The Watchmen

Why do people think this movie is shit? Most movies I watch that people don't like, I can see their flaws and understand, but I loved this movie when it came out and then everyone just shit on it. Is it just because fanboys liked the comic better and call the movie shit because of the usual bullshit, or was there something critically wrong about it that I'm not aware of?

I think people don't like it because it's capeshit that wants to be more than just capeshit, it comes off as arrogant you know? Who do they think they are?

It's unironically one of the best capeshit movies ever made which isn't really a big achievement.

However, it's complete shit compared to the comic. The ending scene is breddy gud tho

>from the visionary director of 300

And this is said unironically lol.

the movie is wellmade in all regards, it could be argued to be THE best superhero movie, and definitely one of the best comic book based movies in general

>From the mediocre pretentious director of Sucker Punch.

Why did they put that in the MoS blu ray cover?

Don't lie OP we all know the only reason you like this movie is because Carla Gugino get snatch attacked in it.

It's crude compared to the original comic

One of the most Kinographic Kinos ever filmed- if you watch the right cut.

>it comes off as arrogant you know? Who do they think they are?

I kek'd

Best capeshit to date if you don't count Blade.

I unironically like this movie. Sup Forums has always been contrarian central, so I don't take opinions here seriously.
If they had left it like the comics it would have been too fucking weird

hands down the best comic book adaptation ever created

Snyder respects the medium and it shows

Its tone is just wrong. It substituted the comic's gritty violence that was meant to shock audiences, with really obvious glorification of violence through Snyder's patented way of approaching speed up slow down action. The song choices are distractingly on the nose to just wrong (Hallelujah in particular is used wrongly). Snyder substituted fake Dr. Manhattan explosions for the squid, which may have worked except they lost all of the subtext for the ending. The original novel had a purposeful ending. It builds upon the notion of Adrian creating a comic book pop culture solution to an actual real world crisis. Most importantly it also questions the validity and staying power of such a solution. It also didnt involve more than one city. Having Dr. Manhattan be responsible for several blown up cities just doesnt make sense. For one, it makes it extraordinarily hard for me to believe the world government wouldnt condemn America for making super man and not being able to control him. There wouldnt be sympathy - there would be blame thrown around and it would more like egg on conflict rather than avoid it altogether. Its a stupid ending that lacks all the subtext of the book. The squid is a creation of production artists, the film's equivalent is pure science. This might have worked if the whole film was geared toward being a commentary on the dangers of science, but its not. Snyder just copied panel for panel from the book except the ending, and only teenagers think that its better than the squid because they dont get the context of the squid or its thematic importance to the story. It's also where Snyder's fetishism over blowing up cities started. He does these things and just doesnt get that there are ways to blow up cities and have an emotional impact. He's such a kid. Take something like Shin Godzilla, a movie that attempts to connect to a modern disaster. Because it put the effort into building the character's connection to Tokyo there was emotional impact.

Sounds like you have emtional attachments. Dr man existing is equally crazy as the squid

Nah Sin City is the best adaptation if you ask me.
The comic shots are in the movie almost 1:1 and it doesn't try to go above the comic and do something new with it, it's just an adaptation.

Which Watchmen Cut is the best? I wanted to rewatch the movie but it seems to have quite big differences in the different cuts.

>take a comic that downplays the sex and violence because it's was trying to subvert people's expectations on what a "mature" superhero comic was
>turn into a comic that amps and stilizes the sex and violence because that's what people expect to see in a "mature" superhero movie

They all have flaws, but director's cut is the best one. Watch the animated pirate short from the ultimate cut as its own thing on youtube or whatever since it no longer makes sense together with the main narrative (in the comic it happens at specific points that echo or counterpoint the main story, but a lot of those scenes are gone in the movie, so it makes no sense to weave in a pirate story all of a sudden)

It doesn't make any fucking sense.

Doctor Manhattan is shown to be an all powerful being who can alter anything on a molecular level, teleporting people, creating a breathable atmosphere on other planets and even reconstituting himself after being blown apart.

But he inexplicably cannot synthesise vast quantities of lithium to create an unlimited supply of clean, renewable energy (like he can and does in the comic book)

Despite this non-existing technology, cars with combustion engines are considered obsolete, the skies are filled with airships and Nite-Owl has a fully functioning hovercar. No explanation is given.

