Watchmen Trailer is Up. It's not good.

July 17, 2008 3:02 PM

Too polished? Too clean? Too much of a run of the mill action movie for my liking. But hey, I guess its only the first trailer....
posted by Mintyblonde (219 comments total)

I don't know. They've certainly got the look right, from the costumes to Nite Owl's ship. But it's from the guy who did 300, so I'm still not expecting much.
posted by Rangeboy at 3:07 PM on July 17, 2008

I don't think this is going to go well... I'm just sayin'.
posted by the_royal_we at 3:07 PM on July 17, 2008

The visuals so far are astonishingly close to the paper versions, that alone won them some points.

Nobody's allowed to make a Transmetropolitan movie though. You hear me? Nobody.
posted by Skorgu at 3:07 PM on July 17, 2008 [5 favorites]

Can someone delete this and do a decent Watchmen FPP?
posted by empath at 3:09 PM on July 17, 2008 [18 favorites]

HD FLV file of the trailer.
posted by empath at 3:10 PM on July 17, 2008 [4 favorites]

deletion reason: Too much editorializing? too confusing? Too much of a run of the mill slyt post for my liking. But hey, I guess it's only the fpp about the trailer.
posted by empath at 3:13 PM on July 17, 2008

I figured that they would skip the entire shipwreck story subplot, one of the most poignant parts of the book, but look at this! Hooray!

"According to today’s NY Times, Warner will be releasing a straight-to-DVD animated movie tentatively called Tales of the Black Freighter five days after Watchmen opens in theaters. It “follows a side Watchmen storyline about a shipwreck…" [link]
posted by ...possums at 3:13 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

I don't have a whole lot of hope for this movie, and part of me will dislike it no matter how good it is.

But goddamn that's a good teaser trailer.
posted by lekvar at 3:15 PM on July 17, 2008 [3 favorites]

There's no way you can make the pirate story fit in the theatrical version, but I think a 4+ hour DVD version with the pirate story inter-cut would be really astounding.
posted by empath at 3:15 PM on July 17, 2008

I think it looks good. I expected them to really screw it up, but it looks like the visuals are spot-on.
posted by gnutron at 3:17 PM on July 17, 2008

I sure want this to be good and the visuals certainly look promising. What was that song playing over the trailer? I couldn't stand that.
posted by marxchivist at 3:19 PM on July 17, 2008

Damn you. I've been very careful to not get my hopes up.

But then, unintentionally hilarious:

"God help us all... From the visionary director of '300'"
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 3:19 PM on July 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

"The End is the Beginning is The End."

Which is appropriate, for a variety of reasons, IMO.
posted by empath at 3:20 PM on July 17, 2008

This city thread is dying of rabies. Is the best I can do to wipe random flecks of foam from its lips?
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:20 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

It does look pretty good. BUT THEN SO DID JOHN KERRY.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 3:22 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

VERY MUCH WANT
posted by WPW at 3:23 PM on July 17, 2008

Teh horrorz. Teh horrorz.
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth at 3:24 PM on July 17, 2008

... but prepared for crashing disappointment a la From Hell, V for Vendetta, League, etc.
posted by WPW at 3:24 PM on July 17, 2008

Watchmen Babies.
WatchPeanuts.
Watchmen shouldn't be a movie.
Terry Gilliam's Watchmen that never was.

(I'm a fan)
posted by gerryblog at 3:26 PM on July 17, 2008 [7 favorites]

WPW, probably a good policy, but I think Snyder gets the book and more than that, respects the source material. I don't think he's using this as an excuse to do his own thing, he's just trying to make the best presentation of Moore's work that he can.
posted by empath at 3:26 PM on July 17, 2008

PostIrony, that trailer is like the Machine from the Princess Bride. I saw it in the theater (I'm not clicking on that link, thank you) and for every minute of the trailer a year of my life was sucked away.
posted by LionIndex at 3:26 PM on July 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

Where's HuronBob with the inside dope? HuronBob, I SUMMON THEE!
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:27 PM on July 17, 2008

Okay, so here's a question. I've never read Watchmen. It's been on my list for a while, but I haven't had the cash. Should I read it next chance I get so I can hate the movie along with everyone else, or should I watch the movie first and then go see what it was missing?
posted by Caduceus at 3:27 PM on July 17, 2008

miracleman, top 10...
posted by kliuless at 3:28 PM on July 17, 2008

My son is one of the producers on Watchmen (he also worked with Zack on Dawn of the Dead and 300).

Word from him is that the movie is looking very, very good. They are very excited about it.
posted by HuronBob at 3:28 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

summoning spell still works ... so I got that going for me
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:29 PM on July 17, 2008 [9 favorites]

I'm glad they made Nite Owl (proper spelling?!) not look like a total twat. Definitely Batmanier

Has this thing been shot all blue screened; kind of like Sin City and 300? I hope not.
posted by Telf at 3:31 PM on July 17, 2008

Caduceus, just read it the next chance you get. Either the movie will be good or it won't, but don't deny yourself the full impact of the story by seeing the movie first.

Of course, I think the full impact of the last chapter was improved by the extra delay of a month or two that DC put us through when they first released it, but it would be awfully purist of me to expect you to replicate that. :) Just read the graphic novel as soon as you can.
posted by litlnemo at 3:31 PM on July 17, 2008

Read it ASAP.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:32 PM on July 17, 2008

So has Moore disowned this one yet?
posted by gottabefunky at 3:32 PM on July 17, 2008

If you ask me (and I know no one did), the graphics are exactly wrong. The whole point of the Watchmen is that it is about superheroes in the real world. Yeah, that looks cool, but it ought to look like an episode of The Shield, except with a blue flying guy making impossible things happen. Hyper-stylized 300-style look works for other comics, but this is one that doesn't work for, IMO. For me, I'm holding off on my decision to see it until I hear some reviews. the big question: did they keep the ending?
posted by Bookhouse at 3:33 PM on July 17, 2008 [9 favorites]

Will we see celluloid scratched clean where Moore has ripped his name from the film, or will it actually be torn and re-spliced from the effort?

Caduceus, may as well do the deed now and enjoy it while you can. If experience serves from the non-graphic context, once you get the film version in your head, it's hard to imagine it any differently. Here, yeah, you have visuals in both cases, but even just hearing Rorschach's voice in the teaser was a somewhat unnerving experience.

I think I may have a re-read just so I can appreciate my imagined version once more before it's ruined for good.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 3:33 PM on July 17, 2008

Should I read it next chance I get so I can hate the movie along with everyone else

I think most people are giving the movie the benefit of the doubt at this point.
posted by empath at 3:33 PM on July 17, 2008

Visually, I think this looks quite excellent. If you peruse the 'making of blog' they've got up there, you can see how much effort went into the construction of the set pieces that really make it look like the city scenes in the book. If they don't strip all the freaking story out to squash it into 2 hours, it could be really awesome.

That being said, yes, if it just turns into a craptastical action flick, I will be bummed.

Yes Cad, read it, it is totally worth it.
posted by bitterkitten at 3:34 PM on July 17, 2008

I thought the visual style of the books was a little boring, so I'm not sensitive to complaints that this trailer has somehow betrayed it. Of course, I am ready to believe that the film will betray the comic in other ways.
posted by grobstein at 3:34 PM on July 17, 2008

Caduceus: Okay, so here's a question. I've never read Watchmen. It's been on my list for a while, but I haven't had the cash. Should I read it next chance I get so I can hate the movie along with everyone else, or should I watch the movie first and then go see what it was missing?

The guy who wrote it, Alan Moore, has, for the last decade, consistently refused to endorse or even watch movies made based on his books. Take from that what you will.

Or you could just consider that this movie is being directed by the director of 300, and that the guy who wrote the book that 300 was based on would have killed himself and taken dozens of best boys with him if he'd seen the movie. Or even if he'd read that awful comic book by that hack, what's-his-name, who's that guy who writes nothing but self-indulgent, sexist tripe for jocks and meatheads?
posted by koeselitz at 3:35 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Perhaps too early to tell, but this makes Nite Owl look like he actually is a badass, and I never got that sense of the character from the comic.

Not that I got the opposite impression: that he was bumbling and pathetic. Just that he wasn't quite a deadly figure striking from the shadows the way he wanted to be. The dude in that trailer doesn't look like he'd forget to urinate before putting on his costume and end up squirming in discomfort while crime-fighting.

Most of the others look about right, especially the sadness surrounding Dr. Manhattan.

I'm slowly allowing myself to think that this might be worth watching.
posted by lord_wolf at 3:35 PM on July 17, 2008

So has Moore disowned this one yet?

He preemptively disowned all future movies made from his work. He's refusing money for them, all the money is going to the artists.
posted by empath at 3:35 PM on July 17, 2008

heh, on preview, I guess it isn't a secret... I haven't seen any early drafts of this (yet), haven't had the chance to head out to LA since the shooting was completed. The kid tells me that it looks great so far, a lot of post production still to be done. Empath has it right, I believe, Zack will be pretty faithful to the original work.

Zack's a very interesting guy, he really has little concern with the fame/money aspect of what goes on out in Hollywood, he is really dedicated to the quality of what he does.

