Superhero Filmmakers: Where's Our Watchmen?

"Remember when VMN actually still showed music videos?" = best Youtube comment ever.

Because "movie stars" make piss-poor superheroes, esp. in movies like this one.

― Pancakes Hackman

??? not sure what you mean. thought keaton and bale were at least decent as batman. besides them, i can't think of many movie stars who've played superheros. cept in shit movies like batman forever and daredevil that probably couldn't have been saved no matter who was in 'em.

and what "movies like this one" are there? as far as i know, this is the first big-budget revisionist/subversive superhero flick.

this is the first big-budget revisionist/subversive superhero flick.

An argument could be made for The Incredibles, though it's coming at it from quite a different direction.

The "Sub QUantum Intrinsic Device" thing sounds interesting...

Bale was hardly a "movie star" at the time of Batman Begins. What was he most known for? A movie he made when he was 12, and American Psycho? Keaton, arguably, was a movie star, but certainly not of the Redford/Newman/Eastwood caliber. Otherwise, yeah, Clooney, Kilmer, Affleck, Halle Berry, Jennifer Garner . . . all of them have made terrible, terrible superheroes. If you want people to concentrate on the characters, use relative unknowns. Would the first "Superman" have been better with a movie star instead of unknown Chris Reeve?

as far as i know, this is the first big-budget revisionist/subversive superhero flick.

Argubaly "The Dark Knight," but OK, fair enough.

Anyway, lol fire:

Did you have previous experience with weapons?

I got to go to the firing range quite a few times. It was a blast. I loved that part of it... There was a flame thrower range in the warehouse, that was a trip... The day that I did the scene where I have to keep the flame on this guy for ten seconds, do a ten count in your head, which is an exceedingly long time to pointing a flame thrower at some guy who has a little gel on him. You're just nailing him with these flames, and I kept pulling up early. I thought I'm going to really hurt this guy and I can't deal with that. And Zack's like, "Do it again man, and you're enjoying this too."

I kept having to redo it because I was pulled up. And I'm smiling and having my little moment but, so finally the last time I did it, I held it on this guy, but in the mean time I'd done it so many times that the rice paddy had been covered with gasoline from shooting this thing. So I'm burning this guy up and I do it and I'm like, "yeah you fucking bastard," and I look down and there's flames coming at me, and it comes right up my leg and there's no one near me. I'm in the middle of a rice paddy. And I look up and I see Zack and his eyes are this big (makes big circles over his eyes) and all I can think is "I can't ruin the costume."

The guys did so much work on the costume and I thought I'm just going to have to put it out myself. It was a nightmare (laughs). They're imperfect heroes. I kept the cigar lit the whole time, I just sucking on that.

Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach) interrupts:
Rorschach would have been like "27, 28..." (Laughs)

Otherwise, yeah, Clooney, Kilmer, Affleck, Halle Berry, Jennifer Garner . . . all of them have made terrible, terrible superheroes.

cage too. but i don't blame the actors. all the folks you mention starred in irredeemably shitty movies. and while chris reeve was exc for superman, that doesn't really prove that serious actor-types are unsuited to superhero roles. my point about the cast wasn't that they're big stars (though they are/were), but that they're enormously capable, charismatic, sort-of-superheroic screen personalities. would have liked to see a bit more of that kind of firepower (charisma and acting chops) in the watchmen cast.

At least Kelly Leak appears to get the "Hrrm" right.

what the hell is going on with those music cues

I know, sounds like the music from a bad 90s SF tv show.

Also he couldn't sound much more different from the Rorscach in my head.

they're probly temp/tracking cues

Rorschach is nearly creepy/pathetic enough.

rorschach voice is crazy retarded. doesn't sound at all natural, rather like some nerd affecting a "tough & creepy" tone. like bale's batman voice in the dark knight. :(

mask is cool though

OTOH, if the idea is that rorschach really IS a nerd trying (and failing) to act "dangerous", then congrats

rorshach =

Yeah, I do hope the "rough" voice is supposed to be just a part of Rorschach's tough guy act, and if/when they show flashbacks of him pre-Rorschach, he'll have a squeaky geek voice or something.

They do that with lettering in the comics. Oh, and balloon borders.

Speaking of balloon borders, I'm not sure if everyone's noticed this, but in Watchmen in the scenes that take place in the 1940s the speech balloons are kinda soft and cloud-shaped, whereas the 1980s speech balloons are rougher and angular, and the 1960s balloons are somewhere between those two.

That's some crazy attention to detail, I didn't even notice it until I read the comic for the fourth time or something.