Additionally, there is nothing for the Comedian to discover and therefore lose his mind in the first place. Adrian is just making a big bomb. He's not creating a brand new lifeform and using a combination of ESP and subtle influences on popular culture to make the world believe they are being attacked by aliens. So the Comedian shouldn't become a sobbing wreck and run to Moloch, Adrian should have no reason to kill him and Rorshach should have no reason to contact his old collegues, meaning none of the movie should even take place.

It's not meant to be crazy. It's meant to be mind-boggling. Literally everything Adrian does after his crime fighting career is tied to his Alien Invasion plot. His entrepreneurial business ventures weren't to make money, they were either research and development for genetic manipulation of living species, subtly influencing global society to make them susceptible to mental attacks, and an extremely long-term plot to kill all of Dr Manhattan's friends and family so he no longer has anything left on earth.

The fake Manhattan attack is extremely shallow in comparison.

I'm a fan of the graphic novel and think that BvS was garbage. I love this movie.

It's a series, not a graphic novel.

Technically, yeah. Like you wouldn't call a tv season a movie just because it comes bundled together.

I think Ozy specifically mentions he needed to disable Blake after he cracked at Moloch's, but part of the reason he wanted him dead was also personal. Blake had humiliated him in the past (not when he burned the map; that wasn't even Ozy's meeting, but when they first met) and really had it in for him. It's why he went there personally to kill him instead of hiring a sniper, bombing his apartment, giving him cancer or whatever

Again, it's not the squid isnt silly - it is. Its a pop culture influenced solution to a real world problem. Setting off the equivalent of several nukes loses that context completely. Its as that other user pointed out - shallow. That's my problem with it. I have no attachment to anything in the film because it doesnt bother with it. Snyder doesn't know how to make you care about cities blowing up.

While I don't despise it, really, if you read the comic and then watch the movie, one easily comes to the exasperating conclusion that to the director and writers and whatnot, "mature" means "gore, nudity, and swearing".

The maturity of the comic doesn't lie in exaggerated violence, or over-the-top sex scenes, or yelling "fuck" or "shit" with every other line of dialogue. And the fact that the people who made this probably knew that, but threw it all in anyway because they assume that the audience is stupid enough to not realize it, can easily put someone off if they care enough to notice. I try to ignore that the moviemakers are, in the end, very right about their audience.

Also, Malin Akerman's performance was SHIT.

>The original novel had a purposeful ending. It builds upon the notion of Adrian creating a comic book pop culture solution to an actual real world crisis.

So the ridiculousness of manufacturing a giant squid to think there's an alien invasion is a good thing because of how meta it is?

I don't think Adrian creating a comic book type solution to a real world crisis is commendable creativity outside of it being "lol so meta"

Didn't the comedian find out about the plot to frame Dr Manhattan, and he becomes a wreck because he knows he's going to be killed by Adrian?

I honestly don't remember. that part of the movie blew past a bit too quick.

In the movie, the comedian cracks because he cracked in the comic.

The movie offers no reason for his mental breakdown, because the movie has no reason for his mental breakdown. For by all appearances, viedt is just making clean energy generators. There is nothing for him to discover that would resonate so deeply with his core philosophies that his mind breaks as a result.

A big issue I had with it was that it just copy pasted the comic onto the screen. There was little change and what they did change (namely the ending) they changed into something worse.

Synder had one of the best comic series there is and he just made some boring as fuck adaptation of it. Somehow, even though he did exactly what was on the page, he managed to not get any of the "spirit" of the comic and just made something incredibly shallow in comparison.

But how does the movie's ending make sense with the context of Adrian wanting to prevent war? Wouldn't blaming Dr. Manhattan just make tensions worse?

the world was united against a common enemy instead of on another for the time being

Yeah I'm sure the rest of the world will stop hating America now they all got nuked by Captain New York

doctor manhattan is not a common enemy. Doctor manhattan is an american superweapon that the US had pushed as their final solution to all problems of warfare.