I was very impressed with what they did with 300 in terms of being faithful to the tone and look of the original novel (although, I will admit the addition of some subplots).
posted by HuronBob at 3:35 PM on July 17, 2008

gottabe: Yes, I believe he has.
bookhouse: that is an excellent point.
Durn: I thought Rorschach's voice in the trailer was not nearly creepy enough.
posted by bitterkitten at 3:36 PM on July 17, 2008

I kinda resent that they're making this, but it looks like Zack Snyder is doing the best job possible. Ideally they would have made it like they did Band of Brothers. Take the 12 part comic and produce a totally faithful 12 part HBO miniseries. It would make hundreds of millions selling BluRay disc sets and showing on HBO.
posted by autodidact at 3:37 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Perhaps too early to tell, but this makes Nite Owl look like he actually is a badass, and I never got that sense of the character from the comic.

There are scenes in the comic where he is a bad-ass. The impression I got was that he was just a schlep until he put the costume on and came alive.
posted by empath at 3:38 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Word from him is that the movie is looking very, very good. They are very excited about it.

I just hope the movie is more than special effects. 300 was laborious camp.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:40 PM on July 17, 2008

I dunno, I thought it looked pretty good. They certainly got Dr. Manhattan right. What gives me lots of hope is this: they cast Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach. To me, that seems like one of the best casting decisions ever. I can't think of anyone else I'd rather see in that role, and since Rorschach is not just my favorite character in the Watchmen, but one of my favorite characters EVER, I will maintain high hopes.
posted by irix at 3:41 PM on July 17, 2008

I feel totally inadequate because I've never heard of the book or the movie. As I watched it, I thought it was awesome. But then I see that soooo many people actually read the novel and have something to say about its interpretation, which leads me to believe that I missed the memo somewhere.
posted by danep at 3:44 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

"300 was laborious camp."

exactly... as was the graphic novel.... frames from the movie were nearly identical to frames from the novel...

That's why I'm hopeful regarding this as well.
posted by HuronBob at 3:45 PM on July 17, 2008

Dr. Manhattan did seem perfect. I like that Night Owl wasn't a bumbler, though if they make him too cool, that would be too bad.

I thought Rorschach's voice in the trailer was not nearly creepy enough.

Ditto. But I know by the time I've watched the whole film, I'll have lost any impression I had of anything different. Hell, a hundred readings of LOTR and the movies have wiped all but Tom Bombadil from my mind.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 3:45 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

This help empath? Sincerely, yes I should have backed up the post with some more background but these links are being taken down so swiftly and having read other threads on here I know how excited people are about this and I got a little overexcited.

I met Moore once at a signing in a Peterborough (UK) comic shop just after Watchmen Issue 12 had come out. He was wearing a white suit, white shoes and a white tie with a Superman 'S" golden tie clasp. Good times.
posted by Mintyblonde at 3:46 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Huronbob: Good point.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 3:46 PM on July 17, 2008

Oh come on, I hear the plot is just a rip off of Heroes.
posted by tkolar at 3:46 PM on July 17, 2008

(ducks)
posted by tkolar at 3:46 PM on July 17, 2008

I've been going through my older comics. Excited about The Dark Knight movie, I bought the re-coloured hardcover edition of The Killing Joke. The art was always incredible and the new colouring just makes it pop more.

Between that, Watchman, Dark Knight Returns, and Batman: Year One, DC was really kicking some ass in the mid to late eighties.
posted by autodidact at 3:47 PM on July 17, 2008

I imagine that Sandman will be next down the pike if this does well.
posted by empath at 3:49 PM on July 17, 2008

Perhaps too early to tell, but this makes Nite Owl look like he actually is a badass, and I never got that sense of the character from the comic.

Well, I think it also depends on when you're talking about. The implication is that back when he and Rorschach were a team for the first time, they were pretty bad-ass. He's a little rusty in the "main" timeline of the story, however. Plus, they never had a chance against Veidt/Manhattan, so there's not a lot of opportunity to see how effective he is in the present.
posted by wildcrdj at 3:51 PM on July 17, 2008

Nite Owl is a badass in the flashbacks, when he's young, enthusiastic and active. By the time the main storyline is being told, he's older, fat, and has been a lecturing academic for 10(?) years. He's still got moves enough to take down street punks and other untrained fighters, but he's past his prime.

And the Human Quibble could kick Quibble-Man's ass any day of the week.
posted by lekvar at 3:51 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

From a Moore interview in gerryblog's first link above:

"....And the other side of the comics industry, the achingly trendy, avant garde books, they're mired in a teenage worldview too. All they provide are comfort eating comics about neuroses and the emptiness of modern life and fear of dying alone."

Damned if he didn't just describe perfectly the last issue of Acme Novelty Library....

As for this trailer, I'm impressed by the fidelity of the character design, but that song fucking sucks.
posted by mr_roboto at 3:52 PM on July 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

"and that the guy who wrote the book that 300 was based on would have killed himself and taken dozens of best boys with him if he'd seen the movie"

heh... based on??? I sat through about 4 days of shooting for 300, WITH Frank Miller... he loved it...he was there when they were shooting it.... If you're going to make statements like this, document it a bit, eh?
posted by HuronBob at 3:55 PM on July 17, 2008

I agree with what Moore said about 300 (that it was profoundly stupid), but that's not Zack Snyder's fault.
posted by empath at 3:56 PM on July 17, 2008

Between that, Watchman, Dark Knight Returns, and Batman: Year One, DC was really kicking some ass in the mid to late eighties.

I wish they'd go ahead and make The Dark Knight Returns as a cartoon, which strikes me as the only way it'll ever get made. If they took some real time with it, it could be awesome. Batman: Year One will never, ever get made, because you could film it very cheaply, and they'll never make a mid-budget Batman movie.
posted by Bookhouse at 4:02 PM on July 17, 2008

Is there a quote by Miller that is critical of 300? I missed that... I would be curious if someone could point me to it.. (and, if so, I take back my response above).
posted by HuronBob at 4:02 PM on July 17, 2008

If that's Billy Corgan on the soundtrack, there, then this movie is definitely doomed because Billy Corgan's head is shaped like a peanut M&M. That's bad luck in some obscure cultures.
posted by katillathehun at 4:03 PM on July 17, 2008 [8 favorites]

Billy Corgan?!? Well, that doesn't fucking bode well at all, I'm afraid.

Kinda looks like cheeseball blue screen junk to me (my apologies, HuronBob). But on the other hand, even though he gutted the political subtext of the original (which...REALLY does not bode well, vis a vis Watchmen), I did dig Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead (which is, okay, not at all without fault, but it does have about the most perfect first reel of any horror film in this decade). So for me, he's batting .500, and I...well, I'm not hopeful, exactly, but I'm not yet convinced this will suck, either.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:08 PM on July 17, 2008

Batman: Year One will never, ever get made, because you could film it very cheaply, and they'll never make a mid-budget Batman movie

Well, Batman Begins had some elements of Year One in it, which probably makes it even less likely for them to make an actual Year One movie. There once was a Year One movie in development, but it got shelved and what they ended up making was Batman Begins.
posted by wildcrdj at 4:08 PM on July 17, 2008

Agreed. 300 was a terrible, terrible movie that was very faithful to a terrible, terrible comic. Arguably the movie threw away some of the very few decent things in the comic (e.g., quiet Laconic dialogue replaced with spittle-flecked screaming), but still.

This does not mean the Watchmen movie will necessarily be good or bad. But trying to make a decent movie out of 300 would have been an attempt to swim up the rain.
posted by kyrademon at 4:08 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

1.) As much as I enjoyed the remake of Dawn of the Dead, I have to ask: Has Zack Snyder ever directed anything that didn't already have a massive built-in audience before he picked it up? Watchmen, like Dawn of the Dead and 300, has a huge following. When is Snyder going to do a project that doesn't already have a massive media presence?

2.) People can tell me how faithful to the comic it is once they give us some full frontal of Dr. Manhattan.

3.) Despite my prediction that nothing good will ever be adapted from the works of Alan Moore, I have to admit that I sometimes daydream that Pixar will someday get their hands on the rights to Tom Strong.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 4:08 PM on July 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

the graphics are exactly wrong. The whole point of the Watchmen is that it is about superheroes in the real world. Yeah, that looks cool, but it ought to look like an episode of The Shield, except with a blue flying guy making impossible things happen.

I agree with Bookhouse times a million. And re: Rorshach's voice: it's nothing like how I pictured it. In my perfect world, it would be somewhere between Steve Buscemi and Christopher Walken -- slightly off, weird, unsettling not in a scary badass way, but more in a "I think that guy might be a child molester" way.

This looks like a kickass action movie, and a fucking terrible adaptation of Watchmen.
posted by Greg Nog at 4:09 PM on July 17, 2008 [6 favorites]

If that's Billy Corgan on the soundtrack, there, then...

I wasn't sure until I lost pressure in my left eye and a jet of blood shot out the corresponding nostril. "Yep," I said. "That's Billy Corgan all right."
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:09 PM on July 17, 2008 [4 favorites]

300 didn't really have a huge following. It was a pretty obscure comic. And Dawn of the Dead was a cult movie.
posted by empath at 4:12 PM on July 17, 2008

Interesting though maybe not laudable development here in the history of cinema re: Hack directors using 'graphic novels' as storyboards. That's all he's doing. Bringing anything else to the table? Doesn't seem that way. One can imagine seeing this process automated using a 'Storyboard to Film' application in a couple of decades....automated entertainment.
posted by jettloe at 4:12 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Smashing Pumpkins? Ick. This is a story that cried out for a Miles Davis soundtrack. Mournful and lonely and smoking a cigarette while the world goes to hell.
posted by jbickers at 4:13 PM on July 17, 2008 [4 favorites]

"I think that guy might be a child molester"

hehe...
posted by kliuless at 4:13 PM on July 17, 2008

Hmm, guess I'll have to go back and re-read the graphic novel to catch some scenes of Nite Owl being a badass.

