Superhero Filmmakers: Where's Our Watchmen?

oh I am not Barbara Bush, don't give me that bullshit. I don't have to like things you like.

I thought the violence was pretty funny, but I love ridiculous bone-breakings and such.

I didn't say you did. (xpost)

You should tear each other's arms off!!!

although the problem with Barbara Bush as I recall was how callously she viewed real things that happened to real people, not whatever she thought about art (if she did), and fwiw on the subject of that i have more of a problem with Tipper Gore who was actively trying to ban stuff she didn't like.

maybe I am going too far by saying I don't trust things that aren't somewhat funny, I dunno. this film though, it just hit me all wrong. concept I would like to see deconstructed: 1) women in skanky clothes = OMG degeneration of society!!! srsly

wow, you sound like someone who knows a funny movie when you see it. any recommendations?

seriously, it's okay if you didn't like it. you're acting like you're already under attack from the IT nerds at work.

i personally found the movie hilarious. i love grim and bleak, so there ya go.

I predict many IT nerds will dislike it for its squidlessness.

Just got back from the Cinedome. I thought it was TERRIFIC - hallucinatory, ridiculous, with just enough of a anarchic stick in the gut. Closer in spirit to Alan Moore's 2000AD stories than anything later. Mars scenes weak, but those were the weakest scenes in the comic anyway. Prison riot scene, Archie, opening titles, muzak Tears For Fears during Lee Iacocca shooting all crazy brilliant.

My wife (who wasn't familiar with the comic) absolutely loved it. We're going to see it again in IMAX ASAP.

I mean, I don't understand re Moore why the superhero concept needed to be deconstructed? Why? If the process/outcome is to make things grim and boring?

Don't ever read Miracleman then.

Maybe Grant Morrison will be more your thing. "Flex Mentallo" if you can find it.

No no wait... don't do that.

I wonder if Snyder is pondering a Transmetropolitan flick yet.

I found it very funny, at several points. I lol'd quite seriously in the cinema.

Guernica is hilarious btw

I can sort of see why someone would see humour lacking in this movie. I really didn't lol but I still find it somewhat funny. Didn't like the ending so much, it felt tacked on. But that's probably my wrecked'n'tired brain.

I'm probably too old, but the sex 'n' violence were a bit too much for KT (children allowed). Is it also the case in other countries? They can see that gory shit happening without parents? WTFyo.

children allowed?! it's an 18 in the UK

1) Title sequence is only the bets bit if you're a fanboy
2) Glad people who don't know the book found it okay. I'd have thought that it would have been too disjointed if you didn't know the book (and the cat would have been well random)
3) I'm glad I paid an extra £1.50 for the premium seat at the cinema, I'd have gone wrong otherwise. As it was I found it all very enjoyable. The blessings of low expectations I guess. I thought if was flashy and fun.
4) Hellboy>Watchman>Dark Knight.
5) It being a comment on superhero films in 2008 rather than a comment on comic books in 1985 is OTM.
6) Using music to invoke other artistic ideas was very strong. Manhatten in Vietnam with Wagner playing = Apocalypse Now allusion. And LC's Hallelujah rather than Buckley's during the (cringshitworthy) NiteOwl/SS love scene brings it's own set of allusions and metaphors.
7) I guess because it's trying to do a fundamentally different thing to the comic book, it underlines how futile turning a book into a film really is. The differing mediums have different strengths, and so a strong book will likely make a bad film, unless the film is different in tone. The only counter-example I could think of was 2001, and in that the book and film were made/written at the same time, so it hardly counts as an adaptation.
8) My gf and I had a long drunken discussion about how Plato's Forms would relate to book + film = an ur-text of story that both a film and book would be versions of. It was probably nonsense tho.

i liked wilson as night owl a lot in this

in the comic, Rorshach cuffs the child-killer to the incinerator, then starts a fire and gives him a saw, with the place blowing up behind him as he walks away

Actually he says he stood and watched the building for an hour, but nobody ever came out.

