March 06, 2009

• Wolverine Vs. Rorschach: "I'm A Marvel, I'm A DC"
• me and the owlship Hey, you know what? I'm not jealous. It's just that you smell. *cries*
• Oh holy shit I just caught the Hooters in the background. You win at framing, sir.
• "You win at framing, sir." I wish I could take credit for that... They wouldn't let us take cameras into the premiere... but they didn't take our cell phones... I handed mine to my kid (Have I said yet that he's the producer of Watchmen...oh, yeah, hell yes he is, this is one proud Dad!) and told him I wanted a picture of me with the owlship... he framed that sucker, and didn't notice it 'til I sent him a copy...
• homunculus for the win. So awesome.
• Hitler's response the the change in the ending
  
• The Owlship is parked in front of Hooters? There's a joke in there, but I just ... can't ... seem to ...
• Owl be darned! Whoooo can top that one? What? WHAT? It was just a lil' joke. No! Put me down. I wanna stay. Don't throw me outta the thread!...
• You'll be thrown out on the streets, Gramma... ...and your little dog too.
• Ack, I seriously need to finish the Watchman book, so I don't have to cover my ears and eyes at all the (potentially spoiler) spoofs.
• Hitler's response the the change in the ending Stop making me feel sorry for Hitler.
• Since I'm using this thread as my own, "I'm proud of my kid space"... here's the kid.... I promise to never do self serving links again! I promise to never do self serving links again! I promise to never do self serving links again! I promise to never do self serving links again! I promise to never do self serving links again!
• I love how pissed off people are about the squid. It's even better than when they were all up in arms over discovering that Snyder hadn't just shaved Billy Crudup and painted him blue.
• The reviews have been interesting... I talked to my kid tonight, he said that they are actually pretty happy with the split of good/bad... they feel it makes it intersting.. my opinion on the squid... the film ending makes more sense...the squid was a WTF for me when I read the graphic novel..
• Book Vs. Film: Watchmen ****SPOILERS**** (book and movie) Onion AV Club's Tasha Robinson on the ending: And he doesn’t try to frame Dr. Manhattan, so much as he wants it to look like a random accident, in which a dimension-traveling creature wound up in the wrong place and died explosively, taking many with it. Frankly, I’m not sure that would have played out on film; it’s too outré and ridiculous in a way pretty far removed from Snyder’s particular grim brand of outré and ridiculous. But the basic idea—a plot that will kill millions and shock the world into banding together in defense—is the same. I might be ok with that change, but some of Snyder's instincts don't really sit well with me. From what I've read in this article, he doesn't really "get it". I've been considering re-reading the book before seeing the movie, but I think these changes will bother me less if I don't.
• It's OK, HuronBob - linking to interesting and relevant stuff about your family members within threads is fine, I think. I for one say tell us more. More, I say!
• Koko..thanks for the link, that was a good read. And, Plegmund...never give an old proud dad encouragement... a couple of pics, just for fun... We went to Snyder's house on sunday before the premier, it was his birthday... This was his cake: Here's me, the wife, and Snyder, the view from the house looks down on the Rose Bowl in Pasadena:
• Great cake, Bob ... were those red velvet cupcakes?
• chocolate....
• From what I've read in this article, he doesn't really "get it". You'll feel that a couple of times during the movie. Someone brought up that whole "he knows the notes but can't hear the music" thing, which is apt, but when I went to see it I was intent on watching it as a movie and not an adaptation of Moore's work. Looking at it through those eyes, I came away from a movie I regarded as flawed and occasionally gratuitous, but overall a success.
• middleclasstool.. yep, there was no way to really do Watchmen, the translation from print to film was pretty much impossible... I agree with your comment... overall, it was about as good as it could be...
• Koko, I'm avoiding the graphic novel too for the same reason. It's long enough now since I've read it last that I've forgotten all but the main plot points, so I figure I'm safe.
• I should add, in case my comment above doesn't make it clear, that IMO there's no way the squid would have played on the screen. No way. It works in comics for comics fans, but it doesn't translate well, not for a nearly 3-hour-long superhero movie that you want to get non-fans to watch in order to recoup the hundreds of millions you spent making it. And the idea of framing another hero, particularly a hero who is totally amoral and willing to assume that burden and exile himself to save humanity, works surprisingly well as a replacement -- I might even say better. Snyder could have done a better job. The sex and violence could and should have been toned down, and I say that as an avid fan of both nudity and stylized movie violence. But though grading on a curve isn't the highest praise imaginable, this is light years beyond what the average director would have done with it.
