted the Black Freighter scene. It felt convoluted to me in the Graphic novel and movie is trying to make the most of every moment. Like you say it's merely a story to reflect the tone and events. Completely unnecessary and betrays a lack of trust in the audience's perceptions of the story. It's pretentious.
It's also necessary. It's a very necessary story, it clearly mirrors and conveys the underlying themes regarding the plight of multiple characters. It not being there is one of the main reason's Veidt was so paper-thin with regards to audience relation.
Originally posted by willRules
Well fair enough sir if you think that. You're absolutely wrong, but fair enough. 😛
Besides being factually right, sure.
Originally posted by willRules
I don't like the Sin City comics and the movie was crap. It was too far up it's own backside to see that it was gritty noir for the sake of being gritty noir. It forgot to be entertaining along the way. Only good thing in it was Bruce Willis and that's not a compliment.
The precise point of it was to be a slight parody of those kinds of cheesy noir films. They don't contain cheesy dialogue because it was written poorly, it was meant to be that way.
As for the comics, I think they're excellent.
Originally posted by willRules
You can tell Watchmen was directed by the same man as 300. It was visually stunning. It was incredibly faithful to the original text. One review described it as "The world's most expensive motion comic" which I think is a great way of summing it up. In fact here's the review if you're interested.........
It wasn't "incredibly faithful" to the comic by any stretch of the imagination.
It being the best they could do does not mean it was incredibly faithful.
As the review said; "It missed the ideas of the graphic novel.".
Oh, the ideas? You mean...the reason the book exists? No biggie. Who cares about the ideas and such behind a story? Let's just have lots of speed up, slow-down action with some unspeakably awkward and unnecessary sexual scenes.
That's the way to go.
-AC
Originally posted by Alpha CentauriThey didn't have the entire thing, and thus, it felt disjointed and pointless.[/B]
Disagreed.
Originally posted by Alpha CentauriA six hour movie is pointless and non-functional. My point remains; don't make it at all.
Watchmen deserved more than a faithful movie, it deserved to be left as it was intended to be by the writer, at the request of the writer. It's honestly not that hard of a concept to grasp.
I don't congratulate them because it was a fun movie, because that's still a failure to me.
My whole opinion on book to movie adaptations is this; if the author says no, don't do it. End of story. Fight Club altered the book, but Chuck didn't have issue with it, he loved it. It was handled responsibly. Watchmen wasn't. Snyder loved his job, but it still didn't make him succeed.[/B]
Speaking as an Eng Lit student at University, I'm the first to admit that a book almost always beats the movie format. But to base the production of movie upon the whims of the author is to deny the great potential for a good quality movie. What if Tolkien were alive and denied permission for the LOTR movies to be made? We'd miss out on a brilliantly adapted trilogy.
I'm not trying to deny any respect for the authors and their toys, just that the authorial intention is by no means a good indicator of the quality of a movie adaption. Watchmen is a good example of this.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
It's also necessary. It's a very necessary story, it clearly mirrors and conveys the underlying themes regarding the plight of multiple characters. It not being there is one of the main reason's Veidt was so paper-thin with regards to audience relation.[/B]
No it bludgeoned the reader of the head with already carefully constructed themes. Watchmen is very dense in tone. It conveys the depressive feel of the cold war very well, the Vietnam defeat feels present especially in the American consciousness and the urban vigilantism highlights this dark and dreary context.
The tales of the Black freighter stresses these themes over again as if the originally presented themes could somehow be misconstrued as subtle!!!! As if that isn't repetitive enough, the Tale is possible even more heavy handed (especially in it's imagery of corpses) than the rest of Watchmen! Really, really unnecessary.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Besides being factually right, sure.[/B]
😆
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
The precise point of it was to be a slight parody of those kinds of cheesy noir films. They don't contain cheesy dialogue because it was written poorly, it was meant to be that way.[/B]
Well I didn't pick up on the parody, I just saw it as very over the top. I suppose I can see the appeal with the parody, but the dialogue was still pretty bad. It's not one of my favourite Miller works. ❌
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
It wasn't "incredibly faithful" to the comic by any stretch of the imagination.It being the best they could do does not mean it was incredibly faithful.
As the review said; "It missed the ideas of the graphic novel.".
Oh, the ideas? You mean...the reason the book exists? No biggie. Who cares about the ideas and such behind a story? Let's just have lots of speed up, slow-down action with some unspeakably awkward and unnecessary sexual scenes.
That's the way to go.
-AC [/B]
Well firstly I obviously disagree upon the issue of how faithful you consider it to be.
Secondly, the point of posting that review was to show that quote I referred to. I don't agree entirely with the review. Whilst I do agree that the actresses were terible and stiff, I don't feel the ideas were lost. I thought it was captured really well. Especially through the Comedian, who wasn't really mentioned in the review.
Originally posted by willRules
Speaking as an Eng Lit student at University, I'm the first to admit that a book almost always beats the movie format. But to base the production of movie upon the whims of the author is to deny the great potential for a good quality movie. What if Tolkien were alive and denied permission for the LOTR movies to be made? We'd miss out on a brilliantly adapted trilogy.I'm not trying to deny any respect for the authors and their toys, just that the authorial intention is by no means a good indicator of the quality of a movie adaption. Watchmen is a good example of this.
We're not short on good quality movies, and I find it to be a sad state of affairs when the only time directors try to be creative is when they're adapting someone else's work.
If Tolkien said no, you wouldn't have known what the movies would be like, because they'd not have been made, so that's a void point. Furthermore, I thought those movies were boring as all Hell.
It wasn't a good adaptation (Watchmen). At all.
Also, as Alan Moore said, Watchmen was written to be impossible to accurately reproduce in terms of cinema. He was right, because it wasn't. From Hell wasn't, V for Vendetta wasn't, League wasn't and Watchmen wasn't.
Originally posted by willRules
No it bludgeoned the reader of the head with already carefully constructed themes. Watchmen is very dense in tone. It conveys the depressive feel of the cold war very well, the Vietnam defeat feels present especially in the American consciousness and the urban vigilantism highlights this dark and dreary context.The tales of the Black freighter stresses these themes over again as if the originally presented themes could somehow be misconstrued as subtle!!!! As if that isn't repetitive enough, the Tale is possible even more heavy handed (especially in it's imagery of corpses) than the rest of Watchmen! Really, really unnecessary.
Chill out with the exclamation points, Mary Menopause.
I am well aware what Watchmen's tone is and what it's messages are, so stop repeating them to me. The very point of Freighter is precisely to do what you criticise it for doing, to bludgeon the reader into a feeling of dread and inescapble darkness or pessimism.
It was absolutely necessary.
Originally posted by willRules
Well firstly I obviously disagree upon the issue of how faithful you consider it to be.
When you leave out and change as much as they did, it's obviously not faithful. Why was Laurie saying things that Dr. Manhattan originally said? It's dumb, it didn't work well and it shouldn't have happened. Among all the other issues.
Originally posted by willRules
Secondly, the point of posting that review was to show that quote I referred to. I don't agree entirely with the review. Whilst I do agree that the actresses were terible and stiff, I don't feel the ideas were lost. I thought it was captured really well. Especially through the Comedian, who wasn't really mentioned in the review.
Well, I disagree. I thought it was a shitty adaptation that happened to be a fun movie.
It's not Watchmen in any faithful way.