Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)

[Dylan]

style slow down/speed up shit

I haven't seen 300 (never will), nor have I watched The Watchman trailer (never will, unless it plays before a movie I see), but seriously, this sort of thing was a painfully old cliche when The Patriot came out ten years ago... I'm surprised so many people, mainstream audience or not, can tolerate it now without laughing.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Entertainment Weekly's Watchmen cover leaked.

[moviscop]

Watchman Trailer Released-Working Link

Oh, and The End Is The Beginning Is The End is a great song by an amazing band. Who cares if it was pulled from the Batman & Robin soundtrack?

[rs98762001]

The trailer is utterly disheartening. Visually, at least, Snyder has captured not a single bit of the novel's essence. It looks every bit as glib, effects-driven, and superficial as many of the novel's fans had feared. From Billy Corgan on down, this is just fucking dismal.

[Cold Bishop]

The trailer is absolutely ridiculous. Watchmen was not clean, shiny, and sterile. This looks as lifeless and overproduced as 300, but even that had the benefit of being weak, dumb source material to begin with.

[Murdoch]

Very disappointing trailer with a horrible song attached, but I'm still hoping it's okay. My biggest problem, outside of the stupid slo-mo to regular speed punches and kicks, was Rorschach's voice which sounded too emotional to me, he's supposed to be without any emotion whatsoever and speak in a monotone. But I guess this is what I get for clinging so tightly to the graphic novel, I might actually just skip the movie.

[rs98762001]

Terry Gilliam must be crying into his Wheaties right about now. It makes me furious, especially after rewatching Brazil last night, that he never got a shot at making this, while a hack like Snyder did.

[moviscop]

Honestly, what did you expect from the director of 300 which was the best example of style over substance I have ever seen.

He didn't even bring Frank Miller alive, he just made it flash. No sort of story was drawn from 300. It was a film that made guys want to go to the gym, pump iron, and listen to that Nine Inch Nails song while they did so.

[Murdoch]

Honestly, what did you expect from the director of 300

These are the words I feared reading in this thread, and I guess I should've of seen it coming. But perhaps the trailer is very different from the film itself and the studio put out this trailer just to make it seem interesting to an audience not familiar with the Cold War or, um, subtlety.

Every article I seem to read about the movie says how they want to stay close to the source, but, ugh, I'm just too frustrated right now, bad day.

[Orphic Lycidas]

The trailer is utterly disheartening. Visually, at least, Snyder has captured not a single bit of the novel's essence. It looks every bit as glib, effects-driven, and superficial as many of the novel's fans had feared. From Billy Corgan on down, this is just fucking dismal.

Well, John Higgin's old-fashioned comic-y coloring ultimately demands cinematic interpretation. The interpretation Snyder has come up with is certainly not what I would have suggested. I've honestly never been a fan of the book's ugly pastels but the film goes too far in the other direction, IMO. It's not just that I prefer bright colors and less shadows but that this lighting motif has been done to death and seems to point towards a comfortableness with established fanboy aesthetic that -- taken with the obnoxiously Matrix-y 'slow down/speed up' effect -- doesn't bode well for anyone expecting some originality. I know some of us have lived with Watchmen for years and that we might be coming to this with some personal idiosyncracies as to how it should be 'properly' adapted -- for example, I would never have thought of Billy Crudup but he's a gifted actor and I'll be perfectly happy to see his interpretation of the role -- but there are somethings that are just dead-wrong : Mathew Goode as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, for example. I'm not making any judgments of the actor since I don't believe I've ever seen him in anything else but he is simply too young for the role and doesn't remotely look like he could be a middle-aged decathlon champion. I agree with Fletch and can say I don't have as much of a problem with Nite Owl's appearance after having seen the trailer. The jury is still out on Silk Spectre -- were grown women already wearing bangs in the 80s? -- though I'm getting used to it. The Comedian and Dr. Manhattan kinda work for me. Please excuse my overuse of parentheticals.

[Antoine Doinel]

Comic-panel-to-trailer comparison.

[Steven H]

The trailer is absolutely ridiculous. Watchmen was not clean, shiny, and sterile. This looks as lifeless and overproduced as 300, but even that had the benefit of being weak, dumb source material to begin with.

I agree 100%. This book had a huge effect on me when I was a teenager and after watching Hollywood make minced meat out of Moore's stuff for years, this is just the awful awful icing on the cake (terrible icing on the minced meat cake, I mean.)

