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Watchmen Trailer

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Barely noticed Comedian's not wearing that "gimp mask" get-up during the crowd protest/owl ship scene. Guess they axed that iteration of his costume.
 
So uhh, I haven't been keeping track.

Are they butchering the story, or not? (Assume I'll regard any serious plot changes from the graphic novel re:
who lives/dies, who the villains are, the ending
as butchery)
 
Xisiqomelir said:
So uhh, I haven't been keeping track.

Are they butchering the story, or not? (Assume I'll regard any serious plot changes from the graphic novel re:
who lives/dies, who the villains are, the ending
as butchery)

Snyder sounded very committed to staying faithful to the comics from what I've read in interviews. The only change I see from the trailer is the slick, hyped up film direction that's typical with Snyder's last two movies.
 
I'm about halfway done with chapter 11.
It's so GOOD!

I can't wait to get to chapter 12. All I've heard about it is that it's the most epic thing ever.
 
Since Manhattan is the not so good guy, is he the one that says "the world will look up and shout save us, and I'll whisper no"? I really liked that line, it was a nice way to end the trailer.
 
Nope. You should read the book or be spoiler free for the Movie and then read the book. Either way don't detract from the initial impact of this story with spoiling yourself.
 
Best to think of Manhattan as a flawed God. Ambivalent, utterly powerful, and not personally vengeful in the least, but capable of being used for the greatest good or alternately, the greatest evil.
 
Rice-Eater said:
Since Manhattan is the not so good guy, is he the one that says "the world will look up and shout save us, and I'll whisper no"? I really liked that line, it was a nice way to end the trailer.

That's one of the first lines in the book, actually; from Rorschach.

"The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'save us!'... And I will look down and whisper
'no.'"
 
JayDubya said:
That's one of the first lines in the book, actually; from Rorschach.

"The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'save us!'... And I will look down and whisper
'no.'"

So many great Rorschach lines... Even if you hate his worldview, he's a damn great character. Probably my favorite.
 
I just finished the book today (read Chap II through the end in one straight shot). It was so freaking awesome, I want to see the movie just to see how they do some of those scenes in live action.:D
 
Yeah, I'm just at the very end of Chap11.
I'm not convinced the movie will be good.
But seeing some of this stuff portrayed in motion with million dollar special effects will alone make this movie "worth it."
 
Has anyone read David Hayter's script? I'm skimming through it now and it feels pretty faithful to the book. Dunno what Tse changed, though.
 
Okay apparently the new ending

*MAJOR SPOILERS*
doesn't have the monster at all. instead making that white light from the end of the 11th chapter turn everyone in New York into "skeletons of ash"

everything else is mostly the same.
 
Xisiqomelir said:
I covered the screen with one hand when replying to you, so I haven't read the spoiler, but 'new ending' is an automatic 3-point deduction.
It's actually not so much a new ending but more.. removing something from the original ending.
 
Anasui Kishibe said:
yeah, good description for a fifth grade

but I guess it works well for that particular category Snyder is aimin at
Dude... the description is perfect. I am at an absolute loss as to how someone could say otherwise.

"In my movie, Superman hates humanity, Bruce Wayne can't get it up and the villain wants world peace."

Superman = Dr. Manhattan, clearly is not a fan of most of humanity at the end of the film and doesn't feel like he needs to save them like Superman feels obligated to do.

Bruce Wayne = Nite Owl.. did you forget the scene where he literally can't get it up?

villain = Ozymandias, wants world peace.

Again, I have no clue what your problem with that line is. It's quite clever.
 
The comic itself is very cinematic in presentation (but not in structure). Meaning, the progression of the plot is disjointed, it relies heavily on flashbacks and documentary narration that probably won't transfer well to film structurally. But it also offers numerous evocative scenes that look like movie stills, right in the book: several of those (but not by any means all of them) appear in the trailer, such as
Manhattan striding across the jungles of Vietnam, choppers over his shoulders, destroying the North Vietnamese troops with flashes of plasma.

If this movie is simply a collection of those images it won't be a very good film (but it might be a great spectacle). Can they pull it all together into a coherent narrative that matches the ambitions of the graphic novel? That's a mystery, and I'll doubt it until I see it.
 
Holy fucking crap.
I just finished it! :lol

It's the first comic book I've ever read.
It ended perfectly.


I don't even really know what to say. I need to compose my thoughts on it, but I don't think I quite liked it as much as most people do. There were a lot of parts that were somewhere in the realm of mediocre to awful. But as a whole it was brilliant. Definitely need to read again.

Are there any "must-read" essays on it floating about?
 
