Watchmen

Originally posted by I-Drop
I liked it. Good film. Nite Owl's suit looks waaaay cooler here than in the book. Rorschach kills that guy waaay grittier here also. I still haven't read the whole book yet. Didn't wanna read it 'til after. Didn't wanna be that "It's not like the book 🙁 " guy.

A) Nite Owl's costume is not meant to look "cool". You seem to have somewhat missed the point there.

B) Re: Rorschach killing the guy "waaay grittier". Yeah, you possibly missed the point again. It's not really about grit and violence. If you only want that and some "cool" stuff, read/ watch anything by Frank Miller from the last 10 years.

C) Read the goddam comic!

Originally posted by KurtRussellCrow
This is an intense conversation. Negative reviews aside, I still want to see this. I'm a big fan of the GN, I'm really curious to see how it pans out on the big screen. I know I may be let down, I just want to make that judgment on my own.

Is anyone else excited for the Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter DVD? The marketing company I work for is doing a promotion for it. I wish they gave us promos - oh well. Looks like I will just have to add it to my list when I go to get the new Mastodon album on Tuesday.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Actually, they were referred to as the minutemen.

Not in the movie. They're called the Watchmen in the film. That right there makes me question if Mr. Snyder understood the comic, as well as the writers.
It may be just a name, but the opposition of the name Watchmen to Minutemen is extremely significant in meaning, and defeats the purpose of the "Who watches the Watchmen?" line.

Tales of the Black Freighter was symbolic of several aspects of the story. It represents Veidt's plot and his descent into savagery which is actually made more explicit in the film by Night Owl's line about mutilating humanity, and it represents the escalating panic and savagery of some of the secondary characters in the book culminating in the riot that kills Hollis Mason and the arguing before the Kristalnacht/Pale Horse concert right before the attack on New York that are more than likely going to be added back in the movie with the director's cut. I really hope that once said cut is released, Snider keeps the band/show names (Pale Horse/Kristallnacht) for the symbolic value. Throughout the movie and the book, the breaking of glass represents the destruction of an idea or an ideal held by a character-Lori shatters Jon's preconceived notions of life as she breaks his clockwork flyer, Veidt begins to have insecurities about his actions after Manhattan breaks the skylight at Karnak, Blake flying through the window shatters the complacency of the heroes and trust in the Keene Act, I could go on.
To those who haven't read the book but have seen the movie, the night of the attack is also the night of a massive show called Kristallnacht played by the band Pale Horse, attracting a lot of top knot gangs. The Pale Horse is the horse of the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, death. Kristallnacht, other than the ominous association of the most infamous pogrom of the holocaust means "night of broken glass", thus representing a shattering of an idea in the form of the cold war and move to world peace. As the concert begins, there are several arguments and street fights involving the psychiatrist and his wife, the Bernards at the newsstand, a lesbian couple, etc. culminating in the attack.

Originally posted by Toku King
Not in the movie. They're called the Watchmen in the film. That right there makes me question if Mr. Snyder understood the comic, as well as the writers.
It may be just a name, but the opposition of the name Watchmen to Minutemen is extremely significant in meaning, and defeats the purpose of the "Who watches the Watchmen?" line.

Originally posted by Darth Jello
Tales of the Black Freighter was symbolic of several aspects of the story. It represents Veidt's plot and his descent into savagery which is actually made more explicit in the film by Night Owl's line about mutilating humanity, and it represents the escalating panic and savagery of some of the secondary characters in the book culminating in the riot that kills Hollis Mason and the arguing before the Kristalnacht/Pale Horse concert right before the attack on New York that are more than likely going to be added back in the movie with the director's cut. I really hope that once said cut is released, Snider keeps the band/show names (Pale Horse/Kristallnacht) for the symbolic value. Throughout the movie and the book, the breaking of glass represents the destruction of an idea or an ideal held by a character-Lori shatters Jon's preconceived notions of life as she breaks his clockwork flyer, Veidt begins to have insecurities about his actions after Manhattan breaks the skylight at Karnak, Blake flying through the window shatters the complacency of the heroes and trust in the Keene Act, I could go on.
To those who haven't read the book but have seen the movie, the night of the attack is also the night of a massive show called Kristallnacht played by the band Pale Horse, attracting a lot of top knot gangs. The Pale Horse is the horse of the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, death. Kristallnacht, other than the ominous association of the most infamous pogrom of the holocaust means "night of broken glass", thus representing a shattering of an idea in the form of the cold war and move to world peace. As the concert begins, there are several arguments and street fights involving the psychiatrist and his wife, the Bernards at the newsstand, a lesbian couple, etc. culminating in the attack.

actually, in the final director's cut of the film, Tales of the Black Freighter will be chopped up and inserted, bits and pieces into the movie, along possibly with Under the Hood in the same manner and sequence as the book. And again, Crimebusters wasn't used in the film but Minutemen sure was. Look at the sign behind the 1940 group photo.. The reason why Doug Roth refers to Hollis Mason as one of the Watchmen may be because he mistakenly thinks both Night Owls are one and the same.

Originally posted by Menetnashté
You sure? It didn't really address them that much but I do clearly remember the minutemen sign in the back during their picture.

For the 40s group. Not the later group. I meant the Crimebusters.

Originally posted by Toku King
For the 40s group. Not the later group. I meant the Crimebusters.

Finally saw it today. Took the wife to the early show and we had the entire theater to ourselves. Seriously, we didnt even see an usher.

Great movie, but it kind of sucks knowing whats going to happen next.

Originally posted by Kovacs86
A) Nite Owl's costume is not meant to look "cool". You seem to have somewhat missed the point there.

B) Re: Rorschach killing the guy "waaay grittier". Yeah, you possibly missed the point again. It's not really about grit and violence. If you only want that and some "cool" stuff, read/ watch anything by Frank Miller from the last 10 years.

C) Read the goddam comic!

Originally posted by Menetnashté
...There are over 50 different batman comic lines from detective comics, to batman, to The Dark Knight the list goes on and on and on. This means you can take characters and form your own plot line and take multiple things from different comics and string them together. Watchmen has 12 comics, these comics are chapters. It's one story. What you're suggesting would've been like Peter Jackson taking Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli and making up his own story about how they have to battle a completely fabricated characters army. It would destroy the story and there would be no point in making a movie based on the book. Watchmen is essentially a book, it's not a short book so it's a long movie. You can't give a review if you can't comprehend the most simple of ideas.

Talking about comprehending simple ideas, obviously you can't comprehend what I was talking about.

Originally posted by jcvaldez
Talking about comprehending simple ideas, obviously you can't comprehend what I was talking about.

" Dark Knight was a good film and all the characters were very close to the source. The story is not like anything in any of the issues of Batman. What made Dark Knight great was Christopher Nolan's interpretation of the Batman mythos. That is what makes a great film maker!"

"The only thing the movie needs to be exact with are the characters and the mood, feeling, emotions of the source. "

From these two quotes I can say I pretty much hit the nail on the head. You don't want it to be about the plot in the Watchmen comics you want him to completely make up a plot and just throw the characters in. That's ok for batman because it has thousands of comics, it's not OK for watchmen or 300 because they're books. You don't make up your own plot with Books.

Originally posted by Menetnashté
...There are over 50 different batman comic lines from detective comics, to batman, to The Dark Knight the list goes on and on and on. This means you can take characters and form your own plot line and take multiple things from different comics and string them together. Watchmen has 12 comics, these comics are chapters. It's one story. What you're suggesting would've been like Peter Jackson taking Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli and making up his own story about how they have to battle a completely fabricated characters army. It would destroy the story and there would be no point in making a movie based on the book. Watchmen is essentially a book, it's not a short book so it's a long movie. You can't give a review if you can't comprehend the most simple of ideas.

I agree completely and made pretty much the same point earlier in this thread. 😎

Something for your consideration- 80% of great movies are some sort of adaptions. What do they all have in common, though? They're loose adaptions, not carbon copies. There is a very, very significant difference between the two; what great filmmakers do is take the general plot and themes of a novel and interpret them into a cinematic creation. Not copying it page-by-page.

