The Watchmen movie is really, really bad. Finished reading the novel yesterday, and watched the movie tonight.
Really bad casting except for Rorschach and Nite Owl. Terrible writing and pacing. Completely missed the point of the novel. Fine, I get it, superhero movies need to have lots of action, but even that was disappointing.
Discuss?
Shit movie from shit source material, what do you expect
Nah.
I think it's time to stop discussion on this one.
This is the genuine consensus, but everyone here is brilliantly edgy and hilariously contrarian, so they all pretend to like it, because pretending to like shit is HILARIOUS
It's the one adaptation that suffers from following the original work too closely. It tries to hit the thematic points and uses its carefully-planned imagery without working towards it. Disappointing, because it could've been a shit forgettable film or a great one, without being far enough from the other extremes.
>Really bad casting except for Rorschach and Nite Owl.
Nigger, there are a lot of things wrong with this movie, but The Comedian and Dr Manhattan were perfect.
>"""""""reading"""""""""" comics
lol this is just.... sad
Final Cut is like, maybe a 4/10 film.
Director's Cut is maybe a 7/10 for such a short length, it actually does make a difference watching the Director's Cut.
Be honest, Alan Moore set aside a lot of his own personal faggotry for Watchmen (mostly), and it shows, and it's a worthy graphic novel.
>Finished reading the novel
nigger it's a comic book
and I'm glad it's not loyal, because the book is filled with mundane lame characters
>Fine, I get it, superhero movies need to have lots of action, but even that was disappointing.
Stopped reading right there.
The movie was better than the graphic novel.
Rorshach's handling of the child-rapist was much more brutal in the movie. Also, the alien squid monster thing in the novel made no sense. Framing Dr. Manhattan was a lot more interesting, as it gave him a reason to leave Earth.
The soundtrack was also perfect. That's something the comic books don't have, of course.
>pretending to like shit is HILARIOUS
and playing the contrarian game is legit fun
Watchmen is a deconstruction of capeshit, the entire point of the octopus was to be retarded.
Dr. Manhattan, the man who is comparable to God, whimpers like a fucking child.
OP here, my main problem with it was that it was just average, and they added a lot of it when they could have used that time (or the 8 minutes of sex scenes) to bolster the story.
Like who, and how were they mundane?
The Nite Owl / Silk Spectre scene was the best part of the movie. I still remember it to this day. I don't really know why though.
i remember watching the motion comic version to get hype for the movie, then watching the movie version and being disappointed as hell, it hit the major points well enough but left out the details that would have made it a great film
Technically it's Otto's wife's son.
Male cast was spot on. Females were shitty. Director is an untalented autist failure. That is all. It's up to HBO now.
>Finished reading the novel
>the novel
(((Novel)))
Look im just going to throw my opinion as a comic fag, if you never read Watchmen and love the movie GO RIGHT AHEAD more power to you BUT know that you are missing a ton of shit that was left out for obvious time and budget reasons.
I really hate comic snobs and film snobs alike, you dont need to read the source before watching the movie, you are not a worst person for not knowing every plot aspect before hand.
Thats it, sounds pretty fucking obvious but someone needs to remind these children.
Oh and one other thing, in my 30 years ive never met a comic reader that actually gets angry about a movie adaptation, I know its hard to believe but most comic fags like me are regular dudes so dont fall for the "le angry autistic nerd" meme, think for your selves.
Oh shit I didn't know about this till you mentioned it
Yeah the movie is bad. Or rather hollow. But the Synderfags will defend it to the death.
>Really bad casting except for Rorschach and Nite Owl.
I agree that the movie is a tonally confused dumpster fire and that Snyder's grasp on the material he was adapting was tenuous at best, but you're wrong on this, Billy Crudup and Jeffrey Dean Morgan were both perfectly cast. (Jackie Earl Haley's also REALLY overrated in this, he's just okay.)
>Also, the alien squid monster thing in the novel made no sense.
Which character was improved by the movie and how?
best part was the music
I think it's really interesting how much thought went into each panel of the graphic novel.
>novel
You are absolutely correct
>nove
*tips*
The irony is that people accuse Snyder fans of pretension.
