Watchmen!

[Fish and Chips]

I loved The Watchmen for years. It is a great book, and I am glad to see it flying off the shelves again. Like it or not Alan Moore is going to see a major payoff from this movie in the form of increased book sales.

Does he? Considering his sordid background with DC I wouldn't be surprised if Dave Gibbons gets all the royalties.

Something people tend to forget is that Rorschach isn't necessarily interested in protecting the innocent, just punishing the guilty. Walter Kovacs cared about that little girl; Rorschach cared about killing her murderer. Rorschach's refusal to compromise was less his commitment to saving the populous and more his anger at the idea of letting evil go unpunished. It's darker than black and white morality, all he sees is the black, which can't be cured, only stifled to cease its festering infection of the human race.

As for the Silk Spectre, I think she was fine. My problem is that I've never really cared for her character in the comic. I can appreciate her importance in the grand scheme of things, but it's a Catch-22. I'll either dislike her because she's a bad actress, or because she's a good actress playing a part I generally dislike. In fact, arguably any acting that would have made me think better of her character would be out of character, so in an odd way it's really a compliment. Or something.

Though if people are just annoyed with the sex scene, where's all the Nite Owl hate? It takes two to tango, guys.

[Tarnish]

The Silk Spectre just seemed so...one note, I guess? It may be that I'm just fed up with females in general and I'm taking out my hate on all of 'em, I dunno. I couldn't see her as a character, just an actor. Same goes for the woman playing her mom, but I realize she was supposed to be pretty over-the-top/theatrical, so I didn't mind as much.

I loved Nite Owl though...even if he looked a little too much like Chevy Chase.

I hope the Director's Cut gets a theatrical release around here, I really can't wait to see it.

[xblack_x_rosesx]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/186958

This is interesting.

I would have to agree, also. The films loyalty to the novel really made it a confusing and here-there-everywhere film that only fans of the novel can really understand to its depth.
Although I'd far prefer it this way then for an artsy director to give their "vision" of how Watchmen should be.

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I just saw it last night. The movie was very good but nowhere near as good as the graphic novel. I think the book definitely needs to be read to understand the movie properly. I can't wait for the uncut version.

The Good:
Excellent intro, lots of details for the fans, passionate, has a fair bit of heart, paced well, visually (mostly) amazing, very good acting by most of the cast, fairly true to the graphic novel. The campy style but highly dark themes were retained. It had a good blend of old school and modern film techniques and storytelling styles. A strange beast - both an art house type film but a big budget movie. Rorschach, Daniel, Ozymandias, The Comedian were especially good!

The Bad:
A little too much slow-motion, Nixon's make-up nose, God's name being used in vain, some CGI, Dr Manhattan's penis was sometimes a bit distracting, Nite Owl's costume looked cool (and a bit too much like Batman) when it should look a little corny, Ozymandia's costume was corny but not in a good way, some violence was gratuitous just for the heck of it (and not even in book - especially slicing off the arms of the prison henchmen dude - that was a bit much). The movie was also a bit too fast-paced and left a lot out (mostly unavoidable due to the length of the movie). Some parts of the ending were good, other parts seemed a bit simplistic and a little too Hollywood.

A huge, huge improvement on 300.

8/10

[Etoh*the*Greato]

I'm gonna come out and be a weirdo. I honestly didn't care about the sex scene. It was in the book and it had about as big of an impact. At the risk of being an even bigger weirdo it had absolutely no effect on me, good or negative. I'm a freak.

[xblack_x_rosesx]

I'm gonna come out and be a weirdo. I honestly didn't care about the sex scene. It was in the book and it had about as big of an impact. At the risk of being an even bigger weirdo it had absolutely no effect on me, good or negative. I'm a freak.

I'm the same, I've seen a lot of sex scenes, so they really fail to have much of an impact on me. But I didn't like the lengthier one, mostly because the "Hallelujah" music really annoyed me. It was like, 2:30 AM and that was really the last thing I wanted to hear ><

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

The sex scenes didn't bother me. There was some nudity but it wasn't all that sensual (I thought The Notebook was more so and that showed next to nothing). The sex scenes were handled well in the graphic novel but it did seem a little silly to have more of an emphasis on them in the movie.

[xblack_x_rosesx]

Oh, and I think my favourite scene of the movie, as per how well it was done, and how freaking accurate it was with the text, was

[spoiler] Dan's dream, where him and Laurie are naked, and then they rip off their skin to reveal their costumes, and the bomb goes off in the background [/spoiler]

I think that was done INCREDIBLY well.

[Kkun]

I'm gonna come out and be a weirdo. I honestly didn't care about the sex scene. It was in the book and it had about as big of an impact. At the risk of being an even bigger weirdo it had absolutely no effect on me, good or negative. I'm a freak.

Heathen sinner.

...

<3

[ShiroiHikari]

Saw it last night. It was fantastic and I'm reading the graphic novel now.

Sex scene didn't bother me that much, but the song playing over it did. I mean, what? Actually I thought the whole soundtrack was a little heavy-handed. It seemed to be screaming "HAY GUISE IT'S TOTALLY 1985 ALL UP IN HERE".

But the opening sequence was freaking brilliant, song and everything.

I'll probably have more to say once I finish the novel.

Oh and I didn't think Silk Spectre II's acting was bad at all.

[ShiroiHikari]

Crossposted from my LJ because I am laaaazy.

I think one of the most interesting things about the Watchmen film is how split down the middle the public opinion seems to be. I've seen many glowing reviews, and just as many hateful ones. I can understand why people wouldn't like the movie. That's not what I'm on about. But if you don't like a dark tone, gory fight scenes or superheroes, then why even bother to watch it? I wonder if the people that hate Watchmen are the same people that said the V for Vendetta movie (one of my favorite films) wasn't any good. Most of them seem not to have read the GN either. Hmmm.

I don't think I bothered to say this before, but I thought the Watchmen film was pretty freaking awesome except for a few gripes (which most people share and have talked about already, so not going to reiterate them). I'm glad I went in cold because if I had read the GN first, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the movie as much. By watching the movie first, it made the hefty GN a LOT more approachable and I think I enjoyed the GN more than I would've if I hadn't seen the movie. I had some background on the characters already and the overall gist of things, so I could more easily pick up on all the detail that was left out. That's the way I always prefer to do it, by the way-- movie first, book second.

I only wish I could have gone to see it sooner so I could discuss it with people more. Everyone's already tired of talking about it! D: