Watchmen

[mistersloane]

I'm going to watch it with David in iMAX next week ... can't wait!! The trailer was fucking AMAZING wasn't it???

Imax should be good. We sat down the front and got stiffneck. It's not at all a bad film - I kinda liked the length and the pace - but then again I liked V for Vendetta so what do I know.

 

[CHAOTROPIC]

Imax should be good. We sat down the front and got stiffneck. It's not at all a bad film - I kinda liked the length and the pace - but then again I liked V for Vendetta so what do I know.

V was better than I expected but the palette (emotional, physical) seemed completely wrong & I HATED the copout spittleflecked figurehead ... as if fascism & intolerance was a spell cast from above that you could snap people out of by turning off the projector or cutting off the monster's head. All very St George, all very Spielberg, all very un-Alan Moore.

The only scene that really worked was the 'deprogramming' bit in the prison cell, because that was straight from the book & 100% unadulterated Alan.

Steven Fry was a fucking sentimental embarrassment too, only slightly redeemed by the copper bashing his head in.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

thought I'd mention - read the New Yorker's review of Watchmen, unsurprisingly it's quite dismissive...manages to savage graphic novels (except for, y'know, "serious" ones like "Maus" & "Persepolis" - which are of course both excellent) while strangely at the same time pushing nostalgia for pre-Moore/Dark Knight traditional superhero business...the final sentence...

Incoherent, overblown & grimy with misogyny, Watchmen marks the final demolition of the comic strip & it leaves you wondering: where did the comedy go?

really the review reads like someone writing a parody of a New Yorker review tho tbf that's how most New Yorker film reviews read.

The only scene that really worked was the 'deprogramming' bit in the prison cell, because that was straight from the book & 100% unadulterated Alan.

I remember having a rather nasty argument with my girlfriend at the time (a much bigger comics head/Moore fan than myself) about that - well not so much the prison cell scene which is indeed ace - but the aftermath where Evey not only forgives V but is still in love with him - which the I thought was pretty ridiculous & unbelievable in both the book & the film.

 

[Sick Boy]

Yeah, I never enjoy New Yorker film reviews. Like I said upthread, it's just knee-jerk hype smashing.

That Watchmen review is such condescending shite though, you're right, it really does sound like parody.

Although this made me laugh:

There is Laurie, who goes by the sobriquet of Silk Spectre, as if hoping to become a top-class shampoo; she is played by Malin Akerman, whose line readings suggest that she is slightly defeated by the pressure of pretending to be one person, let alone two.

Ouch.

 

[CHAOTROPIC]

I remember having a rather nasty argument with my girlfriend at the time (a much bigger comics head/Moore fan than myself) about that - well not so much the prison cell scene which is indeed ace - but the aftermath where Evey not only forgives V but is still in love with him - which the I thought was pretty ridiculous & unbelievable in both the book & the film.

Yeah, that kiss really was the catshit on the souffle wasn't it? The catshit on the catshit was his little speechette about loving her back. I seem to remember them messing up the multiple unmasking at the end too ... that was amazingly effective in the book. Really phenomenally scripted, drawn & paced.

It's a weird film. I remember watching it thinking "yeah, that wasn't so bad, actually quite brave of them to etc etc in the current etc etc I dunno what Moore's so worked up about etc etc", & had quite warm feelings about it, & praised it mildly etc, & then a friend brought the DVD round a few months later & I sat down quite happily to watch it again & then the second the film started I rememberrealised, with absolute certainty & with a kindof enormous mental HONK, that what the film ACTUALLY was, was AN ABJECT HOKEY TRAVESTY.

 

[CHAOTROPIC]

enormous mental HONK

Seriously, it was crazy, I could actually HEAR the honk. It went NUUUUUUUURRR!!!! & just for a second I saw the spectre of this tanned Hollywood producerprick in a policeman's outfit wagging his finger in my face & laughing in a helpless mocking way. Crazy. It's weird when first impressions mutate like that. What the fuck are we thinking at the time??

I had the opposite reaction from Baise Moi. Watched in on DVD & halfway through I was calling people up to tell them how shit it was, writing emails about "this fucking shit" that I was watching, & then I fell asleep during the end credits thinking angrily about its pile-of-shitness & when I woke up the first thing that popped into my head was, "that was fucking GENIUS!!!! I wish I'd thought of making that".

 

[DannyL]

It's weird when first impressions mutate like that. What the fuck are we thinking at the time??

Actually, I think this is relatively common for films - or it has been for me, lately. There's films I don't like at the time, but like later - and then there's films I think "that's alright" and slowly grow to hate, or loathe if that's too strong a word. Watchmen is falling pretty squarely into the latter category right now.

