Watchmen Movie

ztoical

So the film heads are taking about the Watchman film over yonder. Lots of it will be a great movie but how well do my fellow fanboys/girls think the movie is going to be in relation to the comic?

constitutionus

i reckon whole chunks of it will be dumped. particularly the black freighter stuff. but im fairly confident it'll stick close to the main story and the slight tweaking ala 300 of the visuals should mean it'll FEEL right.

i was uncertain at first but im fairly upbeat about it now

Dr Galen

not a regular poster here, and really only a comic dabbler but as far as I know the Black Freighter stuff is going to be done as a stand alone animated thing, not sure if that will be shown with the movie or as a DVD/web release type of thing.

i'd say most of ya have seen the studio released pics, mainly of characters, they look good, close to the originals and certainly making me a bit excited for what might be

Fysh

Oh dear, I'm starting to dread this somewhat. The comedian looks good, Rorschach looks....ok (the mask looks wrong somehow, but maybe it's going to be animated or something to get the liquid latex effect..). Night Owl, however, looks like his costume was designed by someone who thought Batman & Robin was a good film. Ozymandias might one day grow up to look the part, but at the moment appears to be about twelve. And Sally Jupiter looks like she's dying to go to the loo.

I know they're just publicity shots and so on, but still....I'm inclined to agree with ztoical, I don't think this can be succesfully adapted into a movie.

Dr Galen

from what i hear the Rorschach mask will be CGI animated, be interesting to see how that pans out. could go either way. I actually quite like Night Owl.....

I'd agree with you on Ozymandias though. He does look very young in the pics, I assume they'll age him or something, else its gonna be a bit silly.

it's certainly going to be a tough adaption alright, there's a lot on the original material that I think will get lost in the transfer, but I'm goin to stay on the happy side of the fence just for now anyways.

ztoical

its very hard to judge Rorschach from a still photo - he is a character that will live or die by the way he moves and more importantly how he sounds.

Night Owl is most def channeling Batman & Robin style Batman and it doesn't work for me.

Ozymandias, hmmmmm, hello I'm 12 is all I can think

Sally Jupiter could be ok - its hard to judge from that one pic as its pretty crap.

Fysh

Yeah, the voice will make or break Rorschach. I've been watching a load of JLU lately and one of the things that struck me was how spot-on Jeffrey Combs wa when voicing The Question. (Having seen some of the crummier horror films he's starred in before, I wouldn't have expected him to be any good at all). They'll need that level of a match and more importantly to keep all the weird tics of his dialogue intact for the character to work.

I can sort of get the "updated" Nite Owl look, but it strikes me as kind of missing the point. Even though the original costume matched the standards of mainstream superheroics at the time, it still managed to feel dated in the comic which I always assumed was deliberate (especially when compared to the Comedian's later costume, for example). The costume here just strikes me as a lazy "how will people understand he's meant to be a Batman analogue if he doesn't look exactly like Batman in the worst over the top Batman movie thus far?"

I think the feeling of "wrongness" from these photos is that the film's a year away and they're trying to show us what the "heroes" will look like, but Watchmen isn't a simple superhero story so promoting it in the same way a much more straightforward superhero fare like Dark Knight or Iron Man seems a bit of a wrong fit.

Hopefully it's just a marketing thing rather than a sign of the creative thinking behind the film, anyway.

ztoical

Fysh wrote: »

Yeah, the voice will make or break Rorschach. I've been watching a load of JLU lately and one of the things that struck me was how spot-on Jeffrey Combs wa when voicing The Question. (Having seen some of the crummier horror films he's starred in before, I wouldn't have expected him to be any good at all). They'll need that level of a match and more importantly to keep all the weird tics of his dialogue intact for the character to work.

Seeing as Combs plays about 100 different characters in the Star Trek universe and I'm a hopelessly sad trekie I can say he is a really under rated actor.

Fysh wrote: »

I think the feeling of "wrongness" from these photos is that the film's a year away and they're trying to show us what the "heroes" will look like, but Watchmen isn't a simple superhero story so promoting it in the same way a much more straightforward superhero fare like Dark Knight or Iron Man seems a bit of a wrong fit.

Nail on the head there - i think the whole thing feels off for anyone whose read the book as they know its not a standard superhero story and these images do have the same set up we've seen for films like batman, iron man, spiderman etc etc We;ll be waiting a while but I think when we see the first trailer we'd get a better feel for what direction they've gone

Fysh

I've just realised what my problem with the character photos is: they seem to be promoting this film. Which would be a very bad thing.

On the plus side, I just found this on scans_daily, which made me grin

Kur4mA

I'm just trying not to think anything negative about this and hope that they've made an absolute cracker of a movie. Looking at the pre-production photos it seems a hell of a lot of effort has gone into making sure it will be a cracker. *fingers crossed*

valleyoftheunos

I hate hate hate hate the Owl's costume and having read Moore's comments on Wikipedia I am not hopeful tht this is gonna work out so good.

I have to say I would never have thought that Watchmen was a strong candidate for filming. Its dense, slow at times and complicated. Not a 2 hour summer blockbuster superhero movie, its about vigilantes for crying out loud.

Fysh

Fresh from NYCC : pics of the Watchmen movie figures?

alnolan

I WANT A 12" RORSCHACH!!

