| #43 | Special WATCHMEN Edition | #7 |
THE WATCHMEN Set Report
By Ryan McLelland
I have a great affinity for WATCHMEN and rightly preach to most who will listen that it is one of the best novels of the 20th century. Not one of the best graphic novels but actually one of the most amazing, layered, and powerful pieces ever written while just happening to have pictures with the words. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons both write here: Alan in words and Dave expanding on that to the most microscopic detail.I’ve been a comic book fan since buying my first comic at 3 years old. I’ve collected, interviewed, reviewed, written about, and written comic books over my entire lifetime and still WATCHMEN remains one of the top stories that no one can come close to. It’s the granddaddy – it is the comic that made comic books the way they are today. The superhero deconstruction really did start with Mark Gruenwald’s SQUADRON SUPREME while Frank Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS helped solidify this new attitude in comic book heroes, but it was truly WATCHMEN that took everything to a whole new level.
I was never sure that they could make WATCHMEN into a movie. Can you make “Catcher in the Rye” a movie? How about “On the Road”? “Old Man and the Sea”? Sure you COULD make these classics into feature films but that doesn’t mean that they are going to be GOOD. I was in the same frame of mind with WATCHMEN. A 12-part HBO miniseries? Absolutely. A two hour feature film? Not so much.I color myself luckier than most as fourteen months ago I was actually on set for WATCHMEN. Before seeing thing one on the set I met with producer Deborah Snyder in what was called ‘The War Room’ – a massive office with all walls completely filled with panels from the graphic novels, pictures from the film as they were shot, and tons of production art. You saw the love already in this room, that this wasn’t just something to be based on the graphic novel but a complete attempt at a true homage.
I walked onto the set of the Owl Cave. I went inside the Owl Ship and was shocked at the detail. This wasn’t some CGI piece of crap. This was the Owl Ship from top to bottom. They even included the damn coffee maker. I walked around Dreiberg’s basement and touched everything, including the closet with the different suits Nite Owl wore over the years. This is something that on camera will probably be shown for seconds, but that didn’t matter to Zack Snyder. He wanted the detail and he put it in there. Other journalists came down upon Patrick Wilson, dressed up in his Dan Dreiberg attire, looking a lot larger than he did in “Little Children” or “Hard Candy”. No one even noticed Malin Ackerman as she sported her black hair wig with the bangs. I walked over and asked her if she walked the streets of Vancouver with it on so to not be recognized and she frowned saying, “I only wish. They make me leave it here.”I’ve been around the world. I’ve seen world wonders like the Egyptian pyramids, staring in awe of these wonders. When we moved locations and stepped onto Karnac, Adrian Veidt’s Antarctic base, I was in complete shock. I could not believe it. Not for one second. This was a massive set straight out of the book. Every detail. Every nook and cranny. This was Karnac and I was truly IN ANTARCTICA, not on some film set. I had hoped that WATCHMEN would be a good film but standing there in total awe, standing there truly INSIDE A COMIC BOOK, I started to believe. WATCHMEN was here. It’s going to be a film. It’s going to be flat out amazing.
I met the cast: the overweight Patrick Wilson who has huffing and puffing along telling of how he prepared for the role by eating donuts, the beautiful Malin Ackerman, and the notorious Matthew Goode who seemed to love his role as Ozymandias. It wasn’t until I met Jackie Earle Haley, who truly was an icon to me thanks to his phenomenal roles in “Breaking Away” and “Bad News Bears”, that I had the feeling that this was going to be special. Haley got WATCHMEN. He got what the comic was about and loved the things I loved about it. He got Rorschach completely. The fact that it was Haley behind the mask and not some big Hollywood giant like Steve Buscemi just spoke to how right this casting was. Haley was the perfect choice for this character and here he was.I left the set in amazement. I couldn’t believe the level of work put into the film. I loved the casting and truly felt every dollar spent on the film would make it actually INTO the film. The only bad thing was I had to wait 14 months to see how it all would translate onto the big screen. The great thing? It is finally 14 months later.
Ryan McLelland has worked in movies and comics journalism for the past several years before joining the @$$holes here at AICN. Ryan’s comic work has already graced comic shelves with Arcana’s PHILLY, WISE INTELLIGENCE, UPTOWN GIRL, and THE SENTINELS ANTHOLOGY. He rarely updates his blog but when he does it can be read at www.eyewannabe.com
The @$$Holes Watch THE WATCHMEN
A Rountable Review
Hey folks, Ambush Bug here. You guys asked for a WATCHMEN review. You got a WATCHMEN review. In fact, ALL of the @$$Holes chimed in on this one. So we set aside our regular reviews week in favor of dedicating our column to the most anticipated comic book film of all time. 8 years into this gig, and the ‘Holes still don’t have the pull to score Sneak Preview tickets, so we had to wait just like you guys to see the damn thing. And that we did. We even invited back the Original @$$hole--the guy who brought the very first League of @$$Holes together; The Comedian for his thoughts on how the book measures up to the movie. So over the weekend, we decided to chat non-stop about the film, our expectations, our hopes, our dreams, and as you’ll read, one by one, we all saw it and gave our two cents. This is a meaty read, but if you’re looking for what the @$$Holes thought of the film, scroll down. And hopefully, you’ll still have stuff to deliberate in the Talkbacks.
Take it away, Holes!
AMBUSH BUG (BUG): Alright, guys. THE WATCHMEN…SUPERHERO (SUPES): Wait...WATCHMEN? You mean they're making a movie out of WATCHMEN???? We're not here to discuss the straight to DVD WONDER WOMAN release????
