How well could you see out of the mask? Cool costume!

We now have tickets for tomorrow night.

This made me laugh.

http://cad-comic.com/comics/20090306.jpg

I would like to know if there is a image or wallpaper for the scene of all the minutemen sitting/standing next to the table (like the Last Supper type of deal).

Eh, enough to get around and pose for pictures with a surprisingly large amount of people and theater staff. Not good enough to watch the movie...it came off, then went back on just in time for me to miss whatever was on the twilight zone >_<

Spoiler: Yes, in the opening credits. It is a montage of many similar scenes, with costumed heroes taking the place of the usual subjects in famous paintings and photographs.

Is it online so I can get a copy?

Beats me.

My own take of the movie was that it was excellent. I personally was too engrossed to notice the spotty acting by Silk Spectre II that some people have mentioned. I approved wholeheartedly with the changes made to the story to embrace the movie medium. I loved the pacing and the storytelling. I appreciated that the movie treated me as an intelligent person and let me tie all the clues together myself.

This movie lost a lot of points with critics because its story is over 20 years old and many of its concepts no longer seem revolutionary. Fuck 'em. A good story is a good story.

My only gripe was the soundtrack. I realize how it fits in with the original comic, but there were a few songs in there that took me out of the moment. The date. The funeral. The sex scene. Great scenes, but the music left me wondering why... why...

I generally hate soundtracks with songs that I know and like...it yanks me out of the ambient effect the song was intended to have. The Matrix is practically unwatchable now that I've listened to the soundtrack so many times. Watchmen ironically would have been 'better' (in terms of keeping the viewer's focus on the continuity) if they'd been covers, so we wouldn't already have a pitch-perfect representation to mentally sing along to, but get the idea that they're referencing the song and move on.

I really really liked it. Now, I did see it at 11pm so we didn't get out till 2am. I'm gonna have to see it again during the day so I'm not as sleepy... And not drink before.


My girlfriend hated it. Okay, so she didn't hate it... she just thought it was boring.

My wife seemed to rather like it, as did I.

I also liked it.
I had read the book about 2 weeks ago so it'd be fresh in my mind, and it's surprisingly faithful for most things, especially the dialogue.
Even the shot's angles are great, they recreate the scenes exactly how they're supposed to be.
A few obvious things can't be put in the movie, such as the parallel comic book story read within Watchmen, Tales of the Black Freighter. There's simply no practical way to put that in a movie without making it incredibly awkward.
A few other things have been changed, but as a whole I feel like they took out the right parts to make it a good movie, without losing the best aspects of the book.
I was surprised by Jon's voice, I didn't really know what to expect though. I suppose maybe a less human, and less young voice.
I liked Rorschach a lot, he did a great job with it, and the Comedian was good as well.

The rest of the cast is okay, too. Veidt looked more impressive in the book as a person, but when the stunts came it finished convincing me that it was him. Maybe his face was a bit off, somehow.

Costume design was great too.

---------- Post added at 09:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:27 PM ----------

Overall, I recommend it, but of course, read the book, either before or after! It should be on everyone's must-read-list.

The very-prevalent buzz is that the extended director's cut re-intersperses the Black Freighter portions where they belong. :thumbsup:

Supporting evidence for this is that the newspaper salesman and the kid reading the book are very prominent throughout the film.

For those bad at math, that's 34 extra minutes in the Extended, and then an additional 15 minutes for the Black Freighter (I believe it's going to be called the Ultimate cut).

I also heard a rumor of one of those two cuts hitting theaters in [s]April.[/s]

Edit: Make that July, and Snyder confirmed limited theatrical release.

I enjoyed it... I'm looking forward to the read when I have the time.

Great, I was wondering if there was a way to include the Freighter segments, and I'm anxious to watch the most extended cut.

I dont think a move has pissed me off for a while. This did.

I wont spoil it for anyone else who hasnt seen it by even going into it - but the ending is fucked up so badly.

I cant imagine why they would do that... its almost like a joke of what Hollywood producers do to a work of art... like those Orange adverts they have at the start of movies (in Cineworld's in the UK anyway)

I agree - up to a point. Rationally, I understand why they felt they made the change. But that doesn't make me happy about it. I feel conflicted about it. There was just too much material at the end of the day, and it would have been very confusing to introduce the characters necessary to explain the original ending.

But I wanted my giant squid, dammit!

I dunno, I agree pretty strongly with PZ Myers' take on the issue, and he's both a fan of the graphic novel AND obsessed with cephalopods! (Some spoilers below)

Pharyngula: Watchmen

This pretty sums up how I felt at the end of the movie.

Here's what Snyder said, and I agree with: The changed ending is character-driven in a way the squid wasn't, and if the squid took 20 minutes to build up to, that's 20 minutes less of Rorschach and Dr. BlueMan. I had no problems with it.

Ozzy's cat made way less sense in a squidless universe, though.

I saw it last night without having read the book or really knowing much about it besides what I've picked up through osmosis. I enjoyed it immensly, even if some of the violence was a bit much for me. I basically checked out mentally during the back-alley fight and the Kidnapper flashback.

Anyway, the ending worked fine for my ignorant eyes.

That's explained in more detail in the graphic novel. The fabric was created by Veidt industries, and is heat and pressure sensitive. It was originally a dress made by the tailor shop Rorschach worked for after he moved out of the foster home he grew up in, but the woman who ordered it didn't want the dress because she thought it was ugly. Rorschach liked it because the black and white never mixed, and the movement was interesting. He taught himself how to cut it properly and decided to make a mask out of it when he started crimefighting. If you pay close attention in the graphic novel, you'll notice the pattern on his mask changes panel to panel.

I don't think there's any real spoilers in there.

I loved the movie overall. I thought the ending was a bit clumsy, though; I understood the rationale behind the change (and behind all the other changes, for that matter) but I still thought it felt a bit lacking.

Bring on the super extended ultimate director's cut!

Amen. Despite my mixed feelings, I'll definitely be looking forward to seeing this.

We saw it the other night on IMAX, where it totally rocked, even though we didn't know much about it. We like the fact that the CG supported the movie, as opposed to 300, where the CG was the movie. It took us about 40 minutes to come up to speed on what and who was what. It might have been better with a better Introduction, maybe a couple of paragraphs scrolling up the screen to explain about the superheros and their backstory.

In its own right - I guess I could admit it is a well made movie, which mainatins the core of some fascination characters.

As a representation of the comic book, a really huge let down to me.

And I really feel the things they did to make it more "commercial" actually werent needed and it could still have been a commercial movie off its good looks, without having to "Hollywood" up certain things.

I suppose it wasnt as bad as the "From Hell" movie.

Same here. I had mixed feelings. Love Rorschach and the Comedian, but wasn't impressed by much else. That said, I am anxious to see a director's cut.

you mean it being the closest representation of a comic book pretty much ever?

they didn't make it more "commercial" or make it more "Hollywood". There's no way they could have done the original ending really well in movie format. The changes were made to fit the medium, not to make it "Hollywood".

In my opinion they captured the look and feel of the comic perfectly, but captured very little of its soul, I saw the movie as an exercise of surface over feeling.

I think part of it is that it's impossible to capture the original feeling in any type of novel from a movie. The written word(when in it's most excellent form) oddly enough, will always be able to convey more feeling and emotion that a motion picture.

Yes, but there were so many little things that to me needlessly spoiled it.

I dont want to get into spoilers, but as a small example of what I mean:
Spoiler:
When Nite Owl and Silk Spectre's two fight scenes. In the book they can certainly look after themselves. In the movie the level of violence and the ease with which masses of opponents are levelled would be ridiculous in a Steven Siegal movie. I think the movie wouldnt have suffered if a realistic fight with odds of 2:3 or whatever, rather than a super powered martial arts exhibition when 20 or 50 thugs are decimated with ease and acrobatics

SF, I am in absolute, total agreement with you for a change. I completely agree with pretty much everything you've said in this thread.

However, I don't see how the film-makers could have done much more to capture the soul of the book. That's an exceedingly difficult thing to do when moving mediums.

A wonderful visual experience with a nigh incomprehensible plot and resolution. I'm sure it was a lovely reproduction for fans of the comics, and I enjoyed watching all the craziness, but it could've used some intense editing. I'm not sure they could've made the story any clearer without sacrificing a lot of what fans of the comic love about the movie, but it probably would have done wonders for those of us uninitiated.

These are some comments from the "Rate the last movie" thread, that I had missed. I had a question/comment relating to this but I thought I would transplant it to the Watchmen thread.



So, my question is, other than for the shock value of 20 or so minutes of blue penis screen time, why does Dr. M have a penis at all? "Well he probably had a penis before the accident", you might say. Yes, but he can control matter, and can control his appearance (blue, superbuff, 50ft tall, etc), so the penis has to be a conscious creation. Now I can understand the desire to have one to satisfy his masked babe dujour, but why not put it away when not in use. I think the lack of a penis would have more effectively demonstrated his detachment from human society. ;)