I still don't know why anyone would want to see Watchmen as a movie. It's not just a good comic, or a good story in comic book form. It's one of the greatest comic books ever written and it single-handedly proves the merit of comics as a medium (for anyone still on the fence). The novel sections between issues, the comic within a comic, the mirror issue, these are just a few of the things that can only be accomplished in the comic book medium. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons went through great pains to show that comics are neither a poor man's film, nor novels for people who don't like to read, but rather a medium that stands on its own unique strengths. It seems insulting to say, "yea that was pretty cool, but wouldn't it be awesome if the pictures could move?".
 
kame-sennin said:
I still don't know why anyone would want to see Watchmen as a movie. It's not just a good comic, or a good story in comic book form. It's one of the greatest comic books ever written and it single-handedly proves the merit of comics as a medium (for anyone still on the fence). The novel sections between issues, the comic within a comic, the mirror issue, these are just a few of the things that can only be accomplished in the comic book medium. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons went through great pains to show that comics are neither a poor man's film, nor novels for people who don't like to read, but rather a medium that stands on its own unique strengths. It seems insulting to say, "yea that was pretty cool, but wouldn't it be awesome if the pictures could move?".

I am in love with this post.
 
Holy fuck, that trailer made a believer. And I re-read the book without skipping the interludes like one month ago...
 
kame-sennin said:
I still don't know why anyone would want to see Watchmen as a movie. It's not just a good comic, or a good story in comic book form. It's one of the greatest comic books ever written and it single-handedly proves the merit of comics as a medium (for anyone still on the fence). The novel sections between issues, the comic within a comic, the mirror issue, these are just a few of the things that can only be accomplished in the comic book medium. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons went through great pains to show that comics are neither a poor man's film, nor novels for people who don't like to read, but rather a medium that stands on its own unique strengths. It seems insulting to say, "yea that was pretty cool, but wouldn't it be awesome if the pictures could move?".

Why not? I'm curious to see how they adapdt it into movie form and it should at least be entertaining. It's not like they're taking the comic away forever once the movie releases.
 
kame-sennin said:
I still don't know why anyone would want to see Watchmen as a movie. It's not just a good comic, or a good story in comic book form. It's one of the greatest comic books ever written and it single-handedly proves the merit of comics as a medium (for anyone still on the fence). The novel sections between issues, the comic within a comic, the mirror issue, these are just a few of the things that can only be accomplished in the comic book medium. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons went through great pains to show that comics are neither a poor man's film, nor novels for people who don't like to read, but rather a medium that stands on its own unique strengths. It seems insulting to say, "yea that was pretty cool, but wouldn't it be awesome if the pictures could move?".
Movies allow for a different experience, what are you so uptight about? It's more akin to "yea that was pretty cool, but wouldn't it be awesome if the art was interpreted into a live action environment and given complete audio and a set pacing?". And judging from the trailer, yes it would be awesome.

Seriously, the Owlship gave me freaking goosebumps.
 
kame-sennin said:
I still don't know why anyone would want to see Watchmen as a movie. It's not just a good comic, or a good story in comic book form. It's one of the greatest comic books ever written and it single-handedly proves the merit of comics as a medium (for anyone still on the fence). The novel sections between issues, the comic within a comic, the mirror issue, these are just a few of the things that can only be accomplished in the comic book medium. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons went through great pains to show that comics are neither a poor man's film, nor novels for people who don't like to read, but rather a medium that stands on its own unique strengths. It seems insulting to say, "yea that was pretty cool, but wouldn't it be awesome if the pictures could move?".

It's a great story that is still relevant considering the actual political climate. If Snyder is able to appropriate the story to himself and make a movie out of it that stands on its own, I'll be fucking happy. Plus, this will get more people to read the comic, can that be a bad thing? The V for Vendeta movie was a fucking travesti but it got people to read the great Alan Moore work the movie was based upon, AND.THAT.IS.GOOD.FOR.HUMANITY.
 
Being someone who knows practically nothing about the Watchmen, I have to say I thought this trailer was awesome. It definitely hyped me up for the film.
 
Jack Scofield said:
Being someone who knows practically nothing about the Watchmen, I have to say I thought this trailer was awesome. It definitely hyped me up for the film.

Same here... I will buy the comic book soon.
 
Costanza said:
Okay apparently the new ending

*MAJOR SPOILERS*
doesn't have the monster at all. instead making that white light from the end of the 11th chapter turn everyone in New York into "skeletons of ash"

everything else is mostly the same.


Major Spoilers:

er...doesn't that kind of ruin the whole point of his plan? If there isn't a big monster corpse then why wouldn't the Americans just think the Russians did it and start WW3?
 
I'd just like to say: where the fuck did this movie come from? While I've gotten pretty sceptical of trailers over the years (mission to mars case in point) this one was crazy amazing.
 