SQUASHUA (SQUASH): We're going to see it tomorrow at 9:30PM. My mom is babysitting the kid while we go to Muvico at the Premiere Balcony Level, Front Row Center, couch. Comes with bonus popcorn. Of course, I paid for the whole seat and Zach Snyder expects me to only need the edge!!!!!!1!1!cos(0)
And therein lies the problem. I read the book (my only DC Absolute Edition) again last night. Those first few pages put the image of a hard-luck, gritty Rorschach climbing up the building, hand-over-hand in a 60's BATMAN TV style, sans any appearance by Lurch. I picture him hauling himself bodily over that window ledge, not dramatically leaping up onto it from below via a zip-line, pouncing like he's King Leonidas. Going in, only prejudiced by the trailers, I'm going to say I'd have preferred if it was filmed with a little less emphasis on stunts. Or rather, "x-treme stuntage".
SUPES: Yeah, that's been my problem with it from the beginning. I always expected the WATCHMEN world to look grimy, gritty. Much like NY back in the 1980's before it became a corporate Disneyland. THE WATCHMEN in my head looks like THE FRENCH CONNECTION or MIDNIGHT COWBOY. It's set in reality, not so much fantasy, which is why I was so psyched when Paul Greengrass was set to direct. I'm afraid that Snyder's visual palette will make WATCHMEN way more stylized than what it needs to be. But then again, I heard Greengrass's script sucked so...
VROOM SOCKO (VROOM): I've gone the opposite on this point: Excluding the first chapter (issue) I haven't reread Watchmen since the movie went into production. I'm planning on a reread after I see the movie on Saturday, though; I just wanted to go in with as little bias as I could.
PROFESSOR CHALLENGER (PROF): Aaa. That kind of stuff doesn't bother me. Wouldn't be MY choice as a director, but it goes with the style of everything else about the picture. Now, quick background on the book for me. WATCHMEN came out when I was a teenager in college. I bought these babies off the rack one by one and it was lifechanging for me. I know it is cliche' now, but at the time these were on the racks, they completely gutted what my preconceived notions were about what can be accomplished in a mere super-hero comic book. Everything from the structure of the plot, the intricacy of the fictionalized (yet familiar) world they existed in, to the hyper-formal panel grid and the color schemes. WATCHMEN (and SWAMP THING which I was already heavily into at that time) completely turned me upside down on what the possibilities available within graphic literature are...and they are limitless. In what it appeared to set out to do to me, the comic book succeeded. As well, in what the film appeared to me to have set out to do, it succeeded much better than it had any right to succeed given the source material and the disastrous last 20+ years of aborted and horribly misguided attempts to adapt it for the screen.BOTTLEIMP (IMP): Way back last summer when WATCHMEN-mania was reaching fever pitch, my little brother mentioned that he needed to read it. I told him to wait until after he saw the movie so he could both be surprised by the plot and not risk being disappointed by the adaptation. As it is, I'm going to have to work really, REALLY hard to turn off that little voice that'll be whining, "That's not how it happened in the comic!"
STONES THROW (STONE): Me, I’m worried people who come to WATCHMEN from the film will be disappointed. Case in point: Ozymandias being the villain in the book is a massive, but brilliant plot twist that gets that “oh, shit!” reaction because it’s hidden in plain sight, but you’d still never have guessed. In the movie they’ve got him played by the step-brother from MATCH POINT. With a German accent. Luckily, the appeal of WATCHMEN is way more than just plot.
VROOM: I'll tell you what I have been reading though. First is the parody that PVP ran this past week, which was genius. Especially the bit with "Dr. Manhatten" on Mars. Genius. Anyway, the second book is WATCHMEN AND PHILOSOPHY, which features just about everything I love about comic book discussions. It rationally compares Rorschach to Kant, the Comedian to Kierkegaard, AND uses the Keene Act to point out the flaws in Marvel's CIVIL WAR storyline. Now THAT is what I love about this book. THAT is what makes it great. That there's this level of character insight and nuance that is still miles beyond anything that's being done in superhero books today. If even a tenth of that is in the film, I know I'm going to enjoy this sucker.SUPES: Visually the trailer was impressive but it just didn't say WATCHMEN to me. It said just another comic book movie...which is not what I want to see when I go see WATCHMEN. And don't even get me started on Nite Owl's costume...very disappointed with that visual.
SQUASH: Agreed. Nite Owl should not look like Joel Schumacher's Batman, and Silk Spectre isn't from THE INCREDIBLES. Again, predisposition. Here's hoping it's at least maintained the IRON MAN / BATMAN BEGINS / THE DARK KNIGHT level of quality.
JINXO: I keep hearing reviewers who say, "Oh, it sticks so much to the comic in every way possible that THAT is its flaw. Fanboys will be happy but it is just too much a copy of the comic and not its own thing."
SUPES: This is what I'm most afraid of. From what I know of Harry Potter that's just what ruined the first movie...which I hated. It was boring because it had no heart of its own. It was just working to impress the fans...
IMP: I was thinking that about the Harry Potter franchise as well--my favorite movie of the series was PRISONER OF AZKABAN, which worked so well because Cuaron chose to make decisions that would serve the movie itself, rather than a slavish page-to-screen translation.JINXO: Meanwhile I'm sitting here with a reaction opposite to that idea and more in line with what you guys are saying. To me the places I wanted the film to stick to the comics are the places it clearly doesn't: making it feel very REAL world. A gritty crime drama where there happen to be weirdos who run around in tights. And it should feel weird there are people in frickin' tights. But from the start I also went in knowing it would get Hollywood-ized. One of the subtler things the comic did that struck me was that it drew the heroes in a not entirely flattering way. Night Owl is old and pudgy. Silk Spectre looks hot but not "hero" hot, ya know? A little less glossy than slightly slutty. When the first images from the movie came out and Owl and Spectre were both heroically buff and attractive I knew the tone would be off. I did expect it! Hard to sell a super hero movie with less than perfect looking leads. But just because I expected it doesn't make it okay. Then to see the clips with the hyper cool slow mo battle scenes? Exactly what I did not want to see. But, again, expected. I'm going to try and just judge the film for what it is.
PROF: I've been hearing lots of complaints about the slo-mo. But to me, that's the director's choice and if he feels he can get maximum impact out of the scene by doing that, I'm ok with it. It’s just like directors who repeatedly use that shaky cam. For the effect the artist/director is going for...it's his thing and not mine as the viewer. It doesn't take me out of the film. And, in fact, the type of slo-mo I noticed Snyder doing in the trailers and ultimately in the film to a much greater extent seems to me to be the closest approximation on film to the snapshot style of a comic book panel. The comic book panel is snap-shotting the maximum point of physical and/or emotional impact and the reader is filling in the surrounding moves. In film, you see all the movement but the type of slo-mo Snyder employs pretty effectively stops the action for a moment at the maximum impact like a comic book panel. Works for me.
SQUASH: I believe firmly that if they went with a less showy outing, the movie would actually be more accessible and audiences would be just as, if not more, receptive. Costumes less like MYSTERY MEN, more like... I can't even say THE SPECIALS because they did that too. I guess, more like motorcycle-riding, half-helmet CAPTAIN AMERICA. I can't believe I went there.SUPES: That's the thing...It seems like they got The Minutemen costumes right and The Watchmen costumes wrong. I always thought that Nite Owl was a bit of a nod to the Adam West Batman. Heck, that's my problem with so many "hero" types in TV or Movies these days....everyone has to be ultra-buff. You can still kick ass and not look like you work out at the gym 24-7. I think that's what they've missed with Nite Owl...he's not supposed to be intimidating like The Comedian or Rorschach. He's just an average dude with training and some gadgets...but he's not scary.
JINXO: I just don't think Hollywood would have the guts to ever let that happen. But any which way... the comic was a game changer for its medium and beyond the story itself that impact is part of what made that comic so important to its readers. Even if the movie was a dead on perfect interpretation of the comic it still would never be capable of that sort of impact. Even if it changed the rules for the superhero films as a medium (which it won't) that still would not be nearly as big a deal.
SUPES: This bugs me as well...mostly I will miss the Squid. I just don't get why that had to be changed. It's what bugs me about stuff like changing the Hulk's origin in the first Hulk movie or giving Spider-Man organic web-shooters. Hollywood and some fans think that the audience won't buy those conventions but it's like...hello??? You're going to see a movie about a guy who turns big and green when he gets angry or a kid who can climb a wall like a spider so I think you're ready to buy the rest. So why get rid of the monster Squid? There's already an omnipotent glowing blue guy in the movie...so the audience won't buy the squid? Please...
JINXO: As a comic book reader I do want to see the story told correctly. And the squid is just such a huge HUGE part of the comic that taking it out seems 100% wrong. On the other hand, having written scripts I can understand wanting to keep things tight. I love the long cut of THE ABYSS. But when Cameron had to shorten the film, he found one whole plot he could excise. Logically I get it but, realistically, I see hardcore fans grumbling to their non-comic-reading friends, "You don't even know. That's not the REAL ending." And they'll be in the right.SUPES: That's not even the part I'm most worried about...the bit with the journal at the very end is what I hope stays intact. But my question is if the Ozymandias plan is even really believable at this point in our history. Slaughtering half of New York to shock the world into peace? I mean the real life events of Sept. 11th created great sympathy for us around the world but all it took was one bugfuck President to screw that up. If anything, real world events have possibly proven Ozymandias wrong. Then again...it was people that caused September 11th, not an imaginary interdimensional alien invasion.
BUG: See, I can't do that. I love the comic. I've read it many times, but haven't read it recently. I understand tweaks and nips and tucks that have to be made in order to translate something to film. I don't think that I need to see every panel cut and pasted on the screen. And I’m definitely glad portions like "The Black Freighter" stuff won't be in it until the expanded DVD version.
RYAN MCLELLAND (RYAN): I'll easily agree with that - to me “The Black Freighter” stuff is the part of the book I skip over in my multiple reads of Watchmen these days. I know the story and know how it interjects into the main story, but I just don't care in the overall scheme of things. I'm up for changes. I welcome them. I don't care if the costumes are changed. I don't look at the panels of the book and think, "Wow, Nite Owl isn't supposed to be menacing" then think him Batmaneque in the film. I just don't care - I just hope for a decent adaptation. Because no matter what it is going to be an adaptation and I'm not going to nitpick at every little thing that is different from the book itself.
SUPES: But, to me, Nite Owl's appearance isn't just a nit-pick...it's an integral part of the book. I'm fine with changes...small ones. But Nite Owl looking the way he does in the film misses the point of the actual character of Nite Owl. He was designed that way for a reason. The same way Rorschach was. What if Rorschach's costume in the film looked like one of Gibbon's earliest designs of the character...a full body stocking suit with the pattern all over it? Wouldn't that change the way the character is supposed to be percieved? That's my problem with Nite-Owl. I liked him the way he was in the book. Hell, I was even disappointed in who they cast for the role...STEVERODGERS (STEVE): I am also wicked happy that “The Black Freighter” isn’t in the movie. I always skip it when I reread. Boring. Boring. Boring. I’m seeing this tomorrow and I am reaching new levels of geek anticipation by the minute. I have done my best to ignore all the early reviews, news etc. about this movie, so every time I see a preview I get a big fat surge of comic book fanatic excitement that is almost disturbing in it's intensity, – it’s THE WATCHMEN, it’s on a big screen, and I’m sure there will be things that drive me bonkers, but jeez it looks like everyone involved gives a damn, it’s like Pats winning that first Super Bowl all over again, the impossible has happened, it’s unfathomable that this thing is even happening – I love the future, give me a flying car.