Doctor manhattan going berserk would've been taken as the start of world war 3. The US would've assumed he had defected and struck first for the USSR, the USSR would've assumed he just struck first for the US. All missiles would've been launched.

why would dr manhatten realize the folly of humanity and abandon them for good, only to somehow be dissuaded by a conversation with someone he no longer considers anything when he has no emotions for humanity?
why would ozymandias assume his plan to work out in any way, and why does he not understand that no matter what his plan is or does, misery will never be ended and will always be continued in the infinite future to come, that any fabricated peace would inevitably turn right back into the current state of affirs if not significantly worse in the future? not to mention that even during fabricated peace there is plenty of misery and suffering in the world, it cannot ever be stopped. not to mention that all this is assuming his plan worked in any degree, which it was unlikely to do all things considered. honestly i thought his character was built on the idea that to prevent all future misery he would destroy the earth itself.
why would the comedian consider life as nothing but a joke, commit all sorts of jests throughout the movie making a complete mockery of the human spirit but then have a change of heart directly before his death?
why would rorschach realize the penultimate of human evil and that its very root is embedded in the human nature itself but then decide that justice is served on an individual basis by an arbitrary system of "good and bad"?

wasn't it because he couldn't bear with the plot to nuke several cities

viedt didn't care about misery, he cared about how humanity was one political snafu away from extinction.

Dr. Manhattan is a seperate entity who generally wants to prevent the destruction of mankind. If he suddenly nuked several cities (including cities that weren't even part of the conflict) the world would naturally turn to him and see him as the biggest threat to their existence, setting aside their squabble.

There was no outward evidence of a plot to nuke any cities.

>mfw movie doesn't answer any of that but the comic does
>mfw no face

Watchmen itself is predicated on being a criticism of story telling in comic books. If you didnt get this or don't enjoy it, fine. But you can't say the film's handling of the source material improved the ending. It made it significantly worse.

>Dr. Manhattan is a seperate entity
Yes, Mister Brooklyn has no connection to the US at all! The entire world would unite against the common enemy that is the berserk superweapon of the united states upon the day the superweapon of the united states went berserk.

whats the right cut

The comic.

>why would dr manhatten realize the folly of humanity and abandon them for good, only to somehow be dissuaded by a conversation with someone he no longer considers anything when he has no emotions for humanity?

He was still human once, and Silk Spectre II was his only link to humanity and that's why she was crucial in keeping Manhattan on the same side as the humans. She managed to awaken that same human part of him to convince him to care.

>Yes, Mister Brooklyn has no connection to the US at all!
Manhattan isn't a patriotic name given to him, he's called that because of the Manhattan Project.

It wouldn't be the berserk superweapon of the united states if it went berserk, that's the point.
He's out of their control, the one thing they didn't want to happen.

didn't the Comedian work with Veidt though?

I hate this retarded argument.

Pinochet, Videla, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam, and a really long ETC.

All were serving murrika at one point. Learn your fucking history.

>tipping.fedora.jpg

No.

>why would the comedian consider life as nothing but a joke, commit all sorts of jests throughout the movie making a complete mockery of the human spirit but then have a change of heart directly before his death?

We're all human ยด,:^)

This bitch was mega fine as a brunette.

I must have missed the part where the world united into a one world entity in response to those figures.

That was the point of the comic ending you retard.

You tell me

>"The" Watchmen
Also the only complaint i hear is too much blue dick (get over it) and that they changed the monster ending. Ive always thought that the monster isnt essential because you still have the explosion. Plus the monster is pretty ridiculous and a waste of time for Ozymandias to make lol. I mean are all the superpowers going to continue to get along after 5 years when there havent been any "alien attacks" since? I think blaming it on Dr M is more than sufficient

They'd have no reason to assume he'd defected. His detachment was from humanity in general; they knew this enough that they paid SS to stay with him and give him a reason to stick around in turn. The assumption would be that after she left him, and after the events during which he realized he was inadvertently killing people just by existing, he underwent a complete separation from the "human condition" which manifested in an attack on humanity as a whole.

While it's a bit more dubious on whether the Russians would react like they did, the fact that multiple cities around the world were rekt, including more than one American cities (if I recall correctly), and by something that wasn't a nuclear explosion (they had the ability to detect missile launches, for one thing), it's not altogether unlikely that they would hold off just long enough to find out what exactly happened. Or didn't happen, as it were.

Dunno what that means

>If you didnt get this or don't enjoy it, fine

I got it and I do enjoy the idea, but does that ridiculous plot point become a good one simply because it's a critique on comic books?
It's commendable in the meta-knowledege sense, but for the characters in the story, wouldn't the movie ending be a lot less stupid?

>They'd have no reason to assume he'd defected.

Except for that whole subplot about him ditching the US.

Yes, dying in nuclear fire as a result of veidt faking out the world into thinking manhattan started world war 3 would be a lot less "stupid" than a giant telepathic squid bombarding the entire world with the manufactured history of it's race.

He knew about the list though.
He cracked because he couldn't bear with keeping the idea of giving people cancer a secret.