What I also said was..."it does not have to follow the the source exactly".
In other words, you do not have to show everything in the book. I know batman has many issues with different stories. Which allows anyone to make a batman movie make up their own story. What I'm saying with Watchmen is that Zach Snyder didn't show how he would tell the story. He just copied the book. It would have been better if everyone just read the book.

What I'm also saying, and the point I was trying to make, is that the movie was a bad movie! Forget the book, the characters and the message. All that was established in the book by Alan Moore.

The movie had unimaginative direction. And since the movie took everything from the book, it showed nothing new visually. Cinematically, nothing was done to make the movie interesting. The screenplay was boring and pretentious. The acting was terrible and dry. Worst of all, the direction like I said before, failed.

Now, many may disagree with me and that's ok. But, what I want to make clear is that the movie is not the great movie everyone think it is. People want it to be great because they like the book. Just how people want the Spiderman movies to be great because they love Spiderman (which by the way I don't like any of the Spiderman movies).

Originally posted by Master Crimzon
Something for your consideration- 80% of great movies are some sort of adaptions. What do they all have in common, though? They're loose adaptions, not carbon copies. There is a very, very significant difference between the two; what great filmmakers do is take the general plot and themes of a novel and interpret them into a cinematic creation. Not copying it page-by-page.

Exactly! What the producers should have done was fire Zack Snyder and hire Dave Gibbons. Who is Dave Gibbons? He's the artist of the Watchmen. Zach Snyder is stealing Dave Gibbons credit.

Originally posted by Kovacs86
I thought this was pretty damn funny...

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/03/the_watchmen_li.html

The words "stupid" and "*****" spring to mind.

So, for those who didn't enjoy this.

I enjoyed this:

http://www.comicmix.com/news/2009/03/11/debbie-schlussel-completely-misses-the-point-of-watchmen/

Originally posted by Master Crimzon
Something for your consideration- 80% of great movies are some sort of adaptions. What do they all have in common, though? They're loose adaptions, not carbon copies. There is a very, very significant difference between the two; what great filmmakers do is take the general plot and themes of a novel and interpret them into a cinematic creation. Not copying it page-by-page.

Honestly, how would you've adapted Watchmen then, if you had to? Because you seriously could NOT just take Watchmen's themes/motifs and make a loose adaption successfully, that would be utterly terrible and every fan in existence would be pissed, because it WOULDN'T BE WATCHMEN.

I'm not saying Snyder's Watchmen was perfect, it had plenty of flaws, but to say that it should've been adapted in a looser manner is just wrong imo. The whole "loose adaption" concept does indeed work for many novels, etc. though I'll grant you that. And Snyder didn't just copy the novel page by page.

I thought this was nifty too, yay.

http://www.stinque.com/2009/03/08/watchmen-fans-debbie-schlussel-hates-you/

Originally posted by jcvaldez
The movie had unimaginative direction. And since the movie took everything from the book, it showed nothing new visually. Cinematically, nothing was done to make the movie interesting. The screenplay was boring and pretentious. The acting was terrible and dry. Worst of all, the direction like I said before, failed.

Now, many may disagree with me and that's ok. But, what I want to make clear is that the movie is not the great movie everyone think it is. People want it to be great because they like the book. Just how people want the Spiderman movies to be great because they love Spiderman (which by the way I don't like any of the Spiderman movies).

I'm not sure if you have any knowledge on film direction, but you're simply wrong. As a matter of fact, if there is ONE thing Snyder is talented at, it's technical direction. Saying that there is nothing cinematically interesting about this movie is fvcking stupid; I mean fine you didn't like it, but honestly, that doesn't give you an excuse to be totally illogical. And since the screenplay was largely taken from the graphic novel, you're also saying that Moore's dialogue/exposition sucked, so...

And finally, I don't know who you're talking about but a boatload of people dislike Watchmen (the film), not everyone thinks that it's great like you claim.

PS: Spider-Man 1 and 2 are great.