PROF: I am so glad that they got rid of “The Black Freighter” in the film. No way that works in film, it is one of those things entirely a product of the comic book medium. I sort of think the creation of the animated feature as an extra DVD is a possible good way to deal with it, but I hope like hell they don't try to intercut it into the movie itself for the DVD of the film. Alan Moore is right though when he says separating the parts like that is akin to taking a great symphony and deciding to separate it out into discreet parts on their own when the work is intended to be a whole.
SLEAZY G (SLEAZY): Moore is right but he's wrong, as is often the case. Comics are not movies are not music, and attempts to translate from one medium to the next are extremely difficult. What works in one won't work in the other, and pulling out “The Black Freighter” stuff was the only possible way the transition to film would work.SQUASH: Did you ever try JUST reading “The Black Freighter”? Certainly there are direct artistic and thematic parallels to the story at the points where it appears, but the story itself is an entertaining, stand-alone descent into madness. You know saying, "You're not paranoid if they are out to get you"? Well, “The Black Freighter” relates the exact opposite.
STONE: Yeah, beyond a comment on the story itself, the sailor in “The Black Freighter” actually becomes a direct parallel to Ozymandias by the end—and I quote, “I dream about swimming towards a hideous…no, never mind.” He tried to save the world but became a monster in the process. That’s the kind of density of story and images that you get in WATCHMEN--but it also would *only* work in comics, cuz how exactly do you show the panels of a comic on film? Or cut from the action to an animated movie without disrupting the story? WATCHMEN does a load of things that only a comic book could do, so I hope “The Black Freighter” isn’t a more endemic problem with adapting it.
STEVE: Sure, sure it's great stuff, not taking anything away from it, but I've read it a few times, and at this point I just find reading it to be a chore, and think it would really slog down the movie. Calling it "boring, boring, boring" was probably an overstatement on my part.
SQUASH: Part of the impetus for having “The Black Freighter” in the comic was to add the subplot regarding the writer's ultimate fate. Since he is no longer a tool of Ozymandias in the film, it would make sense to have excised “The Black Freighter”. I think fewer fans are "up in arms" about the loss of the comic-in-a-comic than the overall ending. HUMPHREY LEE (HUMPH): The reason WATCHMEN the comic is the piece of genius it is has a lot to do with how dense and almost insanely meticulous it is, down to something as slow and deliberate as a Rorschach scaling a building instead of zip lining it. It's one of the best comics ever made simply because of how much all of Moore's wordage and all the 9-panel pages just completely absorb you into its atmosphere and these characters. Now, just the way you feel about the movie as a movie is one thing, but how you feel about the actual ADAPTATION of WATCHMEN as a movie really depends on how much you're willing to let go of things like that in concession of its run time and what it has to do to engage the audience and tell its story in just under three hours. I walked out of the midnight showing of WATCHMEN at 3am last night completely satisfied about it on a movie front, but feeling disappointed that people like my girlfriend next to me, who hadn't had a chance to expose herself to the book, couldn't get the full tour "behind the veil" that I've absorbed near a dozen times now, even though she seemed to enjoy it a lot for what it was in front of her.
SQUASH: Alright, alright. I'm taking my leave from this discussion for now to drop trou in prep for the three-hour marathon. When I return, I will have watched the film. And washed my hands. Not necessarily in that order.
SUPES: Ruh-Roh...a woman in my office just compared it to BATMAN FOREVER...! Another friend took her teenaged son to it who was totally cyked to see it and the kid was disappointed. And then another friend called me this morning from NYC and went berserk for it...This thing is all over the place!SQUASH: I'm back, and I ache from having had the plot points of this movie BEAT ME ABOUT THE HEAD AND FACE REPETITIVELY. The Watchmen Drinking Game: take a shot every time someone says the word "Comedian", and you'll have died of cirrhosis fifteen minutes in. If I have to say one thing about this film is that it is WATCHMEN, if the entire book was distilled and dumbed down for general consumption with the assumption that the audience is a bunch of leering twats who don't give a shit about plot but only want to watch extended generic fight sequences, somewhat unnecessarily longer-than-originally-imagined sex scenes, and the same damn six characters (or six-point-five if you count Big Figure) incessantly chew the scenery. I have no desire to ever watch this film again, extended DVD or not.
SUPES: Ouch...Fuck, fuck, fuck FUCK!!!! I'm going to see it TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!! Oh, well...maybe someone can get the BBC to do an adaptation in, like, 10 years...
SQUASH: Go see it because you'll always ask yourself about it. I simply don't see the need to ever watch it again. There was nothing that I didn't catch, and that's not because I read the book. It's because when you figure out that The Comedian is Silk Spectre's father in the first flashback, then they have a second flashback later where you're made to figure it out again in case you didn't figure it out before, and then Spectre comes back from the flashback all "realizin'", and just in case you still didn't get it, Dr. Manhattan outright states, "The Comedian was your father." NO SHIT!
THE COMEDIAN AKA THE ORIGINAL @$$HOLE: Yeah, they did have to spell out some stuff and it's funny that most of the mainstreamers in my screening still didn't get stuff either. You can pretty much pin point all the studio notes. But maybe I'm not as hypercritical. I think the overall problem with Laurie in the movie is that a lot of her arc has been condensed and compromised. I don't think Malin Ackerman is really that awful, I just think they didn't really do her character beats right. They totally throw away the reveal the Eddie Blake is her dad by having that stupid flashback cut in with Sally's husband saying "Why don't you get your buddy Blake to help raise your child" or whatever the quote is. But I don't want to go too much into it until everybody's seen it. To those of you who haven't seen it yet, see it in IMAX if you can. It's the first 35mm film I've seen that actually looks just as good in the blow up. JFK's head splitting like a sliced loaf of bread is just way more "Oh Shit!" in IMAX. "The Comedian is your father" was a lol moment for me too, though.VROOM: No...that's not true! That's IMPOSSIBLE! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! No...
SQUASH: And Nite Owl is your brother! No...that's improbable! Man, I love “Robot Chicken”.
I do want to say that my misgivings regarding them "action-ing it up" (Rorschach's zip-line), as well as the costumes, were not as jarring as I had originally anticipated them to be.
STONE: Call me crazy, but I just don't feel all that curious about seeing the movie. If I was hearing good things then I'd probably be more interested, but I kinda thought we knew all along what kind of WATCHMEN adaptation the director of 300 would make: almost fetishistic reverence for the source material, little of the depth, rocking soundtrack and slo-mo action scenes. It'd probably just piss me off for two and a half hours. Still, I've yet to see V FOR VENDETTA either.
COMEDIAN: You should see it and form your own opinion about it instead of going on hearsay. You say that you haven't heard that many good things about it. There are many GREAT things about this film that well outweigh its shortcomings. The opening credits alone are better than any Marvel superhero film ever made. So is the first hour and a half.STONE: The difference for me is the respect I have for the source material. Like, I didn’t think the recent HULK movie was all that great, but then I’ve read plenty of poor Hulk comics. Maybe I have a black and white view on this, but I think it either gets it or doesn’t. From what I’ve seen, I’d rather stick with the book. Never compromise, even in the face of the WATCHMEN adaptation.
COMEDIAN: That's cool. But again, you're going on hearsay and having not seen the movie to form your own opinion of it means you're ill informed at best and willfully ignorant at worst. Trust me, by the time Thursday night came I was so jaded from all the fanboy bitching and mixed reviews that I had set it up in my mind that it was going to be a meh experience. It almost felt like a chore to have to go see this movie I didn't think was going to be all that good. I had resigned myself to the fact that it was probably going to be faithful only on a surface level and that it would feel all wrong. All the crystal ball fanboy bullshit. Then I actually saw the film and while it wasn't perfect all of the highs, lows and shortcomings I had perceived in my mind had nothing to do with the actual genius and flaws of the film. All I'm saying is take the time to judge it on it's actual merits and shortcomings for yourself.
SQUASH: I think that might be the problem with me. You went in with low expectations and enjoyed it. I went in with much higher expectations and was disappointed. I believe all of us should just see the damn thing.RYAN: The IMAX Experience was utterly amazing until the 5th time I saw Dr. Manhattan's big blue cock. After that every time I saw blue wang I was laughing out loud no matter what was happening in the movie. Beyond that, WATCHMEN was way too faithful to the graphic novel especially when it didn't NEED to be. The film did run too long and the dramatic elements left me BORED TO TEARS in the theater. A movie of this caliber should be able to keep me interested, not hoping for the next 'good scenes'.
Best of the film: Jackie Earle Haley stole the show. Once again he pwned it. The man owned this entire film and every single scene he was in. Even when he was just chilling on a sidewalk the man was amazing.
Worst of the film: The horrible, horrible, horrible sex scene on the Owl Ship. My god I had flashbacks from “Matrix Reloaded” all over again. It was laugh out loud horrible and made me groan even more. The movie was full of genius even with Zack Snyder's horrible speed-up, speed-down directing technique. The great parts of the film very much outweigh all the flaws of the film, of which there are many. But the flaws didn't need to be there. For once I agree with the studio and they should have cut 20 minutes more out of this bitch.
RYAN: I would just hate to be the guy who worked on WATCHMEN and when asked what he did had to answer, "Yeah, um, I was the person who worked on the blue CGI penis." I'm glad some people stopped noticing but it is all I saw. And somewhere in the world...Papa Smurf is REALLY jealous.SQUASH: Saw DEWEY COX a couple days before WATCHMEN, and I realized that these days, in order for a movie to have tits, they have to also show full frontal male nudity. At least we're back to 70's style movies with ample unnecessary nudes. Anyone else think Ackerman was using a body double for her titty shots? I kept glancing at her head and it was somewhat hidden.
IMP: I haven't seen the movie yet (leaving to do so in a few minutes), but Ackerman had no problem showing her breasts when she played Freakshow's wife in HAROLD AND KUMAR. Maybe she's decided to go the classy route.
COMEDIAN: After the second time I just stopped noticing his dick and paid attention to the story. It's a glowy CGI dick that you kind of have to look for anyway since he has no pubes. But maybe it's because I just got the my screening in time so I had neck breaking front row seats and the screen was so big I had to do pan and scan with my eyes to see everything in any given frame. I think them doing a CGI Doctor Manhattan was more distracting overall than anything. Though the uncanny valley sort of fits him since he's not supposed to really be in the same plane of space and time as everyone else and it makes him more inhuman. In spite of that Billy Crudup really surprised me with the performance. You could really sense the shadow of John's humanity creeping in and out at just the right moments. He was more three dimensional as a character than I ever imagined Doctor Manhattan could be. I think they really should have cast Carla Guigino as Laurie even if it meant casting another actress to play her as a teenager in the crime busters meeting or they could have just "buttoned" her or something. At first I didn't mind Malin and I still think she was adequate but there is so much more world weariness to the character and I didn't really believe her as a 35 year old who's lived this extraordinary life she never wanted. Patrick Wilson was great as Nite Owl but he really should have been Ozy instead. If he were a bigger name he'd make a great Captain America. Goode was such a douche.VROOM: Having just gotten back from seeing this, all I can say is that if I'd never heard of the comic before, I'd probably have loved it. Having read the comic, I only rather liked it. For an adaptation of WATCHMEN that's under three hours, it's probably better than it has any right to be. Also, I think Leonard Cohen may just have been ruined for me forever.
COMEDIAN: Oh, Micky and Malorie Knox bastardized poor Leonard Cohen a long time ago in that OTHER great cult film that all the pretentious 15-22 year old kids love for it's stylized sex and violence, so think of it as passing on the torch.STEVE: Just got back myself. The opening credits with "Times They Are A-Changin'" was mildly incredible. I decided about half-way through that I am not mature enough to handle a big, blue Mangrove Pierce shown repeatedly throughout a movie, and I have a bad feeling that this movie will mostly be remembered for that blue penis.
