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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Watchmen movie news

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Regrettable Juvenilia

08:47 / 14.08.07

I can see what you're seeing there, Copey. I can definitely see what you're saying.

Unfortunately, to me it reads like "WAAH WAAH WAAAH WAAH WAAH WAAH WAAAH! WAAH WAAH WAAH WAAH WAAAH!"

09:01 / 14.08.07

Shhhh!

why not just have different actors playing younger selves?

1. Expense
2. No old people in starring roles when trying to please the 15-25 bracket

I seem to remember something about you working in the film industry from time to time.

09:56 / 14.08.07

1. Expense
2. No old people in starring roles when trying to please the 15-25 bracket

The expense thing is daft- what about currently being made movies like Atonement with characters at different ages- i appreciate finances are going to play a part but surely a decent producer with faith in their project can negotiate around this- points anyone?

Also with a project like Watchmen the audience isn't the standard 15-25 years old bracket - that thinking is exactly what is going to make this film shit. Wasn't Harrison Ford well into his 30's when playing Han solo and Indiana Jones?

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:01 / 14.08.07

The new Indiana Jones film is going to be shit as well. In fact, I'm surprised we don't have a thread about it already, in which people speculate in detail about the shitty shitness that will make it shit.

Come to think of it, every major film that has been announced but that I have not yet seen even a trailer for, is going to be utter, utter shit.

10:10 / 14.08.07

That's true.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:15 / 14.08.07

No it's not. It's a load of feeble-minded whingey bollocks: thus being entirely in keeping with the tone of this thread, and too often, this forum.

10:15 / 14.08.07

Come to think of it, every major film that has been announced but that I have not yet seen even a trailer for, is going to be utter, utter shit.

ok i concede a fair point, i've not seen any of Watchmen yet. It may well be great and i hope it is, i'm just not convinced with either the cast or the director yet.

10:16 / 14.08.07

it looks shit was my point.

It's a BBC TV comedy sketch show from nearly fifteen years ago, not a new multi-million dollar movie.

10:17 / 14.08.07

calm down dear its only barbelith.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:24 / 14.08.07

lol u are being uptight about the standard of debate on teh internet u r a l0zer 11

10:38 / 14.08.07

Isn't it true? I thought it was.

In the past I've always hated things I haven't seen.

11:19 / 14.08.07

It's a BBC TV comedy sketch show from nearly fifteen years ago, not a new multi-million dollar movie.

Have the techniques really changed that much?

Keith, like a scientist

12:42 / 14.08.07

It's likely this will be bad and will tarnish our beloved comix, but since all we have is a casting list, it's kind of hard to determine at the moment. I've read that the script Snyder is working from was originally exceptionally well done and even had an Uncle Al endorsement. Of course, the report is that he is polishing it and not for the better, but there is at least a glimmer of hope that good things will remain.

I'm reserving judgement until I see some footage/trailer.

Janean Patience

12:56 / 14.08.07

Ah, it's unfilmable. It's clearly, self-evidently too long and complex to be compressed into even a three-hour movie without losing characters, scenes and plotlines. The genius of the work is in its detail, in making even the most minor characters count and reinforce the whole huge structure. That can't survive translation. Not because I hate Hollywood, not because filmmakers hate the fanz, but because of Watchmen itself.

Catch 22 was unfilmable and the film, while interesting, doesn't approach the kaleidoscopic satire of the novel. Perfume was unfilmable. The film falls down exactly where you'd expect it to. American Psycho became a mere sketch about a joke of a man, never capturing how being the joke feels from the inside. The films have their merits, but it's as if it hurts the film industry's pride for there to be a successful book, an acknowledged classic, that they can't bring to the screen. They do these projects even though they're doomed. When a book or a graphic novel seems unfilmable and goes through many years of development and scripts and directors you kind of know how it'll all turn out.

13:06 / 14.08.07

>>>I've read that the script Snyder is working from was originally exceptionally well done and even had an Uncle Al endorsement.<<<

I highly doubt this - Moore has already requested his name be absent from anything to do with the film, else he spend "another year excoriating them in every interview I do."