Also, "Times Square hookers in 1985" != "Women in skanky clothes." Not for the purpose of what you appear to be implying, anyway. I mean, Times Square in 1985 was a very particular kind of place.

The guy checking the tickets in my cinema was dressed up as Rorschach and frightened the shit out of me when he stepped out of the shadows and asked for my ticket.

that's so awesome

Using music to invoke other artistic ideas was very strong. Manhatten in Vietnam with Wagner playing = Apocalypse Now allusion.

You honestly liked that particular cue? I completely, thoroughly loathed that, I wanted to smack Snyder upside the head for the ultimate in "DO YOU SEE?"

Strong = prevalent rather than good, necessarily. I still disliked it for the same reason I disliked it in AN (clunky and out-of-place).

Film-as-comment-on-film = you couldn't really use anything BUT Wagner for that scene, though.

Which means I think it was the right thing to do, and worked in that context. If you don't like it as an aesthetic choice, that's AN's fault, not Watchmen's; Watchmen is (cack-handedly, pointlessly, perhaps) simply referencing AN.

just in case anyone is in any doubt, mordy's grasp of comic bk history is some serious happy horseshit (eg the Long Halloween by Loeb and Sale came out abt 12 years after Miller's Dark Knight Returns mini, so that's some long-distance 'influence' at work right there)

OH MY GOD. YOU'RE RIGHT. IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN INFLUENCED BY SOMETHING MADE 12 YEARS BEFORE

Noel Gallagher to thread.

Anyway, I think you're just making my point. That it's weak to argue that Watchmen inspired all future "dark comix." It doesn't mean that argument isn't batted around a lot as conventional wisdom. XXP

Right. The above 'argument' draws directly from this comment of mine, I think:

4. The source material for both Sin City and The Dark Knight is directly influenced by the Watchmen graphic novel; Watchmen as a film may have come later, but it is the earlier films that take so much from it, and not vice versa. People have been trying to make this film for 22 years.

As I said before making that post, it wasn't written for here, but rather another forum I use, and that point (4) was in direct reaction to someone (who hasn't read Watchmen the comic) saying "the film is a transparent and rubbish attempt to make a Dark Knight / Sin City crossover", which, if you know even as little as me about comics (or films), is patently ridiculous. I didn't explain any further than that to said commenter, because there was little point in mentioning dates and timelines and so on when said person would never read the comics in question. But basically it was like he said the CD of Smile by Brian Wilson was a blatant Flaming Lips rip-off.

one thing i found with Rorschach: in the book after he's been unmasked i couldn't wait for him to put it back on. in the film i kinda wanted him to leave it off after the prison break because Haley's own facial expression(s...OK there may only have been one) rocked.

mordy, obv all post-dark knight returns batman comics are, in some way or other, post-miller batman comics, but long halloween seems to be an especially poorly chosen example, seeing as it references pre-silver age batman comic bks by kane/robinson/sprang far more explicitly. similarly, the punisher first appeared in the early 1970s and his character wasn't substantially altered for the grant/zeck punisher mini-series in the early 1980s. miller, too, was clearly inspired by the 1950s EC comics of Johnny Craig, the 1940s/50s Will Eisner Spirit strips, Gil Kane's 1960's Savage mag. i guess the point i'm trying to make - w/out recourse to hysterical caps, even - is that these things are never that clearcut or historically linear, and that yes, in this context 'influence' is not a very helpful or insightful word.

Ward, my point was simply outlining was the argument is. I don't see how else you're understanding my statement. The original comment was that The Dark Knight was inspired by Watchmen. Someone else displayed confusion (the WTF comment above) and so I suggested what the historical argument was. That Watchmen introduced a certain kind of dark superhero narrative that later resulted in something like The Long Halloween - which I believe was the primary reference material for the Dark Knight. (On that I could be wrong.) I then explained that it was a faulty argument, and showed that dark superheroes predated Watchmen. I thought about mentioning Punisher's first appearance, but I know he originally debuted as a villain in Spider-man, and only later (tho I don't know exactly how much later since I'm not a dayan on Punisher) the anti-hero he is in his current form. But even taking the mini (the first occasion where he had his own title) as the starting place, anti-heroes and dark comix still predate Watchman.