"Remember the Watchmen?" "Well, I remember a blue penis." "Me too." Overall I kind of loved the movie. Also loved the punked out "Desolation Row" cover at the end. Throw a Bob Dylan song into a movie and i generally like it - the same thing happened to me when I saw "Jerry McGuire." If they put "Simple Twist of Fate" in the closing credits of "Baby Geniuses," I'd probably like that too. Rorschach was perfect. I'm going to watch this movie 100 times. I think that movie made me high. I'm hungry and I can't feel my face.
BUG: Saw it! Yeah, the penis was a bit distracting, but I sort of got used to it after the second hour. The one thing I did notice that Manhattan’s radioactive aura protected him from shrinkage in Antarctica.SUPES: Dear Lord, can everyone just get over the penis already? Are we not adults? Are we not men??? Everyone's acting like they've never seen one before! Yeeeeshhh!!!
RYAN: Adults yes. But IMAX was not forgiving when it came to the wang.
SQUASH: Wait till they do 3D IMAX. Half the time it'll poke you right in the eye and nine months later your girlfriend will birth a glowing baby.
JINXO: The penis didn't ruin anything for me but, truth be told, every time it came on screen... uhhh wait, make that every time it popped up... that sounds bad too... every time it was up there,,, dammit! Whenever it showed up (victory!) I'd always think, "And there's the giant blue penis."
BUG: All in all, it was an entertaining movie, but a flawed adaptation. It dragged in parts, but dazzled in others. I felt that whereas WATCHMEN was a comment on comics, this was a comment on comic book movies, proving that there can be real drama and emotion, there can be complexity of plot, there can be ambiguous characters and actions and it can still be entertaining. If I had to say whether this was a winner or a loser of a film for me, I'd have to go with winner, even though there are plenty of flaws. The aforementioned sex scene in the Owl Ship was just uncomfortable. It lacked any passion and really made me feel wormy sitting there watching Nite Owl's ass pump over and over. It didn't help that Jupiter acted like a UPS box during the scene. Where was that fire she showed in THE HEARTBREAK KID? But the most distracting part of the film was the soundtrack. The cemetery scene was almost completely ruined by the music. I wish Snyder would have gone with a score rather than going all Scorsese with it.
SLEAZY: I felt like it was a really solid attempt to remain as true to the book as possible, and it was certainly technically and visually impressive. I don't think Snyder is a particularly good director of people, however, and as a result the movie felt sterile and uninvolving. It wasn't a failure by any stretch, but it wasn't entirely successful either. I wish I had cared more about the characters and events instead of it all just being eye candy.SQUASH: And that, right there, is the key to why I didn't like this movie. Remember when I said the film was about six characters only? I meant it. In the book, we look into the lives of the non-super-heroic, from the cops who investigate Comedian's death and eventually take down Rorschach, to the lesbian taxi driver, to the newsstand operator and his young non-customer, and more than we're given of the prison psychiatrist. By the end of the book, you're invested in these people, these normal people, their lives, and their struggles, and when all their paths converge and Ozymandias cuts their lives short, you actually give a shit. Not so with the movie adaptation; the faceless masses remain faceless. Sure, we caught a glimpse of a couple people here and there, but let's face facts, they landed on the cutting room floor for the sake of a director who felt the audience was more interested in wasting their time watching faceless prisoners get kicked by a chick in tight leather.
JINXO: I second that. If you are going to strip the ending of the blood then they should have beefed up the development of the supporting players so that when they were vaporized the ending would still have some emotional impact.
OD: I think it's more than just empathy for the “every-man’s” final fate; each of those ancillary characters in the book unfolded different facets of this fictional world that was. I’m going to contest that how this movie was put together made it accessible to two groups of people: fans of the comic and people that go to films solely for eye candy. This was truly a confusing 300. First we want you to come with us to 1985, where Nixon is still President. OK, why? Here are some folks from the 1940’s. We’re not going to tell you why they are important. Now here are the Watchmen. Why are they important? Well, they watch over us. See what I’m saying? It just felt like there was zero acclimation to this world. If there’s no purpose or explanation to a parallel universe, you just moved from social commentary to an episode of “Sliders.”STEVE: 1. "Sliders" was a totally watchable show. 2. I woke up this morning, and thought of lots of things that annoyed me, but overall thought of all the cool stuff. This movie was so much better than it had a right to be. The ending seemed to lack any consequence -but still, it was a really fun, awesome to look at movie. The opening credits? Those guys looked real. Poor Moth-Man getting hauled away - it was so pathetic - so lacking in anything heroic. If this was an episode of "Sliders" it was like the ultimate "Sliders" episode, Corey Feldman cameo as Bob Dylan and everything--"Don't send me no more letters NO, not unless you mail them from, Desolation Row."
OD: Hey I loved “Sliders”, but in many episodes they never explained the catalyst that made that world deviate from our own. In the very first episode red lights mean go and green lights mean stop. Why? That's the problem I had with WATCHMEN. Cool, the 24th Amendment was repealed or never existed, hence why Nixon is still in office. I think the world Moore created is as equally vibrant and interesting as the characters. Someone walking into this blind, I think needs that context to really get the story.SUPES: Ugh. SLIDERS was garbage...
ROCK-ME: No, it really wasn’t. “Sliders” wasn’t garbage. Neither was WATCHMEN. It was an entertaining flick, and as shallow as it was compared to the comic, it will influence a lot more people to get their feet wet in this genre than might have, before it came out. Were there some problems with it? Some bad music choices, some pacing issues, some cheesy makeup? Yeah, there were. But overall, it was a lot better than it had a right to be.
