my initial reaction to it was...
wow, I'm surprised how loyal to the graohic novel this was...amazing 8/10
then after talking with my friend alex I realized that the movie was far too "concise" it should have been one in a series of watchmen movies(I know it is kinda early to assume there won't be more, but looking at the manner in which this was made, it is unlikely) it seemed as if the bulk of the film was a random jumble of important events with small fillers in between, then edited up the wazoo to make it 2 hours long. ( just for hahas I've estimated the total length of the movie(s) if done orrectly, and the series could be no shorter than ~10 hours split between 3-4 movies which is short for such a huge graphic novel, but with time being money I had to make a practical decision

the casting was all right to pretty bad with the only exception being Jackie Earl Haley(Rorschach)he encapsulated Rorscach for me, he sounded exactly how I'd pictured Rorschach sounding, and to be honest he played the hell out him and outshined all the others especially Carla Gugino(Silk Spectre I) and the way they portrayed the Comedian was a little offputting, since they only focused on how royally f***ed he was yet they chose to keep the fact that everyone mourned his death and searched very dilligent,ly for his murderer. they left out SO MUCH of dr. manhattan's dialogue (including his whole monologue on mars, actually everything on mars short of him creating his "cog-castle and near asphyxiation of silkspectre)

overall many characters could have been cut due to a supreme lack of importance in the movie most notably all of the minutemen (except the comedian and S.S. I of course) and Bubastis who appears for maybe 12 seconds.

but I digress...[sarcasm]that's hollywood for ya![/sarcasm]

I think that's pretty unfair.

Your criticism that it should have been 10 hours long is like saying "The movie would have been better if it was a paper-maché sculpture."

The movie was not a paper-maché sculpture, it was a single mainstream Hollywood movie. And as such, your initial reaction was dead on. It _was_ remarkably faithful to the original, more so, in fact, than nearly any other "super-hero" movie I've ever seen.

Some of the casting was a bit wooden, but in almost all cases it seems that they went with actors who looked more like the Dave Gibbons drawings than actors who tested well with audiences or who were great actors in their own right.

I would have been happier if the movie was longer, but I suspect many people who have not read the comic think it is already more than long enough.

I was happy with the movie for the most part. I just wish after all that trouble of sticking with the source material they would have kept the original ending. The comic's ending had a much deeper meaning as I saw it.

I didn't find what they left out to be a problem at first, but then I realized that if they had cut down on the slow motion effects and made the sex scene the same length as in the comic (I think it lasted maybe two panels, IIRC) rather than about five minutes, they likely could have included some of the cut material. But the Black Freighter comic was definitely right to leave out of a movie -- it wouldn't have fit.

Also, a few scenes were changed to increase violence, such as the bit where Rorschach kills the murderer. Rather than with fire, he uses a butcher knife to the skull. Onscreen. Eww.

As for the ending, I thought it mostly retained the original ending's spirit and better explained Dr. Manhattan's departure, but the bit with Dreiberg attacking Veidt and with Nite Owl and Silk Spectre not retiring left me annoyed.

But other than all that, it was okay.

I'm pretty sure the penis was smaller in the comic as well

I'm pretty sure the penis was smaller in the comic as well

Yeah, there was a little too much of Billy's Crudup.

It was a good and respectful adaptation. I personally wish it had been less gory, and would have tweaked a few scenes, but this is as faithful a comic book -> movie translation as you're ever likely to see. "Horrible" is not an appropriate description.

As far as the sex scene - panels don't have an exact translation to screen time. I'd say it fit fairly well with the comic book's attention to such.

I found it as faithful an adaption as you will likely ever see to anything. sure some things where changed but It was a really well done adaption

Guy Humual wrote:

I'm pretty sure the penis was smaller in the comic as well

Yeah, there was a little too much of Billy's Crudup.

Meh. I didn't really notice it that much. It was like "hey, look, a penis," and I paid it no mind for the rest of the movie. I don't really know why people are making a big deal out of it.

Guy Humual wrote:

I'm pretty sure the penis was smaller in the comic as well

Yeah, there was a little too much of Billy's Crudup.

And people think the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death is shocking.

;)

Audrin_Noreys wrote:

Guy Humual wrote:

I'm pretty sure the penis was smaller in the comic as well

Yeah, there was a little too much of Billy's Crudup.

