Superhero Filmmakers: Where's Our Watchmen?

* Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman (nuff said)

they could totally make a funny movie out of this (pitch "Bad Santa as a milkman!") and I'm pretty sure its been optioned multiple times but just never happened.

Is he any relation to Ernie the fastest milkman in the West?

I'm halfway positive Eclipse did not own the license to a lot of these characters when McFarlane bought them.

Reid Fleming looks exactly like Harvey Pekar. Just putting that out there.

Wonder exactly what McFarlane bought.

The spirit of Reid Fleming is alive and well and all over Adult Swim. (I'd rather see a short Milk & Cheese cartoon.)

Harper Collins just published the Zot! collection so I'm guessing McCloud owns the rights to that (since that's who also published Understanding/Reinventing/Poking a Stick @ Comix.)

you can strip the black freighter layer off no problem. obv that weakens the original story but it's not as if the whole thing falls apart without it.

FACT: I have never actually read the black freighter stuff in Watchmen.

your loss

btw rosebud was his sled

your loss

I do wake up at nights sobbing because of this.

btw rosebud was his sled raft

btw rosebud was his sled raft seagull

The Black Freighter thing essentially just emphasizes the elements which are already there in the main story, it doesn't really add anything new that isn't already inherent to the major plot. I think the biggest thing it does related to the main story is that it questions the supposedly open "I leave it entirely to your hands" ending, because according to the Black Freighter subplot Veidt is already damned. Though maybe it just means Veidt is damned in his soul, not necessarily that his plan will be revealed to the public. Anyway, it I think it functions as a sort of a hidden morality to the story, because it makes the ending morally less ambiguous by clearly stating that Veidt was wrong. So, theoretically, if the movie cuts off the whole Black Freighter story, this could actually make it more open-ended and ambivalent than the comic.

it makes the ending morally less ambiguous by clearly stating that Veidt was wrong.

I think this is super-crucial, especially because it isn't Rorschach (who paradoxically praises Truman as one of his heroes in the opening pages) saying it.

its part and parcel with the "battle not with monsters" Nietzsche quote - Veidt does and is damned for it. Like the guy in the Black Freighter, he has willingly become a butcher, and in the company of butchers he will stay (wonder if Snyder will keep Veidt's line about how he dreams of swimming towards the freighter).

Yeah, that's why I called it a hidden morality. Basically, the "I leave it entirely to you hands" ending of the main comic is Moore saying to reader, "You can judge for yourself whether Veidt was wrong or not", but the ending of the Black Freighter is him saying, "I think he was".

(x-post)

cut out the Black Freighter and the impression left is that Rorschach is the lone voice of morality, which is ridiculous

x-post

a nation weeps

It's not just that Veidt becomes a butcher, the main thing is that he does the wrong thing (killing innocent people/the Black Freighter guy killing his family) while thinking he is doing the right thing (saving people/saving his family). The moral judgement in Black Freighter is quite clear.

(x-post)

cut out the Black Freighter and the impression left is that Rorschach is the lone voice of morality, which is ridiculous

Well yeah, but this would mean the voice of morality actually has to be the audience.

Whoops, sorry, he doesn't actually kill his family, does he? But he still kills a couple of innocent folks.

Notice that the Black Freighter guy's name is never given. I wonder if ti bgeins with an A?

He kills his wife.

SPOILER

No, I don't think he does. He beats her up, but is stopped by their kids stepping in. His wife is shown alive a few panels later.

(x-post)

It's been so long and I don't have the comic with me so I'll defer here.

I believe Tuomas is correct, he tries to strangle her...? He does kill that couple on the beach though.

When I first read the comic I thought he killed her too. But she is shown alive, looking at him while he runs away from their house towards the Black Freighter.

I guess most readers just assume the worst while reading that bit for the first time, so they don't notice all the details. I certainly didn't.

4. INT. STATUE - THAT MOMENT
The screen of a portable TV shows THREE HELICOPTERS lifting off from
Laguardia. We're in the OBSERVATION ROOM inside the statue's head.
A TERRORIST holds a crowd of SQUEALING TOURISTS -- men, women,
schoolchildren -- at bay with an automatic rifle. Two others stand
by the windows, scanning the harbor for signs of a double-cross; and
a fourth, the RINGLEADER, speaks into a walkie-talkie.

RINGLEADER
Good. We got forty innocent people here. One false move . . . and
we blow her brains out.

SWAT CAPTAIN (O.S.)
(filter; from walkie-talkie)
Blow whose brains out?

5. EXT. STATUE - THAT MOMENT
TIGHT on the ring of OBSERVATION WINDOWS situated just below the
jutting spikes of the CROWN. CAMERA PULLS BACK rapidly to take in
the whole of the statue's head.

RINGLEADER (O.S.)
(a nasty laugh)
Lady Liberty, my friend. Lady Liberty's brains!

6. EXT. FERRY - THAT MOMENT - DAY
MOUNTING TENSION among the SWAT TEAM on deck.

SWAT COP
Sons of bitches.

SWAT CAPTAIN
Relax. We'll nail 'em on the transfer. Let's get those hostages out
first.

SWAT COP II
Captain . . . what the hell is that?

All eyes turn upward. In the distance, a TINY SPECK descends from
the clouds and drops, in a perfectly vertical line, toward the head
of the statue. The SWAT CAPTAIN hoists a pair of binoculars:

SWAT CAPTAIN
Shit. Shit fire!!

SWAT COP
Sir! What is it?

7. POV SHOT - THROUGH BINOCULARS
A magnified view of the SPECK, which turns out to be a futuristic,
blimplike HOVERCRAFT -- the OWLSHIP.

SWAT CAPTAIN (O.S.)
Christ almighty, it's the goddamned Watchmen!

Oooh boy.

The Evil Watcher What Watches at Midnight.

WatchTick

anyway, i didnt read dis thread but it looks like dumb, lame crap. otoh, i would pay full ticket prices - not matinee!!!! - to see an adaptation of the SAM HAMM watchmen script (excerpted above), instead of some fool-ass nigga, like, HONESTLY trying to adapt it. the og comic is dated ass irrelevent bullshit, and it overinflates its fukkin importance to treat it like some shakespearian ass bullsquid that everyone needs to experience.

OH NO THEY RAPED MY CHILDHOOD MY CHILDHOOD WHY DOESN'T ANYONE LET THESE THINGS REST *EYES GLISTEN*

that's a joke script, right?

that's a joke script, right?

Nope, it's the Sam Hamm-scripted version of Watchmen from around 1989 or so. You can read the whole thing here: http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/wtchmn.txt

all i care about is seein my nigga ~*bubastis*~ onscreen

[21:57] HELLA like DYING: christ almighty its the goddamn justice league of america
[21:57] eviliraqi: holy farkin sh*t its the watchmen. scram boys.
[21:58] eviliraqi: *teleports chuthulu in from another dimension*
[21:58] HELLA like DYING: lol
[21:59] eviliraqi: heh. so u see. i did it like ten minutes ago.
[21:59] HELLA like DYING: pardon me gents but you won't be needing these *removes guns from all henchmen at superspeed* where you're going
[21:59] HELLA like DYING: INT: Prison
[21:59] eviliraqi: lol
[21:59] HELLA like DYING: Henchman 1: Aww nuts those goddamned watchmen!
[21:59] eviliraqi: *kicks the ground with hands in pocket, a small cloud of dust settles*
[21:59] eviliraqi: those rat fink watchment
[22:00] HELLA like DYING: lol
[22:02] eviliraqi: so u see gents...heh....i did it fifteen minutes ago...
[22:02] eviliraqi: did what ozymandias?
[22:02] eviliraqi: ozymandias: heh...u know....
[22:02] eviliraqi: CAMERA cuts to nite owls face, he is making the :iamafag: face
[22:02] eviliraqi: CAMERA cuts to ozymandias' face, he is making the :iamafag: face
[22:03] eviliraqi: Fin.

Probably already linked but if not:

MTV: Walk us through your mind-set as you assembled the trailer.

Zack Snyder: Well, the first idea everyone had, from what I saw online, everyone was saying, "Oh, they're just going to do, like, a title treatment with some Rorschach voice and no pictures." And I was like, "No, we've got to give them some pictures," because to me the debate is about how close to the graphic novel will the movie be. We've just really been trying hard to get the movie as in spirit of the graphic novel as possible, so I wanted to show pictures right now so people can go, "Wow, I recognize that frame."

Etc. etc.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this with bemused detachment. One thing I'm leery of is Snyder's eagerness to treat the book as holy text and put EVERYTHING in might actually dilute the story and hurt the movie. For example, the Black Freighter story: it works brilliantly in the comic, but is it appropriate for the movie? Could some other element of the story be used to convey the same ambiguity and emotion?

See also: the stuff that was left out of the LOTR movies.

Snyder: Dr. Manhattan is an interesting person to hang the movie on in a lot of ways, because he's the conscience of the movie. His perspective on humanity and mankind is a lot of the conscience of the movie, for me anyway, and how he relates to the other characters is really important. He's also spectacular in his creation, so it seemed fun.

^^^ludicrousness

For example, the Black Freighter story: it works brilliantly in the comic, but is it appropriate for the movie?

Wait, I thought that was all being done as a separate animated film? Or did I miss something upthread?

Wait, I thought that was all being done as a separate animated film? Or did I miss something upthread?

It's a separate animated film... Just using it as a general example.

Honestly, I'm fine if they had just skipped the Black Freighter stuff and concentrated on making the rest of the movie good.

First time I read Watchmen, aged 14 or so, I took the Black Freighter to be a neat textural detail which echoed the beats of the main plot rather than the moral lynchpin, as has become the standard (and probably correct) reading. I still absolutely loved the book. so I don't think BF is essential to Watchmen, it just enriches it.

supposedly they're not using the squid

there are many, many conflicting reports about this though.

Snyder: Dr. Manhattan is an interesting person to hang the movie on in a lot of ways, because he's the conscience of the movie. His perspective on humanity and mankind is a lot of the conscience of the movie, for me anyway, and how he relates to the other characters is really important. He's also spectacular in his creation, so it seemed fun.

^^^ludicrousness

I thought the whole point of Dr Manhattan was that he was past conscience. Veidt rejects conscience for the good of humanity, and Rorschach is the conscience, though is ultimately ineffectual. At least that's how I remember the story, though it's been years since I read it.

If Snyder doesn't get the basic dynamics of this story, then it will be an exquisitely arranged shitpile.

5xpost

Dr. Manhattan's arc in the comic is that he gains his conscience back and starts caring about human beings again - though more like a parent cares about his children than as an equal to them. (Anyway, I always thought "conversion" on Mars felt a bit too easy and quick.) But calling him the conscience of the story still doesn't make much sense, because for most of the story he is the opposite to that.

This makes more sense if Snyder is a sociopath.

The trailer has a shot of Dr. Manhattan fighting in Vietnam, also known as totally blowing away a scared little dude in one of those big-ass hats.