Watchmen *SPOILERS*


Missy

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Now that I've seen it I can say I'm really surprised at how close it is to the comic. Sure a few things were changed because they needed to be, but a lot of it is word for word what is in the comic. I felt a lot of the same emotions watching it that I did when I read it. I couldn't believe they killed millions of people. I couldn't believe the bad guy got away with his plan.

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Interesting interpretation on the ending by Rossman Reviews and whether or not it works:

The Manhattan bombs don't work for two reasons.

Number one: The entire point of the alien squid was that the "something" that pulled the world together had to be something so completely and utterly outlandish and incredible that nobody could dispute it, and most importantly it had to appear that A THIRD PARTY (other than the US or the USSR) initiated the attack in order for it to be a unifying event. That's what I originally missed the first time I read the book, but what I understood perfectly the second time. It had to be a menace NOT birthed by either world power. By making the world think that it was Dr. Manhattan gone rogue Adrian Veidt was taking the chance that the rest of the world would turn against the US for making the blue dude in the first place, and using him like a threatening loaded gun for all those years. Adrian would NEVER take a chance like that.

Number two: Dr. Manhattan leaves the Earth behind in the comics because he knows he's lost Laurie to Dan (the Nite Owl). He understands that Dan's who she needs, and that he can't live there anymore without her, his only real anchor to the planet. In Snyder's ending he leaves because it's the only way to make Veidt's plan work; it has nothing to do with Laurie and Dan (he never even knows about the two of them in the movie). That was the KEY point of his character's arc.

What do other people think about this?

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It works for me because Veidt knows that Nixon will come out and declare Manhattan rogue and scramble for world support when he realizes he doesn't have him to fall back on. This was a world attack that was not sanctioned where it is as likely to say that the comic ending would result in the other countries saying "Haha" at the US.

I liked it because I still don't buy Manhattan being heartbroken.

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I think he has a valid point with the first point. There was the very significant chance that the plan could backfire horribly, and the nukes could still fly. Too big of a risk for Veidt.

Also, an amusing trend:

Reviews by those who have not read the source material tend to focus on Dr. Manhattan's dick.

...Did I miss something, or was it really that attention grabbing?

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I got back from watching this an hour ago. I'll be putting my thoughts out in full when I record the CR review during the weekend sometime, but I'll add a brief stream of conscious in bullet point form.

- I loved the way classic songs were worked into the film, especially with regards to the opening.

- I was a bit distracted by Sally's make-up, but I bought pretty much every performance from the main cast. I'm not getting the Laurie criticism at the moment, if only because in the comics she comes across as constantly bitchy and that being toned down in the film really warmed me to the character.

- Rorschah and Comedian stole the show, but is that wholly surprising?

- I thought the violence was gratuitous. I can buy that for a zombie film or a Frank Miller interpretation of a war involving Ancient Spartans, but Snyder really overdid it for Watchmen (which is surprising given that he otherwise handled the depth of the film pretty well). For one thing, I don't buy nice guy Dreiburg casually pulling the bones of thugs through their own skin and then being floored by a single roundhouse from Veidt.

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Also...I've been thinking about it, and I've come to the decision that I think the Watchmen movie is better than The Dark Knight.

You are mad.

haha.

I thought the same thing last week, but quickly changed my mind. TDK is a film that gets better upon multiple viewings and examinations; Watchmen (as a film) is the opposite.

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- I thought the violence was gratuitous. I can buy that for a zombie film or a Frank Miller interpretation of a war involving Ancient Spartans, but Snyder really overdid it for Watchmen (which is surprising given that he otherwise handled the depth of the film pretty well). For one thing, I don't buy nice guy Dreiburg casually pulling the bones of thugs through their own skin and then being floored by a single roundhouse from Veidt.

I thought that too at first. Actually at first I thought "Holy shit, he just destroyed that guys arm!", but as the film goes on you start to see more and more of this unreal fighting style that these heroes use. Even though in the comic Dr Manhatten is the only one with powers you have to think that these costumed heroes have something that sets them apart from normal people and I saw this interpretation of Watchman as a stylised version of the real world, even more comic-book in nature than the source material. The sheer fun created by the violence outstripped any complaints I had.

