• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Rottenwatch: WATCHMEN

Status
Not open for further replies.
I really enjoyed it, being a big fan of the graphic novel and I was ok with
the Dr. Manhattan ending change.
I had a horrible crowd though but it's to be expected for a movie like this. Lots of people were laughing whenever there was full frontal Manhattan.
 
Akim said:
So uh I didn't know where else to post this but I just finished the motion comic...I didn't really like the ending.

Jon just blows the shit out of rorschach and the world just comes together. That kid is gonna pick up rorschachs journal. I dunno, felt like it didn't end the way I wanted.
The implication is that
the journal will bring Ozzy's plan crashing down.
 
I can't blame anyone for disliking it, and I can't see if there's much of anything that is going to make regular moviegoers enjoy the film. The bad sticks out more than the good. If they were going to get rid of the squid, they should have excised a lot of other absurd crap that doesn't look or feel right in a film (Bubastis, the midget mafia guy in jail, Nite Owl's dream sequence). If it wasn't the sort of fanboy-laden opening night crowd, I suspect there would have been audible laughter through much of this movie. Reactions after the showing seemed muted, though not really negative.

I'd say that Watchmen still qualifies as mostly unfilmable.
 
border said:
I'd say that Watchmen still qualifies as mostly unfilmable.
To be honest, I actually have feelings like this too.

As much as I did enjoy the film, and as much as I do think it was a quality adaptation, given the general constraints of cinema, there's just something that the graphic novel offers that the movie just can't.

I applause the makers for doing such a great job, but I really think that Moore's work went beyond the limit, both in terms of length and subtext, of what the film could achieve.
 
Magnus said:
Half-Blood Prince, new trailer, sort of a re-arranged version of the one posted earlier in its own thread today on gaf.

Damnit ... while I want to see that one, I REALLY want to see the Salvation trailer.

Almost thinking of going to the regular viewing
nah
 
Onix said:
I REALLY want to see the Salvation trailer.
That was awesome. The music choices, and editing work on it sold me on the film.

Which is to say it went from "I'll probably see that" to "Hot Dang. That movie will be seen by me" if that makes any sense.
 
It was a pretty good adpation and it pretty much hit my expectations. My friend was disappointed but she fell hard for the hype. Not a bad movie, but pales to the graphic novel. Also, some of the music choices were questionable.
 
Just got back from an early showing at the Metreon and lots of drinks at the Chieftain :)

Bulletpoint impressions:

- If you're in any way a fan of the material this is a must see. The world is vividly captured and some of your favorite characters literally lift themselves right out of the pages of the comic.

- Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan stole the show for me, hands down. Night Owl was well done, but his character is pretty mild mannered by nature so he doesn't stand out as much. The original Minutemen scenes and montages are made with true love.

- They don't skimp on any violence - if anything there is far more of it in the movie than in the comic.

- The ending is *perfect*. The denouement? not quite so much.

- It feels more like a collection of scenes, told in order, than a film. As somebody who is pretty close to the source material it felt like watching a broken vase being super-glued back together - each fragment being iconic moments from the graphic novel, so that in the end the movie was more a collection of scenes than a linear experience. The story is still best presented in graphic novel form, but the movie is a fucking treat to watch. I lied back in my seat grinning like a fucking ninny for most of it.

All in all I loved it, but I have absolutely no idea how well it will be recieved by a mainstream audience. My prediction? Watchmen can be considered the Bladerunner of comic book movies, and all that that entails.
 
Just came from the IMAX.

Watchmen is the worst movie I have ever seen in the theaters...is what I would say if I have never read the book or have an understanding of it.

That being said my review can be summed up with a shoulder shrug. If I said it followed the book to closely I would be wrong and if I said it needed to do more I would be wrong.
 