>Also, the alien squid monster thing in the novel made no sense. Framing Dr. Manhattan was a lot more interesting, as it gave him a reason to leave Earth.
I bet Snyder thought this too, which shows how little he got about what was Moore trying to say with the comic. Besides, Moore is pretty obssessive with his writing, and a lot of shit is put there for a reason. If you change something as big as the ending, you have to go back and change a lot of shit. The most obvious is Bubastis, which is included in the movie for no reason at all. And the one that's more important is the reason why The Comedian loses it and says "it's all a joke". Why would he lose it when he found out Ozymandias tried to use Manhattan as a weapon, when he was already doing the dirty work for a goverment that did such a thing? What about it would be considered a joke? How would an American weapon going out of control suddenly cause world peace (even temporary) instead of heavy sanctions against America and a feel of animosity towards them? And also, the point of Ozy's plans was showing that even though he was supposedly the smartest man on Earth, he was still caught up in the superhero crap and his masterplan was something right out of a silver age comic.
>It's the one adaptation that suffers from following the original work too closely
lmao no, it misses the mark on most things the original tried to achieve
just because it copies few of the panels 1:1 doesn't mean it follows the original too closely, there is more to movies and comcis than pretty pictures
This scene was well done in the movie though.
>Finished reading the novel
>novel
????
Blake loses it because Ozy has Rorschach's power at his command and is going launch a nuclear holocaust.
And Manhattan being the replacement for the squid is necessary due to the way the squid was built up in the comic (in the background).
Why was Dan there
>people butthurt about the dark color palette and violent action scenes
Watchmen was a deconstruction of the superhero genre. The book was meant to be a look into the psyche of the kind of person who thinks they can save the world, from the all encompassing god complex of Dr. Manhattan to the petty, obsessive thug busting of Rorschach. It had a bright color palette because that was the look of the genre being deconstructed and it clashed quite nicely with the terrifying and disturbing content of the story. Following this the whole industry changed and superhero comics started to get dark and introspective.
The Watchmen movie therefore was a deconstruction of the superhero FILM genre which at the time was obsessed with dark, gritty action and leather costumes. The movie used these elements introspectively in the same way the comic did with its visual design. Lo and behold superhero movies did the opposite of the comics and become brighter and more fun following the Watchmen movie (not that I think the movie caused this ofcourse).
Watchmen was GOAT. If you don't like it then you don't understand comics and you don't understand film.
>Rorshach's handling of the child-rapist was much more brutal in the movie
>missing the entire point
>Also, the alien squid monster thing in the novel made no sense.
I remembered when I saw this with my father and he was so shocked by what Rorschach was doing that he covered my eyes
Why not?
Also Patrick Wilson's scream is usually believable for a movie scream.
The film scene is an improvement because Moore has Laurie and Dan having sex or something while Rorschach dies (been a while since I read it).
Moore had already made his point about the flaws of his characters. At the end he just goes overboard with the bleakness.
millenials call comics "Graphic Novellas"
unusually*
Cause it's a huge fucking part of decepting the characters, especially Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan
Pretty much this. The way Snyder changed the movie don't really work considering how much he left unchanged.
He obviously didn't get the point that Watchmen was also a satire.
But where the fuck did he learn all that?
If Ozy doesn't need to develop alien mutant and kidnap all the scientists and artists, he doesn't need the island to hold them all in so there is no fucking way Comedian ever learns about his plans
>He obviously didn't get the point that Watchmen was also a satire.
But he did.
He talks about certain choices he made like Ozy's bat-nipples being a jab at Batman & Robin.
He understood the book. You could say that he mostly ignored the point (I wouldn't say that, but you could), but you can't say that he didn't understand it.
I liked the space octopus ending better.
>If Ozy doesn't need to develop alien mutant and kidnap all the scientists and artists
He needs the scientists to re-create Manhattan's power, dumbass.
Everything is exactly the same, just replace genetic experiments with reverse engineering Manhattan's powers.
fuck this was a great post. You just explained it perfectly.
>Lo and behold superhero movies did the opposite of the comics and become brighter and more fun following the Watchmen movie
You must've missed the movies Snyder did himself.