Trailers are trailers though, and maybe its much darker than it seems.

[dx23]

Honestly, what did you expect from the director of 300 which was the best example of style over substance I have ever seen.

He didn't even bring Frank Miller alive, he just made it flash. No sort of story was drawn from 300. It was a film that made guys want to go to the gym, pump iron, and listen to that Nine Inch Nails song while they did so.

Exactly. I don't get why people were getting high hopes when the director of 300 is at helm.

I was re-reading what I wrote 3 years ago at the start of this thread and I'm so sad that everything I feared this movie would be in the hands of Hollywood is becoming reality. What is supposed to be dark and gritty is now shiny and beautiful, in a bad way. The trailer is damn horrendous. From the Corgan song to the excessive use of light and "300" special effects. I just cringe at the scene where someone was kicked through a window ala Leonidas kicking people to the pit. A scene that has become a parody of pop culture and has been imitated and ridiculized to its fullest is reused by the same director that created it in his following movie.

[Banana #3]

I just cringe at the scene where someone was kicked through a window ala Leonidas kicking people to the pit.

He was being thrown out of the window, which is what happens in the book.

While Snyder has made changes to the design, the most important and perhaps crushing changes will be made in the story. If he were to stick to the story as close as possible, do you think the costume redesigns would be more acceptable?

And note that the frame-rate variances may be for dramatic effect, similar to the Smashing Pumpkins song, and just like the song, they are maybe not intended for the final film.

[Antoine Doinel]

And note that the frame-rate variances may be for dramatic effect, similar to the Smashing Pumpkins song, and just like the song, they are maybe not intended for the final film.

Except that Snyder has already established a fondness for frame rate variances in 300. I don't see why he would dump the technique and I'm sure the studio doesn't want him drastically altering the style that made 300 such a hit.

[Banana #3]

My memory of 300 isn't 100%, so forgive me if I what I say is incorrect, but most of the fight sequences took place in slow motion. He did his tricks with the frame rate, but he predominantly utilized slow motion and with the purpose of emphasizing the action.

Watchmen doesn't contain extended action sequences, let alone contain about 10% story and 90% action sequences.

I think in the worst case (and this is if Snyder doesn't go crazy), there will be slow motion in sequences like the Comedian in Vietnam.

Dr. Manhattan in Vietnam seemed to be played at 24fps.

Anyways, unless Snyder goes out of his way to include new action sequences, he might not have a reason to overuse slow motion.

[dx23]

I just cringe at the scene where someone was kicked through a window ala Leonidas kicking people to the pit.

He was being thrown out of the window, which is what happens in the book.

I know that happens in the book, but they could have done the scene another way instead of repeating the way they did it in 300 (slow motion), which is now a cliche in films.

[MyNameCriterionForum]

So what do you think he'll do with the ending? Keep the "monster"?

[Murdoch]

So what do you think he'll do with the ending? Keep the "monster"?

I read an interview with the guy playing Veidt saying something about an altered ending, he never confirmed it but just said something about how they want to make the film their own while keeping close to the work, I think there's a link to it in this thread two or three pages back.

If they stick as close as possible to the story and use the 300 effects the story will play second fiddle to the "cool fight scenes". A lot of people will see this and say "that blue guy was awesome, the way he made things explode" instead of discussing the story. At this point I feel certain that the technological advances brought by Manhattan will be completely removed from the story.

But seriously, what did any of us expect? The graphic novel is so multi-layered and covers so many themes that a page-for-page adaptation that touches upon every point expressed in the graphic novel would fly over many audience members' heads.

My last hope is that all the story will be there, and the effects will only be there to draw a crowd, even if the style-over-substance defeats the purpose.

[blindside8zao]

You people need to learn to embrace this type of movie for what it is, 'shiny and beautiful.' Extravagant and decadent eye-candy, empty and shallow. No one should have expected anything more after the atrocious 300 (the over-saturated visuals counterposed with the empty content makes them practically blinding).

I guess I'm not upset because I have no attachment to the comic. This is going to be a great 7 dollar roller-coaster ride that I'll love, leave, and forget like a one night stand. If we're lucky we'll get a great 300-style sex scene to laugh at. My favorite part of 300 was the guy behind me telling us not to 'Grow up' for not taking the sex scene seriously.