Can't wait to find out what they do for the

PASSWORD INCOMPLETE: DO YOU WISH TO ADD RIDER?

scene

If they don't get that one right I'm boycotting this motherfucker

Best yet:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3549/3308946065_61b604fa06_o.jpg

hey wait, why didn't Dr Manhattan just magic up enough food for everyone

I'm guessing he couldn't be bothered.

fuckin' guy

those are some weird lookin starving kids

OTOH, if the idea is that rorschach really IS a nerd trying (and failing) to act "dangerous",

thats the impression i always got from the book

FAILING to act dangerous?

What?

with his voice, not with his psychotic killings/maimings

he's the dylan klebold of grim n gritty

Well, yeah he's a maladjusted little pipsqueak without the mask and lift shoes, and maybe he's coasting on his rep when everyone is intimidated by his very presence, but I can't recall anything that suggests people ever failed to take Rorschach seriously as a threat. Eric, or whatever his secret identity is, sure, no one cares about that guy.

Uh he's not exactly shy and retiring when he's unmasked and in prison.

i never read him that way. i always figured that there was no element of pose to rorschach - that he was very "pure" is his creepy, psychotic anti-heroism. that he wasn't trying to impress or scare anyone, rather his basic character was scary by nature in ways he didn't even understand. i took the "spooky" word bubbles as indicative of a pathological lack of affect, a genuinely weird speaking voice, and the muffling effect of his mask. comics give you a lot of room for interpretation tho...

^^^ yeah, this is how i've always understood him.

I didn't really communicated what I meant there: I always felt that as much as Rorshach is definitely a sociopath he's a very theatrical sociopath. His mannerisms seem....mannered.

no, see, that's the thing: i've always felt like he's very un-mannered. there's nothing theatrical about him at all, which is why he's so creepy.

yeah, me too. but now that i'm used to the idea, i could see it working the other way. kind of undercuts the character, though. i mean, part of rorschach's function is to represent an idealistic, almost childish authenticity and purity in a fallen world. not only to represent, but to criticize, to deconstruct the idealistic integrity of the lone wolf here archetype.

to make him part of that fallen world, just another ego-boosing superficial persona, is to undercut the critique in some ways. then again, maybe it opens up other ideas...

"hero archetype"

"ego-boosting"

etc.

> Uh he's not exactly shy and retiring when he's unmasked and in prison.

Yeah, the props aren't the whole thing; he really is a fucking killer nutbag. He's not in his secret identity in those scenes. But as placard guy on the street he just disappears, to the point that the newsie spits out his coffee, because he doesn't even realize he's there.

I think the way he tells his story to the psychiatrist suggest certain (maybe subconscious?) ego-boosting and sense of theatrics. He wants the psychiatrist to understand his mission as Rorschach. If he truly didn't care, he wouldn't have said anything to the guy.

He had, like, a polish accent in the book didn't he?

to make him part of that fallen world, just another ego-boosing superficial persona, is to undercut the critique in some ways. then again, maybe it opens up other ideas...

― They don’t understand. And I eat a lot of matzo brie. (contenderizer), Wednesday, February 25, 2009 10:21 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

exactly i always understood him as a critique of the sociopathic lone wolf

just borrowed the comic from a friend at work. haven't read this is over 10 years, lost my copy somewhere along the line.

anyway excited to read it again, wanted to be able to participate in the post-release "why did they change that" bitchfest.

Also, the fact that he keeps a journal (presumably for someone else to read, at least posthumously) with all those pompous words suggests that he does what he does at leats partially to boost his ego, he's not just a force of nature or something. It's the classic story of a bullied kid becoming the lone, misunderstood hero of a story he writes in his head.

And I think the critique of lone-wolf vigilante works better that way. The idealistic depictions of these kind of "heroes" depict them exactly as pure, child-like forces of nature, whereas Moore shows that they're more likely to be just fucked-up self-centred creeps.

like

ain't shit romantic or noble about the dude even beneath his sociopathic impulses

he's just fuckin nuts

yeah, he's a total egomaniac, no doubt. wouldn't argue that, but i nevertheless always figured him for a very "real" sort of person, for someone who just sort of is. not for a would-be hero putting on a tough-guy act

also agree about the "fucked-up self-centered creeps" bit, but if he's also a phony then it becomes more a critique of pretenses based on the ideal, not of the ideal itself. and i think moore intended to critique the ideal.

and i think that's the point moore was making about a whole swath of costumed types xp

but if he's also a phony then it becomes more a critique of pretenses based on the ideal, not of the ideal itself. and i think moore intended to critique the ideal.

I think what Moore is trying to say is that those sort of ideals are impossible to achieve in practice, that in real world this sort of "heroism" would become antiheroism. Note that the main character in V is also a lone wolf tough guy bent one making a better world, and the only way Moore can make him a hero is by making him a non-person.