And people think the Microsoft Blue Screen of Death is shocking.

;)

Heh heh heh...

Lower Manhattan.

I haven't read the comic, but as a moviegoer, I really enjoyed it. It didn't feel rushed, like V for Vendetta, it wasn't an action scene after an explosion, after a fight scene, after B-Movie dialogue, like Spiderman 2, and it didn't reference stupid internet memes ("I'm the Juggernaut, b@%$#!"), like X-Men 3. Finally, I thought it washed away the definitive, negative aftertaste of American fascis.... err... I mean apologetics, that was the movie, Iron Man.

Now that's not to say that these other movies aren't awesome movies. (Okay, I hated Spiderman 2 and X-Men 3, but I liked Iron Man, and V for Vendetta is one of my all-time, favorite movies.) I just think that, as a superhero movie, the Watchmen is one of the best. Maybe it didn't follow the comic book exactly, but if you came away from the movie feeling like it did (as you did initially), I think that should tell you something.

By the way, I read on Wikipedia that they're coming out with an animated, straight-to-DVD movie about the Tales of the Black Freighter. There's even some talk about a special edition DVD that intermixes the two movies.

I haven't read the comic, but as a moviegoer, I really enjoyed it. It didn't feel rushed, like V for Vendetta, it wasn't an action scene after an explosion, after a fight scene, after B-Movie dialogue, like Spiderman 2, and it didn't reference stupid internet memes ("I'm the Juggernaut, b@%$#!"), like X-Men 3. Finally, I thought it washed away the definitive, negative aftertaste of American fascis.... err... I mean apologetics, that was the movie, Iron Man.

Now that's not to say that these other movies aren't awesome movies. (Okay, I hated Spiderman 2 and X-Men 3, but I liked Iron Man, and V for Vendetta is one of my all-time, favorite movies.) I just think that, as a superhero movie, the Watchmen is one of the best. Maybe it didn't follow the comic book exactly, but if you came away from the movie feeling like it did (as you did initially), I think that should tell you something.

By the way, I read on Wikipedia that they're coming out with an animated, straight-to-DVD movie about the Tales of the Black Freighter. There's even some talk about a special edition DVD that intermixes the two movies.

I've also read that there will be a DVD version with about 30 minutes of cut scenes. I'm pretty sure this is above and beyond the Tales of the Black Freighter parts.

Azhagal, I agree with both you and Eric. To me, the movie shows what I (and many others) suspected all along; that the GN is unfilmable, at least as a single movie. The only way I see it really being done justice is if someone gives Terry Gilliam the money to make it into a big-budget TV series like he wanted to. For example, the scenes with Rorschach and Dr Long need a whole episode to themselves, like they get in the GN.

However, that said, I've seen it twice now and I still think it does an astonishingly good job of translating it considered that it's not just a single movie, it's a single Hollywood movie. From what I've read, Zack Snyder fought tooth and nail to keep as much in as he did.

Apparently, there's going to be a director's cut with 30 minutes of extra footage, and a super-extended-director's-cut with that and the Black Freighter stuff (the actual story, plus the scenes which take you back and forth between that and the main story) as well, which should come out at about three and a half hours. That's the one I'm waiting for.

PS I didn't think the Comedian was that much different to the GN. In fact, I thought after Rorschach he was probably the best of the lot.

I'm just glad the (film-uncredited) writer had the chops to say something along the lines of, "My work was a comic book. It was not a 'novel,' and it was certainly not a movie script."

Personally, for some reason I'm starting to find "graphic novel" to be more geek-pretentious than Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways.

I'm just glad the (film-uncredited) writer had the chops to say something along the lines of, "My work was a comic book. It was not a 'novel,' and it was certainly not a movie script."

Personally, for some reason I'm starting to find "graphic novel" to be more geek-pretentious than Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways.

/agreed

I'm just glad the (uncredited) writer had the chops to say something along the lines of, "My work was a comic book. It was not a 'novel,' and not a movie script."

Personally, for some reason I'm starting to find "graphic novel" to be more geek-pretentious than Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways.

Your last sentence describes my feelings about the whole "Watchmen" scene to a tee. I read it, it was like a comic book version of Roy Lichtenstein painting, with graphic violence thrown in.

