Let's Talk About Watchmen

[Havok]

I love the comic, I love the movie. I think both are great.

I have to say, that I like the Manhattan attacks across the globe in the movie better than I like the inter-dimensional space squid only attacks New York in the comic. It makes more sense. I do miss the sub plot of the scientist on the island though.

However, Snyder's use of violence with Specter and Owl runs very contradictory to the point the story is trying to convey in both mediums.

I also haven't seen the super ultra spend more money directors cut version with the Black Freighter integrated into it. Does it work? Does it through off the pacing of the movie? Are there other parts worked in that were in the graphic novel?

Man, the soundtrack for the movie is fucking awesome and Snyder killed it with the opening montage.

Thoughts?

[fgalkin]

Watchmen has two decent characters (and one really bad one), a somewhat interesting setting, and a really shitty plot. Both the comic and the movie's endings were equally bad (why would the world against something that they KNOW can destroy them, and is present (since they don't know Manhattan left), as opposed to a freak one-off alien appearance).

Movie violence is ridiculous and over the top. Opening montage is the best part of the movie.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Stark]

The movie is amazingly underwhelming, being basically any other Snyder movie with some ideas cribbed from a comic he read while drunk and spandex.

[Thanas]

The opening title montage is one of the best I have ever seen.

[Kingmaker]

I was underwhelmed by the graphic novel, but then I've never been very impressed by Alan Moore. The whole thing felt kind of clunky to be honest.

I liked the movie, unlike my friends. However, I wouldn't describe it as good so much as cheesy-awesome-ridiculous. I think having no attachment to the comic helped.

Agreed on the opening montage.

[bobalot]

I never heard of the graphic novel. I only learned of it after I saw the movie. It was pretty underwhelming for me. It felt a bit self-indulgent and was utterly boring.

[Havok]

Movie violence is ridiculous and over the top.

Y'know, I thought this too at first, as I said in the OP, but just flipping through the comic, it's really not.
The fight between Veidt and Blake at the beginning is more elaborate, as is the fight scene at the end between Veidt, Rorschach and Dan, but it is just an extension of what is already there. T
he fight in the alley with Sally and Dan and the thugs is about equally as bloody, it's just that the breaking arm stands out.

The only added violence is Blake fighting the riot crowd during the cop strike and Dan attacking Viedt after he sees Manhattan disintegrate Rorschach at Karnak. A fairly understandable reaction.

There is also some subtraction, as the destruction scene is far less violent and gory than the alien in the comic.

Watching the movie again, I am far less critical of the violence and fight scenes than I was the first time I watched it.

[Stark]

Hey can you scan me the panel where Comedian gets his head smashed through a granite countertop and gets back up? Thanks in advance.

Once I watched 300, I was even less impressed with the movie. So much of the direction is literally exactly the same (and bad) it really surprised me. At least there were no loincloths.

[Havok]

Hey can you scan me the panel where Comedian gets his head smashed through a granite countertop and gets back up? Thanks in advance.

You realize, I could actually draw and color that and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference right?

I get what you are saying, but I mean, what makes Blake The Comedian? What makes him a 'hero'? I like the scene because it shows that some of these guys are more than just your average dude dressed up in a costume.

I actually always thought that was missing from Watchmen. There were just guys in silly suits and some gadgets. I could take out the Watchmen with my H&K.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I like the scene because it shows that some of these guys are more than just your average dude dressed up in a costume.

That was kind of the point. They were only "heroes" in that they were crazy enough to go out dressed up and fight crime. Their attitude and resolve were the only things setting them apart from a normal person. They were glorified vigilantes.

[Gandalf]

I like the scene because it shows that some of these guys are more than just your average dude dressed up in a costume.

That was kind of the point. They were only "heroes" in that they were crazy enough to go out dressed up and fight crime. Their attitude and resolve were the only things setting them apart from a normal person. They were glorified vigilantes.

The movie pissed on that concept with the line stating that the force required to throw Blake through the window would require one to "step on the gas".

[Havok]

Uh, the comic pissed on that idea and DDP's 'point' when they showed that a man could catch a bullet. Or when Veidt stated that the brain of his squid monster was grown from a 'latent'. Obviously, there are more than just humans in costumes and Dr Manhattan. There is clearly a middle ground. The movie shows what it is, while the comic merely hints at it.

