Who Watched the Watchmen?

[SDragon]

Xev, "Watchmen 2" is still a common question for not only Alan Moore, but also for his daughter, Leah.

[spoiler=Llum,]that must have been a lucky guess, then. Aside from "questionable sanity", Kovacks and Rorschach were in no way presented to have anything in common, at least as far as I can tell. Kovacks seemed presented as a background character; an extra to populate the setting.[/spoiler]

[Cheomesh]

Halfling, the girl in question apparently didn't read the book. She's absolutely the least nerdy member of our extended group.

She is also dead certain there will be a sequel, even though the book is 20+ years old.

How many Starship Trooper books were there, compared to the 3 movies?

M.

[Seraph]

[spoiler]Thats a weird example, as soon as I seen Kovacs I knew he was Rochart[/spoiler]

[spoiler]I actually didn't make the connection until my second read through of the book.  Kovacs had sort of blended into the background (as others seem to have said) and I forgot he was there by the time Rorshach's mask was removed.  It wasn't until I went back to the beginning and saw the "The End is Nigh" guy for the second first time that I went "Oh my god, that's RORSCHACH!!!"[/spoiler]

In other news . . .
 [spoiler]In another conversation, we discussed most of these same points, but something that was brought up was that we both felt that the opening credits sequence "The Times They Are A-Changin'" was very well done, and seemed to encapsulate a lot of the history without having to spend time on it.  By the way, did anyone else notice them making Comedian the JFK assassination second shooter?  I found that very interesting.[/spoiler]

[beejazz]

[spoiler]The intro was pretty damn awesome.[/spoiler]

[Nomadic]

[spoiler]The intro was pretty damn awesome.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]
I wholeheartedly concur with you.
[/spoiler]

[Elven Doritos]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w

[Nomadic]

Yea that was on Newgrounds, I am still utterly shocked by the quality that happy harry puts out in his work. Of course that's not even mentioning the amount of laughing I did while watching that thing the first time through. The "I'm Nutty" part gets me every time.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

I haven't read all those spoilers yet, but here are my thoughts (just saw it yesterday):

[spoiler]
~Very unnecessary changes just for the sake of adding gore, such as the jail scene with the power saw instead of the blowtorch, the kidnapper scene with the butcher's cleaver instead of the hacksaw and fire, extended rape scene.
~Interesting modern interpretation of the climax, but I still like the cephalopod better.  However, I completely understand today's modern audience may not really enjoy that.  I was told to look out for some clever acronyms that spelled "SQUID" or something, but I never heard/saw them.
~Very disappointed in Laurie saying the last line about "endings" instead of Manhattan.
~Fighting was pretty cool, very Snyderesque.  The prison break-out was pretty awesome, and I would have liked to see some action like that in the recent Batman movies - maybe not the slow-fast-slow camera work, but the clear-cut action with some more interested martial arts than KFM.
~Very interesting that they actually showed Comedian assassinating JFK.  From what I remember (and it's been years since I've read it), it was only ever implied in the comic, never explicitly stated (but maybe someone will correct me on that).
~I found it a bit curious that Snyder needed add more blue penis than was even in the comics.  Like, he was sitting around and saying to the special FX crew, "You know what this scene needs?...."
~Loved the opening credits with Dylan.
~Even more Dylan - one of my favorite parts ever in the comics was the end of Chapter XI, where it shows Rorschach and Daniel approaching Adrien's base, and the ending caption was Dylan's lyrics - "Outside in the distance / A wildcat did growl / Two riders were approaching / The wind began to howl."  Then, in the movie, Watchtower got to that exact point when it showed Adrien looking at the monitor of the two approaching his fort.  Got a bit fanboy squeamish at that point, I must admit.
~Loved the funeral memory montages.
~Jeffrey Morgan made a fantastic Comedian.  My wife watches Grey's, and we both watch Supernatural, so I've seen him around, but he was fantastic in this movie as that character.
~That chick that played Laurie doesn't need to be in movies.  Every speaking line she had reminded me of Kristen Kreuk in Smallville.  She spoke like someone had taped a script 6 inches from her forehead because otherwise she couldn't remember her lines.
~Adrien's actor was pretty horrific too, in my opinion, but maybe it's because he reminded me a bit too much, both in speaking manner and appearance, of Kevin MacDonald from Kids in the Hall.
[/spoiler]

All-in-all, I would give the movie a 4 out of 5, and would see it again.

Now I'm going to look at everyone else's comments.

[LordVreeg]

Yea that was on Newgrounds, I am still utterly shocked by the quality that happy harry puts out in his work. Of course that's not even mentioning the amount of laughing I did while watching that thing the first time through. The "I'm Nutty" part gets me every time.

So many 'just wrong' moments.  I loved it.  

[Elven Doritos]

My thoughts on the movie:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=okay seriously]It doesn't need to be said I'm a Dylan fan, but I was indifferent to the use of Times They Are A-Changin' (it served a thematic purpose and did so well, but it was jarring for me), and outright livid at the My Chemical Romance cover of Desolation Row at the ending credits. My friends can attest that I was actually covering my ears on my way out of the theaters. It caused me physical pain.

I felt that the soundtrack was a bit... off. All Along the Watchtower felt a little clunky but otherwise in place. Simon and Garfunkel, I thought, were the least cinematic artists of all time. And then I heard 99 Luftballons. This isn't to say that all of the musical choices were bad, but many pulled me out of the movie to say, 'They picked that?,' leaving me disengaged from the film.

Comedian was great. Rorschach was serviceable, though he took some adjustment. I thought Jon's voice was pretty bad, to be honest. Laruie was downright terrible, but Dan was enough of a schmuck to save his scenes (though his presence and cheesy "NOOOOO!" at Rorschach's death scene bugged me). Veidt? When he wasn't slurring his words and being as flamboyant as possible, he was simply wooden and boring.

I stand behind my early belief that many of the costume changes are gaudy and pointless. I refer mostly to Ozymandias in this case; he looked like a character from Batman & Robin, not an obsessed egomaniac with an Alexander the Great fixation.

I didn't have a problem with the blue penis, as a lot of people I know seemed to. I think people forget just how often Jon walks around nude in the comic, but that's neither here nor there. It honestly didn't catch my attention.

The ending change pissed me off when I first saw it, but I've cooled off about it. It's not horrible, but eh. The addition of fight scenes (Laurie and Dan kicking ass after supposedly being soft for so many years? Ozymandias being freakishly powerful?) and the irrelevancy of some of the previous characters (I heard people complaining about Bubastis, who was indeed a pointless vestige now that the giant squid-monster wasn't in the plot) bothered me, and the Richard Nixon scenes bordered on entertainment and laughably stupid. If you know to listen, Kisssinger's accent is way off.

I like Watchmen. I've liked it for years. I was skeptical that it could be filmed. I went in with a negative impression toward Synder's work and the possibility of the movie being filmed, and came out mildly indifferent and only partly annoyed. I think that's like changing a Hostile NPC to an Indifferent one on a diplomacy check. I wasn't wowed by the movie, but it had its high points. Its low points were too distracting for me to call it a "good movie" though.

One last quibble: Nite-Owl is talking to Rorschach after prison break. Keeps using word "man." Want to punch in face.

Great, now I'm talking like Kovacs.[/spoiler]

[Steerpike]

Just saw it...

[spoiler]Overall, given the difficulties in adapting Watchmen, the movie could have been much, much worse.

Things especially praiseworthy: almost all the visuals and the frame-by-frame adaptation style (many frames were practically identical with comic panels); Laurie also looked exactly like Laurie from the comics (except for the skirt), even if her performance wasn't mind-blowing.  Nite Owl's performance was good. The opening credits were perfect, possibly the best part of the film in some ways.  I'd also contend that neither the gore nor the sex were gratuitous.  The blood was occasionally a bit heavy (though not much worse than the comic), and was mostly ther to characterize people like Rorshach and the Comedian - violence is important for both characters.

I liked the sex scene: it wasn't, in my opinion, gratuitous at all.  It's absolutely essential to the character development of Dan and Laurie that they sleep together at that point, overcoming Dan's feelings of impotence tied up with his retirement from crime-fighting and his returned feelings of power and arousal after he puts the mask (his true identity) back on.  The sex scene was also refreshingly shot rather than going the usual squeamish route and flashing a bunch of blurring close-ups overlaid with vague moaning sounds.  I think most people react badly to the sex because they're made uncomfortable by it, and because they assume that any sexual scene that's remotely arousing is inherently pornographic.  The flame-thrower/orgasm thing was also genuinely funny, although I'm sure many people will consider it "immature" (since any joke that's sexual is immature according to some).  The sex scene also wasn't all that long: closer to two minutes than ten.

Things that were OK but not fantastic: the changed ending worked but was sort of meh.  Jon's voice was, I thought, not great, though not terrible - had a Nirvana-like quality to it.  Bubastis didn't look real enough (and as Elven Doritos pointed out, is much less necessary).  Giving Jon's line to Laurie worked in a sense (it showed that she now understood him better, as he came to understand her better) but would have been more ominous and chilling if he'd spoken it.  Some of the music choices weren't great, although others were decent, I thought - hit or miss.  The movie felt very long, but if they'd cut anything they would have made the plot incomprehensible to anyone who hadn't read the novel - one of the reasons Watchmen wasn't that well-suited to a movie in the first place.  The cinematography was sometimes awesome, sometimes just functional.

