The Watchmen

[Diggles]

Kinda bleh to me. Very strange and non logical plot, excessive violence (which is rare for me). Do I really need to see the CGI penis 20 times?

To me this movie easily deserved an NC-17 rating. I sure as hell wouldnt allow/take my 13 yr old nephew to see something like this. Video games have been taking flak for years, but something like this only gets an R rating? What a joke.

The only part I liked was the guy who played Rorschach. I've seen parts of the movie Little Children, where he plays a pedophile really well! Oddly enough, the guy who played that owl dude or whatever was in Little Children as well.

[Thudz]

Wife and I were both dissappointed with the movie.

[Jakensama]

What was strange or illogical about the plot?

I loved it, but I had read the comic before and knew what I was going to see, I think it was certainly marketed poorly and a bunch of people expecting to see a normal super hero comic book movie were probably in for a surprise.

Also, for all the talk about the blue cock I really expected it to be more prevalant, fortunately it was fairly easy to not pay attention to.

Also, you aren't supposed to take 13 year olds to R rated movies, thats why they have PG13. If somethings rated NC17 it can't go to theaters, I don't see why I should have to suffer because someone can't understand R rated movies are for adults.

[Slamz]

Didn't watch it, not really planning to.

I read the comic ("graphic novel", whatever) a couple years ago and didn't really like it. In comic-geek world this is sacrilege but yeah, I thought the story was confusing, bland and basically a downer, with no characters I really liked. I don't really know why it has such wide appeal in comic-geek land.

So it sounds like they did a loyal and accurate translation to the big screen.

[Jakensama]

I will say, however, that whoever decided to choreograph a sex scene to Leonard Cohen should be pimpslapped.

[Breand]

Didn't watch it, not really planning to.

I read the comic ("graphic novel", whatever) a couple years ago and didn't really like it. In comic-geek world this is sacrilege but yeah, I thought the story was confusing, bland and basically a downer, with no characters I really liked. I don't really know why it has such wide appeal in comic-geek land.

I think it has much more to do with the impact the book had on the medium at the time. Comics were never taken seriously as a storytelling device and Watchmen completely altered the medium and created a generation of amazing storytellers that we have now. Keep in mind, it was written almost 25 years ago, and compare it to what the medium was like back then. All the current crop of comic writers grew up on Alan Moore stuff.

One could say that the current Renaissance of comic books on the big screen has Alan Moore to thank, because the stories behind the characters is what makes them so popular. People arent saying the Dark Knight kicked ass because the special effects and action sequences were awesome, it was the story that rocked.

[Jakensama]

I wrote a paper on watchmen in literary crit class back in the day when we were dealing with postmodernism. It garnered a fair deal of attention outside of the realm of just 'comic book nerds' too.

[Zeel]

Watchmen the comic "felt" different than any other comic I'd ever read... It was a total experience for me where no one thing was great, but everything came together to make it wholly unique and memorable.

I was blown away by how taken in by the story and presentation I was... I read it twice back to back the first time.

Hopefully I can find the time to see the movie in the theater because it looks like it is going to be great.

[Fretty]

Being in the industry for my whole life, I can say that The Watchmen was one of the best stories any comic book has ever had. It was based around a bunch of normal people in a fictional/alternate world. The characters were not there to impress or "wow" the reader, they were merely people doing what they wanted.

The book was much better and flowed a lot better than the movie did. The movie cut out some important scenes and important plot information which made the ending seem unexpected and even over the top. The book lead up to that ending much better, it didn't seem like it came from left field, or that it was trying to be "smarter" then it really was.

I enjoyed the movie for entertainment purposes and I enjoyed the art/filming/atmosphere of the movie. The book however was better in every sense of the final product.

Read the book to be impressed, watch the movie if you're bored.

[Jakensama]

They kind of had to cut out a lot of stuff, the movie was almost 3 hours as is.. I heard rumors that there will be significant extra footage on the dvd, hopefully thats right. Probably would have been better as a 4-6 hour mini series on hbo, but cest la vive.

Now if only someone would make Sandman and Preacher..

[Gnarnok]

They tried to cut out even more.

I was watching an interview on G4 and they told the director a few things that he could cut out (one of which was the scene on mars) and he said something along the lines of.... "no"

[Diggles]

What was strange or illogical about the plot?

I loved it, but I had read the comic before and knew what I was going to see, I think it was certainly marketed poorly and a bunch of people expecting to see a normal super hero comic book movie were probably in for a surprise.

Also, for all the talk about the blue cock I really expected it to be more prevalant, fortunately it was fairly easy to not pay attention to.

Also, you aren't supposed to take 13 year olds to R rated movies, thats why they have PG13. If somethings rated NC17 it can't go to theaters, I don't see why I should have to suffer because someone can't understand R rated movies are for adults.

Wrong

Anyone 13 -17 can get into an R rated movie with a parent/guardian or lots of times, with anyone 17 or older buying them tickets.

NC-17 ARE shown in theaters. You must be 17 or older to purchase tickets and GET IN. Most theaters/studios do not show or produce them because the rating is the kiss of death. They dont sell well at all comapred to R. Also, I would guess that NC-17 movies cant be shown on network TV and maybe even basic cable.

R movies with light editing are OFTEN shown on network television. You want your children flipping thru the channels to come across some of the scenes in this movie?

I would say they did a very weak job of explaining why US and Soviets were so deadlocked ready for war. What happened in the cuban missle crisis in this alternate universe? How did Nixion get elected 5 times? Why does US give a shit about Afganistan now?