And no, it doesn't work as a satire and commentary on superhero films because it's too obssessed to replicate the comic book in the most superficial way, while not really getting what the comic was really about. In order to do that, they would've had to rewrite a whole shitload of stuff in order to make it about what superhero movies are.
Also, the fact that Snyder even filmed the Black Freighter segments tells you he never really tried to make it about movies, and that he can't interpret things, but merely reproduce them.
>He understood the book
he clearly didn't, he only got the most obvious, on the nose parts of it
>what if.... super heroes, .. . .... wer real ...?...
>makes you think
was basically what he got
and it wasn't really a satire as it was his view on deconstructing the super hero comics so far
The Ultimate Cut version can at least be considered decent, like all book to film adaptations it suffers from trimming in order to keep it from being too long.
>The movie was better than the graphic novel.
Hurr
>Rorshach's handling of the child-rapist was much more brutal in the movie.
In the comic Rorschach chains him and sets the place on fire, telling the guy to either cut his hand with a dull blade or die, then stands outside until he could no longer hear the screams, that's much more brutal than just cleave the guy's head.
>Also, the alien squid monster thing in the novel made no sense.
While I do prefer Manhattan being framed the alien squid was basically like a 50's sci-fi horror setting, it makes sense but more people won't be able to look past it's initial goofiness.
>it's too obssessed to replicate the comic book in the most superficial way, while not really getting what the comic was really about.
I've still never seen an explanation of this line of logic.
>Also, the fact that Snyder even filmed the Black Freighter segments tells you he never really tried to make it about movies, and that he can't interpret things, but merely reproduce them.
This sentence isn't saying anything.
You don't explain your reasoning.
>He needs the scientists to re-create Manhattan's power
where in the movie did they say this and that he had the scientists kidnapped at all?
and why the island if he doesn't need hudnreds of kidnapped people and secrecy for the cloning experiments?
>defends this movie
>uses a before watchmen pic
No surprises there.
>he clearly didn't
wrong
>Ozy's bat-nipples being a jab at Batman & Robin.
But that's not the type of satire Moore did with Watchmen. That's just sophomoric parody stuff. Satire has a meaning and it's supposed to be criticism of something, and aim to edify and mend things the author sees as wrong. Taking a jab at bat-nipples is just superficial mockery.
>where in the movie did they say this and that he had the scientists kidnapped at all?
They show the scene of him congratulating and then killing the scientists. Like the comic, we don't know what they were working on until the end.
>and why the island if he doesn't need hudnreds of kidnapped people and secrecy for the cloning experiments?
Because he still needs absolute secrecy?
He's trying to recreate the strongest force on the planet while not letting slip that is was manufactured.
And of course because Ozy has delusions of grandeur.
>Blake loses it because Ozy has Rorschach's power at his command and is going launch a nuclear holocaust.
Why would he lose it, when he was part of a goverment that had Manhattan's power at its command? And why would he care about such "holocaust" if it was for the greater good, when he dedicated his life to killing and doing terrible things for a greater good?
In the comic, he loses it because of the squid's psychic element, but also because it's so fucking absurd that he can't even tell anybody what Ozy was doing because it sounds so fucking retarded.
Right, but the guy said that Snyder didn't understand that Watchmen was a satire.
Whether he understood it superficially or more deeply is moving the goalposts.
>was basically like a 50's sci-fi horror setting
No
It was a comic book setting
Super hero comics have always dealt with alien threats, supernatural beings, 'cosmic' and other dimensional shit
This was basically Moores take on the 'realistic' setting of Watchmen of how that kinda shit would go down, lot like Dr Manhattan was his take on god-like superhero like Superman would go down in his 'realistic' setting
It also had to be bigger threat than atomic bombs of cold war, people were constantly living in fear and in anxiety of that, the threat to unite world needed to be something completely alien and massive in magnitude, hence the psychic trauma the alien caused.
Because the government wasn't going to bomb virtually every major population center on Earth?
And because Ozy is a very different man from Manhattan.
>but also because it's so fucking absurd that he can't even tell anybody what Ozy was doing because it sounds so fucking retarded.
He could take a picture. He could tell the government some lie to get them to go up there. HE could blow the place up.