The vast majority of the audience in my theatre assumed the Comedian was Robert Downey Jr., and I knew with almost complete certainty that it wasn't, but was so flabbergasted by the general assumption by all those around me that it was in fact him that I convinced myself it was. I knew it wasn't :lol
 
Bullet points:

-Dr. Manhattan has a nice penis. Srsly. Some people laughed, not that many though, I was expecting more people to.

-Nixon's nose was too big. More distracting than big blue.

-Malin Akerman didn't bother me that much except at the last scene on
Mars
.

-Rorschach & Dr. Manhattan were perfect, especially the former.

-The fight scenes were awesome. I jumped out of my seat when Night Owl
broke that dude's arm in the alley
.

-The new ending was well done.

-Personally I feel that they did a great job however I would have liked some more transitions so it flows better, but at the same time less transitions makes your mind analyze/talk about each section when taking in the whole,
which preserves the novel I suppose.

-The changes were ballsy, but most of them paid off. I hope it performs well and with the exception of Iron Man 2, kills superhero movies for atleast a decade. :D

8.5/10
 
Went to see this yesterday and I mostly liked it, it was so surreal seeing the GN come to life. There were good bits and bits that were less good. My main gripe with the movie is the choice of music during certain scenes. Tyler Bates did an awesome job on the sound track, but hearing Nena - 99 Luftballons was a bit too much if you ask me. Rorschach is the man, Haley did a great job. I still can't be satisfied with the ending though, it just doesn't make as much sense if you ask me. Dr. Manhattan is also great, great performance by Billy Crudup. The intro was amazing as well. The Mars scenes were great. I really got that lonely feeling when Manhattan leaves for Mars. Veidt, ehm not so much IMO. Goode is way too young, and it just doesn't feel like Ozzy from the GN. Seeing Bubastis was great though, and the battle between
Ozzy and Rorschach and Nite Owl II
was great. One of the things which bother me the most is that somehow to me, the movie doesn't feel as dark as the GN does, this is also due to the sometimes weirdly chosen music. Comedian was great also. I think I want to see the director's cut. Some changes struck me as wrong, like
how Rorschach reclaims his costume. In the GN Nite Owl takes Kovacs home and there he has a spare suit, but in the movie, Rorschach goes to Dr. Long's office and conviscates his costume.
. God, Rorschach was awesome.
The whole prison thing was so well executed.
 
I think the director's cut may help with the transition between things but who knows what went to the cutting floor...

I just know that I want to see it. :D
 
Oh and the Soundtrack was *ace* 80% of the time....

The other 20% it was terrible.
Eg: 99 Luft Balloons, Watchtower. WT is awesome, but not in the context of the scene.
 
I thought the movie was awesome. My girlfriend who is a dyed-in-the-wool Watchmen fan even loved it. I really don't know what else to say that hasn't been said before.

Tr4nce said:
Comedian was great also.

I would pay any money to have the Comedian picture-in-picture commentary for the disc release, douchebag smile and all. Do it Zack Snyder. Give Jeff a call.
 
one of my favorite comic book movie adaptations, though i don't particularly like the
change to the ending climax.

with the music -- i was at odds with it while watching it, but i have an opinion on what they were doing and i think it's interesting. the movie focused a lot on rorschach and i think the soundtrack decisions played into his theme. it seems to me that each song presented a sort of 'what do you think of when you hear this?' query -- as if they were audio ink blots playing simultanesouly with the visuals.

of course it could also be seen as going the other way -- 'what song do you think of when you see this type of scene' where the visuals are the inkblot and the song is the first thing that comes to mind
 
Buckethead said:
Eg: 99 Luft Balloons, Watchtower. WT is awesome, but not in the context of the scene.


Well Watchtower was quoted when Ozzy was watching the televisions in the graphic novel
so I think it fit fairly well.
 
birdman said:
Well Watchtower was quoted when Ozzy was watching the televisions in the graphic novel
so I think it fit fairly well.

I like the quote in print, but its one of those things that doesn't translate.
 
I'm somewhere in the C+ to B- range. The beginning and end were both very strong.