The script may be alright, but there's no way in hell that Moore endorsed it.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:21 / 14.08.07

The films have their merits, but it's as if it hurts the film industry's pride for there to be a successful book, an acknowledged classic, that they can't bring to the screen.

I had brunch with Mary Harron the other day and she actually told me that avenging the film industry's wounded pride was exactly her motivation for adapting American Psycho. "One in the eye for that fucker Ellis! Him and his literary mates thinkin' their shit don't stink", she guffawed as she shovelled another forkfull of scrambled eggs and hash browns towards her mouth, except some of the food fell on the floor, and the waitress did not sweep it up, and it rotted, and rats fed on it, and the restaurant became irredeemly diseased, EXACTLY LIKE THIS THREAD.

15:01 / 14.08.07

Hey, at least nobody's claimed that they've found the idea of the film to be a personal insult yet.

Now *that* was a thread.

16:46 / 14.08.07

Hey Shaftoe, I think I was in that restaurant. Do you remember the bloke in the corner who started breast feeding? I recall thinking, "I've got no problem with you doing it, mate, but in the privacy of your own home, yes?"

I think I was eating yogurt at the time.

21:56 / 14.08.07

I think it has gone far beyond whether it'll be shit or if it'll rawck!! (or any other defensive-protective judgment -- even if a critique has slightly more depth or not). I just think it has become fun to finally see what comes out of it. People who hold the original as some major masterwork literature shouldn't be afflicted if it's shit -- doesn't masterworks always get filmed lots of times in various versions, perspectives and new interpretations? I'm just very curious for this vision and how it'll play, how it'll be taken by fandom, by fresh audiences (after seeing superhero movies, The Incredibles, Heroes etc), how fandom will take audiences' takes, how it might cast a new light and expose some things of the comic, of what fandom liked in the comic and what they saw as the things that made it good and sacred -- and SIRIUZ MASTERPIEZZA!!!! -- and why were those things so important anyway (and how will be the fandom's reaction into protecting-validating the original work/ themselves) and etc...

It'll be fun regardless of the outcome (and I might actually like it if, for instance as Cam suggested, they'd go for a more even and balanced portrayals of different times).

14:18 / 15.08.07

They should make it as a trilogy. After all, everything is a trilogy now anyway

15:17 / 15.08.07

It's a little behind the time but I've been racking my brain to think of examples of the aging-up / aging-down dilemma and I think that's pulled off quite successfully in the opening scenes of the third X-men movie so I don't completely buy into the idea that it would be undoable for Watchmen...

Keith, like a scientist

18:37 / 15.08.07

>>>I've read that the script Snyder is working from was originally exceptionally well done and even had an Uncle Al endorsement.<<<

I highly doubt this - Moore has already requested his name be absent from anything to do with the film, else he spend "another year excoriating them in every interview I do."

The script may be alright, but there's no way in hell that Moore endorsed it.

I guess endorsement is a strong word, but he felt like it was the best that could be done with it for a film

20:18 / 15.08.07

Keith, I don't mean to be unkind, but what part of 'I shan't be going to see it' seemed complicated?

Alan Moore would rather this film wasn't made, he's said as much, reapeatedly. He's refused the money, but he doesn't own the rights, so he's stuck with it, whatever Zack Snyder comes up with. Consequently, a sub-standard bowdlerisation of his work which he isn't a)going to profit from, at all, or b)have any say in, is, nevertheless, going to reach a much wider audience than 'Watchmen' ever did, at its inception. The same being true of 'From Hell', 'LXG' or 'V For Vendetta'

Really, who could honestly blame AM for being furious?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:04 / 15.08.07

Well, I can certainly say without a shadow of a doubt, due to my extensive reading of the source text and my knowledge of the film industry, that it's either going to rock or suck. Unless, of course, it does something in between.

I'd still really like to see the Black Freighter stuff, but I'd be quite happy for it to be an entirely separate movie, really.