He could tell the other capes.
etc
He wouldn't have destroyed so many of important scenes of the comic if he had some sort of understanding what he was doing, go read some of his interviews regarding capeshit, all he talks about is the horseshit about "muh realistic superheroes" he didn't get shit
good movie
fuck off to Sup Forums desu
>pretending to dislike the movie or the graphic novel
But Manhattan says
>nothing ever ends
meaning that the Manhattan framing ending is functionally the same.
>inb4 they'd just get mad at the USA
Ozy bombed a bunch of US cities.
>They show the scene of him congratulating and then killing the scientists
those weren't the scientists they were his servants you silly goose, where in the fuck did the movie ever state he had kidnapped scientists and needed their skills?
>I've still never seen an explanation of this line of logic.
The Black Freighter is a piece of metafiction within the novel. It's a kid reading a comic that reflects the facts that we are reading in a comic along with him. The movie doesn't even attempt at using it in the same way, it's just some shit Snyder thrown in because it was in the comic.
>he takes comics seriously
you know it is literature for kids, right?
Eh, I disagree.
I've read the comic plenty of times and the movie is an excellent companion piece.
This, honestly.
Sup Forums's crippling autism would be better for a Snyder hate circlejerk.
>those weren't the scientists they were his servants you silly goose
Uh no, they were scientists. Watch it again.
You now realize that the cut without the Black Freighter is Zack's preferred cut because he realized what you did- that it doesn't cleanly fit.
Of course, it still comments on the film, the placement of the segments was just to difficult.
He tried to tell, but he sounded like a rambling lunatic because he kinda was at that point. You know, because the plans were even too absurd for The Comedian, and was also likely affected by the squid's psychic waves. In the movie, his reaction is completely out of character and makes no sense in retrospect, when the comic makes more and more sense the more you read it and think about it.
>when the comic makes more and more sense the more you read it and think about it.
Not really. There was no reason why he couldn't have done any of the things I listed.
too*
>meaning that the Manhattan framing ending is functionally the same.
As far as Ozy succeeding in anything I guess, but framed Manhatan doens't only fuck up ton of plot points, it completely misses the tone and deconstruction aspect of the alien squid ending.
>Ozy bombed a bunch of US cities.
It would still be seen as US responsibility. Just because an American weapon also fucked up America, people wouldn't go all world peace and forgive everybody, they would look for someone to blame right away, as it always happens. The alien threat was supposed to avoid this by giving everybody a foreign scapegoat which in theory would make them forget about the hatred among themselves. Of course, the plan is supposed to eventually fail, as Manhattan tells Ozy, but the movie's plan just makes Ozy look dumb because he'd be only instigating more hatred and warfare.
It brings the nuclear paranoia angle of the era home full circle in a way that the comic doesn't though.
It's actually better. Moore missed a trick.
The book's plan makes Ozy look dumb though.
He didn't make Islam do away.
He didn't make oil go away.
He should have known that people would go back to fighting in a matter of years.
>You now realize that the cut without the Black Freighter is Zack's preferred cut because he realized what you did- that it doesn't cleanly fit.
Yes, but he only did after he actually went and spend money and time to do it, without realizing from the get go it wouldn't work in the movie as it did in the comic because a movie is not a comic. That shows the level of understanding Snyder had of the source material, and of film itself as a narrative medium. All he knows how to do is some visual trickery and ape pre-existing works of art in the most superficial way possible.
He fucking tried to do all the things you listed but got killed. And he was obviously affected by the squid's psychic waves. You need to read the comic again.
Not at all. The Black Friegher comic works fairly well in the Ultimate Cut and of course still comments on the events of the film.
It was just hard to edit in at consistent intervals.
Of course, the black freighter segments in the book were also a momentum killing slog, commentary or no. Talk about self fellation.
>Not really.
Why Bubastis exists when Ozy never needed to experiment with cloning?
Why didn't Comedian just try and inform someone (Like fucking Manhattan) that someone is attempting to frame Manhattan? What drove him crazy? Why even have the island?
What is the meta element of Ozy framing Manhattan, what does it deconstruct?
How does just the plain logic of literal muber one biggest weapon of US supposedly attacking several places end a cold war, crisis that is all about tension of no one attacking anyone unite US and Soviet against ""common"" threat?
