Anyone seen "Watchmen?"

[Balog]

The previews I saw for it looked pretty stupid so I was planning on skipping it, but I've had friends tell me it was good. I've also seen a liberal feminist get all pissy about it on another board, so that's a big positive as well. :D

[El Tejon]

Could not stand it.  Did not understand it and found the whole effort boring.  It's friggin' 3 hours long!

The young lady who I escorted was enthalled.  She read it back in '84 when it came out in that goofy "graphic novel" schlock.

I later got a seminar on the "Comic Code" without my eyes turning inside out.  However, after that we went shooting.

Relationships are soooo hard for me.

[Perd Hapley]

I'm surprised there hasn't been more chatter about it here, what with all the geeks on this board. 

A local film critic (and geek) said he never thought it could have been filmed, but he thought they did a very good job.  Nonetheless, he thought the movie did suffer from having to pack so much into such a short time-frame, and he thought it would be hard for the uninitiated to understand.

I skimmed a review in the Post-Dispatch.  They whined about the movie's "anti-liberal" tone.   

[Balog]

I'm surprised there hasn't been more chatter about it here, what with all the geeks on this board. 

A local film critic (and geek) said he never thought it could have been filmed, but he thought they did a very good job.  Nonetheless, he thought the movie did suffer from having to pack so much into such a short time-frame, and he thought it would be hard for the uninitiated to understand.

Isn't it like 3 hours long?!?!

I skimmed a review in the Post-Dispatch.  They whined about the movie's "anti-liberal" tone.   

Damn, now I've gotta go see it! 

[Perd Hapley]

All I know is what those two critics said.  Reportedly, three hours is not nearly long enough.

[BlueStarLizzard]

i am not familiar with the comic. my Dad is.

i thought it was good, but not great. i had this feeling that there was a lot going on that i didn't quite get.

my dad, on the other hand, was enthralled.

basically, i think, if your a fan boy type, go see it. its pretty good for a fan boy movie. if you've read the books, you'll either love it or hate it, depending on what was missing or what was done really well (as is with all movies based on a book of whatever type. don't get me started on the Harry Potter movies) if you like action flicks, have a tolerance for a very involved movie and can handle the fact that its not just explosions and such, you might like it.

[RevDisk]

The previews I saw for it looked pretty stupid so I was planning on skipping it, but I've had friends tell me it was good. I've also seen a liberal feminist get all pissy about it on another board, so that's a big positive as well. :D

Yea, there was some anti liberal parts.  I cheered when the US Army mowed down a line of hippies (one had the nerve to put a flower down the muzzle of what looked like an M14, that's definitely cause for a good killing) or when the Comedian dinged a rioter with an M79.  It's definitely not a kid's movie.  It showed a darker side of costumed heroes than many other movie based off graphic novels or comics.  Pretty much every character is completely mental. 

All and all, I thought it was pretty entertaining. 

[Ben]

I'm going to check it out, but at three hours I'll wait till it's on DVD and watch it from the comfort of my Barc-o-lounger. I can't hang that long in theater seats.

[RaspberrySurprise]

Yea, there was some anti liberal parts.  I cheered when the US Army mowed down a line of hippies (one had the nerve to put a flower down the muzzle of what looked like an M14, that's definitely cause for a good killing) or when the Comedian dinged a rioter with an M79.  It's definitely not a kid's movie.  It showed a darker side of costumed heroes than many other movie based off graphic novels or comics.  Pretty much every character is completely mental. 

All and all, I thought it was pretty entertaining. 

Shame on you! That good sir was an M1 Garand, though why they used the short bayonets I don't know, musta been all out of the 16" extra stabby ones.

[jackdanson]

I thought it was decent.. I didn't see how it was anti liberal, in fact I thought it seemed a little liberal. (hybrids at the end?)  300, zach snyder's other movie was also supposedly anti-liberal... I don't know about that either.

It was worth watching, but wasn't spectacular.

[Vodka7]

Well, I loved the book, and I did catch a midnight showing, so I was really looking forward to the movie.