My interpretation has always been that rather than Nite Owl alone being a Batman analogue, Nite Owl + Rorschach = Batman, with Rorschach representing the fighting and detective work aspect while Nite Owl embodied the gadgetry aspect of Bats. (Although given that Rorschach can improvise devices and Nite Owl does throw hands at various points, it wasn't a discrete split.)

Despite my prediction that nothing good will ever be adapted from the works of Alan Moore, I have to admit that I sometimes daydream that Pixar will someday get their hands on the rights to Tom Strong.

WANT.
posted by lord_wolf at 4:13 PM on July 17, 2008

Quicktime HD
posted by empath at 4:14 PM on July 17, 2008

Zack Snyder made the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake? Ok, slightly more optimistic...

This is a story that cried out for a Miles Davis soundtrack.

We can still hope. I can't count the number of films that use music in the trailer (usually stuff just like this) that doesn't make it into the film.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 4:14 PM on July 17, 2008

300 didn't really have a huge following. It was a pretty obscure comic. And Dawn of the Dead was a cult movie.

Uhhhhh...it sold really, REALLY well for a good twenty-five years before the remake. If that's a cult, it's a big fucking cult.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:14 PM on July 17, 2008

Just a heads-up: I will be posting my gf watching the trailer and crying.
posted by Zambrano at 4:15 PM on July 17, 2008 [22 favorites]

The VFX are really terrible, even at that tiny resolution. That said, however, I'm not disappointed at all. Great style. The only question: the script. Well, and the acting.
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:19 PM on July 17, 2008

I think the CGI isn't fully rendered.
posted by empath at 4:21 PM on July 17, 2008

Batman: Year One will never, ever get made, because you could film it very cheaply, and they'll never make a mid-budget Batman movie

Well, Batman Begins had some elements of Year One in it, which probably makes it even less likely for them to make an actual Year One movie.

Well, that's exactly it. I didn't like the previous Batman as much as some people, but I recognize that this incarnation is as good as you're going to get in the near future. No one is going to make a Batman movie the way I'd like to see it done, and from a financial standpoint, they are right not to do it. They are probably right to make Watchmen is a way I would consider "wrong" as well, and that's just the way things go.
posted by Bookhouse at 4:21 PM on July 17, 2008

Bookhouse: the big question: did they keep the ending?

Yes. "Patrick Wilson, who plays Nite Owl in the movie, talked with MTV recently and assured them they're keeping [the ending] the same."

The song is Billy Corgan; it's Smashing Pumpkins' The Beginning is the End is the Beginning, which is a slower and less electronica version of The End is the Beginning of the End. Both were written for a compilation of songs "Inspired by Batman and Robin", and it will NOT be in the Watchmen movie. It's just stand-in scoring for the trailer.

And for everyone asking if they should read it? YES. Regardless of whether or not the film is awesome or terrible or anything in between, for the love of Dr. Manhattan, read the novel. It and Maus are the two graphic novels that have consistently made the "Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century" lists from Very Important Literature Reviews and Magazines. (Sandman occasionally pops up too.)

As for the trailer? I think I'm leaning toward the "mostly awesome" end of things, but we shall see.

Hurm.
posted by tzikeh at 4:21 PM on July 17, 2008

Also, I'm this dense --- Until seeing that trailer, I hadn't made the connection between the watchmaker stuff and the title of the comic.
posted by empath at 4:21 PM on July 17, 2008

Wow, I didn't expect all my hopes and dreams and anticipation to drain out of me quite that quickly... what is it, a fucking cartoon! It looks like Heros for god's sake! Too slick, too computary, too much like bloody 300... Yet another piece of action movie CGI infected souless shite when it could have been so much more.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:26 PM on July 17, 2008

fs: don't you think it has to reference comic book movies in the same way that the book referenced other comic books? Night owl SHOULD look like Burton's batman, not the comic book batman.
posted by empath at 4:28 PM on July 17, 2008

fearful - it's supposed to look "just like all the others". That was the point of Watchmen. So this superhero movie has to look just like all the other superhero movies.

On preview - what empath said.
posted by tzikeh at 4:35 PM on July 17, 2008

I don't know what you're all talking about. When I look at this trailer, I see...

A Pretty Butterfly.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 4:36 PM on July 17, 2008 [8 favorites]

We need to accept right here and now that this adaption will not be perfect. Even a long movie isn't big enough to contain everything that Watchmen is as a comic. It just can't be done. The one and only way to properly capture Watchmen would have been a series on HBO or Showtime or something. 12 issues = 12 episodes, one issue per hour.

But they're going ahead with the feature film anyhow. Alan Moore has already disowned it, but the artist, Dave Gibbons, has been singing its praises. Considering all the shit that they could have cut, they've made some pretty ballsy choices. I wasn't expecting the Doctor Manhattan & Comedian's years in Vietnam to make it to the screen, but they've got Doc exploding some NVA right in the fucking trailer. I'm bummed that the Black Freighter won't be in theaters, because that portion of the Watchmen experience is not optional.

To enjoy this movie, I'm gonna have to draw on skills I developed during the LoTR trilogy. I loved those movies, but they were full of painful cuts. The book's Tom Bombadil sequence, for instance, was when I decided I loved reading Tolkien after all. I would have loved to have seen a Weta-built Barrow-wight. The Scouring of the Shire was skipped entirely. But those movies were still fucking badass (not a universal opinion, I know) - I loved'em, bought the extended DVDs and still rewatch'em on cold days.

They won't get every Watchmen detail right. Stop expecting them to this very minute. As a movie-going comic book fan, you have to be watching for the essence of the characters and story, not every little quibbling detail. No, Spider-Man doesn't have organic webbing, but Sam Raimi's Spider-Man was accurate in spirit. Yes, Wolverine should be shorter than everyone else on screen, but High Jackman got everything else about Logan spot-on. No, Tony Stark didn't get captured in Afghanistan but in Korea in the comics, but Favreau's film nailed Stark's transformation while in captivity dead between the eyes - the precise location is less important.

So if Snyder's Watchmen blows a few details but gets the essence of the experience right, then I'll be all for it. I'll go see it twice. This story and these characters are quite dear to me and, to be honest, I kind of always hoped it never would make it to the screen. But now that it has, I'm hoping to have a fun time watching it. And for all it's flaws and omissions, merely seeing Archimedes breaking the water in that trailer gave me chills.
posted by EatTheWeak at 4:37 PM on July 17, 2008 [11 favorites]

empath: Do you think he's actually going for that, or did he just update the costume to make him a teensy more badass? There were some visual changes that he made to 300 too.
posted by pantsrobot at 4:37 PM on July 17, 2008

HuronBob: Is there a quote by Miller that is critical of 300? I missed that... I would be curious if someone could point me to it.. (and, if so, I take back my response above).

sigh...

Seriously, you thought Frank Miller made all that up?
posted by koeselitz at 4:40 PM on July 17, 2008

empath, that's an interesting point... but my issue is just with the general look of the thing; as someone pointed out up thread Watchman was, on one level, about how the world might have turned out by having actual superheroes in it... not exactly a good thing, and you can only reflect this in a film by making the film, well not exactly dull, but gritty, warn-in looking realistic cinematography, not super-slick-shiney-cgi-cartoony superheroville that we've seen in so many films already. I mean hopefully it's not completely finished and they can rough it up a bit in the final grading... but I'm not holding out much hope (this on top of reading the terribly disappointing Inglorious Bastards script.. not a great day)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:42 PM on July 17, 2008

Batman could beat all of them.
posted by turgid dahlia at 4:44 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

I agree with the general perception that most of this movie seems not really down-to-earth enough (and that Nite Owl, and also for that matter Laurie, ought to be kind of schlubby), except that Dr. Manhattan looks really good.
posted by furiousthought at 4:44 PM on July 17, 2008

I've gotten about halfway through Watchmen, and I dunno...

I'm just not feeling it. I guess the end is really where it all happens? I love the metafiction of the Black Freighter. But other than that, I don't feel much love. I liked Kovacs in prison and the interrogation. Personally, I expected a squeeky kinda nerd voice. Awkward and socially inept.

But, maybe I just need more action in my stories. Like, I adored Invisibles, it's slick, sure, but the metanarrative was more a headfuck to me, the conspiracies and and the occult really... I dunno, I just liked it and got sucked in a hell of a lot more than Watchmen.

I also don't read much fiction, so maybe that's why. Watchmen may be more novel like than I'm used to??? What the hell am I missing?
posted by symbioid at 4:45 PM on July 17, 2008

I disliked Sin City the movie. And I really hated 300 the movie.

I'm not falling for this one.

Though I only thought Watchmen was just "okay." Unlike like some people who treat it like the bible.
posted by tkchrist at 4:46 PM on July 17, 2008

I with symbioid.
posted by tkchrist at 4:47 PM on July 17, 2008

"Watchmen opens in theaters March 6, 2008"

So what's the big deal? It's been out for four months.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:47 PM on July 17, 2008

Well, technically, Nite Owl should look like Blue Beetle, but there's not been a Burton adaptation of the Justice League. Yet.
posted by subbes at 4:48 PM on July 17, 2008

What the hell am I missing?