• Jackie Earl Haley, btw, especially with the Rorschach mask off, is fucking brilliant. Especially at the end.
• I'm currently rereading (after 20+ years) the novel before I see the movie so I see someone else's visual interpretation, without Moore's stuff that would be impossible to translate. I'm not aware of how much of the Black Freighter made it into the movie (probably and hopefully, none) but there's no way they could achieve the impact of the raw shark riff, or all the back story in the text pages. The negative reviews I've read have been from people who either didn't get the book, or didn't read it.
• EdArzakh, the black freighter didn't make it into the movie. but will be added to the extended version released this summer.
• I don't read many things that get turned into movies. When a movie does get made based on something I read, I always like the movie. It doesn't really matter how good the movie is. I just like seeing something that previously existed only in my imagination. Also, my mind fills in the blanks so I can't possibly get confused by the movie. I note that the strongest defenders of the Watchmen movie are people who are big fans of the source material. I would suggest that is the equivalent of evangelicals telling the world how great Passion of the Christ was. I never read the source material for Watchmen. I saw the movie yesterday. I did not like it very much at all. In no particular order and possible SPOILER ALERT: 1. Almost any dialogue involving Dr. Manhattan was awful. The idea that the female had a years-long relationship with him made no sense at all. 2. Someone discovers who her father is so Dr. Manhattan's faith in humanity is restored? 3. The violence was ridiculous and bordered on being pornographic. 4. One person is killed so a brilliant detective determines that a group of people are being systematically eliminated? 5. The smartest guy in the world looks and acts like a grown-up Backstreet Boy. 6. Rorshach is known to possess superhuman strength, quickness, and tolerance to pain, yet people without guns want to fight him. 7. The smartest person in the world and a being smarter than him both think that causing enemies to unite in the face of a common threat will last longer than a few years. According to this logic, Western Civilization should thank Hitler because Hitler's actions united the previously squabbling Western countries during and shortly after WWII. The killing of millions to stop the world's destruction might seem like a good idea to some, but it shouldn't to the most smartest beings on the planet. Why couldn't Dr. Manhattan just go round up Nixon and the Soviet leader, put them in a room, and threaten to kill them and their families unless they got rid of all their nukes? If he has no problem with causing the death of millions of people, then why would he have a problem with causing the death of a dozen? Completely idiotic. 8. Rorshach and Nite Owl threaten to tell the world what really happened. Nite Owl gets talked out of it, and Rorshach doesn't. So Dr. Manhattan kills Rorshach. Why not kill Nite Owl, too? Just because he said he won't tell, isn't he still a threat to do so? 9. The music is distracting. I liked the music just fine, but it was distracting. 10.Why did Richard Nixon have a giant, pointy nose? I assume that was the way he was drawn in the source material. It was a bizarre choice to do that in the movie. 11. The lines at the end about Reagan and a cowboy president were incredibly unnecessary and ham-handed. I thought it was a poor movie. I have no doubt that if I had read the source material, then I would have liked it. Just like I liked The Golden Compass, Crazy in Alabama, and other movies that were based on things I had read. People tell me The Golden Compass and Crazy in Alabama weren't good movies. I believe them, but I still liked the movies.
• Sounds like you like movies better when you have the opportunity to deconstruct them before you see them.
• The Last Watchmen Story You Need Ever Read
• Watchmen: Leaked Game Footage
• Well, just saw Watchmen for the first time on DVD. And i thought it was great. I was worried it would be too cardboard-y in the way that some comic book adaptations can be but this one had some things going for it that blew those concerns away. First the visuals are magnificent. The pulp fiction look in the flashback sequences, Doc Manhattan, Rorshach's shifting face mask, great stuff. The acting was the other worry and though there were some stock moments, Rorshach was done perfectly and so was Dr Manhattan. And hey, Bob Dylan musical bookmarks! Anyhow, Huron Bob, you're right to feel proud!
• My copy was shipped on 7/20! Anytime now, woohoo!