Why are so many people trashing the good song?

[Cold Bishop]

You people need to learn to embrace this type of movie for what it is, 'shiny and beautiful.' Extravagant and decadent eye-candy, empty and shallow.

I guess I'm not upset because I have no attachment to the comic. This is going to be a great 7 dollar roller-coaster ride that I'll love, leave, and forget like a one night stand.

But that's the problem. The source material isn't anything near the type of story that can be reduced to an empty, shallow rollercoaster ride. The source is the complete opposite from 300, and while I had no faith in Snyder, I couldn't imagine that he could think that the way the movie currently looks captures anything about the comic.

This film should play like seventies Alan J. Pakula doing an epic comic-book movie. Right now it looks like Mystery Men, without the comedy.

Why are so many people trashing the good song?

Nevermind the quality of the song... The fact that it doesn't fit the source, and helps in making the movie look like a glorified music video, much like 300 was, is the problem.

[moviscop]

I watched the trailor on IMAX before "Dark Knight" began and people reacted two ways: "what is watchmen?" or "that looks awesome."

Seeing it on the IMAX screen made it a lot more visually stimulating, but I still feel that the film will fail to retain its hype.

[rs98762001]

Seeing it on the IMAX screen made it a lot more visually stimulating, but I still feel that the film will fail to retain its hype.

Not at all. Watchmen - the film - has been made for the 300 and AICN crowd. Not for the people who love or care about the source novel (or about movies as art). Within those parameters, I'm sure the common consensus will be that it's just great, especially considering how well liked 300 was by the same demographic. What should have been a dark arthouse version of a "comic" has instead become a flashy piece of disposable commerce. It's kind of ironic that they're showcasing Watchmen before The Dark Knight, because (from what I have so far read/seen) Nolan's film seems a lot closer to the spirit of Alan Moore than Snyder's.

There is a very good reason that Watchmen got made by the wrong person. The source material is not commercial in any sense, but its scale is such that it requires an enormous budget to be brought to life. That's why Gilliam et al failed to get the film financed. They likely wanted it to retain its dark, arthouse roots, and sadly there was no financial justification to greenlight it. Snyder, on the other hand, wants to make as accessible and fanboyish a version of Watchmen as possible. He will likely succeed in this respect, and the movie will probably make a shitload of money. It will also suck.

[Cde.]

This looks like a disasterpiece.

I love Watchmen. This is not Watchmen. Snyder is using the same glossy style he used in 300. Why should we be surprised? The man is a commercial director. His job is to make things look beautiful, sellable. To make something more appealing to Joe Public than it is and cause them to part with their money. That is exactly what he's done to Watchmen.

I get the feeling that the slow/fast/slow/fast will actually be prominent in the film. Look at the action scenes; ultra-stylised, they lend themselves to a technique designed to highlight how goddamn cool everything is.

The scene of the Comedian being thrown through a window is just terrible. From the comic I thought of that as a sudden jolt of horror. Here Snyder makes it safe with a familiar technique and calls our attention to his slick compositions and all-round awesomeness. Predictably, the fanboy sites absolutely love this trailer, which suggests that despite their claims of loving it, many of them probably never 'got' Watchmen in the first place.

It was too much to hope for that this would be as thematically complex and fascinating as the book, but I just wish this looked more like that first test image of Rorschach than 300 with Superheroes.

I hope the trailer has mislead me and I'm wrong about this film, but I know I'm right.

[Schkura]

Watchmen was definitely a formative piece of literature for me growing up (though I was too young to understand its full importance for a few years). Before I fly off the handle and condemn this trailer for the mess that it is, I'm going to put it into perspective. We are viewing the trailer outside its proper context as a lead in for The Dark Knight, which will have its share of comic book fans in the audience, but will also be watched by millions of other people (We calls 'em "normies"). I can't remember the exact circumstances under which I picked up Watchmen, but I doubt that it was because D.C. advertised it to me as a metanarrative. Best case scenario: they're building hype on the backs of a few successful comic book adaptations to trick people into seeing a movie that dissects superheroes.

I must agree with everyone that the 'Spectre and Ozymandias look pretty bad, but the images of Archimedes and Dr. Manhattan (and even Raw Shark if you turn the sound down) brought back fond memories that even the crappiest film interpretation can't take away. Let's see what Snyder has to show in San Diego next week.