On the surface, Watchmen gave rise to the postmodern superhero that we all take for granted today. At the time it was mindblowing. Goodguys can do bad things. Badguys can do good. The ugly ending is a happy ending is an ugly ending.

On a deeper level, Moore does... things... with the structure of the story that don't come through on the first reading, the second, or the tenth. The recurring visual and story motifs grow and fold in upon themselves in fantastic, self-referential ways that aren't immediately obvious.
posted by lekvar at 4:55 PM on July 17, 2008

I really wish everyone freaking out about this would remember the "OMG Starbuck is a woman!" kerfuffle from a few years back and just chill out until they've actually seen the damn thing.
posted by Cyrano at 4:59 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

You have to read The Watchmen at least twice, before it really clicks, I think, once for the story, once to gape in awe at all the things that you should have noticed the first time through, but didn't.
posted by empath at 5:00 PM on July 17, 2008

Oh yeah? Well. Katee Sackhoff STILL sucks.
posted by tkchrist at 5:02 PM on July 17, 2008

Symbiod: As an example, re-read the issue Fearful Symmetry, taking special care to notice reflections in the art, and the lay out of the issue. In particular, find the exact middle of the issue (it's pretty obvious which one it is, and then work your way to the outside, paying close attention to the panel lay out.

I'm curious as to whether Snyder manages something similar in the movie. It would be an interesting translation challenge, for sure.
posted by empath at 5:04 PM on July 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

Watchmen. Have it here on my shelf at work. Read it like fifty times. Still... meh. It's okay. Still overrated if you factor the fan-boy hype about the thing. There are comics I like much better.

And yes. I like William Blake.
posted by tkchrist at 5:05 PM on July 17, 2008

People can tell me how faithful to the comic it is once they give us some full frontal of Dr. Manhattan.

I'm glad I'm not the only person to whom this is important.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 5:06 PM on July 17, 2008

What the hell am I missing?

Close to Midnight - article I wrote a while ago (yeah, sadly I'm that much into it), oh and it's spoilerific as hell
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 5:09 PM on July 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

Slightly OT: Has anyone else read Nth Man (by Larry Hama, writer of GI Joe and some Wolverine). I read it right when I was coming of age, and it really hit home with the themes of loss of innocence, and curious if anyone else enjoyed it like I did.

Also, working on your article now, fearful symmetry...
posted by symbioid at 5:16 PM on July 17, 2008

Yeah, basically what fs said.
posted by empath at 5:17 PM on July 17, 2008

I imagine that Sandman will be next down the pike if this does well.

Eeesh. I love the Sandman, but I see no way anyone can ever make a halfway decent movie adaptation, ever. If somebody ever did, they would go down in my book as being as much of a genius at directing as Gaiman is at writing.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 5:21 PM on July 17, 2008

Epic fail.
posted by Eddie Devil at 5:27 PM on July 17, 2008

Metafilter: Women's breasts draped across every billboard, every display, littering the sidewalk. Was offered Swedish love and French love, but not American love. American love; like coke in green glass bottles, they don't make it anymore.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 5:30 PM on July 17, 2008 [8 favorites]

gauchodaspampas: Eeesh. I love the Sandman, but I see no way anyone can ever make a halfway decent movie adaptation, ever.

I've often thought that one way to make Sandman into a movie with a shot at greatness would be to use the same technique which Linklater used in Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly: shoot live actors on handheld video, rotoscope animation on computer, and then transfer to 35mm. I think that would be gorgeous, and perfectly in keeping with the feel of Sandman.
posted by tzikeh at 5:42 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Rest assured I was on the internet within minutes, registering my disgust throught the world.
posted by sun-el at 5:47 PM on July 17, 2008 [4 favorites]

Well, already too many comments to read them all, but I liked the trailer. I will definitely want to see the movie when it comes out.
posted by yhbc at 6:05 PM on July 17, 2008

The Watchmen is an amazingly overrated comic book. There, I said it.
posted by zardoz at 6:14 PM on July 17, 2008 [4 favorites]

You are going to get so much grief for putting the "The" in the title, zardoz ...
posted by yhbc at 6:22 PM on July 17, 2008

Of course there will be cuts. The book is simply too long not to.

I can live with the updated visual style. They got the costumes right, and I've seen stills that show they got a lot of the details right (Gunga Diner, Knot-tops, etc.).

I can even forgive a trailer that seems to promise the "Dr. Manhattan's Love Story." It's a trailer, and it's Hollywood.

But Watchmen isn't a story about heroes with super-powers. It's (on one level) a story about a bunch of people who dressed up in costumes and pretended to be superheros. Then, along come a guy with real super powers and things.....change.

And it looks like the movie fucks with that premise, and fucks with it hard.

Way too many shots of people harmlessly falling from great heights, walking through burning buildings, and punching through concrete. Concrete, for crying out loud!!!

Based on the production blog, and the article I just read in Entertainment Weekly I had such high hope. So very, very disappointed.
posted by FfejL at 6:23 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

EW article is online by the way.
posted by FfejL at 6:29 PM on July 17, 2008

FfejL, Ozymandias CAUGHT A BULLET. He CAUGHT A BULLET. Yeah, he wasn't SURE it would work, but it did. Likewise, Nite Owl built Archimedes, the coolest super-hero ship EVER.

I'm being deliberately obtuse, of course, but my point is that even in the book these people were "super" heroes, and it's silly to think that wouldn'd be in the movie as well.
posted by yhbc at 6:38 PM on July 17, 2008

or even "they wouldn't"
posted by yhbc at 6:42 PM on July 17, 2008

You are going to get so much grief for putting the "The" in the title, zardoz ...

Fair enough. Lord knows I still snicker at Bush's "the Google". And getting grief for poo-pooing that comic on this website is a given.
posted by zardoz at 6:46 PM on July 17, 2008

But Watchmen isn't a story about heroes with super-powers. It's (on one level) a story about a bunch of people who dressed up in costumes and pretended to be superheros. Then, along come a guy with real super powers and things.....change.

It's more like a bunch superheroes who do superhero things then along comes God...

In any case, I can't hear anything in here over the deafening fanboy screams that started when they put nipples on the batsuit and will end when the last pimply teenager-that-was keels over from overdosing on cheetos.
posted by concreteforest at 6:47 PM on July 17, 2008

sorry, meant to write "It's more like a bunch of superheroes who..."

cheetos powder makes your fingers all tacky, apparently.
posted by concreteforest at 6:50 PM on July 17, 2008

Hmm, it took me three viewings to realize that, in the scene where the Owlmobile is rising up out of the water, the World Trade Center is prominently visible behind it. That's clever, because it clues the audience in that the movie's taking place in an alternate history (and in the 80's, I hear), but it's easy to miss, what with the GIANT FLYING OWL HEAD in the foreground.

I'm cautiously optimistic. Time to go re-read the comic.
posted by The Tensor at 6:50 PM on July 17, 2008

I am as concerned as any comic fan that this movie will make me sad, but I'll admit to feeling a chill run down my spine at the end of the trailer when WATCHMEN whooshed into view 3-d style. As far as the trailer's content goes, what else do you expect from the studios trying to market a big budget movie about superheroes? You never know, what we saw in the trailer could be the entirety of the slick action bullshit in the film, the rest filled with intense dialogue about how things have changed... :)
posted by thedaniel at 6:52 PM on July 17, 2008

fanboy screams.. will end when the last pimply teenager-that-was keels over from overdosing on cheetos.

this snark, i don't like it. really caring about works of fiction is above you and equals Comic Book Guy in all cases, hmm? i hope you get your ass kicked by the Human Quibble.
posted by thedaniel at 6:54 PM on July 17, 2008

I think you're proving my point, yhbc. Ozymandias was from the deep end of the gene pool, sure. Super smart & an Olympic caliber athlete. He was strong enough to pick up a guy and throw him through a window (something a cop in the story would take "a couple of guys.") He caught the bullet because he'd trained himself to fight, and sharpen his reflexes. He was above way average, but he didn't have any superpowers!

But more importantly, The Comedian damn sure couldn't punch through concrete. And I'm pretty sure I saw him do exactly that in the trailer.

I will continue to hold out hope. It's a trailer, after all. Maketing guys fuck up everything (I know, cuz I'm one). And it would take Dr. Manhattan himself to keep me from seeing it next March.

But it's starting to look a lot more "Hulk" than "Iron Man."
posted by FfejL at 6:56 PM on July 17, 2008

It says right in the EW article that they changed the ending. Boo. Squid or nothing.
posted by empath at 6:59 PM on July 17, 2008

FfejL, he punched through plaster in the trailer. It a kitchen wall.
posted by empath at 7:00 PM on July 17, 2008

People can tell me how faithful to the comic it is once they give us some full frontal of Dr. Manhattan.

Um, there's full frontal of Dr. M in the trailer, when he's hovering in the cafeteria.
posted by The Tensor at 7:04 PM on July 17, 2008

Spoiler: The squid-thing not only lives, but apologizes for all the bad vibes and spews forth millions of bubble-domes which each contain a killed person, only now very much alive.

And not only alive, but singing! Millions of bubble-domes slowly floating around the happy squid-thing and each one's got somebody singing, and happy, and playing cool futuristic-looking instruments too.

