Watchmen trailer

[Battlehymn Republic]

Isn't the Director's Cut like three hours long, plus it has The Black Freighter and a documentary?

[weemadando]

Save it for the DVD.

Anyhow - that trailer was pretty good.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan fucking *NAILS* The Comedian.

The others were all pretty damn sweet too.

I particularly liked Night Owl and the Owl-ship. The traditional costume and ship looks fairly dumb on the page but beautiful in motion.

[Anguirus]

The teaser was absolutely aimed at the fans. They are the ones that they have to convince. They'll release an action-crammed generic trailer to grab the peons.

As a fan...I'm cautiously optimistic. The teaser got a lot of shit right.

[Battlehymn Republic]

I thought it was pretty action-oriented, actually. Maybe it's the best of both worlds.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Will I be more excited about it after I read the comic?

I dunno'...what're your opinions on mass murder?

No but seriously. There are countless nerds who beat their dicks raw about it, like everything else Alan Moore does, for some reason. It's not nearly as good as they'll tell you but it's competently writen, very suspenseful and the dialogue and characterization is quite well done. It's worth your money, i'd say, but don't expect your mind to be blown.

I await a generic comeback about my 'taste'; make it quick though i have a busy day. I'm a big strong grown up and i have grown up things to do.

[Stark]

Yeah, a thoughtful exploration of the nature of power whereby someone commits mass murder to highlight the ambiguity of the whole superhero/supervillan thing, wow, you'd want to be a mass murder supporter to enjoy that!

[18-Till-I-Die]

Yeah, a thoughtful exploration of the nature of power whereby someone commits mass murder to highlight the ambiguity of the whole superhero/supervillan thing, wow, you'd want to be a mass murder supporter to enjoy that!

Since i did enjoy it, i dont believe that's true. But thanks for strawmanning dude.

[Molyneux]

Will I be more excited about it after I read the comic?

I dunno'...what're your opinions on mass murder?

No but seriously. There are countless nerds who beat their dicks raw about it, like everything else Alan Moore does, for some reason. It's not nearly as good as they'll tell you but it's competently writen, very suspenseful and the dialogue and characterization is quite well done. It's worth your money, i'd say, but don't expect your mind to be blown.

I await a generic comeback about my 'taste'; make it quick though i have a busy day. I'm a big strong grown up and i have grown up things to do.

Let me guess, you're a fun of ASSBAR.

I'm always of mixed feelings about Alan Moore - but I am looking forward to seeing Watchmen, though I honestly can't help but hope that they change what happens to the original Nite Owl a bit. Guess I'm just too soft-hearted.

[18-Till-I-Die]

I sometimes have fun with my ass, usually my girlfriend has more fun with hers but i dont hate it .

I'm not sure what an ASSBAR is however...am i behind the times on some meme?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Mmm, but being serious for a moment...

I was never a huge fan of Alan Moore, but i DO recognize that he does characterization and dialogue very well, which seems to be his 'thing', and he can write very tense stories.

Though i dont cum all over myself whenever he puts pen to paper or bristle like a 12-year-old whenever someone so much as breathes a word about him that isn't almost religious praise, so i'm not part of his "fanbase" i guess.

Watchmen was good, as a story, as a book. Like i said it's worth your money, and seriously i'm actually going to see the movie. But this retarded fanboyism about it is irksome, especially since people seem incapable of accepting that the designated bad guy of the peice is, yes, a bad person...it's like those people who get upity when you talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Harry Potter with anything but breathless praise.

Cause, you know, you cant LIKE a story and DISAGREE with it's moral right? It's an either or thing, black and white, good or evil...oh wait...

[Stark]

Since i did enjoy it, i dont believe that's true. But thanks for strawmanning dude.

Okay, you mentioned 'mass murder' as a litmus test for whether you'll enjoy the book for no reason. Sorry I jumped to the conclusion it was relevant.

That you later state that you disagree with the books 'moral' simply shows that you missed the point. I'm sure you can quote where Watchmen claims Veidt was moral or right or anything other than a ruthless villain who forced the heroes into a situation they couldn't handle and killed millions of people.

It's ironic you've got a point -ie, that you can enjoy fiction involving things that are wrong or bad.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Since i did enjoy it, i dont believe that's true. But thanks for strawmanning dude.

Okay, you mentioned 'mass murder' as a litmus test for whether you'll enjoy the book for no reason. Sorry I jumped to the conclusion it was relevant.