If anything it highlights the reason that these people are superheroes and the emotional detachment and lack of empathy they have for the people they turn their considerable skills on. To a degree they are all psychopathic like Rorsach and the Comedian, those guys are just more honest about it. I always liked that the two sickest most messed up people in the book are the ones who are least able to accept the atrocity committed at the end, the people most deeply affected by this new depth to which humanity sinks in order to save itself. When Rorsach says "never compromise, even in the face of Armageddon" you can see his perspective. If mankind is willing to abandon its morals to save itself then is it truly worth saving? What we are and our moral values are the most important thing to this pair. Its the other end of the scale to Ozymandias and Dr Manhatten. Manhatten is so detached he has to be convinced that humanity has any worth at all, and Ozymandias will try to save the world at any cost. The two more civilized characters in Silk Spectre and Night Owl hide behind the trappings of that very civilization, in fact their self obsession is such that their real reasons for being heroes are entirely about themselves instead of other people. They do it for the thrill or because they were pressured to by family. They'll overlook the atrocity at the end in order to return to a normal life as soon as possible and pretend it never happened.

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- I thought the violence was gratuitous. I can buy that for a zombie film or a Frank Miller interpretation of a war involving Ancient Spartans, but Snyder really overdid it for Watchmen (which is surprising given that he otherwise handled the depth of the film pretty well). For one thing, I don't buy nice guy Dreiburg casually pulling the bones of thugs through their own skin and then being floored by a single roundhouse from Veidt.

I thought that too at first. Actually at first I thought "Holy shit, he just destroyed that guys arm!", but as the film goes on you start to see more and more of this unreal fighting style that these heroes use. Even though in the comic Dr Manhatten is the only one with powers you have to think that these costumed heroes have something that sets them apart from normal people and I saw this interpretation of Watchman as a stylised version of the real world, even more comic-book in nature than the source material. The sheer fun created by the violence outstripped any complaints I had.

If anything it highlights the reason that these people are superheroes and the emotional detachment and lack of empathy they have for the people they turn their considerable skills on. To a degree they are all psychopathic like Rorsach and the Comedian, those guys are just more honest about it. I always liked that the two sickest most messed up people in the book are the ones who are least able to accept the atrocity committed at the end, the people most deeply affected by this new depth to which humanity sinks in order to save itself. When Rorsach says "never compromise, even in the face of Armageddon" you can see his perspective. If mankind is willing to abandon its morals to save itself then is it truly worth saving? What we are and our moral values are the most important thing to this pair. Its the other end of the scale to Ozymandias and Dr Manhatten. Manhatten is so detached he has to be convinced that humanity has any worth at all, and Ozymandias will try to save the world at any cost. The two more civilized characters in Silk Spectre and Night Owl hide behind the trappings of that very civilization, in fact their self obsession is such that their real reasons for being heroes are entirely about themselves instead of other people. They do it for the thrill or because they were pressured to by family. They'll overlook the atrocity at the end in order to return to a normal life as soon as possible and pretend it never happened.

See, I don't agree with that justification if just on the basis of Snyder's past work, as listed above, and that's part of my current big quibble with the film. I'm not all that sure that the director is the "visionary" he was described as in the trailer because the directing was uneven in my view. The script condensed the collected Watchmen books as best it could, and the rest was down to Snyder. To be fair to the guy, the opening is superbly handled and the visual effects are up-to-standard (I don't mind the slo-mo stuff either as it's been used in most all action films since The Matrix). But to offset that, the fight scenes suddenly ramped up the gore. I'm actually fine with gore when its in context, which is why I didn't mind Roschach's defining moment being changed to cleaving a guy's head in with a knife. But for a film that was always going to be lengthy, swapping a few panels worth of fighting (eg/ the alley, the prison break-in) for a few minutes of strangely gory fight scenes featuring the most relatable of the Watchmen. And the short criminal's thug having his hands amputated seemed like it was ramped as well for whatever reason, compared to the pitch perfect ambiguous slaughter of the short criminal himself. Also, the sex scene was longer than it needed to be, even if it brought the Hallelujah song back into my heart after its recent bastardization by the Simon Cowell machine.

I do get the last paragraph though. I just don't think Snyder's excesses exactly highlights Moore's deconstruction of the Watchmen and their motivations for being "heroes".

Despite the above, I still think it was a good movie. I'm just not sure *how* good it is at the moment, given how exemplary the source material it's working off happens to be.

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I'll agree that its not the best directed film overall but there are enough strong visuals and examples of good post-production that I think it hides it for the most part. This was far from Kevin Smith's Watchmen.

I'll let Snyder loose on another adaptation if he wants it. He could probably do something like The Authority very well.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan (The Comedian) is apparently set to star in a film adaptation of the Vertigo book The Losers. This book is like the coolest big action film you can think of, so hopefully whats on screen can live up to that.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I really think it only did this good because a lot of people didn't realize it was rated R. I heard stories of people taking kids and walking out. If everyone knew how dark and full of peni it was, it wouldn't have made as much. This movie is going to make most of it's money on dvd sales.

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