And it makes the people that didn't get killed wish they had.
posted by stinkycheese at 7:08 PM on July 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

empath: It says right in the EW article that they changed the ending. Boo. Squid or nothing.

Except the actor playing Nite Owl says the ending isn't changed. At the moment I'm more likely to trust the bird (sorry 'bout the lame joke) than the birding book.
posted by tzikeh at 7:13 PM on July 17, 2008

Guys, it's a trailer. You can't tell jack from a trailer, one way or another. It's whatever out-of-context scenes someone in marketing thought looked the coolest.
posted by kyrademon at 7:20 PM on July 17, 2008

I imagine that Sandman will be next down the pike if this does well.

I can't see that happening anytime soon, but I do wonder just how badly Y: The Last Man will be butchered. Shia LeBeaouf and Disturbia director DJ Caruso? *sob*
posted by JaredSeth at 7:21 PM on July 17, 2008

If my movie is an advertisement for the book, great. If it's anything else, then I f---ed up. I hope people see the movie and go, ''I gotta read that book,'' because the ideas are crazy. ''Can those ideas possibly be in that book?'' Yeah — and a jillion other ones that I couldn't even get near.

Also from EW's interview with Snyder. I think that's the right attitude. Get in what he can get in, put more in the DVD, leave the rest for the book.
posted by empath at 7:21 PM on July 17, 2008

What's interesting to me about the ending controversy is that a lot of people HATED the ending of the book and still do.
posted by empath at 7:23 PM on July 17, 2008

"Guys, it's a trailer. You can't tell jack from a trailer, one way or another. It's whatever out-of-context scenes someone in marketing thought looked the coolest."

nailed it...
posted by HuronBob at 7:27 PM on July 17, 2008

Watchmen worked in its time and as a comic because it took some of the tropes and turned them around - the heroes who were bad at time; the bad guys who were heroes at times; and especially in the ending which is bad but good. It worked because it took the usual and familiar and twisted them around several times to produce something very new.

For it to translate to movies in the late oughts, I think they have to attempt to co-opt the movie form of the superhero story that has developed in the intervening years - big action sections, a certain look, a certain feel. It has to do that so that it can then use them to give the audience the "something different" that worked in Watchmen comic book form.

That's what I'm telling myself, anyways, as I cross my fingers and hope they don't screw this up.
posted by never used baby shoes at 7:36 PM on July 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

Not to overstate things, but if the squid's gone then fuck them and fuck their mothers and fuck the horses they were birthed in the saddles of.

Ahem. I'll look the other way on a lot of stuff if they get the important stuff right. Fine, Nightcrawler got some tattoos for the movie, fine. A lot of people go nuts on their first big paycheck. But squid absence = unacceptable.

empath - that quote's a good sign. He's approaching properly, if that's the case. I just wish he wouldn't approach w/ the sudden-slow-mo cam less often.

Tensor - I'm betting on mostly glowed-out blue wang.
posted by EatTheWeak at 7:40 PM on July 17, 2008

I just wish he wouldn't approach w/ the sudden-slow-mo cam less often.

should read

I just wish he would approach w/ the sudden-slow-mo cam less often.

and I should start hitting preview first.
posted by EatTheWeak at 7:42 PM on July 17, 2008

You guys aren't stuck in the theatre watching this movie.

This movie is stuck in the theatre with you.

fth, i'm down for this.
posted by jcterminal at 7:50 PM on July 17, 2008 [4 favorites]

I've often thought that one way to make Sandman into a movie with a shot at greatness would be to use the same technique which Linklater used in Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly: shoot live actors on handheld video, rotoscope animation on computer, and then transfer to 35mm. I think that would be gorgeous, and perfectly in keeping with the feel of Sandman.

Another idea, which this inspired (I openly admit) would be to do this, but only rotoscope the Endless. Leave the humans as human, and make the fantasticals more fantastic.

Imagine if they did a movie version of "The Doll's House", and at the moment he removes his glasses, the Corinthian abruptly changes, shedding his mortal disguise and appearing as the creature of the strange he really is. It would require a great deal of work to make it work, but it could be immensely satisfying.
posted by mephron at 7:57 PM on July 17, 2008

the movie site
posted by HuronBob at 8:10 PM on July 17, 2008

In principle, I dislike the idea of adapting comic books into movies. Comics are their own particular media and film can not duplicate its strengths.

That said, I got chills watching scenes from one of my favorites comic books come to life.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:12 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

However, I do prefer this kinda voice for Rorschach and this style of soundtrack to what we heard in the trailer.
posted by EatTheWeak at 8:34 PM on July 17, 2008

For those of you who have not read the book, there's a MUCH more faithful adaptation in the itunes music store right now. Go to tv-shows -- should be under new releases. It's basically an animated audiobook version of issue one. It's free, no reason not to download it.
posted by empath at 8:35 PM on July 17, 2008

Direct Link to itunes download of the audio book version.
posted by empath at 8:38 PM on July 17, 2008

Then again, this would probably be more authoritative.
posted by EatTheWeak at 8:38 PM on July 17, 2008

They.... changed the ending?!

Come on, you can't be serious. :-(

And the music was terrible. Absolutely terrible. Even generic action movie orchestrals would have been better.

I had hopes but...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:49 PM on July 17, 2008

Ok, basic reality check here.

graphic novels ----------------------------- cinema
text novels --------------------------------- cinema
stage plays/musicals ---------------------- cinema
folk tales ------------------------------------ cinema
video game narratives -------------------- cinema

It's pretty much a given in making a cinematic work, that a slavish devotion to the source material is an automatic sign that the final product is going to be a total piece of shit.

Now granted, sometimes a director can break with the source material in a way that totally sucks (Tank Girl Hellblazer League of Extraordinary Gentlemen). But on the other hand, del Toro's comic-heroic Hellboy works on the screen much better than Mignola's over-the-top Lovecraftian slog through obscure folklore, even if I cringe slightly at lovestruck Abe or a stereotypically obnoxious Krauss. Batman Begins and Spiderman were quite watchable because the directors stuck to what would work on the screen than trying to satisfy the fanboys who howl over every deviation.

But the primary problem with Watchmen is that it is just a bit dated. I mean, in the 80s we had a crazy (and perhaps early Alzheimer's) "cowboy" in the White House, black ops massacres and shady weapons deals, moral panic regarding a wave of explicit horror movies, Carl Sagan's popularizing of the "Nuclear Winter" hypothesis, explosive urban unrest, and a very real fear of nuclear holocaust (See also Kate Bush (1980) and Nina (1984)). The ticking doomsday clock motif was also used by Sting about the same time. There was even a roleplaying game in which you played NATO or Soviet Block soldiers on an European front that had dissolved into chaos, with most of the cities reduced to radioactive hotzones. In the 80s, we were not afraid of airplanes and skyscrapers, we were afraid of nuclear missiles and MAD protocols.

So Watchmen was a huge deal at the time, because in spite of being in an alternative history, it looked a lot like America of the '80. The Comedian was not that far fetched compared to the actual black ops we were running in Central America. The lurid and violent pirate-horror comics is not that far off from the hysteria surrounding Stephen King and slasher films. Rorschach mirrored the debate that followed Bernie Goetz. And the moral question of "would you kill an entire city to save the world" was grounded in a very real fear at the time that we were two hours away from a nuclear holocaust. We don't quite have that now.

But now that I think about it, Ozymandais foreshadows the development of Reed Richards up to the whole Civil War event, you have a person who sees all the pieces in play, and engages in some ethically problematic compromises in the hopes of changing the endgame.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:49 PM on July 17, 2008 [3 favorites]

It's pretty much a given in making a cinematic work, that a slavish devotion to the source material is an automatic sign that the final product is going to be a total piece of shit.

Lord of the Rings?
posted by empath at 8:58 PM on July 17, 2008

However, I do prefer this kinda voice for Rorschach...

Yeah, that's about perfect. He would have that accent, wouldn't he?
posted by mr_roboto at 9:00 PM on July 17, 2008

Another thing though I'll say positive about Watchmen looking back on it. It was one of the first mainstream comics to have sympathetic gay and lesbian characters. And as a meta-fictional critique of comics as an artform, it also critiques the way in which gay and lesbian characters have been treated in comics.

But on the other hand, none of them are as well-developed as Valerie (and possibly V) from Vendetta. And the fact that all of them die to push the plot forward isn't that great. But I think Moore was quite a bit ahead of the curve there, and I sometimes point to Promethia and Top 10 as being the among best portrayals of LGBT characters in the genre.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:05 PM on July 17, 2008

I mean, in the 80s we had a crazy (and perhaps early Alzheimer's) "cowboy" in the White House, black ops massacres and shady weapons deals, moral panic regarding a wave of explicit horror movies, Carl Sagan's popularizing of the "Nuclear Winter" hypothesis, explosive urban unrest, and a very real fear of nuclear holocaust

Thank god all those problems have been fixed.



I will say that Ozymandias looks too young in the film, and if this movie is all slow-mo bullshit like 300, well, then I will be pissed.
posted by Saxon Kane at 9:07 PM on July 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

Oh yeah? Well. Katee Sackhoff STILL sucks.
posted by tkchrist

tkchrist, there's nothing wrong with you that I can't fix with my hands.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:10 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Thank god all those problems have been fixed.

