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Watchmen trailer up!

Lulu-in-Ny

A-List Customer
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433
Location
Clifton Park, New York
Yes! I just saw this...and it looks like it might actually be pretty good. Couldn't help but notice that the poster says "Based on the Graphic Novel illustrated by Dave Gibbons"- Mr. Moore really did refuse to have his name on it...
 

Selentino

One of the Regulars
Messages
207
Location
Washington
Nice trailer. I don't really expect them to get it right. But I'm with you Charlie
I'll be there on opening day.
 

Flitcraft

One Too Many
Messages
1,037
Good job on Moore's part refusing the money.

Not sure about this project, but generally untrue. Mr. Moore has a penchant for cashing the check, then trashing the project.
 

Bogie

One of the Regulars
Messages
109
Location
Texas
Charlie Noodles said:
Good job on Moore's part refusing the money. I don't think this will work at all. But I'll be first in line to see it.


The film looks promising, but to me, The Watchmen is the absolute zenith of the comic book as an art form that we've seen so far. It is not meant to be viewed but read. Simply put, I think that there is too much material to fit in a movie even in the length of The Dark Knight.

Another problem is how each and every issue of The Watchmen focused on one character mainly at a time. I don't see how this could work in a movie.

With all that being said, I will be getting my tickets early because it looks amazing, and even if they fall short, they certainly tried.
 

Edward

Bartender
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25,112
Location
London, UK
I just wish Johnny Ramone had lived to play Rorschach. A short back and sides, put him in the costume, and he wouldn't have been far off.... lol

I'm looking forard to it. Read the book for the first time last year, enjoyed it. Inevitably they're going to change bits of it to have it set in an 'alternative 2009' as opposed to alternative 1980s, but that's cool with me. Every comic book chracter / franchise has been updated with the times.... these stories are our modern fairytales, our myths, which should apply to the times we live in. I'm not a fan of CGI for the sake of it, but it can be done very well to bring things to life that before wouldn't have been realisable in live action - e.g. Spiderman ( compare that the the TV version...), Gollum, Rorschach's mask.... The latter is a good sign to me, that they're keeping the detail of the patterns on Rorschach's 'face' shifting, ss per the book. It would have been so easy to leave that detail out.... a sign that they're sticking really close to the sources?
 

Doctor Strange

I'll Lock Up
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5,262
Location
Hudson Valley, NY
Edward, everything I've read says that the film still takes place in an alternate 1985.

I have my doubts about this film: to really do justice to the original, it will be so dense that movie audiences who haven't read the original will be baffled. But if they simplify the story too much, nobody will be happy...

However, 300 surprised me (I stayed away during its theatrical run, thinking that it was too actiony for my old-school sensibilities, which require a real story and characters in addition to kewl visuals... but when I finally saw it on DVD, I LOVED it!), so maybe Snyder can pull it off.

One fannish thing I will say about the trailer: Doctor Manhattan looks GREAT!
 

Charlie Noodles

A-List Customer
Messages
357
Location
Melbourne, Australia
Edward said:
The latter is a good sign to me, that they're keeping the detail of the patterns on Rorschach's 'face' shifting, ss per the book. It would have been so easy to leave that detail out.... a sign that they're sticking really close to the sources?

I wouldn't consider it a sign. They simply couldn't have left that out. Doing a poor job on Rorschach could go so far as to make the movie completely unprofitable.

Has it been confirmed that they're making a seperate 'anime' version of the Black Freighter story? Now that seemed like a bad omen to me.
 

Laura Chase

One Too Many
Messages
1,354
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Moore doesn't own the rights to the graphic novel and has asked the publishers to remove his name from it, so of course he doesn't want his name anywhere on the movie either.

It would be a poor movie if it just tried to copy the comic book. We've seen this unfortunate thing happening with the Sin City movie, and they ended up with a boring movie from a boring comic book (in my opinion). Visually, it was pleasing, but the movie was too much like a comic book, and the comic book was too much like a movie. I really missed some media-specificity on this project. I hope they do things differently with Watchmen. They will hopefully adapt the story to the movie-genre, and leave the comic standing alone, because it's spectacular, and I think I will enjoy both the movie and the comic... Seperatly, as two individual things.
 

Charlie Noodles

A-List Customer
Messages
357
Location
Melbourne, Australia
I haven't read Sin City, but I have read some of Miller's other stuff... Very different. Apples and oranges. Watchmen has plot and detail in abundance. I wouldn't want them doing it "Hollywood style".
 

Laura Chase

One Too Many
Messages
1,354
Location
Copenhagen, Denmark
Charlie Noodles said:
I haven't read Sin City, but I have read some of Miller's other stuff... Very different. Apples and oranges. Watchmen has plot and detail in abundance. I wouldn't want them doing it "Hollywood style".

I'm sure they will do it Hollywood style, though...

Yeah, Miller and Moore are miles apart, fortunately. I just remembered that the director is the same guy who did 300, another one of Miller's comics made into a movie, successfully, in my opinion. We'll see, if anything, it'll hopefully be visually pleasing and rhythmical as 300 was.
 

Mahagonny Bill

Practically Family
Messages
563
Location
Seattle
I was talking to a friend last night who has not read the original book. He told me that he was going to wait until after he saw the movie before he did. I completely disagreed with him. The book has such rich detail, I think that you would appreciate the movie more by reading the book first. That said, I have complete confidence that Snyder is making a film as close to the novel as humanly possible and I will definitely be seeing it on opening weekend.

Charlie Noodles said:
Has it been confirmed that they're making a seperate 'anime' version of the Black Freighter story? Now that seemed like a bad omen to me.
It has been confirmed that they are filming the "Black Freighter" sub-story, but that it will most likely not be included in the theatrical release of the movie. They are planning on cutting it into the film for an extended DVD release. I have not heard if the sequence will be live action or animated.
 

Charlie Noodles

A-List Customer
Messages
357
Location
Melbourne, Australia
I mean anime as in Japanese-style animation. I had more of a problem with that than it being animated. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate anime. It's just that Watchmen isn't manga and them doing that sounds like stooping to being trendy.
 

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