Furthermore, the whole "nuclear doom and gloom" stuff was so sixties. Sorry, but the fear of nuclear war did not define the eighties. Phoebe Cates' pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High wins those honors. :P

Personally, for some reason I'm starting to find "graphic novel" to be more geek-pretentious than Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways.

One of my former English professors defined it this way:

Novel: An ordinary story, happening to ordinary people in an ordinary setting.

Romance: An extraordinary story, happening to extraordinary people in an extraordinary setting.

Now I don't know about you, but I don't remember a quantum/atomic blue guy helping us win the Vietnam War. Heck, I don't even remember us winning the Vietnam War. So I'm going to say that The Watchmen safely falls under the category of graphic romance, and not graphic novel.

I'm just glad the (film-uncredited) writer had the chops to say something along the lines of, "My work was a comic book. It was not a 'novel,' and it was certainly not a movie script."

Personally, for some reason I'm starting to find "graphic novel" to be more geek-pretentious than Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways.

To me, loosely speaking it's just the plural of "comic" - individual issues are comics, several bound together in book form are a graphic novel. I've also heard it used to differentiate comic-book stories like Watchmen which have a fixed length and hence a beginning, middle and end like a typical novel from those like Spider-man which continue indefinitely and have more in common structurally with a soap opera.

But the real reason I used "GN" instead of "comic" is that I'm a slow typist and it's shorter ;)

Personally, for some reason I'm starting to find "graphic novel" to be more geek-pretentious than Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways.

Makes me think of a comedy skit that was on last night. This geeky guy was trying to get some help with his blind date. He called a service that is supposed to help "Hoodwink" people.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Personally, for some reason I'm starting to find "graphic novel" to be more geek-pretentious than Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways.

Makes me think of a comedy skit that was on last night. This geeky guy was trying to get some help with his blind date. He called a service that is supposed to help "Hoodwink" people.

Operator: Sir, we will need to try to determine how nerdy you are.
Geeky Guy: Well, I don't know really.
Operator: Ok sir, about how many comics would you say you own?
Geeky Guy: Does that include graphic novels?
Operator: Ok sir, we have all the information we need, we'll get in contact with you and set everything up.
Geeky Guy: Ok.

This. Is. Perfect.

Furthermore, the whole "nuclear doom and gloom" stuff was so sixties. Sorry, but the fear of nuclear war did not define the eighties. Phoebe Cates' pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High wins those honors. :P

I was going to disagree with your premise until I got to the last sentence. That indeed is more powerful than nuclear armageddon.

Makes me think of a comedy skit that was on last night.

I'm with Derek. Nice one!

I was going to disagree with your premise until I got to the last sentence. That indeed is more powerful than nuclear armageddon.

The question is, is that opinion confined to American males who are roughly our age? Or does it have the power to cut across temporal and geographical boundaries?

pres man wrote:

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Personally, for some reason I'm starting to find "graphic novel" to be more geek-pretentious than Paul Giamatti's character in Sideways.

Makes me think of a comedy skit that was on last night. This geeky guy was trying to get some help with his blind date. He called a service that is supposed to help "Hoodwink" people.

Operator: Sir, we will need to try to determine how nerdy you are.
Geeky Guy: Well, I don't know really.
Operator: Ok sir, about how many comics would you say you own?
Geeky Guy: Does that include graphic novels?
Operator: Ok sir, we have all the information we need, we'll get in contact with you and set everything up.
Geeky Guy: Ok.

This. Is. Perfect.

~wistles innocently as I quietly hide my DVDs, comic books, Graphic Novels, Sci-Fi and Fantasy books, and all my RPF material~

Erik Mona wrote:

I was going to disagree with your premise until I got to the last sentence. That indeed is more powerful than nuclear armageddon.

The question is, is that opinion confined to American males who are roughly our age? Or does it have the power to cut across temporal and geographical boundaries?

I think people of our age (Gen X, I suppose) and younger weren't as cognizant (in an immediate, palpably fearful way) of the nuclear war possibility as our parents and grandparents were. We never had bomb drills when/where I was growing up, for one.

But Phoebe? I actually mourned for a week when she married Kevin Klein...

I think people of our age (Gen X, I suppose) and younger weren't as cognizant (in an immediate, palpably fearful way) of the nuclear war possibility as our parents and grandparents were. We never had bomb drills when/where I was growing up, for one.

And younger people seem to prefer chicks you can pick up and throw like javelins. Phoebe Cates was slim, but not skeletal.