Yeah, I kinda thought KJS was kidding until he just kinda kept running with the idea that all of those things that we're totally facing right now damn near down to the letter were dated concerns, and then I realized he wasn't, and...um...well.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:13 PM on July 17, 2008

Rorschach's line in the trailer appears to have been, ah, somewhat cleaned up from its original version in his journal excerpt on page 1:

The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!' And I'll look down and whisper 'No.'

I just can't imagine that a Hollywood blockbuster could have the stomach or the subtlety to deal with his character in good faith, which is why I think the movie will fail.

But I'd love to be proven wrong.
posted by regicide is good for you at 9:23 PM on July 17, 2008

a slavish devotion to the source material is an automatic sign that the final product is going to be a total piece of shit.

Well, that can be true. You never hear anyone bitch that the custom-fitted vagina subplot was cut out of The Godfather. On the other hand, changing almost everything is no safeguard from creating a total piece of shit.
posted by Bookhouse at 9:24 PM on July 17, 2008

empath: Lord of the Rings

Left out practically half of the novel, and pulled a subplot out of the appendix (and I think posthumously published materials) and into the central story. In the novel it works, because the story is not about Aragorn, its about the four hobbits, how their actions changed the course of the war, and how they returned to face the war on their own homeland, becoming lords among their own people. The full story of Aragorn and Arwen belongs in the appendix, because the Hobbits are only marginally involved.

But cinematically it makes sense to develop Aragorn as something of a fifth protagonist. You miss the sudden "surprise" of the black ships saving the day, but you get some good swashbuckling and a dwarf joke in compromise. And you also get a romance which is usually a good thing.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:24 PM on July 17, 2008

Well, as someone who really liked both the film versions of 300 and V for Vendetta I gotta say that I was dreading this. I mean seriously, this was just never meant to be a movie. It's too complex and the characters aren't going to translate to a silver screen environment. I've been saying that from the outset of people suggesting that a film version would work.

Though, I gotta be honest that after watching the trailer, I'm willing to admit that I might have been wrong. It did look good. Rorschach was... well kinda how I thought the character would actually look.

I mean, at least they didn't go with Doctor Manhattan being voiced by Patrick Warburton.

And now, deep in my heart, I have to admit that I want to see someone do that. It would be awful and maybe awesome all at the same time.
posted by quin at 9:26 PM on July 17, 2008

I'm loving this trailer, eagerly anticipating the movie, and dreading the inevitable legion of hipsters wearing WATCHMEN gear...
posted by Ron Thanagar at 9:27 PM on July 17, 2008

Thank god all those problems have been fixed.

What makes Watchmen interesting now is that we can now look at the climax with the benefit of hindsight, having gone through an equivalent event. We couldn't even unite our own country after an external attack, let alone the entire world.
posted by empath at 9:32 PM on July 17, 2008

I wonder how many people will assume that moore was riffing on 9/11?
posted by empath at 9:32 PM on July 17, 2008

empath: I've read through Watchmen twice, and neither time did I notice the Fearful Symmetry layout. The first time I was far too enthralled by the plot to pay close attention to the style; I have no good excuse for missing it the second time... opening up the book and seeing it now? Wow. It looks like it's time to get around to that third reading.

Also, thanks for the .flv link; for some reason I couldn't get flashblock to start up the player in Firefox, and it crashed in Konqueror and Opera. mplayer handles your download beautifully.

I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm used to Hollywood expending extra effort to screw up my favorite stories, and there's no way that a 2 hour Watchmen movie could be as good as the full graphic novel, but to my eye there's at least nothing they've screwed up yet; it'll just be a question of how badly the time constraints shred the story.
posted by roystgnr at 9:32 PM on July 17, 2008

We couldn't even unite our own country after an external attack, let alone the entire world.

Yes we could. It could have been easy, even, back when they were holding candlelight vigils for us in the streets of Tehran. We just didn't.

Also, the ending in Watchmen involved orders of magnitude more casualties than 9/11, and was qualitatively different. Assuming nobody ever saw through the "enormous brain-destroying interdimensional alien" threat, I suspect it really would have been a much more globally unifying force than our "USA-hating cave-dwellers with box-cutters" threat. Even if alternate-USA's leaders were overcome by dumb fight-or-flight panic, who would get hurt? "Smash some brown people to show we're still tough" may have caused too much collateral damage, but with "smash some green people to show we're still tough" there's no targets to endanger.
posted by roystgnr at 9:46 PM on July 17, 2008

The ticking doomsday clock motif was also used by Sting about the same time.

It bothers me immensely that anyone would think "ticking doomsday clock motif" and then "Sting" instead of "Iron Maiden."

Really? Sting? Really?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:46 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

So who's up for a Transmetropolitan movie? I'm thinking directed by Uwe Boll and starring Ben Affleck as Spider and Milla Jovovich as one of the girls. The other girl will be Amy Whinehouse and she'll sing one of her songs over the credits.

So who's with me, eh? Eh?
posted by Avenger at 9:50 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

kittens for breakfast: Yeah, I kinda thought KJS was kidding until he just kinda kept running with the idea that all of those things that we're totally facing right now damn near down to the letter were dated concerns, and then I realized he wasn't, and...um...well.

Well, actually it is different. The Soviet Block has fragmented, and the Russians are slowly scaling back their nuclear stockpiles and submarine fleet, due to a combination of lack of funds and a significantly less hostile relationship with the West. China does not appear to be interested in a MAD arms race. North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel appear to be limited to a handful of nuclear weapons with regional threat. Currently the United States is the most dangerous nuclear power, and while Bush has entertained the idea of tactical nuclear strikes, strategic escalation to MAD is no longer official US foreign policy.

When Reagan rattled the saber at the Soviet Union, it was with the threat of a nuclear exchange that would leave most of the northern hemisphere in ruins. When Bush rattles the saber at Iran, it's with the threat of limited tactical strikes and an expeditionary force. >10 million people killed, <8 thousand people killed. Big difference. Don't get me wrong, the war in Afghanistan and Iraq is horrible, and a war with Iran would be an even worse meatgrinder. But it doesn't have the same threat that a few hours of very bad decisions would result in hundreds of warheads crossing the Arctic Ocean. Sometime in the 1990s, I stopped having nightmares of seeing a mushroom cloud over Craine NSWC. Perhaps its just my perception, but yeah, I don't hear the doomsday clock ticking now.

ROU_Xenophobe: What can I say, throughout the 80s I owned a total of three albums, and an FM radio with two stations, neither of which played much metal.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:55 PM on July 17, 2008

But cinematically it makes sense to develop Aragorn as something of a fifth protagonist.

It also, ahem, explains the title of the third movie.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:01 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

I just can't imagine that a Hollywood blockbuster could have the stomach or the subtlety to deal with his character in good faith, which is why I think the movie will fail.

Well, to a certain extent, it's been done. Rorschach is clearly inspired to a great deal by Travis Bickle, another guy that wished that, "Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets."
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:10 PM on July 17, 2008

Cool Papa Bell: It also, ahem, explains the title of the third movie.

True. Tolkien was reluctantly forced to split the novel up into three volumes by the publisher. And as much as the volume is titled, "The Return of the King" Aragorn isn't really much of a protagonist in it. He vanishes early through book V and shows up near the end, and we learn the story of Erech second-hand by my memory. He leads the host of Gondor, but that whole sequence is rather rushed to get them to the gates, where the real action involves Frodo's belongings and the Mouth of Sauron. In Book VI Aragorn throws a party, and again we get a second-hand account of Aragorn's leadership. He escorts the Hobbits north, says goodbye, and vanishes from the narrative with three chapters to go (including one of the best).

Wikipedia says that Tolkien wanted the third volume to be called, "The War of the Ring." And I seem to remember from a biography that he was reluctant to include the additional material as well.

At any rate, in the novel, Aragorn is a secondary character, and much of what he does happens off-stage and is pulled into the novel second-hand. Tolkien makes good use of stories within stories, and much of the plot is revealed as the characters sit and smoke pipeweed. For the pacing of the movie, it makes more sense to just show the action. So we don't get the long, slow reveal of the nature of the Ring, we get a historic flashback of Ilsildur and we know the ring is evil long before Frodo or Gandolf does.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:37 PM on July 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

Slightly OT: Has anyone else read Nth Man (by Larry Hama, writer of GI Joe and some Wolverine). I read it right when I was coming of age, and it really hit home with the themes of loss of innocence, and curious if anyone else enjoyed it like I did.

Dude.

I don't get the furor over adaptations. The Watchmen comic is one of the best achievements in the genre of Western superhero comics and I enjoy it immensely. It'll have nothing to do with my enjoyment of the film if I choose to see it. If it sucks or if it's swell, the comic won't be diminished.
That said, it looks interesting. Kudos to your son, HuronBob!

Has Zack Snyder ever directed anything that didn't already have a massive built-in audience before he picked it up? Watchmen, like Dawn of the Dead and 300, has a huge following.

I can't speak to Dawn of the Dead, but I disagree with a "massive built-in audience". When Spider-Man 2 was released, the highest-selling Spidey comic was scraping 100k copies a month, making probably less than the craft service budget for the film.
Comic nerds aren't cinematic kingmakers in terms of potential audience/bums in the seats, the numbers just aren't there.
There's enough of them to make for a pretty handy volunteer PR department, though.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:31 PM on July 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

I was hoping the film adaptation would consist solely of Mothman, Captain Metropolis, Hooded Justice, Gloria Long's sexual slurs, and Nite Owl I failing to repair a Buick.

