Superhero Filmmakers: Where's Our Watchmen?

Move over X-Men -- here come The Watchmen! Heroic Watchmen team leader Ozymandias, the sarcastic Comedian, sexy Silk Spectre, and grim & gritty Nite Owl come together to stop the evil genius Dr. Manhattan from taking over the world and enslaving the human race. Can they stop him in time? Find out when Watchmen hits theaters June 2009!

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actual treatment written by Snyder

maybe its purposeful misdirection

I think we might as well give up on the masses ever being as big of smart asses us whether they read the book or not.

“[The graphic novel] is #1 or #2 on Amazon right now, and that’s awesome. I think that if in the end the movie is a 3-hour advertisement for the book, then so be it. I succeeded.”

I think this fanboyish total devotion to the original source material is kinda worrysome. In every Snyder interview I've read he seems to repeat that he just wants to bring Moore & Gibbon's vision to the screen as faithfully as possible, to do justice to this great piece of art, etc. I think that's kind of a sheepish attitude; as a movie director you're supposed to be an artist yourself, and give us your take of the subject. I don't think a comic book movie should be like exactly like the original comic, only set in motion. It should at least have a fresh interpretation of the source material. I think one of the problems with the Sin City movie was exactly that it tried to slavishly copy Miller's comic books as they were, right down to the reduced, cartoonish visual style, without realizing that what looks good in the pages of comic book might look silly in a movie (the Yellow Bastard, for example). At least the folks who did V for Vendetta added their own ideas and interpretations to the original story.

^^^arguably not a good thing though

v for vendetta was a shitty, shitty movie

so true

oddly the people I knew who really liked it were people who had never read the book

(okay perhaps not so oddly)

This week’s Watchmen festival is finally wrapping up for me. I’m done. How much Watchmen can one guy take? Upon arriving, I thought this was a Comic Book Festival, but I was sadly mistaken. This was an awesome Watchmen commercial that I actually got to walk around in. How exciting is that?

As soon as I got off the train, I saw every person on the street was carrying a big Watchmen bag. They had Watchmen posters, and Watchmen toys and photos with their favorite Watchmen characters. Not everyone who wanted to see the Watchmen panel were able to get it, but the creators of the movie and the entire cast were there. And they talked about the movie!!!!

I found all the money the studio spent promoting Watchmen at Comic Con to be ridiculous. These are nerds. It is like trying to sell guns to the NRA. You know how the studio could market The Watchmen to nerds? Go to a remote town in Alaska and find a nerd. Then just walk up to him and whisper, “There’s going to be a Watchmen movie.” At that point, every nerd in the world will know. They have some sort of communication device.

It is like trying to sell guns to the NRA.

BAHAHAHA

They have some sort of communication device.

I gather they've heard of those tubes up in Alaska.

I like how you noticed a hint of "don't let them in my secret garden" comic fans.. kinda like when music elitists hate it when scenesters enjoy THEIR music (the elitists music).

tbh I get just as annoyed by music fans that do this too.

Really, I'm just happy that my friends are now getting into this book and I have people to discuss it with.

as a movie director you're supposed to be an artist yourself, and give us your take of the subject.

Normally I would agree, but I really don't think I want to see Zach Snyder's interpretation of anything.

cool posters

A little something from the bald one. (Not Dr. Manhattan.)

with this, and Oliver Stone's W. trailer, and all those scary goose-bumps-inducing Veidt commercials slated to come with the movie, and their glaringly unmistakable collective vibe just points to one exact thing: the 80's IS coming back. Neither a remake, nor pastiche, and not just in a mere period sense, it's simply returning something fierce. That is the looming zeitgeist.

The '80s

is how it is

My sister-in-law gave me a shirt that said:

I (clip art of a fake Pat Benetar)
80's

It was comfy & fit well, but I'm not all that <3 of 80's..the minor and common style issue in abbreviating that decade was what really kept me from wearing the shirt, ever.

Asshole message end.

can a zeitgeist really "loom"?

it is simply returning something fierce

A zeitgeist is, translated extremely literally, a 'time ghost,' so I think it can't do anything but loom.

i've always been partial to the idea of a leering zeitgeist

like damn 2008 is durnk and keeps licking its teeth at me wtf

i think geist means 'spirit' more than ghost as in the 'spirit of the age'

Imagine Boo-berry in a tardis, and somehow he is wicked looming with some American Psycho-throwback regeneration brought about by a trailer for a movie about the 21st century's president. Fuck!

im not saying that it can't loom

abbott you have destroyed my mind

Yeah, it is 'spirit of the times' but geist can also mean ghost. I find it amusing to be way too literal in any language. Plz ignore.

Srsly how is a trailer w/a young 'Dubya' proving it is now THE '80s.

yeah I don't get the Dubya connection at all. When I think 80s I don't think Dubya. (W will be way better than this, btw!)

he was young(er) in the 80s. IT MAKES THE SENSE.

i guess we all were

I was reading a "Weekly Reader" about the 1988 Olympics in that looming zeitgeist.

"booberry in a tardis" MEANS something to me.

How can I avoid this looming zeitgeist? Is there an antidote?

Lemme guess - I'm supposed to BUY something.

Knock booberry out of tardis, vote Obama.

i re-read my copy of watchmen last nite, just 4 tha hell of it

it kinda... isn't that good

challops!

I do wonder what makes you say that.

I watched the 'motion comic' of the first issue of Watchmen last night. It was VERY not good, and even more pointless than I thought it would be.

Tied for most obnoxious:

a - one guy doing all the voices, including Sally

b - the word balloons appearing on screen as the one guy was reading them

a - one guy doing all the voices, including Sally

this can't be as bad as Moore reading extracts from it himself on The Culture Show last year

What the heck is this "motion comic"?

It's panels from the comic with a little bit of Flash animation and a voice over. Free on iTunes, if you think you can stomach it.

That sounds awful, who would ever think such an idea could work?

I dunno. My excuse for watching it I can't help being curious about strange formalist blends, and that certainly fit the bill. Pure unalloyed fail, though.

http://chud.com/articles/articles/15768/1/SDCC08-ZACK-SNYDER-INTERVIEW-WATCHMEN/Page1.html

that "Page1" in the url is a big tease. I thought there would be a lot more to it than just 500 words of fluff like "I like Iron Man and the Dark Knight but this is different."

I believe the crux of the movie is that it offers a moral choice. That is Watchmen. Let's just say that, without getting too spoilerish, a certain character in the movie survives that.

Rorschach lives = fuck that shit