I tried to describe that scene to my wife yesterday, who is 9 years my junior and thus missed it during the height of its popularity. I'm cracking up about Judge Rheinhold and she said, "There was a judge involved?! Was it illegal to show that back then?"

I thought that the nineteen eighties was the decade of scary cute furry animals. There were those teddy-bears - sorry, ewoks - who defeated The Empire and then got their own film and spin-off cartoon show, and then there were the Thundercats....

houstonderek wrote:

I think people of our age (Gen X, I suppose) and younger weren't as cognizant (in an immediate, palpably fearful way) of the nuclear war possibility as our parents and grandparents were. We never had bomb drills when/where I was growing up, for one.

And younger people seem to prefer chicks you can pick up and throw like javelins. Phoebe Cates was slim, but not skeletal.

I tried to describe that scene to my wife yesterday, who is 9 years my junior and thus missed it during the height of its popularity. I'm cracking up about Judge Rheinhold and she said, "There was a judge involved?! Was it illegal to show that back then?"

"Doesn't anybody KNOCK anymore?"

houstonderek wrote:

Furthermore, the whole "nuclear doom and gloom" stuff was so sixties. Sorry, but the fear of nuclear war did not define the eighties. Phoebe Cates' pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High wins those honors. :P

I was going to disagree with your premise until I got to the last sentence. That indeed is more powerful than nuclear armageddon.

Erik, you must understand something. I was born with the SD (ex): Resist Fad/30

I've only failed my check twice, once in '79 (D&D), and once in '89 (Rotisserie baseball).

..."Doesn't anybody KNOCK anymore?"

THE CLASSIC SCENE *

*Missing the actual Ms. Cates full frontal, cause ...you know, it might corrupt someone :(

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Are you saying that the term "graphic novel" is pretentious? Like any book with pictures is just a comic? Sounds sort of dismissive and/or elitist.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Are you saying that the term "graphic novel" is pretentious? Like any book with pictures is just a comic? Sounds sort of dismissive and/or elitist.

To quote the current Head Crook, "illiterate hicks cling to their teddy bears and their comic books..."

Furthermore, the whole "nuclear doom and gloom" stuff was so sixties. Sorry, but the fear of nuclear war did not define the eighties. Phoebe Cates' pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High wins those honors. :P

Much as I hate to disagree with you, Derek, nuclear doom and gloom was a part of my 80s experience. Reagan was pushing the Soviets pretty hard and the Doomsday clock was usually within 5 minutes of midnight. That's why it was in the comic; it was a big part of the early 80s.

As for the quality of the adaptation: visually it was quite accurate up until Karnak. Many of the interwoven details, most noticeably "the Black Ship" comic were (probably had to be ) left out. Those details were what made the comic for me. I thought the twist at the end:

Overall, it was pretty good. Not great.

houstonderek wrote:

Furthermore, the whole "nuclear doom and gloom" stuff was so sixties. Sorry, but the fear of nuclear war did not define the eighties. Phoebe Cates' pool scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High wins those honors. :P

Much as I hate to disagree with you, Derek, nuclear doom and gloom was a part of my 80s experience. Reagan was pushing the Soviets pretty hard and the Doomsday clock was usually within 5 minutes of midnight. That's why it was in the comic; it was a big part of the early 80s.

As for the quality of the adaptation: visually it was quite accurate up until Karnak. Many of the interwoven details, most noticeably "the Black Ship" comic were (probably had to be ) left out. Those details were what made the comic for me. I thought the twist at the end:

** spoiler omitted **
was clever, and a good way to avoid some of those details which were so dear to me.

Overall, it was pretty good. Not great.

Where did you grow up? My '80s was spent in Upstate New York, all over New Jersey, Central Florida and Texas. No kids I knew gave nuclear war a second thought, unless we were talking about Twilight:2000. It didn't shape my childhood like it did my parents'.

You can tell what the big "generation defining" fears are by watching the sci-fi and horror movies of a generation. In the fifties and early sixties, nuclear radiation created monsters were everywhere (Godzilla, Them!), schools were having drills, all kinds of craziness. And the reality is Kennedy took us far closer to the big one than Reagan ever did. The '80s, on the other hand, were all space travel (Star Wars, Star Trek), aliens come to earth accidentally or for a purpose (E.T., Starman), and slasher flicks.

[the late sixties/early seventies were apparently the era of "being afraid of children" (Rosemary's Baby, Village of the Damned, The Omen, The Exorcist, I could go on and on...). No wonder Roe V. Wade happened...]

Anyway, Alan Moore, being of the Baby Boomer generation, was reflecting HIS generation's thoughts and fears, not reflecting the thoughts and fears of the teens of the time. He didn't write his book for Gen X, he wrote it for his generation.

Q.E.D.

I think the Cold War rhetoric against the Soviets was still VERY MUCH going on in the early 1980s. We had Olympic boycotts, missile parades in the USSR, and (very importantly for me) you had made-for-TV movies like the HUGELY influential "The Day After" and "World War III" that were banging the nuclear war gong pretty hard. All of this stuff was significant enough for me to notice by the time I was 8 years old, and it definitely impacted my 80s experience.

I think the Cold War rhetoric against the Soviets was still VERY MUCH going on in the early 1980s. We had Olympic boycotts, missile parades in the USSR, and (very importantly for me) you had made-for-TV movies like the HUGELY influential "The Day After" and "World War III" that were banging the nuclear war gong pretty hard. All of this stuff was significant enough for me to notice by the time I was 8 years old, and it definitely impacted my 80s experience.

Yeah... having grown up in the eighties, I remember waking up when it thundered and thinking it was an Atom Bomb going off. And that good old "Day After Tomorrow" (and "Wargames") sure did a number on us back then...

Nuclear war was quite on the mind back then.

This is why y'all write games and I buy them I suppose. I slept well in the '80s...

This is why y'all write games and I buy them I suppose. I slept well in the '80s...

even with the 'ch ch ch ...huuh huuh huuh' in the cabins near the lake? hard to type out that sound effect.

or the 'jesus wept'? NSFW

houstonderek wrote:

This is why y'all write games and I buy them I suppose. I slept well in the '80s...

even with the 'ch ch ch ...huuh huuh huuh' in the cabins near the lake? hard to type out that sound effect.

Dude, you know what movie kept me up at nights? Fatal Attraction. That scared me.

Bogeymen and distant, abstract threats? Meh...

Wait, that stuff could totally happen...you remember the one when the dog pi##ed all over the grave, desecrating the ground and that allowed him to return and kill more teens? Oh that was a 'Nightmare on Elm Street', wasnt it?

Totally agree on Fatal Attraction be real and scary, Jagged Edge was pretty good that way too.

Back to the most important subject though...good god yes was Phoebe Cates moving in stereo the most arousing thing I had seen up to that point. Then I saw Heavy Metal at a midnight show not too long after that.

Wait, that stuff could totally happen...you remember the one when the dog pi##ed all over the grave, desecrating the ground and that allowed him to return and kill more teens? Oh that was a 'Nightmare on Elm Street', wasnt it?

Totally agree on Fatal Attraction be real and scary, Jagged Edge was pretty good that way too.

Back to the most important subject though...good god yes was Phoebe Cates moving in stereo the most arousing thing I had seen up to that point. Then I saw Heavy Metal at a midnight show not too long after that.

I still smile every time I hear the Cars' song that was playing during that scene...

South Park recently did a brilliant send-up of Heavy Metal that is naturally NSFW.

Here it is in all its glory: SAY CHEESE!

AWESOME! Dont have cable anymore and havent kept up with the boys of South Park. Perfect attention to detail (especially in coloring of that old bomber and the rotoscoping...oh and the boobs!)

Heavy Metal was pure gonzo and my 15 or so year old mind just ate it UP! Comics and chicks and 'splosions and drugs and DIO! I remember our youth pastor found out a bunch of us had gone to that midnight show and had a big talk about it...same dude tried to show us a VHS from some watchdog group with the evils of pop music.

oh, and back to the original topic: Rorschach! Rorschach! Rorschach!

Yeah... having grown up in the eighties, I remember waking up when it thundered and thinking it was an Atom Bomb going off. And that good old "Day After Tomorrow" (and "Wargames") sure did a number on us back then...

Nuclear war was quite on the mind back then.

Agreed. Pretty much expected to die that way, living on a missile range and all...

...same dude tried to show us a VHS from some watchdog group with the evils of pop music.

Hey, that stuff's pretty damn evil.