Ozymandias' figure makes him look like Robin The Boy Wonder as played by Seth Green.

ztoical

alnolan wrote: »

I WANT A 12" RORSCHACH!!

Me too! The detail on him is great, right down to the details on the leather gloves. Silk Spectre looks ok but nothing special. Ozymandias does indeed look like some boy wonder/seth green cross - I have this urge to pick him up and whack his hair against the table.

AngryBadger

I'm highly dubious of the "Watchmen" project.

Largely because, and maybe I'm doing the guy a disservice, Snyder doesnot sound like a good choci for this film. he did a great job on "300", but that was a completely different animal.

"Watchmen", IMO, could only really be done properly as a series of films. There's too much content in every respect to butcher it and force it into a 3-hour epic.

I'll be very surprised if this film does the original comic proper justice.

JangoFett

I'm not sure of it either, it could tank in a massive, MASSIVE way but at the same time be an accurate movie. I never really care about success, if the story is told well, I'm happy. We're all like that I suppose

There is a lot they're gonna have to leave out, its a big book.

I think it could be a big summer blockbuster, look at the success of V for Vendetta, that was on the same shelves as Watchmen, on the same level of awareness.

I'm remaining optimistic on this one!!

valleyoftheunos

I'm pretty sure that this is gonna tank and ruin the story.

Taking V for Vendetta as an example it did alright over here and wasn't particularly well recieved in the US. As well as that it was a fairly abridged version of the Book, I enjoyed it but the book is much much more powerful.

I expect Watchmen to be very similar.

alnolan

Feck the film -- I wanna 12" Rorschach!!!

The book will remain unchanged, however bad/good/indifferent the film turns out.

ztoical

alnolan wrote: »

The book will remain unchanged, however bad/good/indifferent the film turns out.

yes but you'll have all the idoits who find the book via the film and then bitch that "its not as good as the film"

Fysh

While it will be a shame to see someone finally get an adaptation made that turns out to be inferior to the book, Alan's right - the book will still be the masterpiece it was when we read it the first time. And if idiots complain about it not being as good as the film then we're probably best off without them

But anyway, 12" Rorschach for the win!)

ztoical

Fysh wrote: »

And if idiots complain about it not being as good as the film then we're probably best off without them

we could beat them to death with the hardcover edition of watchman

JangoFett

No movie is AS good, we just want the movie to be as good as it can be

Great point about no matter how much a movie sucks the original material is just as kick ass.

The Rorshach costume looks class and the set visit video looked like it really is becoming a labour of love

thebeat

I thought the Sin City Movie conversion was pretty good, now hopefully Watchmen will go down the same route!

alnolan

Check the ker-azy duds on these dudes...

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36885

(with thanks to moorereppion.com)

Dont be at yourself

The Black Freighter story is going to be released on DVD within days of Watchmen hitting the cinemas. There's also talk of an 'ultimate edition' which would cut The Black Freighter story into the movie, a la the graphic novel.

valleyoftheunos

With every still and snipet I see I get more and more worried, I predict that it will blow.

Kur4mA

They could actually pull this off with talks of a 3 hour long thatrical release and a 4.5 hour long directors cut DVD planned.

JangoFett

Did anyone see the picture of the Watchmen in their 40's costumes?
Gave me a little chuckle, looked great!

Fysh

"Teaser" trailer posted online ahead of release in cinemas showing Dark Knight.

Obviously it's still 9 months to the film's release, but that trailer has me a hell of a lot more confident that the source material is being treated faithfully. I'm a lot more willing to be optimistic about the film after seeing that.

bombidol

http://io9.com/5026402/watch-how-faithful-watchmen-will-be

Another source there in case that one comes down.

magwea

Apple has the HD trailer

At the moment this looks kinda meh, why bother feel. Still going to see it which makes me a fool in the end.

Bit presumptions with the whole "greatest graphic novel of all time" spiel.

ztoical

this and the new terminator film trailers are meant to be playing before dark knight [woohoo 2 hours till I go see it!] and both trailers are far to early in the production to really say much about them. Watchman is further along then terminator but hasn't got far into post production fx and you can see that, everything is far to smooth and clean, needs alot of texture mapping and proper sound and film editing. The pan through all the gears with the yellow text is really badly done and was most likely a rush job to get it ready for dark knight [have DC any other films coming out before watchman? I can't think of any off the top of my head] Cringe at the pumpkins song I have to say - bit much.

It will be funny to see all the non comic people heading to dark knight getting confused when the nite-owl pops up in the trailer - I'm sure you'll hear a few "hey look Batman is in it!"

ztoical

Just saw it at the start of the dark knight and it looks alot better on the big screen, well everything except the backwards pan through the cogs, that looks alot worse, def rush job with that, theres virtually no texture mapping or anything done and the music is more annoying. Massive pop from the crowd, thou I was surprised how few people coped at the start, it took till the silk spectre appeared for the claps to really get going. And the three bimbos in front of me [why where they there?] said "is that batman?" when nite-owl first appeared [followed by me laughing my ass off]

constitutionus

i'll never get people clapping during adds or after a film for that matter. its just not done in ireland. best you can hope for is a hushed "fcuking hell !" . too concientious i guess. people tend to rave outside afterwards.

im really looking forward to this. should be fun. be interesting to see if they keep the little quirky things like the electric cars . and i quite liked the music in the trailer, the more you see it the better it seems to suit the more somber air of the film