 

[Corpsey]

I've begun to read Watchmen, fairly impressed by it so far. The one thing I can't stand is all this jumping between scenes in a very showy way i.e. ''do you want to get a cab? it's hard sometimes at night, they just seem to'' / (next frame shows Dr. Manhattan DISAPPEARING) caption: ''dissapear!''. I see what Moore means in that interview where he says Watchmen is very 'clever'.

 

[heroesandvillains]

The movie made me fall asleep for its middle third..or rather I know the story so well that at the snail's pace the movie was crawling along at I felt it would be more enjoyable to attempt a nap, because if not I'd surely be asleep by the ending.

Horrible Horrible acting for the most part, completely lost its philosophical bent in a mirage of hollywood fireworks. I just really couldn't take this seriously...some of the music made me want to cry.

Perhaps the movie's only saving grace is that is actually looked really good. But I think that might be the only think Zack Motherfucking Snyder is remotely good at. So glad I've never seen 300 now...

Yeah so this movie got me pretty bitter; Watchmen the graphic novel transcends its medium, this movie just perpetuates everything wrong with big budget Hollywood films.




Honestly though...i'll probably watch this at least one more time.

 

[Landfill Elektronikz]

hey this is a great thread - really enjoying all the comments guys. i dunno why but i'm really excited about seeing this film, in a way i haven't with any other comic adaptations (never even bothered seeing V). i guess i'm just fascinated to see how my all-time fave comic is interpreted on the big screen. i'm sure i'll be disappointed!

s'funny cos i don't read comics anymore but when i was a young comics-nerd teenager in the early 80s Alan Moore was basically my hero. i watched his talents grow from a few back-up strips in Dr.Who monthly, through 2000 A.D. Captain Britain, Marvelman and V (in Warrior comic). it felt like a revolutionary time for british comics, and of course all the best talents like Moore and artist Alan Davis went on to big success in the American market. i still find it incredible how widely read and appreciated his work is.

as someone who hasn't really read any comics since the late 80s (other than maybe a couple of Sandman graphic novels) does anyone have any recommendations for newer Alan Moore titles worth checking out ?

 

[droid]

Hey Nick - theres a link to the entire run of warrior and (as mentioned) Miracle/Marvelman in the comics thread if youre feeling nostalgic...

Moore recommendations:

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (new one out next month!)
Promethea
From Hell
Swap Thing (recently collected)
Lost Girls
Killing Joke

Theres also a volume of Alan Moore's future shocks, and another of Alan Moore's DC comics. Both worth a look.

 

[polystyle]

WATCHMAN motion Comics

I could order parts 1 -4 last night on cable,
this took me up to Dr.Manhattan sitting on the sands of Mars, his new home with spires rises out of red sand ...
This was the best bit so far ...
This version has moving characters ,
is hopefully from the original comic art ( looks like it is ),
sometimes it looks like a pretty early comic style.
Some of the dialogue (word balloons) is tough going , esp. early on
( Rorsach' "Taxi Driver" monologue a prime example ).
Soundtrack orchestral movie music, blends into background after awhile.
About 10 chapters to go.

 

[Tentative Andy]

Just got back from watching it. Bear in mind as stated upthread that I haven't read the comics (but do plan on doing so, once I've got through the Red Riding novels).
My verdict is that for the first hour/hour and a half or so (i.e. up until the sex scene) the film was tense and interesting, if not knock-out great. From then on, I thought it was thoroughly entertaining but frequently completely ludicrous. As a way of spending a Saturday evening I have absolutely no complaints (barely noticed the length at all), but I worry that I might not enjoyed parts of it in the same way that the filmakers intended.
It seemed rather fitting that the MCR Dylan cover that I was moaning about the video for the other week ended up being the music played over the end credits.

 

[IdleRich]

"the aftermath where Evey not only forgives V but is still in love with him - which the I thought was pretty ridiculous & unbelievable in both the book & the film."

Yeah, that's exactly what I thought.

"Incoherent, overblown & grimy with misogyny, Watchmen marks the final demolition of the comic strip & it leaves you wondering: where did the comedy go"

Here maybe?



I wanna see the film anyway.

 

[josef k.]

No, a few of the characters are. In the book there are two newspapers, The Nova Express and The New Frontiersman, and one is extreme left, the other is extreme right, and both are sort of portrayed as ridiculous.

These are Burrough's references...