That said, the whole thing felt both too long and nowhere near long enough...  Maybe it would have worked better as a ten hour TV special, but this is what we got instead, so eh.  Best part about it for me was seeing all those characters on the big screen, but even that was somewhat messed up.  (For example, the book shifts around a lot in time, and Doc Manhattan's costume shifts with it.  It serves as an easy marker to tell when an event is happening, but more importantly the degradation of his costume symbolizes his growing disconnect from humanity.  Laurie's character goes on and off of cigarettes.  Dan's fatter and more impotent in the book.)

I also had a big problem with the violence.  In the book, it's really important that Doc Manhattan is the only one with superpowers.  Everyone else is a Batman style costumed vigilante, but there's no way you'd tell from the way Snyder filmed the action scenes.

The ended was changed, too.  I guess it makes more sense the way the director and writer handled it, but they left out a lot of characterization that really informs you on Ozymandia's motivations.

Also, no Owl hoverboards?  Pfffffft.

Basically, if you liked the book, you've already seen the movie.  If you haven't seen the movie, I'd say skip it.  Maybe you'll like the book, and everyone I've ever recommended it to has, but maybe not.  Either way, skip the movie.

[Nitrogen]

Basically, if you liked the book, you've already seen the movie.  If you haven't seen the movie, I'd say skip it.  Maybe you'll like the book, and everyone I've ever recommended it to has, but maybe not.  Either way, skip the movie.

This.

And yeah, call me whatever you want, but watching Dr. Manhattan's big blue dangly penis just ruined bits for me, too.

It was good, but not GREAT.  I'm more excited for Star Trek.

[roo_ster]

(as is with all movies based on a book of whatever type. don't get me started on the Harry Potter movies)

<poke, poke>

So, what's your beef with the Potter flicks?

[Balog]

The reported abundance of glowing wang is a bit of a drawback....

[zahc]

The glowing wang is in the comic, too. I'm happy that they left it in, and didn't holleywoodify it, myself.

[Balog]

Does that like, signify something, or did the illustrator just think "radioactive penis" was an appropriate element of the superheroes costume?

[mtnbkr]

IIRC, and I haven't read the book, Dr Manhattan was turned into some sort of energy being that can pull himself into the form of a man when necessary.  I assume that doesn't include clothing, nor can he wear any, hence the glowing wang.

Chris

[RevDisk]

Shame on you! That good sir was an M1 Garand, though why they used the short bayonets I don't know, musta been all out of the 16" extra stabby ones.

My apologies, they only showed the rifle for a short period and the bayonets didn't look like the Garand bayonets I'm familiar with used for riot duty.  Or am I just plain crazy and they were stock bayonets?

Does that like, signify something, or did the illustrator just think "radioactive penis" was an appropriate element of the superheroes costume?

Sorta the first.  Dr Manhattan basically started to care less and less about his humanity.  If you could make large numbers of people explode into pink mist with a single thought, would you really care too much about dress codes?

[HankB]

IIRC, and I haven't read the book, Dr Manhattan was turned into some sort of energy being that can pull himself into the form of a man when necessary.  I assume that doesn't include clothing, nor can he wear any,

I haven't seen the movie or read the comic book but the opening credits were posted on-line . . . and I could swear they had a scene with Dr Manhattan wearing a business suit while shaking hands with JFK.

[mtnbkr]

Was he blue or "normal".  Based on what I read, he started out a normal man and was changed in some sort of accident.

Chris

[BMacklem]

He is able to wear clothes in the movie, and you can see him "dressing" himself with his telekinetic power.
Now the opening sequence is supposed to show that it is an alternate reality, and does an excellent job of giving a large part of the backstory of how things have gotten to where they are at the beginning of the film, and although you'd want to have a basic understanding of the book in advance, they do explain most of what you saw in the credits throughout the movie.
I haven't read the book myself, so I had a few "AHA" moments as they explained mothmans' getting thrown into a paddy wagon, and other things like that.

The scene in the opening credits with the line of hippies standing off against the guards is I believe something from our own reality, and the girl putting the flower into the muzzle of the rifle was a picture in Time I thought.
I can clearly see in my minds eye the picture though, and the whole opening sequence was to show how closely their reality matched our own, with the minor and major exceptions.
The line of hippies did happen, although the guards didn't actually fire in real life.
That's just my take on it.

[zahc]

I could swear they had a scene with Dr Manhattan wearing a business suit while shaking hands with JFK.

In the book there was at least one scene with Dr. Manhatten wearing a suit for a television interview, or something similar. Later he started to get more irritated with people and stopped doing such humanizing (de-deifying) things altogether.

[erictank]

Does that like, signify something, or did the illustrator just think "radioactive penis" was an appropriate element of the superheroes costume?

Signifies Dr. Manhattan's growing detachment from humanity, actually.  In the comic, he wears less and less as time progresses, and ends up strolling around in the nude most of the time.  He COULD wear clothes, he just didn't see the NEED to most of the time.

My wife was highly amused by the omnipresense of glowing wang in the movie.

On that note, Lori, who's NOT a comics geek, loved the movie.  I, a comics geek who'd read 'Watchmen' before, actually liked it less than she did, although I thought it was pretty darned good.

[Viking]

In the book there was at least one scene with Dr. Manhatten wearing a suit for a television interview, or something similar. Later he started to get more irritated with people and stopped doing such humanizing (de-deifying) things altogether.

At that point, he was going around nude constantly, and only dressed himself for the interview.

[MagnumDweeb]

I'm a bit of geek for "Watchmen", and you have to be really familiar with history and the social sciences of the time to truly appreciate the movie. I thought the movie was great, though I was disappointed not more from the comic book made it in, but I suspect that will happen in the DVD. Rorsach's mask to me was a big miss for the movie. It would have been great to explain the murder of Kitty Genovese which wash horribly brutal, I got the very graphic details in my Crim Law class in law school last year even though I read about it time and time again. How about fourty plus people spent nearly an hour watching and listening to the brutal rape and murder of a woman right in front of their apartment building, no one even calling the cops. The murder of Kitty Genovese, is what causes Rorsach to become a masked vigilante, but the murder of the little girl in the movie propels him into full blown vindictive vigilante. In the original comic book he cuffs the guy to the furnace and sprays kerosene everywhere before handing the murderer a hacksaw, so the murderer can hack through his own arm to get free.

I thought the use of relative unknowns really helped the movie, although my fiancee informed me the comedian was played by a character on Grey's Anatomy(I don't watch it with her) who one of the women doctors falls in love with.

But the movie does a good job encapsuling the 80's, I'm only 24 but many of my cousins were teenagers during it and so much of the popular culture of the time centered on nuclear holocaust and oblivion, mixed with disillusionment of citizens with law enforcement (i.e. Serpico), and the authors who wrote the comic book at the time did not know the U.S. government had the CIA getting arms to the Afghannis, and many folks world round were worried about Russia's venture into Afghanistan. But you have to appreciate humanity and the 80's. I was glad that Ozymondias got outed, there was a scene in the introduction where I thought he was at a David Bowie concert initially (I leant over to my fiancee to point it out, and she leant back and said "it's a gay club") and a second later I saw it.

The nudity of Dr. Manhattan was...artistically necessity, it got annoying at one point during the movie but if I had God-like powers and was ripped like him and hung like an elephant I'd probably walk around nude too, lol. My fiancee thought it was funny, and the one sex scene was soft-core porn-like (hey I got my fiancee to try a new 'move' after).

Again it's one of those movies where you have to be able to think, and if you are not very literate or worldly you will not appreciate it for what it is. It's not a murder mystery, or even a diabolical plan by Ozymondias, all that is a mere back drop. What the movie signifies is that part of human thought where we like to think that most heroes are flawless. How many comic book heroes for the longest time were perfect, morally pure, characters. Imagine Superman with megalomania, or Batman with sociopathy, and Wonder Woman with a penchant for homosexual activity, but enough of that. Also it's a play on our own culture. The 60's,70's, and 80's were great periods of culturea and political change, upheavals of values. How much of that could really have happened had you a God-like being walking hand-in-hand with a conservative-far-right government, remember how much of a paranoid SOB Nixon was. I like Nixo overall but the man was scum at day's end and he had the FBI go after Lennon and a few others. And then there are the regular masked heroes who seem bound to old values(though they won't practice them for themselves) who are prepared to beat and murder many whom they feel are upseting the social order. The riot scene was about New Yorkers wanting cops on the streets, not vigilantes, with cops there is at least a minute chance they will have to answer to the people for their actions, but vigilantes are bound to no law except death.

Well I've ranted long enough and I'm sure the rest would be lost on a lot of people. Go see the movie, Jupiter junior has nice tits and you get see plenty of them.