Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)

[Orphic Lycidas]

Dunno what "Anglo" has to do with a political stance, except as some way to play some sort of race card where there is none. But tell your definition to Obama as he debates partial ownership in auto industry, nationalization of banks, and full control over health care. Different modes of fascism are extremely similar with economic issues to socialism. This is the opposite side of the spectrum from libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism. Surely, you see this?

The term Anglo-libertarian has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It is a political term used to differentiate itself from traditional European libertarianism. The term libertarian has traditionally always meant socialist, but a particular kind of socialism: one which is opposed to the existence of the state even in an intermediary form. It was first used to get under the state censored use of the word anarchism (also a term traditionally meant to mean a type of socialism). Later on the term libertarian was taken and given a completely different meaning. It was used to mean free-market capitalism. This Orwellian misappropriation has become the norm in the US. It's also referred to as Anglo-libertarianism. I didn't make up the term. Obama is a moderate liberal; not a socialist. State ownership *is* a characteristic of modern liberalism - as opposed to classical liberalism or socialism (which has traditionally always meant worker control of the means of production) - but so is a mixed economy. Fascism and Stalinism were famously defined and distinguished by Trotsky as dependent on whether ownership was privately controlled (fascism) or state-controlled (Stalinism) although both were highly dependent and organized by the state sector, as is modern liberalism. I don't know of any serious political scholar who has disagreed with Trotsky on this matter. Economic state intervention is the opposite of both types of libertarianism (arguably) but liberal bourgeois democracy, fascism and Stalinism are very different things. And socialism has little in common with any of them.

[Cde.]

It could have been worse (better?)

The script that the studio gave Snyder, when he first agreed to do the movie, ended with Nite Owl killing Ozymandias by crashing the Owl-ship into him via remote control. Nite Owl even says a cool catch phrase immediately afterwards.

[JonathanM]

The term Anglo-libertarian has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It is a political term used to differentiate itself from traditional European libertarianism. The term libertarian has traditionally always meant socialist, but a particular kind of socialism: one which is opposed to the existence of the state even in an intermediary form.

It's worth noting that the term "anglo-libertarianism" has one google hit and that's this page.

Libertarianism doesn't exist as a political force in continental Europe. It doesn't even exist in the UK outside of some extreme right-wing splinter groups. It's a strictly American creation. The only concept I can think of that might fit into the space you're suggesting is "social Democracy" which is a political movement that doesn't exist at all in the US but has been one of the dominant forces in European politics since the second world war. But that's not even close to being anti-statist. In fact it's more like a form of non-revolutionary socialism that co-exists with free market economics. Effectively it's what you'd have in America if instead of spending all of your money on weapons you spent it on free health-care and a welfare state.

Libertarianism's combination of extreme social democracy and extreme fiscal conservatism simply does not have much of a presence in Western Europe. Fiscal conservatism tends to be accompanied with social conservatism (namely when the rich get richer and the poor rot in their badly maitained social housing, you need some laws to put the riots down). Also Libertarianism is thematically an American idea... there's something of the wide open plain about it. If you're living in a country where your nearest neighbour is a wall away at best and a few hundred yards at worst, the impetus to go "I should be able to have all the drugs and guns I want and I don't see why I should help pay for poor people" is less pressing than if you're living on some rach three days from another human being. all the big thinkers of right wing Libertarianism are American too.

The left-wing equivalent (which is admittedly european) tends to be called anarchism.

[knives]

Our worst fears seem to be confirmed.
Three of my relatives with very different tastes in films and different experiences with Watchmen and all three didn't like it. They managed a screening last night on base. The two that read, one who looks carefully at narrative the other emotion, said they prefer the comic. The score is really bad and overused. Except for the prison escape scene the slow-mo isn't bad and the acting is actually good, except for the girl who plays Laurie. The new ending is apparently stupid and the way the camera plays emphasis is very sup-par Die Hard ripoff. The new ending apparently is seven kinds of WTF. That shot of Night Owl saying no from the trailer is just as laughable as you'd think. My sister was also pissed that they ruined who the 'baddie' is during the opening scene. She said they don't reveal the face put his shape is easy to make out. Both of their main point of contention seems to be the sex scene and the music.
The third party who has never read the comic just said it is way too weird. Glad I went to Amarcord instead.

[stwrt]

I like the panel in the comic advertising a screening in the alternate New York of a Tarkovsky double bill of Sacifice and Nostalghia, has that made it to the movie ?

[knives]

Probably, they weren't really looking at the background though.

[Antoine Doinel]

"We're killing the comic-book movie, we're ending it," Snyder said. "This movie is the last comic-book movie, for good or bad."

[Cde.]

Thank God.

[Antoine Doinel]

“...if fanboys still hate the film after going and seeing it, they can all line up and s*** my d***.

[jbeall]

Did he give that interview in character?

[domino harvey]

He's still in homoerotic mode from making a film with Zack Snyder

[AttitudeAJM]

Snyder sounds like he's either completely fooled himself into believing he's made a masterpiece or is absolutely out of his mind. The more I read and the more I see, my doubts about the film become more and more confirmed.

[dx23]

Snyder sounds like he's either completely fooled himself into believing he's made a masterpiece or is absolutely out of his mind. The more I read and the more I see, my doubts about the film become more and more confirmed.

A lot of both. That's what happens when you surround yourself with a lot of yes men and when you believe your own hype.

[kaujot]

You people seem to forget that he's a visionary.