[open_sketchbook]

I think the Watchmen comic, while amazing in it's depth and innovative in it's take on the medium, ultimately suffered because Alan Moore let his take that at the comic industry and the meta commentary get in the way of the story. The ending, meant to be a poke at and deconstruct the tendancy in comics to resolve things with insane bullshit that comes out of nowhere, fails the story because it's insane bullshit that comes out of nowhere in a story that has until that point ridden on a very different tone. It's why I think the movie, especially the extended cut, ultimately handles the material better as a story; because it actually presents it as a story instead of as a literary commentary.

I'm not saying the comic is bad (it's still one of the best comics ever written), and obviously it gets brownie points for being first and being an incredible deconstruction of the medium, but I think the movie's alterations to the story improve on it as a narrative. I also like how it took it's own shots at comic book movies, like the Bat-nipples on Ozzy's suit. The movie still managed to avoid being surface oriented despite having a ton of stuff going on on the surface, which is a pretty impressive feat.

I never understood the whole "The comic is always better" mentality anyway; I have similar feelings towards the V for Vendetta movie, which I like for using the rough plot, setting and characters of V for Vendetta to tackle a different political climate, in a way that feels more true to the spirit of the work (rather than the substance) than if they had just straight adapted it as a commentary on British politics in the 1980s, released in 2005.

[Anguirus]

I think we already had this thread once. That said, I love the book and was EXTREMELY impressed by the movie.

I disliked 300, but I have no doubts about Snyder's directorial skill anymore. Like or don't like his style, but most people thought Watchmen was either going to be in development hell forever, or it would get a "relevant" reimagining to be about fucking post-9/11 terrorism. The guy made a faithful Watchmen that despite hyperbole from those who merely disliked the film, didn't suck.

When you can have a serious debate on whether the ending of the Hollywood version is BETTER than the comic ending, then you know this wasn't a crapped-out cash-in.

I also haven't seen the super ultra spend more money directors cut version with the Black Freighter integrated into it. Does it work? Does it through off the pacing of the movie? Are there other parts worked in that were in the graphic novel?

This is the version of the movie I own, and it works well enough. It was, of course, impossible--due to both the nature of the medium and the way the film was edited to stand alone--to replicate the panel-by-panel parallel scenes that Moore and Gibbons did, but the animation itself is very slickly produced, it's not too much longer than it ought to be (let's face it, with this version you are sitting down for a marathon) and in my opinion the subtext still comes across. I introduced my roommate and his girlfriend to Watchmen with this version of the film and they really dug it.

It also includes the scenes from the "normal" director's cut. There is a largely pointless scene with Laurie getting grilled by the Feds (I think this is supposed to explain where she got the gun at the end...but she grabbed an automatic and wound up with a revolver, oops) and a few other additions. But the BIG one is the heartwrenching scene where Hollis is murdered.

Also on the DVD as an extra is a fairly elaborately produced "documentary" about the Minutemen.

(Full disclaimer: my first date with my current girlfriend and love of my life was to see Watchmen in the theatre. I knew the book, she didn't. Apparently her whole plan was just to make out with me in the theatre but we were both too distracted by the awesome. And it took me another week to score with her in the end. )

[Bakustra]

I think the Watchmen comic, while amazing in it's depth and innovative in it's take on the medium, ultimately suffered because Alan Moore let his take that at the comic industry and the meta commentary get in the way of the story. The ending, meant to be a poke at and deconstruct the tendancy in comics to resolve things with insane bullshit that comes out of nowhere, fails the story because it's insane bullshit that comes out of nowhere in a story that has until that point ridden on a very different tone. It's why I think the movie, especially the extended cut, ultimately handles the material better as a story; because it actually presents it as a story instead of as a literary commentary.

I'm not saying the comic is bad (it's still one of the best comics ever written), and obviously it gets brownie points for being first and being an incredible deconstruction of the medium, but I think the movie's alterations to the story improve on it as a narrative. I also like how it took it's own shots at comic book movies, like the Bat-nipples on Ozzy's suit. The movie still managed to avoid being surface oriented despite having a ton of stuff going on on the surface, which is a pretty impressive feat.

