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For all you naysayers...


SkyLion

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I have no hope for the Watchmen movie. There's a small chance it will be completely and overwhelmingly awesome, but it's more than likely going to blow hard. I loved 300, Snyder adapted that one spectacularly, but still...it's Watchmen. I can't think of many directors that would be able to handle it. It's near-impossible to film. Not to mention it's 12 issues long and every single issue is crucial to understanding the plot or the characters.

The film will likely cut out all of the Black Freighter material. And cut out the stuff from the romantic issue between Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. And cut out the issue narrated by Rorschach's psychiatrist. And I don't see how they'll be able to put in the backstories for Rorschach, Manhattan, Silk Specter, and Ozymandias. Silk Specter's background takes up a significant chunk of the comics, as does her mother's.

I don't have high hopes for this film.

Let's pray everything works out.

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IIRC, Ozymandias never really gets a full background tretment..its only alluded to obliquely. Everyone else is sort of flashbacks...

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Still i can understand your doubts...who wants to bet the are going to cut out the flashback in Nam when the Comedian murders the pregnant mother of his child? Or tries to rape the original silk spectre. A big theme in the book is showing what an incredible bastard he is, but that he is almost an avatar of the times he lives in...

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Yeah..they may need to go for NC-17 if they really want to do it justice.

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I agree as well...300 so rocked!

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Spoiler alert

Ozymandius's background is explained in the 11th issue I believe. He tells his servants before he kills them, and then continues telling it to Nite Owl and Rorschach. He ends his backstory narration with the revelation that he killed the Comedian and teleported his creature into NYC.

Edited with compliments by Phoenix, in the interests of not spoiling my favorite comic for anyone.

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SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

Ozymandius's background is explained in the 11th issue I believe. He tells his servants before he kills them, and then continues telling it to Nite Owl and Rorschach. He ends his backstory narration with the revelation that he killed the Comedian and teleported his creature into NYC.

Right, but that all happens "on screen" as it were. Itrs not like they have to spend 15 minutes in the beginning doing an origin flashback for Ozzy...

PS...for those here who havent read that you may want to put a big SPOILER ALERT before your last post...

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Right, but that all happens "on screen" as it were. Itrs not like they have to spend 15 minutes in the beginning doing an origin flashback for Ozzy...

Huh? What point are you trying to make exactly? I was just saying that the main characters all have backstories explained in various issues, and there's no way the movie can explain them all. Why point out Ozymandius' as being different?

Rorschach's background is revealed "on screen" via his sessions with Mal. How Ozymandius' background revealed differently? Doctor Manhattan narrates his to the reader after he arrives at Mars, not via flashback. Silk Spectre II explains her background to Dr Manhattan, in between conversations with him, just like Ozymandius does in issue 11.

The only actual flashback I can think of is issue 2's background for Silk Spectre I. She doesn't narrate anything, the story just plays itself.

I'm not being a hard ass, I just don't get what you're saying here...Ozzy's background gets the same treatment as anyone else's...

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calm down!

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its just that the backgrounds are intertwined with the fabric of the story. thats all Im saying. A clever filmaker could piece it together well I think. Originally they have a 2-1 1/2 hour screenplay with another 45 min-1 hr being a separate script for the black frieghter story. The say it may be in the DVD version. Persoanally Im not sure why youd watch the black frieghter segment separate from the movie. In the novel, it is merely a litterary device that coincides with events acting as a sort of surreal synched narrative. While it would be incredibly cool to see this in film I can see it also losing mainstream audiences. The other thing is that they will need to adjust the pacing of the story...alot happened in those issues! They will need to distill the conspiracy to its fundamental structure and assemble the plot in that manner.

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I agree its a huge bite they are taking...but lets give them the benefit of the doubt and reserve judgment for the final product, shall we?

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Having never read the Watchmen, I might not be able to understand the whole thing, but is it not the point of movies such as these that they actualy DONT try to do the whole series at once, so that they can do a follow up?

I mean, just look at Punisher, Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Superman, Spiderman, X-men, Batman (a lack of women here, I would start crying if I wherent a ninja) and Sin City. Ok, they did V for Vendetta in that manner, and 300 I presume, but after looking at V for Vendetta I can forgive the Wachowski Brothers for just about anything (They put babies on spikes? Im certain they had a good reason or it was for the best of the children. Think about that, think about the children, ::tongue ).

But, while on the subject of movies, what does people think about the new Transformers one? :transformer:

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Having never read the Watchmen, I might not be able to understand the whole thing, but is it not the point of movies such as these that they actualy DONT try to do the whole series at once, so that they can do a follow up?

I mean, just look at Punisher, Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Superman, Spiderman, X-men, Batman (a lack of women here, I would start crying if I wherent a ninja) and Sin City. Ok, they did V for Vendetta in that manner, and 300 I presume, but after looking at V for Vendetta I can forgive the Wachowski Brothers for just about anything (They put babies on spikes? Im certain they had a good reason or it was for the best of the children. Think about that, think about the children, ::tongue ).

But, while on the subject of movies, what does people think about the new Transformers one? :transformer:

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Watchmen will be a single movie. Seriously its not the kind of story that lends intself well to serialization....its more a self contained event. I couls maybe see it broken up into part 1 and 2 in Kill Bill style but it really is just one story.

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Cheesy Michael Bay dialogue and camp aside ("Get out of the chopper or we will KILL you!....") Transformers looks awesome...

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To be honest, in my opinion it would work best as a mini-series on SciFi channel or something. With many comic book adaptations they focus on the special effects at the expense of story; on a mini-series budget they would have to focus on storytelling and acting. In terms of special effects, we have a lot fewer in Watchmen than most superhero films; only Dr Manhattan has superpowers, they rest are highly trained baselines, more like pulp characters out of Adventure! who've grown older.

Here's an odd comparison: How many people saw the atrocious pile of gunk known as Dungeons & Dragons? That movie sucked hard, as we all know, but the direct-to-video sequel, while by no means a great movie, is actually a much better representation of D&D as it's actually played, and I think a big part of this was the lack of money: they had to use the tools they had.

With Watchmen I expect a movie that will look super-cool but be spiritually empty - I hope to god I'm wrong, but that's what my gut tells me. Moore is notoriously hard to adapt - I loved V for Vendetta, which I think is the closest to his tone and ideas to date, but they changed a lot, much to his disgust. Still a thousand times better than League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, in my opinion.

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I didn't like the V for Vendetta movie. The Wachowski brothers changed a lot of the basic premises of the story to their liking, to the point of almost betraying the original material. I personally hated how they made the villains into evil Christian dominators. Was that necessary? There's a reason Moore was angry with the film.

And don't get me started on the Wachowkis themselves. AFAIC the only good film they ever did was the first Matrix. Everything else they've ever done has been a flexing of their own egos.

You can't make a sequal to Watchmen. If you've read the story, you'd understand. It's just not the kind of story you follow-up.

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Watchmen originally came out in comic form, so technically it's a TPB, not a graphic novel... ::tongue

Actually, it was released in graphic novel format first (albeit serialized), and has never [technically] been released as a comic book. That is, it's always been perfectly bound (never saddle-stitched!), and it was one of the first series released in that format.

... how's that for pointless nit-picking? ::biggrin

Hah! Beat ya!

And, yeah, I'm very curious how they are going to pull it off, especially as it's one of those few stories where the bad guy wins in the end...Sure, World Peace is won, but at what a cost!

FR

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  • 4 months later...
  • 7 months later...

Yes, they've done a much better job than expected with the costumes, although they would've had to really try hard to mess up Rorshach's.

On a side note, there are reports that the Tales from the Black Freighter sub-story will also be included in the DVD as an animated feature.

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I wonder if they will have an option to "splice" the Black Freighter stuff into the main film at the appropriate places as in the novel.

It'd be a real treat if they did, that's for sure. ::sly As to whether it'll happen (assuming the reports are accurate), I'd guess it'd depend on how well the movie performs at the box office.

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  • 4 months later...

Just saw the trailer & was very impressed with how they depicted Dr. Manhattan. This movie is going to have 20 kinds of greatness all at once. Having the Black Freighter also on the DVD is going to be icing on the cake AFA I'm concerned. ::thumbup

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  • 7 months later...

I enjoyed it. If it were an Aberrant setting, I'd say that with the exception of Doctor Manhattan, the heroic people would probably be around Quantum 1-2 with Mega-Attributes and enhancements only.

Doctor Manhattan is a perfect example of the alienation that comes from being a Quantum 8 Nova with literal God-level powers.

As good a movie adaptation that could have been made in my opiniion, given the complexity of the source material.

JC

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