The middle just sort of muddled through. I think it failed to actually develop the characters and instead just hit the checklist of the major scenes they had to do.

The beginning and end where they played a little looser with the script wound up being the best parts. I am not unhappy with the movie, but I'm not really satisfied either.
 
birdman said:
It probably would've worked better if it wasn't used for the whole scene and just for a snippet.

Yeah was thinking the same as it was playing.
It's distracting, takes you out of the emotional context of what's going on.

Need to watch it again to take everything in. I'm off to sleep though. PEace.
 
Also, my theater started the movie FOURTY MINUTES LATE.

I already have to be up at 7AM. That extra time is going to hurt.
 
First of all: I am not a troll. I made a post the other day about Watchmen being "the worst movie I've never seen", but that was simply a joke that derived its humor from the very absurdity of the statement. I was actually somewhat excited to see this and even expected good things-- at the very least, entertainment-- so I certainly didn't go into the movie with my mind made up.

Anyway, the closest thing I can compare this movie to is Transformers, in that both films moved me to experience very similar feelings in the vein of desperation, soullessness, and the complete emptiness of life as rendered by Les Auteurs Garbages Bay and Snyder. I never cared that much for the book in the first place, but that's completely irrelevant-- as a single entity, regardless of source material, this is one horrid, stinking pile of celluloid.

edit: wait, Transformers was less boring.
 
Just over 24 hours until I go to see it.

At the moment I don't know what to expect. On the one hand this is Watchmen, my favourite book of all time, and the thought of seeing those characters on the big screen does make me all smiley. On the other hand, for a long time I was firmly in the camp that said it was un-filmable and any adaptation could never hope to match the book.

Then of course there is the fact that I am going into the movie knowing that there is about 60 minutes worth of footage waiting to be put back into the film, so I'm not getting the 'proper' Watchmen film experience.... which is kind of a shitter really.

If nothing else, it'll be an interesting experience.
 
Clevinger said:
Go back a page and see his retarded rant about being tired of us idiot masses enjoying our narratives unfolding for the first time, while he's content enjoying every Shakespeare story over and over again because he doesn't need it.

Yeah, he's that awful.

Happy to be of service.

Just got back from the picture. I'm not mad at it. It was pretty bone-headed in parts, slavishly faithful in others and utterly devoid of imagination. A brighter filmmaker would have taken the opportunity of such a gorgeous pastiche and play with the form of film the way the comic played with the form of comic book narrative.

You can tell he was trying:

When Dr. Manhattan is in Vietnam there's Vagner on the soundtrack. And you could tell there was an ounce of effort to make the war room where Nixon and Agnew chill look like Dr. Strangelove. But that stuff is incidental and maybe a little accidental.

I found the soundtrack a bit Forrest Gumpy and obvious. I totally expected to see Silk Spectre trying on outfits in a changing room montage to Katrina and the Waves' "Walking on Sunshine"

But over all I'm mostly okay with the movie. There was a twenty-something kid in front of me who was righteously angry about the changes and I felt for him. Especially because his girlfriend was being patient, but was a little annoyed at her little Alan Moore acolyte. I could see me getting worked up that way ten years ago, but I think I'm too old now to muster that kind of fury.

I'm sure my distaste for the flick will grow later when all the 300 kids start cooing over what a righteous hero Rorshach was.

So, yeah, can I start getting pissed off about the Top Ten movie yet?
 
gamerecks said:
Same here, always snickers. Come on, its a dong, everyone has seen one.
:lol

Flynn said:
When Dr. Manhattan is in Vietnam there's Vagner on the soundtrack. And you could tell there was an ounce of effort to make the war room where Nixon and Agnew chill look like Dr. Strangelove. But that stuff is incidental and maybe a little accidental.

the Dr. Strangelove look is given on purpose.
 
NullPointer said:
- They don't skimp on any violence - if anything there is far more of it in the movie than in the comic.
It's gratuitous and basicly gore porn, lacking any kind of emotional impact beyond "fuck yeah that one's nasty". They really missed the point on that one, and on many other aspects as an adaptation. On the other hand, it really is fun to look at all that juice.
 