22:23 / 15.08.07

I guess endorsement is a strong word

Reads like it could a quote from anyone from the past three Moore adaptations' production staff, post hyping and hearing Moore's gone and told the press it weren't true.

Don Murphy, anyone?

23:23 / 15.08.07

Let's be honest: if Watchmen, completely adapted, were to be put to live action it'd take, at a guess, six-odd hours to tell.

Thus, as a two-hour movie, it's got a lot less time to pack in the relevant material. So, really, it becomes a question of what relevant material/narrative they'll leave in.

The most important question, obviously, is whether Billy will get his cock out.

00:26 / 16.08.07

The most important question, obviously, is whether Billy will get his cock out.

It's hard ... it's difficult to argue with this, certainly.

Seeing as nobody knows what the film is going to be like, can we just confine our discussions of what's possibly going to happen in it, thus;

Will Billy, or won't he? Take that brave step ...

02:51 / 16.08.07

It's just baffling to me that they'd take Carla Gugino who is the perfect age for and looks exactly like Laurie and then go and cast her as the character's seventy year old mother. If anything, Malin Ackerman looks more like Sally, they should swap roles. The best thing I can say about this film is someone mentioned how good the V For Vendetta movie was a couple of days ago and I had actually completely forgotten it had been made into a film.

06:55 / 16.08.07

Yes, Patrick, I suppose if you look at it a certain way, possibly from a prone position on the floor after taking a copious amount of smack, that is the best thing you can say about a film that a) you haven't seen and b) doesn't even exist yet.

06:57 / 16.08.07

I'm coming up... I... well...

No, I still can't see your point, Pat.

Was the carpet... was it always this soft?

07:19 / 16.08.07

The most important question, obviously, is whether Billy will get his cock out.

He would. He tells me he's very anxious for it, for a long time now (and even a longer time for painting it blue).

But they won't let him. Probably it'll be black leather underwear "300-style" similar to Manhattan's past days -- otherwise, going full frontal, "it'd be a bit gay".

They wouldn't even let him blue his own johnson.

08:06 / 16.08.07

They should paint it blue shouldn't they, even though it will probably be under the thong the whole time. One can only hope that, if they don't and perhaps even if they do, Billy's caught with a stolen bottle of Manhattan Azure and a brush in, how should we say, a compromising position, "for consistency".

13:17 / 16.08.07

If he's glowing, his 'member' will likely be distorted/just barely present/visible through the unearthly glow that Doc M. radiates. Problem solved (at least, from the perspective of a studio that most likely will not want to go full frontal for this character).

13:32 / 16.08.07

Will he undergo a full body bikini-waxing too? Because it sounds painfull...

13:42 / 16.08.07

It only sounds painful. It looks funny, smells harsh and ashamed, feels gooey and tastes crispy. D:

I'm very curious to see (*sigh* yes, even if it sucks...) the big blue quantum Adam on the big screen. I'm thinking even on the worst of possibilities, he'd still look fantastically "old age sci-fi fantasy novel", electricly ethereal, unsettlingly impossible and darkly oniric (no, not in a Gaiman fashion) in a oddly gloomy and somberly twisted, sparkling color filled with bizarre frequencies' buzzes and gaseous static, and the most dead-looking and blank eyes ever. The word "strange" on two legs.

(yes, I realize what I just wrote was 99,92132% pure nonsense pretending to be a description, but it was the best way I could describe how I imagine that thing on the screen)

Any information whether it'll be digital, greenscreen, film, locations, sets? Having been forced to rewatch Fight Club last night, I couldn't help but notice that the photography and art direction of the outdoors night shots were exactly the only way I could ever imagine Watchmen (the mixture of grimy and colorful -- I couldn't imagine Watchmen without the colors, but colors are rare if one wish for a stylish grimy). But, you know, without the green washed-out filter that reeks of late-90's.

The visuals are the things are leave me most curious, considering the contrast between the dark tones and the excessive colors in the comic.

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