Watchmen II, if we're lucky, will feature a giant blue Bubastis terrorizing the South Pole.
posted by benzenedream at 12:53 AM on July 18, 2008 [2 favorites]

I slightly disagree with your disagreement, Alvy! Even though the comics had/have a small audience, Spider-Man was hardly lacking when it came to the recognition factor outside of comics fandom. The character had already had a live-action TV show, and two cartoon series made in different time periods, the latter of which I remember as being very popular when it aired in the nineties. So by the time the first movie was released there were plenty of teens and young adults with fond memories of the character, even if they had never picked a superhero comic in their lives. Similar thing with the X-men movie. I would agree that comic fans in general aren't enough to carry a movie, but most of the successful superhero movies that have been made at this point have been made with characters already well-known in pop culture. Though I couldn't say if Watchmen has that same pop-culture handicap. Yes, it's well known in geeky and even some academic circles, but I don't know if that would account for much of a built-in audience.

Although comics in general are a fertile ground for movie producers right now, regardless of whether anyone is actually reading them or not. The Exterminators just got picked up, even though the comic was actually canceled at issue thirty. And Mark Millar's Kick-Ass is also being made into a movie and it's only on, what, issue four?

Also, I'm a little late to join in at this point, but regarding the conversation about the look of the movie's costumes upthread: when the promo photo's of the costumes were released I couldn't decide if they were meant to be a play of the rubber super-suits of Burton's Batman and other such superhero costumes or not. What made me decide that this was intentional was when another costume photo was released: a photo of The Minutemen. And true enough...they look like a bunch of people in costumes (and I love how awkward and embarrassed some of them look).

Looking at some of the production images and the visuals in the trailer I have to say that it certainly looks faithful to the comic. Whether or not it remains faithful to the spirit of the comic while still being able to stand alone as a good movie remains to be seen, the trailer tells us very little in that respect (other than that Snyder loves his slow-mo). I'm going to try to remain cautiously optimistic, but then again I tried that outlook with V for Vendetta, and that ended in tears. :(
posted by kosher_jenny at 12:59 AM on July 18, 2008

Oh dear God. Where to begin?

The fact Zach Snyder was also involved in 300 and Sin City is not relevant, except perhaps in one respect. Both of those films did their best to stay true to the source material, and considering Hollywood's track record, both films did better than most in that regard. I suspect that at least visually, the film Watchmen will be a respectable tribute to the book.

Let's face it: the film will not be the book. Nor should it.

What Watchmen the Film should be is an entertaining revisit of Moore's story, in the cinematic medium. There are things that Gibbons and Moore were doing in the comic book that by design cannot be repeated cinematically. Moore has said on multiple occasions that one of the motivations behind Watchmen was to show how the comic book medium is unique and unparalleled. The film will do what it can to accomodate, but there's some chills we diehard fans get from the book even today, that the film will not deliver.

The film will deliver other thrills, other emotions, good or bad. It will be an experience. It may be seen by historians as a most accurate revisitation of the book, and it may be seen as the worst raping of a book since Phillip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" was arguably adapted into "Blade Runner."

Does Rorshach sound right? Will Nite Owl be too badass or not badass enough? Were there enough smilies? These are the kind of questions we'll be asking ourselves before we see the film, during, and after. The answers are going to differ from one viewer to another, and it's going to be impossible for Snyder and the many talented people behind this film to please all of us.

Y'know what should really please us? Does the film tell a good story? I don't even know if I care whether they get the ending right or not cuz frankly I didn't like Moore's ending. Still, it'd be nice if just for once, Hollywood didn't second guess the source material, and told the story from beginning to end the way it was intended.

Is the film going to be as good as the book? No. Not for me. I saw the movie in my head as I read the book. My mind filled in the gaps between the frames. I'm expecting stuff from the film that I conjured in my brain as I read it the first time. There's no way Zach Snyder will get that right.

I'm thankful that they tried tho. That's something to look forward to.
posted by ZachsMind at 1:29 AM on July 18, 2008

Am I alone in not liking how they've got doc Manhattan looking? Too cartoonish when he should be dignified. They even look to have got his pre-manhattan off, nerdish when he should be a clean-cut and upstanding, all-american officer type, which is relevant to how he becomes a political tool for the decades following his change.

Ozymandias looks a bit weedy too.
posted by biffa at 2:22 AM on July 18, 2008

But, surely this Zach fellow is exactly the person to put the contents of ZachsMind onscreen, no?
posted by kyrademon at 2:23 AM on July 18, 2008

My interpretation has always been that rather than Nite Owl alone being a Batman analogue, Nite Owl + Rorschach = Batman, with Rorschach representing the fighting and detective work aspect while Nite Owl embodied the gadgetry aspect of Bats. (Although given that Rorschach can improvise devices and Nite Owl does throw hands at various points, it wasn't a discrete split.)

Hmm. For me, the main Batman archetype split isn't that, it's Rorshach and Veidt. Night owl is like Blue Beetle or the orde of other sub-Batman gadgeteers in comics. He simply doesn't have the drive to really matter in any big way; in and of itself, that's commentary on the archetype, I guess.

Rorsarch is the answer to the question, "What would someone who was really that nuts look like?" He complete fucking nutball. Not the richest, bestest, smartest, pinnacle of human perfection, but a nasty, smelly guy who has difficulty telling his friends fom his enemies.

Veidt, on the other hand, now Veidt is a nice piece of work. "What if," Moore asks, "what if you could be that driven and really were the smartest, bestest, pinnacle of human achievement?" Well, you'd listen to the Comedian while he burns a map and says, "We can't fix any of this." And you'd probably, as Doctor Manhatten observes, realise that you really aren't achieving anything by running around in a costume beating up crime bosses. You have effectively infinite resources. You're impossibly smart and capable. You'd think... bigger.

It was one of the first mainstream comics to have sympathetic gay and lesbian characters. And as a meta-fictional critique of comics as an artform, it also critiques the way in which gay and lesbian characters have been treated in comics.

But on the other hand, none of them are as well-developed as Valerie (and possibly V) from Vendetta.

Or Wanda & co from Sandman.
posted by rodgerd at 3:56 AM on July 18, 2008 [2 favorites]

(You know, thinking about the Batman is a nutcase notion made me realise that Batman at the start of Kingdom Come is a lovely jab at Millar's Batman at the end of Dark Knight; living under his burned-out mansion, terrorising the people of Gotham into obedience with his army of robots.
posted by rodgerd at 4:02 AM on July 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

Or Wanda & co from Sandman.

True, but that came later.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 5:22 AM on July 18, 2008

Nobody's allowed to make a Transmetropolitan movie though. You hear me? Nobody.

Flagged as heresy.
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:14 AM on July 18, 2008

i'm trying to balance my inner squeeing fangirl and my desire to not get too overhyped leading to inevitable disappointment.
posted by rmd1023 at 7:43 AM on July 18, 2008

NERDS
posted by Henry C. Mabuse at 7:58 AM on July 18, 2008

I imagine that Sandman will be next down the pike if this does well.

The script for Death: The high cost of living is already written, sold, and being cast. (Scroll down to the entry for "Death and Me".)

If you scroll down to the entry for Sandman on that same page, you'll see that Warner Brothers is interested in making a Sandman movie, but Neil has refused to have anything to do with it (for absolutely valid reasons IMO).
posted by elfgirl at 8:27 AM on July 18, 2008

I am not looking forward to Doc Manhattan cosplay.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:39 AM on July 18, 2008 [5 favorites]

Nobody's allowed to make a Transmetropolitan movie though.

There were plans to do an animated version with Patrick Stewart as the voice of Spider, but it fell through when the animation people turned out to be, in Ellis' words, dicks.

(This comes directly from Warren Ellis. I did not make any of it up.)
posted by sparkletone at 8:48 AM on July 18, 2008

an animated version

Isn't there an animated parody of Spider in the comic itself?
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:03 AM on July 18, 2008

Huron Bob and koeselitz: double sigh.
posted by nushustu at 9:11 AM on July 18, 2008

You know what other film trailer used that music?
Batman and Robin (so the internet tells me... )
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 9:34 AM on July 18, 2008

They better watch The Batman. And the women are wayyy to sexy. I hate that shit. Another Elektra movie.
posted by Flex1970 at 9:41 AM on July 18, 2008

regicide: Rorschach's line in the trailer appears to have been, ah, somewhat cleaned up from its original version...

This is not a red-band trailer; it has to be cleaned up. Lots of trailers cut 'n' paste dialogue for the trailer that is fuller in the film itself.

I just can't imagine that a Hollywood blockbuster could have the stomach or the subtlety to deal with his character in good faith, which is why I think the movie will fail.

I firmly believe they will. We got full-frontal on Dr Manhattan, to begin with, and the film is not a PG-13 to "be sure the kids can see it". They knew it would suffer if they didn't keep the hard stuff in, and they knew it'd be rated R, and so it is.

Waaaaaay up in the thread, someone talked about Nite Owl not looking schlubby and so on - the actor started packing on pounds the moment he got the role in order to have the proper paunchy look. We're only seeing him in the costume, which is naturally going to work as a body-shaper.
posted by tzikeh at 9:46 AM on July 18, 2008

sweet
posted by cmoj at 9:49 AM on July 18, 2008

Who watches the watchmen?

My bet is most of us here.
posted by owtytrof at 9:51 AM on July 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

Well, I'm not going to see it because it voted for FISA.
posted by wildblueyonder at 10:28 AM on July 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

And the women are wayyy to sexy.