I can't believe people are actually defending the change to the ending of the movie. It's the single biggest sin Snyder commits as it completely undermines at least three of the characters.

There's a lot to like in the movie, especially visually, but to say the Dr Manhattan nuke is an acceptable substitute is ridiculous.

I can't tell if you're being serious or not but I agree.

literally what are you talking about. Like what is the connection.

He ditched EARTH. They never worried about him defecting to the USSR, because he'd have no reason to. They were worried his detachment from humanity as a whole would cause him to abandon the race as a whole and the US in particular, ridding them of their god-being, which is why they paid Spectre to keep him happy.

>but to say the Dr Manhattan nuke is an acceptable substitute is ridiculous.

as opposed to creating a giant squid to try and fake an alien invasion?
Sounds a lot less stupid considering the threat of nuclear war is always present, yet the concept of alien invasion comes seemingly out of nowhere.

Better than its comic.

Son, you just don't have any understanding of the cold war. Which is not your fault, as the cold war mindset and the post-war mindset are completely incompatible.

The manhattan project was so named because it put a big American stamp on the concept of nuclear war. Doctor Manhattan was a name chosen for Osterman by the US government's propaganda machine.

The entire period is defined by a "us or them" mentality that interpreted just about every action as being orchestrated by the opposition if it did not directly benefit "us."

Thusly, the united states losing control of a united states superweapon that the united states had spent several decades playing up as the ultimate deterrent to all war (which only resulted in an increase in hostilities/tension over said decades) would not result in the entire world joining hands and singing Kumbaya. It would result in global thermonuclear war. Then, later, maybe, from the few bunkers that remain, while people wait out the nuclear winter, a few might have figured out the attack was triggered by a third party, but there'd be nothing they could do about it.

Comic book is great.
Movie also pretty good.

I enjoyed both.

That the alien invasion comes out of nowhere is to it's benefit though.

It was the cold war. Yes, the US did have legitimate reason to interpret doctor manhattan leaving the US meant he was going to side with the USSR. Because that was the mindset of the time.

Conversely, since the USSR did not have direct and positive contact with doctor manhattan, they would have no reason to think he was still anything but an american agent.

This.

By itself its a pretty awesome movie. But the comic is so much more in depth and stylish. You can really tell Snyder had a love for the source material and gave it probably the best shot at a movie adaptation.

I'd say the major probably I had with it was the inconsistent acting. Rorshach, Nite Owl, Comedian and Dr. Manhattan were stellar performances. But Silk Spectre became a bitchy slut, and Ozymandis was never believable as anything other than the villain which killed the reveal.

Might as well have him crack because of an episode of sesame street.

>You can really tell Snyder had a love for the source material

He must really love toilet paper as well, because all he really did was wipe his ass with the comic.

But all the bombs blew up at the same time. They weren't just any normal bombs either, they were manufactured specifically to match the kinds of explosions Dr. Manhattan could create.

Why would either of them attack Hong Kong?

Mr Manhatten's floppy smurf penis put me off.

But there'd be no reason for him to defect. Even with the mindset of "us or them" in full force, they knew enough about his mindset that that was never a concern; he had little stake in the US but he had absolutely no stake in the USSR. Besides, he went to Mars, not Russie.

The second point is a bit more valid, but again, there's more than enough room to reason that the USSR would realize that something unusual was occurring (Why wasn't this attack nuclear? Why didn't we detect missile launches? Why were American cities hit too?) and hold off just long enough to realize it was apparently an attack on humankind as a whole.

I guess you're forgetting how hong kong was a british colony till the 00s.

But a profound ignorance of history is common with thinking the movies ending was anything other than grossly retarded.

he explicitly states though that this isn't the stuff he used to do. He killed people because of wars, giving people cancer was different to him.

>But a profound ignorance of history is common with thinking the movies ending was anything other than grossly retarded.

Ok

... why are you now assuming both the united states and the USSR weren't fully aware of every aspect of Doctor Manhattan's powers? Doctor Manhattan being an american super weapon, thus destroying cities on earth, would not be interpreted as a third party stepping in, it would be interpreted as the other side using manhattan to strike first.

But they all struck first, there were reports all across the globe regarding how several cities blew up.

The US wouldn't think "oh shit Manhattan defected to the USSR" right after seeing Moscow get blown to bits

>i kill people because of wars!
>revels in killing/maiming hippies protesting wars

... yes it totally makes sense for him to crack over cancer.

Because he destroyed at least 2 American cities, if I remember correctly, as well as several other targets across the world.