Prime crotch said:
It's gratuitous and basicly gore porn, lacking any kind of emotional impact beyond "fuck yeah that one's nasty". They really missed the point on that one, and on many other aspects as an adaptation. On the other hand, it really is fun to look at all that juice.
Well said.
 
Just got back.

  • I felt that the acting was noticeably contrived in this.
  • The new ending does a nice job of tying itself up, but I enjoy the comic ending more.
  • They cut A LOT of stuff out. (Here's hoping the extended version(s) fill everything in, and possibly have the original ending.) The movie also jumps EVERYWHERE. I don't know how a non-reader could keep up with it.
  • I felt that some of the violence was unnecessary.
  • Fight choreography was great.
  • Best acting parts, in my opinion, were Rorschach and The Comedian. Nite-Owl was good, too - but nothing extraordinary.
  • Dr. Manhattan's reminiscence scene was done well, but was missing a lot. (As expected.)
  • Despite being a lengthy film, I felt that the movie was substance-less. It lacked... Something.

2/5
 
Holy shit everyone has blown the Manhattan nudity WAY out of fucking proportion. It's about as much as there was in the GN.

MODERATELY SPOILER LADEN CRITIQUE BELOW:

The only way this adaptation could have been any better would have been to cast Langella or Hopkins as Nixon, Tom Cruise as Ozy, and getting rid of Bubastis since the lack of squid eliminates her reason for existence. And perhaps getting the old people makeup on a Benjamin Button level. Other than that, this adaptation was PERFECT. The music choices that everyone said were stupid were far from it. They were RIGHT ON THE MARK, including the Watchtower part and the sex scene.

My mind is blown right now. This exceeded my already high expectations. My friend I brought with me who is by NO means "of the geek cloth" and never read the comic LOVED it and understood all of it. He never got bored.

And HOW IN THE FUCK can you put this on the same level as Transformers which put the flames on Prime and turned Jazz into the token black guy who says nothing but ebonics phrases and then dies?
 
polyh3dron said:
Holy shit everyone has blown the Manhattan nudity WAY out of fucking proportion. It's about as much as there was in the GN.

MODERATELY SPOILER LADEN CRITIQUE BELOW:

The only way this adaptation could have been any better would have been to cast Langella or Hopkins as Nixon, Tom Cruise as Ozy, and getting rid of Bubastis since the lack of squid eliminates her reason for existence. And perhaps getting the old people makeup on a Benjamin Button level. Other than that, this adaptation was PERFECT. The music choices that everyone said were stupid were far from it. They were RIGHT ON THE MARK, including the Watchtower part and the sex scene.

My mind is blown right now. This exceeded my already high expectations. My friend I brought with me who is by NO means "of the geek cloth" and never read the comic LOVED it and understood all of it. He never got bored.

And HOW IN THE FUCK can you put this on the same level as Transformers which put the flames on Prime and turned Jazz into the token black guy who says nothing but ebonics phrases and then dies?

Listen and understand. This is GAF. This forum can't be reasoned with, can't be bargained with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear and it absolutely will not stop bitching EVER until you are dead.
 
polyh3dron said:
And HOW IN THE FUCK can you put this on the same level as Transformers which put the flames on Prime and turned Jazz into the token black guy who says nothing but ebonics phrases and then dies?
i don't get this, either. transformers was like Street Fighter The Movie bad. some people on neoGAF are just plain demented.
 
Just got back from the IMAX midnight showing

I'm VERY conflicted about this movie. I definitely liked it but....it's not Watchmen the book. I feel like if this movie is peoples first experience with Watchmen they probably won't like it at all. I really think it's integral to read the book first.
 