See here for more details:

http://www.corpse.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=1

 

[DannyL]

hey this is a great thread - really enjoying all the comments guys. i dunno why but i'm really excited about seeing this film, in a way i haven't with any other comic adaptations (never even bothered seeing V). i guess i'm just fascinated to see how my all-time fave comic is interpreted on the big screen. i'm sure i'll be disappointed!

s'funny cos i don't read comics anymore but when i was a young comics-nerd teenager in the early 80s Alan Moore was basically my hero. i watched his talents grow from a few back-up strips in Dr.Who monthly, through 2000 A.D. Captain Britain, Marvelman and V (in Warrior comic). it felt like a revolutionary time for british comics, and of course all the best talents like Moore and artist Alan Davis went on to big success in the American market. i still find it incredible how widely read and appreciated his work is.

as someone who hasn't really read any comics since the late 80s (other than maybe a couple of Sandman graphic novels) does anyone have any recommendations for newer Alan Moore titles worth checking out ?

Hey snap! Exactly my experience. I read the first few Warriors out of order, but managed to pull together a full set eventually and even got a subscription - and then there was that terrrible two year gap between bits of V for Vendetta, when it stopped publishing...

I don't really read comics anymore either but for recent Moore I think the best thing he's done is Top Ten - it's kind of Hill Street Blues but with superheros. It's got all that kind of wit and invention and attention to detail that characterised his earlier work. Tom Strong and the other America's Best Comics stuff isn't that good, IMO, I think he just wrote it to pay the bills. Promethea is worth reading - has some amazing moments, but I didn't find it totally compelling, depends how interested or turned on your are by Western ceremonial magic(k) - Moore is basically funneling all his learning here into the comic so it's a bit like reading a encyclopedia entry on the Tarot at times. Good fun overall though, though I lost interest at the end (didn't read the last issue). One fave for me is the novel "Voice of the Fire". Fucking awesome - psychogeographical investigation into 5000 years of Northampton history. It really is great, even if the first chapter is a struggle.

If you like Moore, Grant Morrison is probably the next best thing. Doom Patrol and Seaguy are just bloody good mad comics fun. The Invisibles is good as well, but overlong and suffers from that lack of focus that very long works have - weak moments, shit artwork at times.

Reading back on the above, I'm obviously much more of a nerd than I realised -

 

[DannyL]

Oh, I forgot to say - I saw him give a performance/reading at an occult conference ("Ananke") at Conway Hall a few years ago. Blew all the black-clad occult nerodbores out of the water. Began with circus music, and was backed with a fire breathing erotic dancer
He did a kind of psycho-history of the area (Red Lion Square), tied into evolution, magic and the ascent of man, as you do. Was one of best live performances I've ever seen - I know there's recordings available of similar performances he gave - and at least one made it into comics form *head to bookshelf* - ah, it's called "Snakes and Ladders", illustrated by Eddie Campbell.

I also feel like I've grown up with Moore. His writing has paralled - and no doubt influenced - my own interests. Kind of why I had to go and see Watchmen even if it was 90% certain to be a turd.

 

[droid]

'Voices of the fire' seconded. A really amazing book with a palable sense of dread and unease running through personal monolgues spanning thousands of years.

Never really got into top ten. Entertaining enough, but a bit by the numbers (!). Still way more natural 'alt-superhero' than most of his contemporaries efforts.

I really don't rate Grant Morrison. I loved Zenith, but after reading miracleman again recently I was shocked to see how much of a rip off it was. The invisibles I found very derivative of Bryan Talbot, and Animal man just left me cold... too much of his work nods to alternative ideas and approaches but doesn't deliver anything fresh IMO... Alan Moore lite.

For all his sins, I'd probably rate Gaiman (or even Delano) higher.

 

[josef k.]

I thought "The Filth" by Grant Morrison was in places amazing... I think I came to The Invisibles a bit late to appreciate it.

Also "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron" by Daniel Clowes has a stunningly excellent beginning and ending.

 

[DannyL]

'Voices of the fire' seconded. A really amazing book with a palable sense of dread and unease running through personal monolgues spanning thousands of years.

Never really got into top ten. Entertaining enough, but a bit by the numbers (!). Still way more natural 'alt-superhero' than most of his contemporaries efforts.

I really don't rate Grant Morrison. I loved Zenith, but after reading miracleman again recently I was shocked to see how much of a rip off it was. The invisibles I found very derivative of Bryan Talbot, and Animal man just left me cold... too much of his work nods to alternative ideas and approaches but doesn't deliver anything fresh IMO... Alan Moore lite.

For all his sins, I'd probably rate Gaiman (or even Delano) higher.

I agree, he does wear his influences on his sleeve a bit... and The Invisbles is a bit Luther Arkwright, I guess. To me, he's at his best when he does the unselfconscious weirdo fun comics stuff. Seaguy is ace for that. Aqua-marniner, his levitating tuna mate, and a sentient foodstuff fight The Man. It's great Exactly why I read (or did read) comics. His run on the X men was exactly the same.