SLEAZY: I already know several people who read the book in preparation for the movie, a few of whom don't read comics at all ever, which they certainly didn't do before IRON MAN. If the movie manages to open some people up to the idea of reading more comics it's a good thing. It's not a GREAT movie, no--but it's a pretty danged good one. Put it up against DAREDEVIL or SPIDER-MAN 3 or SUPERMAN RETURNS and I know which one I'll choose to watch again.
COMEDIAN: I think Snyder got caught up in adapting "The Greatest Graphic Novel of All-Time" and that turned into a trap for him because maybe he equated that "greatness" with grandiose spectacle. It's kind of the opposite of what Singer did with SUPERMAN, which called for the grandiose but settled firmly on something uninspired and pedestrian. Instead of "superheroes in the real world" WATCHMEN” The Movie is "Superheroes in a well-stylized version 20th Century". Sometimes this works beautifully. Sometimes it fell terribly short. When the opening credits played I got a chill because the inner comics fan in me, the guy who stopped reading them, that part of me that was long lost was saying, "Oh my God, this is really happening and it's awesome." Yeah, it's basically a music video but it's one of the best sequences in any film of this type and it completely cements you in this world. I got a good laugh out of The Comedian watching the McLaughlin Group, Veidt taking Lou Reed's Place in Jagger and Bowie's dirty, flithy man-train, even the bit where Lee Iacocca gets it in the chest and between the eyes instead of Veidt's cute assistant. Where this didn't work was all the Nixon bullshit. I think there's like two panels where we see his face in the comic and he's got more speaking lines and scenes than Rorschach's shrink. That was fucking stupid, definitely a studio note. You can pretty much pinpoint all the studio notes in this film.
STEVE: I just can't find too much to complain about. It was a fun movie and what they got right, they got right and the rest was just an enjoyable movie. What they got right was Rorschach, the Comedian, Dr. Manhattan, and Nite Owl (even if he wasn't a pudgy dude) and so even if they weren’t in the same adventure as the comic, it was fun to me to see them adventuring together. I got a geeky thrill when I noticed something directly from the book, and what wasn't exactly the same, hey that just what it is. Clearly to me everyone involved gave a shit, and I appreciate that, tremendously. This wasn't the FANTASTIC FOUR or some other piece of crap comic book movie adaptation where they made wholesale changes and just took a wild Taco Bell dump on the source material, making me spit out my movie Coke in irritation. All the things they changed, I might not agree with, but I could see where they were coming from.BUG: Yea, changes were necessary. I don’t mind a tweak here or there to translate from comic to film. And the end result was better than most. The worst parts of THE WATCHMEN were ten times better than ELEKTRA or the latest PUNISHER films.
STEVE: The two major flaws that keep this movie from being more than just another beautiful, masterfully made but profoundly flawed cult film in waiting are how they handled the two biggest reveals of the comic, Laurie's true relationship with The Comedian and the reveal of Ozy being the villain. We've gone over the Laurie stuff already. Say what you want about Malin Ackerman but they gutted most of her arc anyhow by cutting in that stupid flashback way earlier into the movie. The problem with Goode's Ozy isn't just the tacky accent and all the mustache twirling douchery.
BUG: I hated Ozy, but I gess that was the point. I would have liked it if they would have covered the fact that he is the big bad a little. I mean nothing screams, “VILLAIN!” me than a bright purple suit.STEVE: The main beef I have with his character so obviously being the villain isn't just that it kills the twist at the end but on top of that they took out the one scene where he gets a spiritual come-uppance in his final conversation with Doctor Manhattan. He's not actually sure he's done the right thing. The weight of his horrible actions are creeping in and Doctor Manhattan doesn't give him the easy out. He leaves him hanging trapped in his own mind fuck. Instead we get Smuggy McDoucheypants with the same pleased with himself Bond villain expression and that's it. That ruined the ending for me more so even than them going for the "clean" holocaust instead of the bloodier one.
OD: I'll totally agree that it was amusing from our wealth of knowledge view-point. It was a smattering of panels that we only thought would ever come alive in our imaginations. I still have to look at it, though, from the newbie perspective--and I just mean the 14 year old boy newbies who got to see ass and boobies. I went to see it with a very diverse cross section of non-comic fans and they all felt the same - "looked cool, but I still don't know who these Watchmen are and why I should care. Do they have anything to do with the Justice League?" Statements like that lead me to believe that Snyder or whoever wrote the script fell short on the job. There was too much focus on character building and not enough focus on the world they inhabit, which was a pretty fucking spectacular and subtly nuanced alternate reality in the original book. Honestly, it was always the world that entranced me more than the actual Watchmen.
ROCK-ME: What I mostly hear is a bunch of complaining about little things… things most people will never notice, or notice, not care much about. But at some point, one must look for and appreciate the things that were done RIGHT, and not be driven mad by the things that were done wrong.
COMEDIAN: There was definitely a lot of love for the medium put into this film. Did anybody catch the easter egg of Nite Owl saving an ersatz Thomas and Martha Wayne in the 1st shot of the opening credits? That's love, my friends. Most of the cynical opportunists we've seen cruise through this genre (yeah, I'm talking shit about Bryan Singer again) wouldn't even spend time on that kinda Alex Ross stuff. I may doubt Snyder's understanding of the source material (though I could say that about any fellow fan since people never have the exact same perspective on anything) I will never doubt his genuine respect of it. This guy's had a three film career of opportunities at imaginatively adopting and reinventing cherished works and he's never treated them merely as stepping stone opportunities like others in his place would have. If he could come this close with something as complex as WATCHMEN I think he could clean up Superman or do a Justice League film in his sleep. Just don't cast poor Malin Ackerman as Lois Lane or Wonder Woman.