I never understood the whole "The comic is always better" mentality anyway; I have similar feelings towards the V for Vendetta movie, which I like for using the rough plot, setting and characters of V for Vendetta to tackle a different political climate, in a way that feels more true to the spirit of the work (rather than the substance) than if they had just straight adapted it as a commentary on British politics in the 1980s, released in 2005.

So how would you have ended it? The point is not to throw cheap shots at the comic book industry, but to resolve the crisis of the world heading toward nuclear war and asking what the limits of heroism are. Both the endings are problematic. The movie's ending makes less sense the longer you think about it, while the comic's ending is nonsensical right from the start, but both serve the purpose of halting the course towards war and bringing up the problem of killing to save others. But you need something that is devastating, outside human experience, and can't become a spark to war. The comic is slightly better about this because people around the world received telepathic images from the squid so nobody could mistake it for an American/Soviet superweapon. How would you have resolved that crisis, given the information available before the squid appears? Or would you have rewritten Watchmen entirely to remove that part of it?

I disagree severely about V for Vendetta, since I feel that the movie missed the most important parts; the moral ambiguity, the visual atmosphere, and the ending lost any real contact with the underlying philosophy of the comic, which ties back into the moral ambiguity.

[Axiomatic]

Sorry, but the Manhattan attack does NOT make more sense than the psychic squid.

See, with the squid attack, humanity has just been attacked by a horrible, inhuman, alien entity. It makes sense (well, sorta) that everyone joins together to fight this thread.

But with Dr. Manhattan, the attack does not come from outer space. It comes from AN AMERICAN SUPERWEAPON. The Russians aren't going to say "oh, we must join forces with the Americans to fight Dr. Manhattan!", they and the rest of the world are all going to say "FUCK, THE AMERICANS JUST NUKED US, TIME FOR PAYBACK!" in their respective languages.

[Bakustra]

Sorry, but the Manhattan attack does NOT make more sense than the psychic squid.

See, with the squid attack, humanity has just been attacked by a horrible, inhuman, alien entity. It makes sense (well, sorta) that everyone joins together to fight this thread.

But with Dr. Manhattan, the attack does not come from outer space. It comes from AN AMERICAN SUPERWEAPON. The Russians aren't going to say "oh, we must join forces with the Americans to fight Dr. Manhattan!", they and the rest of the world are all going to say "FUCK, THE AMERICANS JUST NUKED US, TIME FOR PAYBACK!" in their respective languages.

I never said that it made more sense, just that the problems with it require more thought to uncover than the problems with a gigantic, psychic squid.

[Axiomatic]

I never said that it made more sense, just that the problems with it require more thought to uncover than the problems with a gigantic, psychic squid.

That benefit kinda pales besides the fact that you just started World War 3: America Versus The World.

[Bakustra]

I never said that it made more sense, just that the problems with it require more thought to uncover than the problems with a gigantic, psychic squid.

That benefit kinda pales besides the fact that you just started World War 3: America Versus The World.

Are you deliberately misunderstanding me? I'm not saying that one is any better than the other in terms of believability, just that the one is nonsensical on its face (and becomes slightly more sensible with some thought) while the other becomes nonsensical with thought.

[open_sketchbook]

I think the Watchmen comic, while amazing in it's depth and innovative in it's take on the medium, ultimately suffered because Alan Moore let his take that at the comic industry and the meta commentary get in the way of the story. The ending, meant to be a poke at and deconstruct the tendancy in comics to resolve things with insane bullshit that comes out of nowhere, fails the story because it's insane bullshit that comes out of nowhere in a story that has until that point ridden on a very different tone. It's why I think the movie, especially the extended cut, ultimately handles the material better as a story; because it actually presents it as a story instead of as a literary commentary.

I'm not saying the comic is bad (it's still one of the best comics ever written), and obviously it gets brownie points for being first and being an incredible deconstruction of the medium, but I think the movie's alterations to the story improve on it as a narrative. I also like how it took it's own shots at comic book movies, like the Bat-nipples on Ozzy's suit. The movie still managed to avoid being surface oriented despite having a ton of stuff going on on the surface, which is a pretty impressive feat.

I never understood the whole "The comic is always better" mentality anyway; I have similar feelings towards the V for Vendetta movie, which I like for using the rough plot, setting and characters of V for Vendetta to tackle a different political climate, in a way that feels more true to the spirit of the work (rather than the substance) than if they had just straight adapted it as a commentary on British politics in the 1980s, released in 2005.