So again, I'm not sure how you're arguing with me. I think you're making the exact same argument. Maybe appealing to texts further back in time, but still suggesting that Watchman was not the touchstone for this kind of comic.

one thing i found with Rorschach: in the book after he's been unmasked i couldn't wait for him to put it back on. in the film i kinda wanted him to leave it off after the prison break because Haley's own facial expression(s...OK there may only have been one) rocked.

Yes!

Yeah, Stevem, it's children allowed. At least some kids were sitting next to me which made me want to go all "shoo get out of here, you're not allowed to see this!"

and yet Belgium's rate of juvenile vigilantism pales next to the UK's :(

Okay, I just checked. It's children allowed but forbidden for kids under 16 years old. Hmm. These kids def didn't seem 16 to me. *shrug*

A coworker just now -- "When they took off Rorschach's mask, my first thought was...'Yellow eyes, he had yellow eyes, I swear!'"

i just want to thank this thread for hepping me to the existence of debbie schlussel

Film-as-comment-on-film = you couldn't really use anything BUT Wagner for that scene, though.

It's not like anyone has referenced Apocalypse Now before: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/movieconnections

For that matter, based on the age range of most of the people in the audience I doubt that most of them would even know the reference.

What's funny is that there IS a "Valkyries" reference in the book, but I didn't remember it until I was flipping through it again on Friday -- in Hollis Mason's autobiography, it's what his dad's boss at the auto shop was listening to when said boss discovered his wife's affair.

I really had no beef with that song being used in that scene; it probably was done as much to condense stuff from the source material into the movie as much as it was to evoke comparisons (from old ppl, lol) to Apocalypse Now.

I wasn't at your showing Chris, so dunno how old the audience was, but if it was mainly teenage / early 20-something boys, I think you'd be surprised how many of them would know Apocalypse Now.

As for AN references being a bit redundant in 2009; yes, but there's not a lot of point in referencing something no one would notice, is there?

I then explained that it was a faulty argument, and showed that dark superheroes predated Watchmen

If there's any beginning point, it's Frank Miller's run on Daredevil. Sure there were dark superhero stories before, but Miller's Daredevil (and Alan Moore's Miracleman) were the two books that got widespread attention in the comics world. The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen in 1986 raised that attention to the world at large (insert any news article from then that begins "comics are not just for kids anymore")

saw it yesterday and basically agree with everything chris described it as - it was an amazing cinematic spectacle and i'm glad we saw it in a theatre.

our crowd featured mostly late-20s and a large handful of senior citizens (at least two stumbling along with canes).

CD of Smile by Brian Wilson was a blatant Flaming Lips rip-off.

tachyons

Things I wish they had preserved from the book, a list:

- The attack on Nite Owl I
- Rorschach's explicit homophobia
- Nite Owl II/Silk Spectre II on the lam
- Veidt's explicit post-catastrophe power grab (mostly to explicitly justify the end fates of Veidt and Rorschach)

The attack on Nite Owl I

this, at least, in confirmed to be in the final cut.

I was wondering about that, because introducing Mason and then dropping him entirely was weird by any standard.

I was wondering about that, because introducing Mason and then dropping him entirely was weird by any standard.

Not necessarily. Mason's roles in the comic (linkage from Minutemen to "Watchmen", catalyst for Dreiberg to take Rorschach-level action) aren't that necessary in the movie which covered this in the opening credits and the extra-violent mugging and prison riot scenes. If anything, Mason's death is a reminder that the whole thing takes place during Halloween/All Saints (Halloween masks and costume hero masks coming together?)

I was thinking in more of a 'time-spent-on' sense of keeping the story going -- more to say in my next blog on this.