Why wouldnt Dr. Mahatann bring the US/Russians to the bargaining table and threaten them both with consequences instead of working on some dumb power project? Killing humans across the world under false pretense didnt seem very logical thing to do, especially for the 'smartest man in the world'.

[Jakensama]

Most theaters will not carry NC-17 movies, it is the kiss of death for film distributions. I've seen far worse movies than this with an R rating. Shit, Excalibur was one of my favorite movies as a little kid and that started out with pappa Arthur raping the woman in full plate mail.

Nixon got elected 3 times (not 5) because when he got into office he used Manhattan to win Vietnam within a week, something Kennedy never did. Thats kind of the biggest diverging point between the two histories. Manhattan's existance escalated the arms race even worse than real cold war.

Manhattan was drifting father from Humanity so his ability to manipulate people was not particularly good and he had been kind of made into a weapon. Ozymandius figured the best way to prevent WW3 was to get the sides to think there was an even more terrible enemy. In the comics he did it by simulating an alien attack, which I have always thought would probably be one of the few things that could get us to drop the silly concept of nations and work together better..

Anyways it was written in the 80s and was certainly meant to be a critique of Reagan/Thatcher and cold war mentalities, but the choice to use Nixon was made so people wouldn't get as defensive about an attack on current politicians.

[Thudz]

Both myself and the wife read the graphic novel before seeing the movie. We don't think it even came close to the book. They left things out that should have been left in and left things in the should have been left out and completely made stuff up at the end. The graphic novel was much better. My wife and I both left the theater wishing we hadn't seen it.

[Venganza]

Having never read the graphic novel i enjoyed this movie. The style and the characters really stood out.. i love characters like Rorschach and The Comedian. I like my movies dark though. As far as the content.. yeah i'd not have my kids watching that one because of the violence not the nudity. My kids know what a penis looks like(roughly) from either the mirror or the statue of david. The blue wanger was a non-issue for me.

I'll be picking up the comics to see what was different from the movie.

[Zephyrs]

I agree a lot with what Zeelio said.

I would add that a good part of what makes this movie / comic good is that its not like every other movie / comic out there (the comic moreso in context to when it came out.)

I told all my friends who had never read the comic that this movie would not be spiderman or Xmen.. this is going to be a whole lot darker.
this is not a movie about some peoples powers, its a movie about people who just happen to have been a part of this super hero team.

[Jakensama]

Exactly, and what superhero team doesn't have a little internal attempted rape once and a while?

[Skaag]

Exactly, and what superhero team doesn't have a little internal attempted rape once and a while?

Poor Robin was never the same...

[dilznic]

Exactly, and what superhero team doesn't have a little internal attempted rape once and a while?

Poor Robin was never the same...

Apparently the Canadian version of Batman is a little different.

[Zephyrs]

There was no rape but the Joker killed Robin in "The killing joke"
Fans voted for him to die!

[Jakensama]

Yeah check out the movie stills of the canadian batmobile.

<img src="http://www.fugly.com/media/IMAGES/Funny/free_candy_van.jpg">

[Diggles]

Batman Begins and Dark Knight were both very dark and alot better than this. At least they explained the back story on where Batman came from and his motivations.

All I know about these people is they stopped bank robbers in the 1800's or something? WTF

At least in the Xmen movie I know they are genetic mutants that grant them super powers and the government wants to know who is and isnt a mutant.

They didnt explain HOW these people got their powers, why they came together or even what they did once they were together really.

[Jodah]

"In 1985, DC Comics acquired a line of characters from Charlton Comics. During that period, writer Alan Moore contemplated writing a story featuring an unused line of superheroes that he could revamp, as he had done in his Miracleman series in the early 1980s. Moore reasoned that MLJ Comics' Mighty Crusaders might be available for such a project, so he devised a murder mystery plot which would begin with the discovery of the body of The Shield in a harbor. The writer felt it did not matter which set of characters he ultimately used, as long as readers recognized them "so it would have the shock and surprise value when you saw what the reality of these characters was". Moore used this premise and crafted a proposal featuring the Charlton characters titled Who Killed the Peacemaker, and submitted the unsolicited proposal to DC managing editor Dick Giordano. Giordano was receptive to the proposal, but the editor opposed the idea of using the Charlton characters for the story. Moore said, "DC realized their expensive characters would end up either dead or dysfunctional." Instead, Giordano persuaded Moore to rework his pitch to feature original characters. Moore had initially believed that original characters would not provide emotional resonance for the readers, but later changed his mind. He said, "Eventually, I realized that if I wrote the substitute characters well enough, so that they seemed familiar in certain ways, certain aspects of them brought back a kind of generic super-hero resonance or familiarity to the reader, then it might work."" -Quoted from Wikipedia

That is why there is less backstory to the heros then say Batman or the X-Men.

[Jakensama]

They didnt explain HOW these people got their powers, why they came together or even what they did once they were together really.

These people don't have powers except for manhattan, they are vigilantes. There was a conversation at the beginning with the owl guy and his predecessor that explained where they came from back in the 40s and the plotline between the chick in spandex with her mother. Also the whole opening montage kind of conveyed the history. But yes, the problem is the previews marketed it as a normal super hero film.

[Diggles]

They didnt explain HOW these people got their powers, why they came together or even what they did once they were together really.

These people don't have powers except for manhattan, they are vigilantes. There was a conversation at the beginning with the owl guy and his predecessor that explained where they came from back in the 40s and the plotline between the chick in spandex with her mother. Also the whole opening montage kind of conveyed the history. But yes, the problem is the previews marketed it as a normal super hero film.

So how is that one guy the 'worlds smartest man' and able to move at super speed and whats the black ink shit over Rorschach face when he wears a holeless ski mask? lol