So how would you have ended it? The point is not to throw cheap shots at the comic book industry, but to resolve the crisis of the world heading toward nuclear war and asking what the limits of heroism are. Both the endings are problematic. The movie's ending makes less sense the longer you think about it, while the comic's ending is nonsensical right from the start, but both serve the purpose of halting the course towards war and bringing up the problem of killing to save others. But you need something that is devastating, outside human experience, and can't become a spark to war. The comic is slightly better about this because people around the world received telepathic images from the squid so nobody could mistake it for an American/Soviet superweapon. How would you have resolved that crisis, given the information available before the squid appears? Or would you have rewritten Watchmen entirely to remove that part of it?

I disagree severely about V for Vendetta, since I feel that the movie missed the most important parts; the moral ambiguity, the visual atmosphere, and the ending lost any real contact with the underlying philosophy of the comic, which ties back into the moral ambiguity.

I think the movie ending is the best ending you could have had given the events up to that point. If we say "Well, no giant squid allowed" and try for something else, Dr. Manhatten is pretty much the only thing that makes contextual sense. Yeah, there is a risk that the Soviets will see the Manhatten weapon going off and go "The USA is attacking, fire everything!" but given the tensions, there is a similar risk with the giant squid of the US going "New York's gone dark! The commies snuck something past us, fire at will!" There are pros and cons to either plan, from an in-universe view, and as there is a good chance Viedt doesn't get away with it in either universe; in the end, the threat will do little more than cause the two sides to reconsider just as their hand hovers above the button; sure, psychics will get bad dreams (do we know if anyone will take them seriously?) and there is a bigass body, but at the same time the attack is a complete mystery which will be investigated, and it won't take long before people realize something is up (people knew Viedt Industries were working on teleportation, DNA evidence will mark the creature as terrestrial, the attack makes NO GODDAMN SENSE)

By contrast, the Dr. Manhatten plan, if it gets past the short-term increased risk of the Soviets thinking an attack is happening, has the benefit of being much more consistant, logically. Dr. Manhatten has a freakout and then blows a bunch of shit up on the eve of nuclear war to tell everyone to play nice. Everyone saw the Blue Man go nutty on national television, and as Viedt and Manhatten were working together, Viedt is in the perfect position to say "Yeah, in retrospect, I should have seen this coming" which adds a lot of plausiblity to it. Unlike in the comic, this Viedt, the guy who was closest to Manhatten before the attack, will make a press statment about it, and everyone will listen. He's has set himself up to spin the story.

However, from a story point of view, the Movie's Dr. Manhatten bombs are an enormous improvement. It was well foreshadowed, well executed, cut story fat in the right places, and so forth. It's the sort of twist that makes you go "Damn, didn't see that one coming" in the right way, as opposed to the "What the fuck just happened" ending of the original Watchmen.

[Jim Raynor]

I came to the comic late, after hearing about it for years and years. Reading it was a very interesting experience. I hesitate to call myself a "fan" of the comic, since I couldn't root for most of the characters (as Moore intended). Also because it doesn't exactly flow through its story, so much as use its story as window dressing for the character studies and moral exploration. And Watchmen is a feel-bad downer story if I ever read one. But I respect the hell out of the effort and care that Moore put into it. There was some serious world building in those twelve issues, so much that Watchmen has a much more fleshed out history than many longer series.

Another thing that I thought was quite interesting about the comic was how Moore spoke directly to his comics-reading audience, integrating references and commentary about the industry/artform directly into his book. The techniques that he uses, such as symbolism and his overlapping of panels with textboxes from other scenes, were very interesting. Watchmen can be read as a showcase of what the comics medium is capable of.

And I suspect that's why Moore has always insisted that his book is a "comic book," meant to be experienced that way. While he's been very negative about all movie adaptations of his work in general, I can really get why he might feel that way about Watchmen. Despite being extremely faithful to the letter of the book most of the time, Snyder's movie still loses some of the significance of it. For example, in the comic Rorschach changed his psychologist's life, opening his eyes (and I presume many of the readers) to his philosophy. In the movie, we just see how Rorschach went nuts, and later on he just scares the psychologist while putting his mask back on. All of that meaning, lost.