Acid08 said:
Just got back from the IMAX midnight showing

I'm VERY conflicted about this movie. I definitely liked it but....it's not Watchmen the book. I feel like if this movie is peoples first experience with Watchmen they probably won't like it at all. I really think it's integral to read the book first.
I've got 3 friends who just saw it without reading the GN and they all enjoyed it immensely. Also, Nicolas Cage's hair is a bird. Your argument is invalid.
 
Ford Prefect said:
First of all: I am not a troll. I made a post the other day about Watchmen being "the worst movie I've never seen", but that was simply a joke that derived its humor from the very absurdity of the statement. I was actually somewhat excited to see this and even expected good things-- at the very least, entertainment-- so I certainly didn't go into the movie with my mind made up.

Anyway, the closest thing I can compare this movie to is Transformers, in that both films moved me to experience very similar feelings in the vein of desperation, soullessness, and the complete emptiness of life as rendered by Les Auteurs Garbages Bay and Snyder. I never cared that much for the book in the first place, but that's completely irrelevant-- as a single entity, regardless of source material, this is one horrid, stinking pile of celluloid.

edit: wait, Transformers was less boring.

http://filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/watchmen.htm

read this. I posted this half a page earlier - I also agree that the movie is quite dull/souless. Thing about this review. It nails the bits I thought the film did right:

the start (The unforgettable/comedian fight + intro (minutemen) sequence ) was amazing and promised/hinted at a great film following. What we got was as you said " horrid, stinking pile of celluloid."
 
It was okay. This movie isn't for people who haven't read the comic; they will just be lost for the most part. The pacing was bad.

Zack Snyder was a bad choice from the start. His slow-mo and choice to glorify the action almost RUINED the film, if it weren't for some moments of brilliance (I'll get to that later). Watchmen was supposed to be grounded in reality, yet the comedian breaking walls? Adrien jumping around like a bunny? wtf..this isn't the matrix.

I went with 4 other guys, two of them thought it was okay, one of them (who had read watchmen like me) thought it was quite good and then there was one other guy who downright HATED it. lol.

I hear all the praise for Rorschach, but to me Billy Crudup's Doc Manhatten was SPOT FUCKING ON. The voice, mannerisms, body language was exactly how I envisioned the doc. Obviously Rorschach wasn't bad because he got the best lines. I really wanted to see more of the Comedian, and Viedt was alright. Nite Owl and Silk Spectre were forgettable.

My favourite scenes are the intro (with these times are a changin'), Manhatten backstory(anything with Crudup's Manhatten) and the Rorschach scenes. I like the brutality, but snyder went over the top.

As expected, the ending was a fuck-up, but they did as much as possible to make sense of it.

All in all, I'd say it was an average adaptation of an exceptional comic book.

6.5/10

P.S. That nixon make up was horrible.
 
just got back from watching it!
it was pretty good, i thought the acting was amazing
i guess when all is said and done it felt pretty disjointed, but it was an impressive movie all around
 
polyh3dron said:
I've got 3 friends who just saw it without reading the GN and they all enjoyed it immensely. Also, Nicolas Cage's hair is a bird. Your argument is invalid.
Ah, after reading all the negativity, this thread has been blessed.
 
Saw it with a mate.


Terrible.


The thing is, I'm not sure if the movie is bad or that it simply made me realise how terrible the comic was (changes aside, I came home and flipped through the book and yep, it's almost verbatim) or both.

If it wasn't obvious before that Moore hates women then this movie beats you in the face with it, Snyder obviously being on the same page (ha!) as Moore in regards to misogyny.

What bothered me most was the sheer amount of contradictions (character motivations, the strawman riddled plot) and the ill-defined message the movie was trying to communicate. It didn't help that the soul-crushingly destroying pessimism and nihilism made it hard to empathise or just give a fuck about anyone or the world Moore/Snyder conceived of.

The director's cut may smooth over a few bumps but I doubt the fundamentals will change much.