That's what Manhattan is trying to tell him, and what we're meant to understand from the comic. That a comic book solution doesn't apply to real people. His plan made perfect sense in a comic book logic way, which is what he was caught up into, like the rest of the characters. It's just that the rest of the world didn't work that way. This is completely absent in the movie's ending, and it's a fucking core element in the whole story.
Nah, it makes no sense that he went to Moloch instead of someone like Dan who he knows has the tech to get to Antarctica.
>It brings the nuclear paranoia angle of the era home full circle in a way that the comic doesn't though.
No it doesn't what the fuck are you talking about
>Of course, the black freighter segments in the book were also a momentum killing slog, commentary or no. Talk about self fellation.
Now I understand why you're on Snyder's side.
Moloch is shown to be more sane and reasonable than all the rest of the characters. He's the only one that grew out of the superhero/supervillain bullshit.
What kind of voice would you have wanted him to have? I think making him soft spoken was a good choice.
But that's just irrelevant to the point. That's Moore trying to have his cake and eat it too.
Either Ozy is genius or he's an idiot. He can't be a comic book genius in a comic book. That breaks the story because it's no longer a story. The meta level has taken over to the point that it wrecks the whole book, because Ozy is smart and stupid at the same time.
That's not relevant. If anything, Dan's desire to get back in the saddle would have work to the Comedian's advantage.
>Why Bubastis exists when Ozy never needed to experiment with cloning?
Who says he didn't? He's a faggot genius and wanted a flamboyant pet.
>Why didn't Comedian just try and inform someone (Like fucking Manhattan) that someone is attempting to frame Manhattan?
This applies to the squid too.
>What is the meta element of Ozy framing Manhattan, what does it deconstruct?
Nothing, it instead brings the themes of nuclear paranoia to their logical conclusion. Something that the book doesn't do.
>How does just the plain logic of literal muber one biggest weapon of US supposedly attacking several places end a cold war, crisis that is all about tension of no one attacking anyone unite US and Soviet against ""common"" threat?
Because the bombing of US cities gives us leverage.
And besides, both versions are temporary,
and according to
Ozy is an idiot in the book too.
>He can't be a comic book genius in a comic book. That breaks the story because it's no longer a story. The meta level has taken over to the point that it wrecks the whole book, because Ozy is smart and stupid at the same time.
But that's the whole fucking point! That even Ozy was caught up in the immaturity of the superhero logic, and that the world's smartest man could only come up with a childish plan because he was basically still a child, like everyone else. They're all in a state of arrested development, and that's what the book is showing us with that ending.
And that's why The Comedian goes to Moloch, because he needs someone outside all this bullshit. Somebody that at some point realized how stupid everything was and quit.
>comic books are ahistorical liberal fantasies
>so I made an edgy ahistorical liberal fantasy
Bravo Moore
Watchmen is shit. It contextualizes why comic books are utter shit by being the exact same thing it tries to not be. Morality of the ending is contrived, the whole comic especially crafted to get there so the point could be preached over the reader's head.
Snyder didn't really get it. But he didn't need to. It was a fun flick. Can't say the same about the comic.
Do you?
The Black Freighter is both mildly redundant, and breaks with the visual tone of the book.
>Also Patrick Wilson's scream is usually believable for a movie scream.
Yeah, I think so too, probably because rather than just being a NOOOOOO which always seems lame, it's more of a NYOOAAAGGGHHH, an inarticulate bellow of denial. I dunno, he just sold it well.
The movie was wonderfully shot, directed, and edited. I don't understand the problems people have with it.
>Completely missed the point of the novel.
How?
I thought the casting was perfect with the tragic exception of Silk Spectre, and arguably Ozymandias.
>It contextualizes why comic books are utter shit by being the exact same thing it tries to not be.
Somebody can't into satire.
Makes no sense. That means the whole book is just Moore edging until he ejaculates his gotcha moment all over your face.
>HA! THIS "STORY" WAS IN SERVICE OF ABSOLUTELY NOTHING INTERALLY CONSISTENT, I JUST WANTED TO GIV YOU MY OPINION ON THE STATE OF THE INDUSTRY
damn...
pretty much