It was a joke, a dig at the ending, i hoped i had made that clear when i said "No but seriously.", as in, "No i'm kidding but heres what i really think" then i gave a fairly detailed idea of what i think: it's atmosphereic and well done, but i disagree with it.

That you later state that you disagree with the books 'moral' simply shows that you missed the point.

Then please, what was the point? That "OMG Ambiguous! Grey area!" load, cause maybe i've been thinking too highly of it. Here i thought it was a character study of flawed superheroes, who inevitably fail in their attempt to defeat evil, i.e. a deconstruction of actual superhero comics. Which is ironic cause i usually hate deconstruction as it's horribly cliche 90% of the time, though i thought Watchmen dodged that bullet (probably not really, but that may be because i was able to relate to the characters better than most deconstructions where the characters are just mouth peices for the writer, which thankfully Moore tends to shy away from doing...always a plus).

I'm sure you can quote where Watchmen claims Veidt was moral or right or anything other than a ruthless villain who forced the heroes into a situation they couldn't handle and killed millions of people.

Did i say that was the moral? I dont recall i did. The moral was, to me, this idea that there is no objective good or bad only a utilitarian "gray area", and that clinging to such notions as good and evil is wrong somehow. They never made an attempt to make Ozy seem like a good guy (hence when i said, Designated Bad Guy in another post) but at the same time they really didnt criticize or try to point out the flaws (oh my the flaws!) in his "master plan", instead pushing the idea that it was "wrong but necessary", even though it may or may not have been depending on how one takes certain parts of the story.

It's ironic you've got a point -ie, that you can enjoy fiction involving things that are wrong or bad.

I never said you couldnt. You just assumed i disliked it cause i dont praise it endlessly and i disagree with the idea at the core--this "moral relativism" crap--i dont seem to understand why fans of series that promotes the idea there is no binary right or wrong can be so dead set on the idea that people either like it or hate it. And ironically, my opinion on it exists in a gray area between the two, as i can appreciate the product but not the meaning it pushes.

[18-Till-I-Die]

It's also worth noting that even Alan Moore feels he kind of took it a bit too far, and later said (paraphrasing):

"It reflected a bad mood i was in 15 years ago"

When asked why he was writing more traditional superhero comics, like the ABC Line and that breif stint on Youngblood in 98. Forgot where i read that, i think Wizard. I could track it down, if you dont believe me, but it'll take a while.

[Stark]

Wait, what? You say you 'knew' the point wasn't that Veidt is a great guy, and then say that 'grey areas' (which I assume means anything worthy of discussion or thought-provoking) are bad. What IS your position? Make a positive statement.

I can dig your point about 'good' fiction not necessarily being 'fiction you agree with', but your previous posts were just general unsupported comments. Since I don't remember any part of Watchmen saying the things you say you don't like, I'm not sure where this attitude comes from or what your argument is. In the book nobody ever says Veidt is right, his actions are treated with revulsion, reluctant acceptance under duress or suicide by characters and God's final words in the story refuse to give him closure. That you personally think it wouldn't work - when it did - is irrelevant. The book appears to make no moral statement about it either way - it's not 'grey' it deosn't say it's 'kind of' or 'sorta' right, it leaves it up to the reader to decide.

Holy shit, I've just got to quote this for everyone. Hold on.

It's ironic you've got a point -ie, that you can enjoy fiction involving things that are wrong or bad.

I never said you couldnt.

.. what?

I make a positive statement ('you have a point about x') and you make an unconnected statement ('I never said that x was wrong'). I don't get it. I just agreed with you, and you're arguing. Are you a troll?

[Stark]

It's also worth noting that even Alan Moore feels he kind of took it a bit too far, and later said (paraphrasing):

"It reflected a bad mood i was in 15 years ago"

When asked why he was writing more traditional superhero comics, like the ABC Line and that breif stint on Youngblood in 98. Forgot where i read that, i think Wizard. I could track it down, if you dont believe me, but it'll take a while.

Yeah, writer's statements directly affect the events of the book, especially in unreferenced, paraphrased statements.

You might have noticed, but Moore is a pretty cranky guy all round, and he was just a tiny bit political during the 80s. What a revealation! V for what now? Thatcher? Where?

[Anguirus]

I'm a big strong grown up and i have grown up things to do.

You don't say.

[18-Till-I-Die]

The apocalyptic bleakness of comics over the past 15 years sometimes seems odd to me, because it's like that was a bad mood that I was in 15 years ago. It was the 1980s, we'd got this insane right-wing voter fear running the country, and I was in a bad mood, politically and socially and in most other ways. So that tended to reflect in my work. But it was a genuine bad mood, and it was mine. I tend to think that I've seen a lot of things over the past 15 years that have been a bizarre echo of somebody else's bad mood. It's not even their bad mood, it's mine, but they're still working out the ramifications of me being a bit grumpy 15 years ago. So, for my part, I wouldn't say that my new stuff is all bunny rabbits and blue-skies optimism, but it's probably got a lot more of a positive spin on it than the work I was doing back in the '80s. This is a different century.

That's the exact quote. It's all pissy and British, of course, but you can get the idea.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Isn't the Director's Cut like three hours long, plus it has The Black Freighter and a documentary?

No, right now the theatrical cut is at three hours, but they want him to cut it down.

The Director's Cut is upwards of four hours, and that's without The Black Freighter, which is going to be a separate release as far as I know.




OH AND HAY GAIS LET'S ALL DISCUSS MAJOR PLOT POINTS OF THE GRAPHIC NOVEL IN THIS THREAD ABOUT THE TRAILER, WHEN PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T READ IT ARE READING!

Dumbasses.

[Molyneux]

I sometimes have fun with my ass, usually my girlfriend has more fun with hers but i dont hate it .

I'm not sure what an ASSBAR is however...am i behind the times on some meme?

Er...
"All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder", written by Frank Miller. I'm not entirely sure where "ASSBAR" got its start as a nickname for that series, but it certainly seems to apply.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That was pretty good. I just hope the atmosphere is kept for the movie itself, and it's nice that they had scenes using direct copies of frames from the novel itself e.g. the awesome Dr. Manhattan vaping commies in Vietnam bit.

[Rye]

That actually looks quite good. Zack Snyder is probably my favourite modern director, so I'll trust him to make a good product that will probably get the core story of Watchmen across well. It'll be faster-paced, more action-oriented and updated, sexier (see Silk Spectre), but the characters and the contemplations should still have enough room to shine through. It won't be as exhaustive as the graphic novel, clearly, and it'll miss stuff out that would've translated to dead air on the big screen with a mainstream audience.

If they do it right.

The visuals are good, Snyder's got a good record, optimism seems warranted.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That actually looks quite good. Zack Snyder is probably my favourite modern director, so I'll trust him to make a good product that will probably get the core story of Watchmen across well. It'll be faster-paced, more action-oriented and updated, sexier (see Silk Spectre), but the characters and the contemplations should still have enough room to shine through. It won't be as exhaustive as the graphic novel, clearly, and it'll miss stuff out that would've translated to dead air on the big screen with a mainstream audience.

If they do it right.

The visuals are good, Snyder's got a good record, optimism seems warranted.

If those runtimes above are accurate, I think it could cover the core themes quite in-depth. You can't have 3-4 hours of action, and there isn't a heap load of action scenes outside ones shown in the trailer itself.

[Big Orange]

I really like the spoof commericial campaign on YouTube where people are making their own TV commercials for Adrian Veidt's consumer products (some will be used in the movie to flesh out the fictional Watchmen setting like the 'Media Break' segments did in RoboCop).

[Rye]

If those runtimes above are accurate, I think it could cover the core themes quite in-depth. You can't have 3-4 hours of action, and there isn't a heap load of action scenes outside ones shown in the trailer itself.

Bear in mind the action quotient of the Fellowship of the Rings from book to film. A hollywood film will be a lot more dynamic than a book or most early graphic novels, especially ones from the 80s (modern stuff like the early ultimates is basically a movie script on its own, however). A direct "Sin City" or "300" approach to Watchmen would not work because of the differences in medium. Snyder knows how to adapt something right is all I'm saying; just look at his Dawn vs the frequently tedious Romero original.

[Manus Celer Dei]

Looks excellent. A lot of really cool little details in there; like when the shop window gets smashed you can see someone's spray-painted "Who watches the watchmen?" on it. And in the shot of the Comedian in Vietnam you can see Doctor Manhattan's huge leg in the background.

I wonder if they're going to use a lot of the stuff from Rorschach's journal as voiceovers.