As far as I can tell, there's only the one in the trailer, and she's meant to be, but they actually deal with that quite intelligently in the book. I gather you haven't read it?
posted by empath at 11:30 AM on July 18, 2008 [1 favorite]

Waaaaaay up in the thread, someone talked about Nite Owl not looking schlubby and so on

There are several flashback scenes that present the more fit looking Nite Owl.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:02 PM on July 18, 2008

a photo of The Minutemen

Huh. I never knew Nite Owl I was Jewish.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:07 PM on July 18, 2008

I think there were quite a few Watchmen Characters who were Jewish, right? Or at least ethnic. Which is quite unlike most All-American heroes of the era. I think its a commentary on the assimilation fantasies that the early superheroes represented.
posted by empath at 2:26 PM on July 18, 2008

tkchrist, there's nothing wrong with you that I can't fix with my hands.

Is something I will have to take my pant's off for? Because I don't think your hands will be big enough.

Oh and BTW. Paris Hilton's performance on her sex videos displays better acting than Katee Sackhoff.
posted by tkchrist at 3:37 PM on July 18, 2008

Clearly, tkchrist, you are the final Cylon.




I think there were quite a few Watchmen Characters who were Jewish, right?

Pretty sure somebody missed the joke.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:44 PM on July 18, 2008

KirkJobSluder: But the primary problem with Watchmen is that it is just a bit dated.

Agreed, we're no longer standing on the edge of the nuclear abyss, looking down. But that said, if the movie succeeds in making the audience feel that they're there, facing Armageddon, it's a dramatic and horrifying situation. The comic-book version of Thirteen Days, if you like. It wasn't a boring period of history.

I don't think the audience will have too much trouble relating to the more general aspect of the setting: the feeling that the world is getting completely screwed up, with the individual, all-too-human characters desperately trying to hold it together.
posted by russilwvong at 3:56 PM on July 18, 2008

Link to a side-by-side comparison of the trailer to the comic book.
posted by jabberjaw at 4:38 PM on July 18, 2008

Looks good to me.

nushustu, everybody is aware of Herodotus. 300 was based on the Graphic Novel 300 not on what Herodotus wrote. Maybe if more people looked at it from that perspective, there wouldn't be so much griping about the movie.
posted by P.o.B. at 4:56 PM on July 18, 2008

NiteOwl is Batman if a human Clark Kent were inside the cowl. Rorshach is Bruce Wayne without his wealth: a disturbed and spoiled little man. These comparisons belittle and diminish Alan Moore's work. Remember: the original inspirations for all major Watchmen characters were from Charlton Comics, and not DC. You can barely recognize the original inspirations in these characters. Beyond the sihloette, Rorshach and The Question are completely incomparable. As are Doctor Manhattan and Captain Atom. They're both blue. That's about as far as it goes, and Captain Atom didn't turn blue until AFTER Watchmen was published.

Watchmen is, for all intents and purposes, a literary mashup of the entire comic book vigilante genre as it existed for Moore and Gibbons up to that point in time.

Moore has repeatedly refused participation in efforts by others to retell his story in another medium. He believes the graphic novel stands alone and he is correct. He's also repeatedly allowed Gibbons to get the limelight and glory in these other mediums, because more people will be upset if Dr. Manhattan isn't "full frontal" or if Nite Owl is the appropriate weight, than they will be if Comedian's suicide is not presented as it was in the book, or if Dan and Laurie have sex before or after they save the people in that tenement fire. If they get the visuals right, most people will say they succeeded in being true to the book. Most people will be wrong.

It's impossible to comfortably read all twelve issues in a two hour setting, unless you're purposefully fighting the clock, and that's not comfortable. It'll look great. It may even sound wonderful. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to Watchmen.the.Movie but I'm not going to confuse it with Watchmen.the.Graphic.Novel.

...

Neil Gaiman's Sandman would be better served as an ongoing cable television series, which told different stories every week a la The Twilight Zone. Even that however, wouldn't capture the spirit of the comic.
posted by ZachsMind at 6:00 PM on July 18, 2008

300 was based on the Graphic Novel 300 not on what Herodotus wrote. Maybe if more people looked at it from that perspective, there wouldn't be so much griping about the movie.

Possibly, but then they'd (rightly) complain about what a pile of shit 300-the-comic was.
posted by rodgerd at 6:28 PM on July 18, 2008

Hurmm...
posted by P.o.B. at 6:34 PM on July 18, 2008

Man, nobody's actually going to read down this far, but:

Zach Snyder is way, way too old to be making this movie.

The kid who's supposed to be making Watchmen is 14 or 15 years old right now. The first film he ever saw in a theater was the first X-Men movie He religiously goes to see every new comic book film that comes out. He's seen every episode of Lost and Heroes, twice. He's on line, right now, to go see Dark Knight for the second or maybe the third time.

He's grown up with the conventions of superhero movies the same way Moore grew up with the conventions of superhero comics. And he's a smart kid taking note of the flaws in each of these movies, the type of characterizations, the archetypes, the elements in the background of our culture that directors and screenwriters take for granted. He's got a cheap camcorder and his parents got him a copy of final cut, and he makes comic book movies with his friends in his backyard. They're crappy, sure, but every time he gets a better sense of plot, of character, of how to frame a shot. Each time he tells the story he gets it closer to the way he wants it to be in his head.

I don't know who this kid is, but I know that he's out there. And if he doesn't get the chance to actually make this story with the Watchmen license, he'll wind up interpreting the themes in the book through his own ideas, maybe in a series, and it will be likely be truer to Moore's work than a film dedicated to slavishly recreating panels from a graphic novel.

/fanboy

Not that I'm not going to see Snyder's Watchmen opening night. But I'm keeping my eyes open for what's coming down the road.
posted by thecaddy at 6:44 PM on July 18, 2008 [28 favorites]

...than they will be if Comedian's suicide is not presented as it was in the book...

That would be the assisted suicide?
posted by stinkycheese at 9:30 PM on July 18, 2008 [4 favorites]

So, fellow nerds, where's the Neuromancer movie?
posted by Mid at 12:37 PM on July 19, 2008

So, fellow nerds, where's the Neuromancer movie?

I'm more familiar with the development hell surrounding the video game license (only game was created in 1988 by Interplay, which is now defunct in reality but still lives on paper and holds rights to many licenses), but apparently the film has suffered the same "who's on first" runaround.

Film projects

There have been several unsuccessful initial attempts at film adaptations of Neuromancer, with drafts of scripts written by British director Chris Cunningham and Chuck Russel. The box packaging for the game adaptation had even carried the promotional mention for a major motion picture to come from "Cabana Boy Productions". None of these projects have come to fruition, though William Gibson has stated that he thinks Cunningham is the only director who has a chance of doing the movie right.[12]

On May 18th, 2007 comingsoon.net reported a Neuromancer film is in the works, with Joseph Kahn, director of Torque in line to direct.[13] The Internet Movie Database lists the film's release year as 2009.[14] Hayden Christensen is set to star. However after initially listing Christensen, IMDB has since removed his name from the credits page.[15]
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 1:48 PM on July 19, 2008

Beyond the sihloette, Rorshach and The Question are completely incomparable.

Somebody else mentioned that Rorschach's heritage is actually a little more complicated than just having The Question as a starting point, as there's absolutely a huge chunk of Steve Ditko's bizarre Ayn Rand hero Mr. A in him.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 2:52 PM on July 19, 2008

"Joseph Kahn, director of Torque"

Fuck Neuromancer, that talentless shit shouldn't be allowed to use the camera on his phone.
posted by fullerine at 3:01 PM on July 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

It's pretty much a given in making a cinematic work, that a slavish devotion to the source material is an automatic sign that the final product is going to be a total piece of shit.

No Country for Old Men?
posted by Saxon Kane at 3:45 PM on July 19, 2008

Oh, and I can't believe all these posts and no one (that I've seen) has mention the upcoming HBO Preacher TV Series.
posted by Saxon Kane at 3:51 PM on July 19, 2008

P.O.B.

Actually, koeselitz mentioned Herodotus. I linked to a book by Steven Pressfield, called Gates of Fire. Herodotus was source material for that, I believe. While Herodotus is well-known, Pressfield is obviously less so, but his book is tons of fun. Lots, lots better than 300, either the comic or the movie. If Hollywood was going to make an adaptation of that story, they should have gone w/ Pressfield's.
posted by nushustu at 5:13 PM on July 19, 2008

Is there any recent evidence that there is an upcoming HBO Preacher tv series?
posted by Zetetics at 5:39 PM on July 19, 2008

Nicely grumpy Alan Moore interview... apparently if you read his forthcoming novel you'll learn how to live forever, but as it's like half a bazillion words long it'll probably just seem like forever.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:38 AM on July 20, 2008

The "Preacher" series by the director who gave us Daredevil and Ghost Rider? Given a choice between that and Neuromancer starring Anakin and directed by the guy who made Torque, I...wait, is there an "I'd rather eat a box of lightbulbs" option?
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:03 AM on July 20, 2008

I want Snowcrash in movie form, but I suspect it would be completely destroyed in the process.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:32 AM on July 20, 2008

For anyone scanning Recent Activity with an interest in Watchmen, production vids up here.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 4:59 PM on August 11, 2008

Oh, and just saw the trailer in IMAX, and it was pretty sweet.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 4:59 PM on August 11, 2008