As for the rest, well, the acting was fairly wooden and disconnected for the most part (which is what happens when you cast people based on their similarities to the characters they're based on and not acting ability, although The Comedian was always enjoyable to watch when he was on screen) and most of the music choices were poorly chosen and incongruous. Visually the movie looked good but failed to capture Gibbon's solid, vivid imagery and Jesus on a pogo-stick, I wish Snyder had a setting between gratuitous slo-mo and blink-and-you'll-miss-it quick cuts.

Ah, well, it was still better than The Dark Knight.
 
Witchfinder General said:
Saw it with a mate.


Terrible.


The thing is, I'm not sure if the movie is bad or that it simply made me realise how terrible the comic was (changes aside, I came home and flipped through the book and yep, it's almost verbatim) or both.

If it wasn't obvious before that Moore hates women then this movie beats you in the face with it, Snyder obviously being on the same page (ha!) as Moore in regards to misogyny.

What bothered me most was the sheer amount of contradictions (character motivations, the strawman riddled plot) and the ill-defined message the movie was trying to communicate. It didn't help that the soul-crushingly destroying pessimism and nihilism made it hard to empathise or just give a fuck about anyone or the world Moore/Snyder conceived of.

The director's cut may smooth over a few bumps but I doubt the fundamentals will change much.

As for the rest, well, the acting was fairly wooden and disconnected for the most part (which is what happens when you cast people based on their similarities to the characters they're based on and not acting ability, although The Comedian was always enjoyable to watch when he was on screen) and most of the music choices were poorly chosen and incongruous. Visually the movie looked good but failed to capture Gibbon's solid, vivid imagery and Jesus on a pogo-stick, I wish Snyder had a setting between gratuitous slo-mo and blink-and-you'll-miss-it quick cuts.

Ah, well, it was still better than The Dark Knight.

:lol
 
My cousin, who has not read the comics, did not care for:

-penis

-comedian
raping and also killing that korean woman

-rorschach's
finding that little girl with that killer

And I can see this movie not being accepted by the general audience possibly because some of these things.

Buckethead said:
-Nixon's nose was too big. More distracting than big blue.
Yes.

Nixon plus the original Silk Spectre's makeup job (as an older woman) were so horrible.

Other than that, I dig the new/changed ending from the comics, I thought it was a pretty good flick.
 
I loved the movie, and I don't give a shit about comics. Also, fuck the fanboys who couldn't stop criticizing the movie, and whatever was different from the comic book. Get a fucking life. One dude got yelled at for criticizing some changes out loud, and some other fanboys were shaking their heads at the end of the movie. Some people are just too fucking silly. I wish I had taken pictures of the bitter tears.
 
To those people who have seen the movie:

How many people walked out when the Comedian
shot the vietnamese pregnant lady

My friend (who hadn't read the comic) next to me was like "fuck this shit" and almost walked out before I stopped him. Damn, a lot of people were outraged by that than the blue peins. :lol

Personally, that was one of my favourite scenes. Now I wish I could see more of Jeffery Dean Morgan as the comedian.
 
dmshaposv said:
To those people who have seen the movie:

How many people walked out when the Comedian
shot the vietnamese pregnant lady

My friend (who hadn't read the comic) next to me was like "fuck this shit" and almost walked out before I stopped him. Damn, a lot of people were outraged by that than the blue peins.

Here's hoping the Director's Cut has the extended scene where Manhattan
inserts his gigantic, now pulsating neon penis into the corpse of the pregnant mother after the Comedian leaves.
 
dmshaposv said:
To those people who have seen the movie:

How many people walked out when the Comedian
shot the vietnamese pregnant lady

My friend (who hadn't read the comic) next to me was like "fuck this shit" and almost walked out before I stopped him. Damn, a lot of people were outraged by that than the blue peins. :lol

Personally, that was one of my favourite scenes. Now I wish I could see more of Jeffery Dean Morgan as the comedian.

Did they really change it so that Doc is like yelling during that scene? It looks that way in the commercial and the whole point is that it barely registers. He raises his hand and that's it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom