Watchmen (2009) *Beware : Spoilers are now rampant!*

[Merlin1958]

Please forgive me if you've mentioned this before or something, but do you dislike comic books?

Not at all. Just don't think the medium is as "important" as some would have it. It's entertainment, Good entertainment but nothing more. Sorry!!!

[Sam]

Do you apply the same to any written medium Merlin so long as it's fiction?

[Spencer]

Pm me your thoughts on it Spencer. I haven't seen the film, but have read the book. Should I even bother with going? I think no but would love to hear your thoughts.

Oh you should go for sure!!!! It's an amazing ride, just be prepared to poke holes through the ending. Another hole, in order to accept things, you have to believe that other world leaders would take Richard freakin Nixon at his word.

Won't have time for a PM today,(work today, show tonight), but I'll write you something soon.

[Brice]

I haven't read it but sight unseen I'm willing to grant Watchmen a place in the literary canon...it can replace Jane Austen's writings. It cannot possibly be worse.

[Hannah]

I'm sorry say all you want......Its a fucking Comic Book!!!!!


I'M out!!!!!

Each to their own. I would say if you don't like it, and don't want to say anything that actually matters a whit then you shouldn't come into the thread. It seems to me to be counteractive to any productive or interesting discussion, but more so an attempt to just annoy people who actually do like comic books and post in this thread for that reason.

Moving on ...

I loved the movie. It was really, really good. Aaron and I saw it on IMAX last night, and aside from the nerdy teenage boys that seemed to fill the theater and talked and reeked of cheap booze, it was a great experience. Plus, Dr. M's penis was like 3 feet tall.

[fernandito]

I saw it on IMAX last night/this morning as well. Amazing x infinity.

And seriously, how fucking awesome was Jackie as Rorschach? Unbelievable.

[Hannah]

I was worried he wouldn't be good, but he was amazing.

My favorite scene with Rorschach was the part where...

Spoiler:

he says "you don't understand, i'm not locked in here with you ... you're locked in here with me."

[Sam]

That was my favorite part of the entire book too Hannah. It reminded a lot me of Frank Castle.

[Harrald]

Freakin' great!!!!


Spoilers below....I can't get the spoiler tag to work.

Spoiler:

My wife and I had a great time. I missed the Squid...But in a post Sept. 11 world, the re-write is almost a necessity. I can't wait for the directors cut.

[sarah]

oooo I'm so glad everyone was loving it. I won't have a chance to see it until next week. I'm so happy it doesn't suck. I was nervous that it would.

[fernandito]

My favorite scene with Rorschach was the part where...

Spoiler:

he says "you don't understand, i'm not locked in here with you ... you're locked in here with me."

That was my favorite part too

And in close second - the scene where Blake jumps off Archemedes and lands in the midst of the riot below in slo-mo!

/nerdgasm

oooo I'm so glad everyone was loving it. I won't have a chance to see it until next week. I'm so happy it doesn't suck. I was nervous that it would.

You need to see it while it's still in theaters sugarpop! And in IMAX, if you can

[turtlex]

I'm sorry say all you want......Its a fucking Comic Book!!!!!


I'M out!!!!!

Sorry, saying "Watchmen" is a Comic Book... is like saying "Maus" is a graphic novel. Or The Dark Tower Books are a good story.

Watchmen - so much more. Either you get it, or you don't.

I'm hoping to get to a show on Sunday - I'm on call, so am not supposed to be out of touch, but well... come on! If I don't get there tomorrow, it will be a whole week before I can even attempt it. And, well, I may go nuts!

Feev - I've heard all kinds of good stuff about JEH!

[Unfound One]

I'm going tonight I'm going tonight I'm going tonight.

[turtlex]

Unfound One - Have a great time! Report in when you get home, now.

[Unfound One]

Oh I shall, have no doubt!
And you can call me SJ.

[flaggwalkstheline]

I just saw it, got home from the theater 10 minutes ago, Wow was that good
Wow
Just Wow

[SigTauGimp]

I watched it last night.

I thought it was vuuurrrry good, and agree with what most other's have said. I really like how they portrayed NiteOwl, too...I didn't really care for him in the comic, but seeing him in the movie actually changed my mind a bit.

[flaggwalkstheline]

I was actually quite surprised how dan and lorry kill some of the thugs they fight in the alleyway

[Tatts4Life]

I went with a group of friends to go see this last night. My wife and i thought it was a great movie. Of course during a few scene with Dr. Manhattan the women in the group couldn't hold in their girlish nature.

[Seymour_Glass]

Wasn't trying to be condecending about it at all. I read it and loved it! Comics can be a great medium but they are not accepted as true "Literature" just as best Sellers often are not as well (including unfortunately Sai King). I guess what I was trying to say was that he should calm down a little more as Its not like making a movie about the constitution (which you better get right to the last detail). he just seemed to be getting really worked up over a piece of entertainment.

I think the fact that Watchmen was named one of Time's Top 100 Best Novels means that comics are accepted as true literature, ranked right alongside A Catcher in the Rye, 1984, and The Grapes of Wrath.

I don't want to get into a pissing match but, Time magazine is a pop Mag and not exactly the English department at Harvard. I'm not cutting on it but, come on its not listed on High School or college Reading lists. I think calling it "classic Literature" is not quite right and quite frankly not what the writers probably intended for it either. I'm not saying that what the literary community deems classic is undisputable or absolute, they certainly got their noses in the air when it comes to SK and other Best Selling authors but, Watchmen is still a work comprised of 60% picture content and 40% written. So give it another category if that do ya but, Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice & Men, The Invisible Man (Ellison), the works of Dickens or Shakespeare its not. And I don't think it was meant to be considered a "Literary Classic" like those other works mentioned. perhaps, time will change that in the future.

Having said all of that I still totally enjoyed the Graphic Novel and will probably read it again after seeing the movie.

Before I get into the actual movie discussion let me say that a lot of the "literary classics" were considered pop entertainment in their own times. And you're right that comics are a visual medium. I compare comics to films more often than I do to novels.

And yeah, it is a fucking comic book. But, If you let me rant a bit here, it's just as valid a medium as film or prose. The sheer room for detail really outweighs a novel, because you can have a very detailed, well-defined room without having to tediously explain every detail. But it can be pored over like a book. Visual connections can be made in ways that can't be done in film without a maddeningly slow pace or a ready pause button. Huge amounts of symbolism can be put into a single panel.

Also, because of the hoity-toity academics who refuse to accept them (I'm not including you in that category), there's room for real experimentation. No worries about how it will be received. Comic creators can say "fuck you" to critics more easily than people in any other medium. Do they? Mostly, no. They trod out the same old shit. But that's no different from anywhere else. And there are some people, even some superhero writers (*cough* Grant Morrison*cough*) who are willing to experiment in ways that often the babymen who live in their mother's basements can't understand, and therefore hate.

And there are people, like you, who just haven't really read any stories that validate the medium. And some people think Watchmen is the cream of the crop, but those people aren't comic fans. They haven't sifted through the average to find the gems. But the gems are there. Though maybe you have to dig deeper than you care to.

But in the end, fuck it. it's just a comic book. Whatever that means.

[Seymour_Glass]

About the actual film. I apologize for the longishness of the above post. This one might be longer.

The opening scene had me worried. it was really over-the-top actiony, and it didn't click the way the rest of the fight scenes did. It took too long, i thought. I would have gone with the original opening.

The credits were interesting. I don't know if I enjoyed them or not.

Jackie Earle Haley was amazing as Rorschach. Nuff said.

The soundtrack was interesting, but I liked it.

Nixon was weird.

Spoiler:

The ending was a disappointment. The big change kind of made it more plausible, therefore better superficially, but it lost the great irony that instead of a solution, Adrian really escalated the conflict to inter-world as opposed to international. This one had a sort of God-looking-down effect which didn't really better the story.

The lack of Rorschach's monologues about his father and President Truman really took away the irony and contradiction in his character as he applauds Truman for making the decision he refuses to at the end of the film. That contradiction really made his character for me. It humanized him in a way that I really liked. but Jackie Earle haley did a phenomenal job.

The lack of buildup between the newspaper vendor and the boy made their embrace at the end meaningless, shattering the moment that to me was on of the most heartbreaking of the comic.

The reveal that the Comedian was Laurie's father was a lot less graceful in the film. in the comic it was amazing.

The transition to the Dr. Manhattan on mars flashback sequence was clunky.

Dr. M deciding to help was a really weird thing that felt sudden and forced.

[Spencer]

I'm right with you about everything in the spoiler tags. As far as the ending being more plausible, I disagree, for reasons I'll get into when more people have seen the movie.

As far as the big reveal, what bothered me is this. The original scene was filmed, you see it there on screen. I personally, was waiting for the parts of the key sentence to be replayed in fragments and then put back together, just like it was in the novel, but it wasn't, instead, the big reveal is just proclaimed, a "OK this is what it all means" moment. I was like "a movie director who's crowing about how faithful he is to the comic couldn't find an editing machine to cut that scene the mindblowing way it appears in the comic? Hell, I could have done it with 2 1980's era VCRS and a pause button!"

[Seymour_Glass]

Yep.

And I just think it was more plausible because I never found any mention in the comic book to how they

Spoiler:

made the freaking squid.

[Spencer]

Here's a paragraph on the ending from ign.com, which echoes what I said a couple of months ago, but more articulately.

Spoiler:

the logic of the new finale that Snyder and the writers came up with doesn't hold up under the least bit of scrutiny. On the surface level, making Doctor Manhattan the scapegoat sounds like a great alternative... until you realize that there is simply no way the countries of the world are going to set aside their differences and join hands in peace after America's ultimate super-weapon -- which he has been touted as for the whole film -- is to blame for the deaths of millions. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. are at the very brink of war, remember. Complete and total nuclear annihilation is at hand, with the rest of the world wondering if America might use the blue-skinned ace it has up its sleeve (as it did to win in Vietnam). So given that state of anxiety, if Doctor Manhattan took out the world's major cities, why would any foreign nation now want to work with America for a better future? If there was ever a time when they'd want to wipe us off the map, it'd be after such an attack. As silly as the squid was, it worked because it was an external threat that united these disparate human factions in a common cause against a more powerful outside force. Imagine if the world knew that the squid was an American creation, there would have been no Utopian outcome. Also, by losing the squid and Veidt's experiments in genetic engineering that created it, the inclusion of Bubastis in the film makes absolutely no sense. It's completely random: "And now, for no apparent reason, a blue tiger with antlers."

[Spencer]

Yep.

And I just think it was more plausible because I never found any mention in the comic book to how they

Spoiler:

made the freaking squid.

Spoiler:

It's right there in Adrian's monolouge in Issue#11. I'll quote it when I get home and can grab my book