Ghost said:
Major Spoilers:

er...doesn't that kind of ruin the whole point of his plan? If there isn't a big monster corpse then why wouldn't the Americans just think the Russians did it and start WW3?
TBH the
whole alien thing
was the stupidest part of Watchmen. I don't really care if it's changed.
 
Na, the
Metaphysical, psychic stuff was stupid, killing half of new york with a 'psychic blast' was stupid, introducing a phoney alien race to resolve the cold war was the only part of the ending that actually made any sense.
 
Greatness Gone said:
Ozymandias' execution of his plan was dumb, really. Couldn't he have just bombed the shit out of New York instead?

Really, really silly.

No
Ozymandias needed a threat bigger than America and Russia for them to put aside their differences and unite against a bigger evil. If Ozy just bombed New York then America would either suspect Russia colluding with Ozy or they would just put him down and continue the Cold War.
 
wow, I can't believe some of you (don't read if you haven't read the comic) are disappointed with
the fake alien thing. It made perfect sense, because Veidt needed some massive weapon that couldn't be linked to any of the world superpowers. Using missiles would've had the opposite effect. He needed something out of this world to make his plan about world peace working, and it succeeded because noone on the planet could've said "Russians did it! Americans did it! Chinese did it!". It was perfect.


Meier said:
Dude... the description is perfect. I am at an absolute loss as to how someone could say otherwise.

"In my movie, Superman hates humanity, Bruce Wayne can't get it up and the villain wants world peace."

Superman = Dr. Manhattan, clearly is not a fan of most of humanity at the end of the film and doesn't feel like he needs to save them like Superman feels obligated to do.

Bruce Wayne = Nite Owl.. did you forget the scene where he literally can't get it up?

villain = Ozymandias, wants world peace.

Again, I have no clue what your problem with that line is. It's quite clever.

no, the description is spot on, it's just how he said it. Watchmen for dummies.
 
I was never really into comics while I was growing up, but a few years ago a friend leant me Watchmen which I absolutely loved, and afterwards I wanted to read more stuff so he leant me V for Vendetta, Morrison's The Invisibles, Gaiman's Sandman and Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan series (all British writers btw). As you can imagine normal superhero comics were more than a little flat and boring after reading those sort of things, and instead of waiting for more Watchmen type books I've decided to go ahead and write my own comic book mini series... so that's something I guess.
 
kame-sennin said:
I still don't know why anyone would want to see Watchmen as a movie. It's not just a good comic, or a good story in comic book form. It's one of the greatest comic books ever written and it single-handedly proves the merit of comics as a medium (for anyone still on the fence). The novel sections between issues, the comic within a comic, the mirror issue, these are just a few of the things that can only be accomplished in the comic book medium. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons went through great pains to show that comics are neither a poor man's film, nor novels for people who don't like to read, but rather a medium that stands on its own unique strengths. It seems insulting to say, "yea that was pretty cool, but wouldn't it be awesome if the pictures could move?".

You could say the same thing about 90% of the book adaptations out there as well. I don't see people railing against turning books into movies, though.
 
Guys, what can you tell me about the 'absolute' edition of Watchmen? Seems to be quite superior to the paperback one in every possible way (better / new coloring, additional material), but I'm worried it may prove to be a) too damn heavy, I understand the book weights more than 2kg!? and b) it may prove to be difficult to, you know, turn the pages, due to the book being hardcover.
 
Costanza said:
Okay apparently the new ending

*MAJOR SPOILERS*
doesn't have the monster at all. instead making that white light from the end of the 11th chapter turn everyone in New York into "skeletons of ash"

everything else is mostly the same.
There's more.
I read both the Hayter 2003 script, and the Tse 2005(?) script, and (honest-to-goodness spoiler even if you read the book)
Dan kills Veidt in both versions.

The fuck up the ending by killing him! That's supposed to be part of the moral quandary of the whole thing! Veidt kills millions, and is not punished! Instead they cop out with a fucking hollywood friendly "at least we kill him in the end" woot woot for teh heroes! Dan and Laurie are supposed to have effectively been converted over to Veidt! Rorshach is the lone dissenter, and he is killed for it.

Veidt is supposed to win. Completely. He has only his conscience to judge him. And if his discussion with Manhattan is any indication... it will.
 
Zabojnik said:
Guys, what can you tell me about the 'absolute' edition of Watchmen? Seems to be quite superior to the paperback one in every possible way (better / new coloring, additional material), but I'm worried it may prove to be a) too damn heavy, I understand the book weights more than 2kg!? and b) it may prove to be difficult to, you know, turn the pages, due to the book being hardcover.

It has a ton of suplemental stuff by Moore and Gibbons discussing the work. Perviously, that material had only been available in a limited edition hardcover (normal sized). It also has a lot of artwork-- sketches, teaser ads, etc.
 
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