[Antoine Doinel]

Anthony Lane hates it.

Watchmen, like V for Vendetta, harbors ambitions of political satire, and, to be fair, it should meet the needs of any leering nineteen-year-old who believes that America is ruled by the military-industrial complex, and whose deepest fear—deeper even than that of meeting a woman who requests intelligent conversation—is that the Warren Commission may have been right all along. The problem is that Snyder, following Moore, is so insanely aroused by the look of vengeance, and by the stylized application of physical power, that the film ends up twice as fascistic as the forces it wishes to lampoon.

[rs98762001]

I just had this strange vision of Alan Moore online in a dark room in Northampton, looking at Watchmen's current score of 30 on Metacritic and laughing his head off.

[Antoine Doinel]

Lee Iacocca is not pleased to find out what happens to his alternate reality self. Meanwhile, Snyder is busy stuffing the film with a whole bunch of corny inside jokes and references.

[cdnchris]

A pivotal moment in the "Watchmen" plot has Nite Owl and Rorschach hacking into Ozymandias' computer. Keep a close eye on his desktop, and you'll see an ominously titled file folder. "Adrian's sorta like very asexual, but he's possibly a homosexual," grinned Matthew Goode, referring to a long-held suspicion among "Watchmen" fans. "There's a very small thing in his file window, and it just says, 'Boys.' Which is very funny, and that's the kind of detail that Zack works with."

Wow. There's so much in that sentence that makes me go ](*,)

[Max von Mayerling]

First, I have routinely thought that it is amazing that anyone pays Anthony Lane for his thoughts about film.

But, of course, I don't say that as a defense of the film (not having seen it & having no intention of seeing it), but, rather, of Moore, on account of the following:

"The problem is that Snyder, following Moore, is so insanely aroused by the look of vengeance, and by the stylized application of physical power, that the film ends up twice as fascistic as the forces it wishes to lampoon. The result is perfectly calibrated for its target group: nobody over twenty-five could take any joy from the savagery that is fleshed out onscreen, just as nobody under eighteen should be allowed to witness it.

I sincerely have no idea what Lane is talking about with respect to Moore here. I mean, that whole issue is 58% of my problem with a Watchmen movie in the first place - that is would be so difficult to make a properly-financed film that didn't completely undermine the social commentary embedded in the source. How do you make a blockbuster out of a story that casts such a hopeless light on the very idea of a hero? That asks what I think are such difficult questions about the use of violence for what one believes are noble ends? (Emphasis on "what one believes") What studio would pay for such a thing? It seems to me Lane completely misses the boat on Moore, but perhaps I'm just a fool.

And I can only imagine how the savagery plays out on the screen. A very different proposition than those panels in the book. Really. Not to mention how Snyder likely milks the violence. To some degree, the medium is the message.

But, I suppose, that, on balance, the film will result in more people actually reading the graphic novel than would have been the case otherwise. And the ones who walk away with the wrong idea would have never come into contact with it otherwise.

[Polybius]

I sincerely have no idea what Lane is talking about with respect to Moore here.

Neither does he.

It's really no wonder that Moore gets hives at the very mention of the word "movie".

[Cde.]

A pivotal moment in the "Watchmen" plot has Nite Owl and Rorschach hacking into Ozymandias' computer. Keep a close eye on his desktop, and you'll see an ominously titled file folder. "Adrian's sorta like very asexual, but he's possibly a homosexual," grinned Matthew Goode, referring to a long-held suspicion among "Watchmen" fans. "There's a very small thing in his file window, and it just says, 'Boys.' Which is very funny, and that's the kind of detail that Zack works with."

Jesus Christ.

[bunuelian]

Huhuh that means he's gay.

This film is guaranteed to be horrible.

[Cde.]

Grow a dick

This just in: critics of visionary director Zack Snyder's adaptation of landmark graphic novel 'Watchmen', and more specifically the performance of Matthew Goode as the internationally-famous superhero Ozymandias, are not only homosexual, but as startling revelations suggest, possibly not even men at all.

More at five.

[statsman]

I've been following the reviews. The fanboy reviews rave about it, the professional critics are notably less enthusiastic (whether they read the book or not), and the critics who try to incorporate the political zeitgeist seem to have gone into the movie ready to see Snyder neo-con motives behind every corner. I'll see it, but my expectations are dropping.

I've been thinking about the inherent difficulty of adapting a book to film. Films are limited in time available. Books are not. This gives the director the choice of either making a ridiculously long film (or series), or cutting some of the material. I think it all comes down to the ability of the director, and the choices he makes.

We have all seen great movies based on mediocre novels- The Godfather, and Jaws come to mind. Those are both cases of gifted directors feeling little restraint with the source material. In some ways, it must be harder to adapt a good/great book. I have mentioned before that I consider the "Blade Runner" adaptation of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" to be a great example of a director abandoning the narrative but keeping the themes and depths of thought. You end up with a great movie and a great book, each worthy of being consumed in their own right.

I think the way to approach this work, given a director with the abilities of Snyder, was to aim a little lower- for a good action movie rather than a deep philosophical one- avoid the existential musings and conflicts, and focus on the characters' dilemmas. Make a movie that grades out as a stand-alone interesting action movie, only digging deep enough to encourage people to read the book if they want more. Basically, he should have taken the approach that old Hollywood used to take with books. Go for a "B", because an "A" is beyond his reach.

[Murdoch]

A history of Watchmen-to-film failures

Warning: It has a depressing ending.