I also didn't care for the way Snyder injected some of his own habits into the movie. All the excessive slow-mo that brought fights to a crawl. All the excessive gore, even coming from the relatively "well adjusted" heroes like Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. In the comic, they beat on some punks that attack them, while the text asks the reader if he's uneasy with the "realistic" portrayal of superhero action. Still, nobody died there, and Dan and Laurie remained justified in how far they went. In the movie, Dan and Laurie break arms and snap necks with cartoonish blood spurting out onscreen. The nuance was lost because Snyder took things over the top.

As for Veidt's scheme at the end, I prefer the comic to the movie. I think one of Wong's biggest gripes against the movie was that the government must have been retarded for not knowing that Veidt's work could be used as a superweapon, despite the fact that he was openly doing his research with their cooperation. Also, it's less believable for the world to unite against Dr. Manhattan if he can kill them all with a mere thought. The comic at least portrayed a better cover up, and a one-off "alien" attack (showing an alien that can in fact die) is something that the world could more plausibly unite against. Despite the goofy concept, I thought that the mutant squid was very fitting to the comics medium.

The movie wasn't bad (and I have to admit that I didn't see it like a normal person at the theater), but it didn't live up to or surpass the book. Except for Laurie's costume.

[Rye]

Sorry, but the Manhattan attack does NOT make more sense than the psychic squid.

See, with the squid attack, humanity has just been attacked by a horrible, inhuman, alien entity. It makes sense (well, sorta) that everyone joins together to fight this thread.

But with Dr. Manhattan, the attack does not come from outer space. It comes from AN AMERICAN SUPERWEAPON. The Russians aren't going to say "oh, we must join forces with the Americans to fight Dr. Manhattan!", they and the rest of the world are all going to say "FUCK, THE AMERICANS JUST NUKED US, TIME FOR PAYBACK!" in their respective languages.

I'd say it makes more sense within the story. Much of it is all about America with a literal God on its side. "God exists and he's an American, and that scares me." With Veidt's plan further distancing Manhattan from what keeps him human, he left the planet and had more time to slip into more godlike solipsism. The Manhattan attack keeps the story closer to the characters and has more justification for John to go off and be God elsewhere, which is critical to Veidt's plan for world peace.

The entire world knew America was no longer in charge of Manhattan at the time of the attacks and they also know he's a living weapon with his own mind AND that he also targeted American cities. It's presumably an acceptable gamble by Veidt (and who knows how much he's influenced world media and informed opinion prior to that point). Manhattan was an alien entity by that point, albeit one the world already knew and feared and admired.

[CaptainChewbacca]

If I recall in the movies, Moscow was 3rd hit after Paris and DC, so I'm guessing thats why Russia didn't attack. Veidt probably realized what would happen if he hit the Soviets first, and set his timer accordingly.

Anyone got a link to the scene that shows the screens?

[ANGELUS]

Something I really liked on the comic that I think wasn't translated well enough into the movie is Doctor Manhattan's perception of time. I watched the movie first, and then I got the comic... When I watched the movie I didn't get the right impression that Manhattan experienced all of time on his existance simultaneously... I mean, I knew it because he said it, but I didn't really get the impression that that was actually happenning. The images he experiences felt more like flashbacks, like he was just remembering stuff instead of living it... The way the comic portraits this point is much more elaborate and you get the right picture reading it. At some point Laurie asks why he didn't stop something from happenning if he knew it beforehand, and he replies something along the lines of "I can't stop it because it is happenning to me right now". The way he implies this... he can't see the future, he's living it along with present and past all at once, because those concepts of time don't apply to him. Every single second of his existance is occuring simultaneously to him and he perceives them just as we perceive the present: they are all happenning for him right now... the moment of the intrinsic field accident, the moment he fell in love with Janey Slater, the moment he left her, the moment he watched The Commedian gun down a woman pregnant of his own child, the moment Laurie leaves him for Nite Owl... all of that at the same time. This gives much more dept to his phrase "We're all puppets, Laurie. I'm just a puppet who can see the strings". The comic really sells you on that idea.

[Nephtys]

The part I really miss most about the movie is that line where Veidt goes 'I... I did it!' in realization of it all, tinged with a bit of doubt.