The circumstances of the events would theoretically create enough confusion and raise enough red flags that it would keep people's fingers off the big red button long enough to gain insight into what actually happened, i.e. America had nothing to do with it and the scope was "Manhattan Vs. Humanity" rather than nation vs nation.

Pretty sure he didn't kill the hippies.
Cancer is a very different subject matter to a lot of people, some consider it a lot more serious than others and some don't think giving people cancer and shooting people are the same.

>to defend snyders hackjob of an ending you have to go in to paragraphs and paragraphs of excuses which extrapolate our cold war in to an alternate timelines that maybe kinda sorta works if you squint

>alan moores ending is solid

>right after seeing

>OH FUCK NEW YORK AND DC AND CHICAGO AND LA WERE DESTROYED BY DOCTOR MANHATTAN

>lets calmly analyze this situation and look at moscow now. Hmm.

>OH FUCK MOSCOW AND VLADISVOSTAK AND STALINGRAD AND BEJING WERE DESTROYED BY DOCTOR MANHATTAN

>lets calmly analyize this situation and look at new york now. Hmm.

There is no way this doesn't result in instant nuclear war.

It doesn't matter if people keep their fingers off of the button long enough to understand that manhattan acted alone. him popping and then fucking off would still be seen as ultimately the fault of the US and breed mistrust and resentment, something that would not happen with a truly alien threat.

the reports would drop about the cities almost instantly, they don't ened to analyze any situation to notice several bombs have gone off.

In the comic the monster makes sense because Ozy was inspired by Alexander the great's solution on how to unknot the impossible knot. So his whole plan relies on lateral thinking: give the world something so fucking crazy (an alien lifeform that not only kills half of NY, but makes a lot of people sick and gives people worldwide actual nightmares for weeks to come) that the world won't have any choice but to accept it as real, because clearly nobody could've faked that. Or, as in the case of Manhattan, somehow convinced the alien lifeform to do what it did.

Is this that autism, sallyann thing, where autistic people can't understand that entities within a narrative won't have complete knowledge of the narrative?

Just because it showed you, an impartial observer, that cities all over the world were destroyed, doesn't mean the US/USSR would consider that as relevant information as they looked upon the smoking craters of their cities.

The movie's ending is predicated on the idea (implying thought went into it at all) that mutually assured destruction was just a big bluff.

You do realize the internet didn't exist yet, right? There wouldn't be twitter posts about new york and moscow vanishing at the same time.

The ending was changed way back in 2004 by David Hayter because he thought that after 9/11 no studio would want to make the movie with a small genocide in New York and buildings collapsing, so he literally changed it to, and I shit you now, this was in his script, some kind of solar power weapon (presumably a reference to a solar system that Moloch used in the comic in his villain days) that vaporizes people, but leaves buildings entirely intact. Before the movie was re-sold to WB, he'd rewritten it to make it Doctor Manhattan energy. But this version of the script also included Veidt sending a message to all world leaders that basically read "this is doctor manhattan, bitches; keep fighting and I'll end you all." Then Nite Owl kills Adrian, and uses the machine to send a final message of his own, a Beatles quote (this was set up earlier when he was showing Laurie his copy of Abbey Road at his apartment): "and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

Then Snyder got the movie and he brought in Alex Tse to doctor Hayter's script. While Snyder fought the studio to make several changes (the script was set in modern times; Snyder pushed to set it back in the 80s and keep it R-rated, and to remove some of the bullshit Hayter had added, like giving Laurie actual superpowers), maybe the ending was the one thing he couldn't fight them on, so he just tweaked it.

There was a reason the 'squid' was ridiculous.

lazy cut and paste direction and shot selection, a 2nd act that bleeds a lot and malin akermans horrible performance on top of questionable understanding of the source material and its thematic purpose and intent.

its still a good movie but its funny looking back because a lot of these types of issues plague snyders work.

because dr man fulfilled the doomsday prophecy quick and cleanly without the nuclear fallout. much more fitting than a giant fucking squid.

He didn't "crack over cancer".
pic related.

Wait, what the fuck? But I thought Moore approved of Hayter's script? Doesn't that mean the fans are giving undue shit towards Snyder when it comes to the ending then?

He didn't exactly approve of it, he said it was as close as he could imagine anyone taking a crack at the Watchmen movie at the time.

Talking about the movie, yo, which offers no reason for his mental breakdown.

>destroy a handful of cities
>doomsday

... snyder fans, everyone