Things that I didn't like: Adrian annoyed the hell out of me; his jaw-line particularly, but also his voice was awful(he mumbles everything!).  The aforementioned "man" stuff in the basement was fairly bad and grating.  Jon's blue-glowing aura was way too strong.  Some elements from scenes, such as Rorshach's line about patterns and other bits of his origin story (particularly the vital bit about the creation of his mask) really should have been included.  The brief scene between Laurie and the Comedian could have been longer - its such an important and telling moment, and felt rushed. [/spoiler]

[Superfluous Crow]

[spoiler]
I haven't seen the movie yet as it won't come out where i live before the 20th, but I wanted to comment on the Rorschach/Kovacs part. I was also pretty convinced that Kovacs=Rorshach early on. He listens in on the detectives in the beginning and is seen standing outside the cemetery at the funeral. You can also see half of Rorschachs/Kovacs face when he pulls up his mask to eat candy which helps reassure you that your suspicion was correct. When i started reading i was sort of expecting that the author would leave it as a loose end whether Kovacs was really Rorschach or not. Was kind of happy he didn't though.
[/spoiler]

[Seraph]

Just saw it...

[spoiler]Overall, given the difficulties in adapting Watchmen, the movie could have been much, much worse.

Things especially praiseworthy: almost all the visuals and the frame-by-frame adaptation style (many frames were practically identical with comic panels); Laurie also looked exactly like Laurie from the comics (except for the skirt), even if her performance wasn't mind-blowing.  Nite Owl's performance was good. The opening credits were perfect, possibly the best part of the film in some ways.  I'd also contend that neither the gore nor the sex were gratuitous.  The blood was occasionally a bit heavy (though not much worse than the comic), and was mostly ther to characterize people like Rorshach and the Comedian - violence is important for both characters.

I liked the sex scene: it wasn't, in my opinion, gratuitous at all.  It's absolutely essential to the character development of Dan and Laurie that they sleep together at that point, overcoming Dan's feelings of impotence tied up with his retirement from crime-fighting and his returned feelings of power and arousal after he puts the mask (his true identity) back on.  The sex scene was also refreshingly shot rather than going the usual squeamish route and flashing a bunch of blurring close-ups overlaid with vague moaning sounds.  I think most people react badly to the sex because they're made uncomfortable by it, and because they assume that any sexual scene that's remotely arousing is inherently pornographic.  The flame-thrower/orgasm thing was also genuinely funny, although I'm sure many people will consider it "immature" (since any joke that's sexual is immature according to some).  The sex scene also wasn't all that long: closer to two minutes than ten.

Things that were OK but not fantastic: the changed ending worked but was sort of meh.  Jon's voice was, I thought, not great, though not terrible - had a Nirvana-like quality to it.  Bubastis didn't look real enough (and as Elven Doritos pointed out, is much less necessary).  Giving Jon's line to Laurie worked in a sense (it showed that she now understood him better, as he came to understand her better) but would have been more ominous and chilling if he'd spoken it.  Some of the music choices weren't great, although others were decent, I thought - hit or miss.  The movie felt very long, but if they'd cut anything they would have made the plot incomprehensible to anyone who hadn't read the novel - one of the reasons Watchmen wasn't that well-suited to a movie in the first place.  The cinematography was sometimes awesome, sometimes just functional.

Things that I didn't like: Adrian annoyed the hell out of me; his jaw-line particularly, but also his voice was awful(he mumbles everything!).  The aforementioned "man" stuff in the basement was fairly bad and grating.  Jon's blue-glowing aura was way too strong.  Some elements from scenes, such as Rorshach's line about patterns and other bits of his origin story (particularly the vital bit about the creation of his mask) really should have been included.  The brief scene between Laurie and the Comedian could have been longer - its such an important and telling moment, and felt rushed. [/spoiler]

[spoiler]Ok, on the sex scene; I agree that it was important for the sex scene to HAPPEN.  I do not think it needed to happen the way it did.  Moore got by in the Graphic Novel with a few panels suggesting the sex scene.  It wasn't necessary to *ahem* go through the motions, as they did in the movie.  
[/spoiler]

[beejazz]

[spoiler]Ditto what Seraphine said. Also honestly, if they wanted to make it "remotely arousing" there were a couple of don'ts there too. The soundtrack was terrible. The pan shot that starts with the entire screen full of jiggling naked flabby man ass. A couple other things.[/spoiler]

[Ra-Tiel]

I already saw it twice (once with my best friend, and the second time with my roleplaying buddies). I personally found it pretty awesome, perhaps because I've never known the comic. My personal rating is 9/10 and imho it's so far the best candidate for "movie of the year 2009" already.

Nothing I've seen so far from the other so called "blockbusters" that come out this year (X-Men Origins - Wolverine, Terminator 4 - Salvation, Star Trex XI [*shudder*], Knowing, Fast & Furious 4, Transformers 2 - Revenge of the Fallen) even comes close to Watchmen.