SLEAZY: I have to agree to a certain extent, and I don't want it to sound like I'm hating on the movie. The soundtrack was awful, and the movie felt sort of cold and stiff, and I wish I cared more about what was going on. Still, it was far closer to the book than I would have expected and fit far more of the important stuff in than I think anyone else could have. It wasn't a perfect movie, but it wasn't a train wreck either. I've seen far worse comic book adaptations, and it was a very faithful adaptation. I wasn't everything the fans wanted, but it accomplished much of it rather well.COMEDIAN: Most of the music Snyder used feels like back in film school where everybody wanted to use songs they knew they would never get the rights to use professionally and then the professors would chastise us for making music videos instead of movies. Snyder just had the toy chest of the Warner Bros. music library and went with it. Which I guess works in the "Gump" aspect of the film framing it as a commentary on the 20th century. I didn't mind it so much with "Sounds of Silence" at Eddie Blake's funeral but maybe he should have used Zappa's "Dirty Love" for the Owl Ship sex scene instead...cause it was dirty...see what I did there....ok, I'm drunk.
SLEAZY: I don't know who put together the pop soundtrack for the movie, but they should never be allowed to work in film again. Every single song choice was godawful. Most were cliched, many felt inappropriately crammed in to the movie, and every single one of them pulled me out of the movie and annoyed the shit outta me. I can't even decide which was most egregious: "99 Red Balloons" was stupid and pointless, "Hallelujah" was so poorly utilized I could barely stop from laughing out loud, "All Along The Watchtower" and "The Time They Are A Changin'" were completely unnecessary, the use of Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" was lame and insulting and already done in a shitty Ray Liotta movie over a dozen years ago...they really should have just used the original score and used it to maintain the mood of the film instead of abusing pop songs to completely jar us out of the scene.JINXO: Bigger for me though was (don't think this spoils things anymore than the song actually being in the film) them putting in “99 Red Balloons”. I get it. It's on topic and it's from the 80s. The thing is...this isn't OUR 80s. This isn't a time where Regan became president and culture became cheesy pastel fun. This is an 80s where Nixon stayed in power. I always thought of it like our 80s got chopped out and the 70s got stretched longer and thinner. Reading the WATCHMEN I always thought of a world where the music was a bit edgier. The 60s/70s reinention of rock smearing into punk. I bought the disco song because that felt like spoiled 70s cheese and so had a weird edge. But “99 Red Balloons”? Come on.
IMP: On the whole, I thought the movie was good, but not great. The first half (up through Dr. Manhattan on Mars) was excellent, but after that the film's weaknesses started to show. It seemed almost as though Snyder and Co. worked on the movie linearly-- as if they spent a lot of time carefully crafting the film up through the Mars sequence, then looked at their remaining time and thought, "Shit-- we need to start wrapping this up!" The second half of the movie felt very compressed, especially Rorschach's time in prison with the psychiatrist (although my girlfriend thought that the prison time went on for too long, so maybe I'm just too used to the comic). And while I admit that the revised ending of the movie (Manhattan-energy rather than space-squid) works, it lacks the emotional and visceral punch of the comic. Plus, the choice of giving some of Manhattan's conversation with Ozymandias to Laurie and Dan ("Nothing ever ends") took away a lot of the drama that the scene as originally presented possessed. I completely agree with you in regards to the music. The use of "All Along the Watchtower" was particularly jarring.SQUASH: I think a lot of the time spent glamorizing each scene could have been spent better elsewhere, enhancing the characters.
IMP: One last thing: can we all agree that Malin Ackerman is a terrible, terrible actress? Granted, her character lost a lot of personality in the transition from comic to film script, but even so, Ackerman clearly stood out as the worst member of the cast. Since Snyder already had Jackie Earl Haley and Matthew Goode in his cast, he should have just made it a LITTLE CHILDREN reunion and brought in Kate Winslet to play the Silk Spectre. The scene where Laurie realizes who her father was would have been much better if it had included the flashback of her drunken confrontation with the Comedian at the government function. The sex scene could have easily been pared down to allow time for this much more integral moment.JINXO: Plus side, I do think all of the actors playing the WATCHMEN did a pretty good job, bringing subtlety work in there even while having to seemingly be over the top. The sex scene didn't bug me too much except for the symbolic climax. That just was a bit too much for me. That said, two supporting players chewed the scenery so much and with such lack of subtlety that they pulled me out of the movie a couple of times.
HUMPH: Losing all the Hiroshima references with the shadow graffiti, the newstandman and his plucky "sidekick", and little character moments that would have emphasized just why they were the way they were. It kind of appalls me that Rorschach is going to come out of this overwhelmingly as the favorite because some of his tendencies, the ones that make you realize that, yeah, he's the Wolverine of the story, but also a complete fucking nutjob without any sort of forward thinking given the kind of stakes the rest of the group were playing for. Given though, Haley did a hell of a job playing him, and what was left in the movie was definitely all the sympathetic bits so it's understandable people are going to think of him that way, but that's something in the book that I've always thought defined it: what you thought of the blotch test dude by the end of it.
JINXO: I think they got an amazing amount of stuff right. But regularly throughout the movie they'd get stuff wrong too. Mostly nothing outrageously wrong but just wrong enough to pull me right out of the movie. Music was mentioned? Wow. Perfect example. Sometimes the music would be dead on for me and then at others it would be glaringly dead wrong. Spot on with the funeral. In some ways it fit. That song would exist in the world of Watchmen, it is of the right era for the Comedian to an extent but...it's wrong. It's a song with some warmth to it. For the funeral of The Comedian you need something with some bite to it, something right but just a little dark or off. Maybe something that feels slightly older. Like... some 60s/70s Johnny Cash song with a dark edge about death.BUG: Actually the “Hallelujah” song used during the extended humping scene is a much better song for the Comedian’s funeral. Like you said, it was a dirty version of the song and…you know, the Comedian is kind of a dirty character.
OD: “Watcht
