Friday 6 March 2009

Watchmen thoughts

Seeing Watchmen this weekend? I'd love to know what you think.

10 comments:

Gerard said...

Any chance you can clue us in as to what's going to make the extended cut? I was disappointed but can't find too much to hold against it; what's there is quite excellent, but in trying to capture so much, the omissions felt all the more glaring. I'm not convinced the theatrical cut works as its own entity, and the more I think on it, the more I feel I only kept pace due to my familiarity with the source material. A number of the songs choices were flat-out awful, a few were fantastic (the Phillip Glass piece in particular). The sexing-up of the action negated the point. Veidt and the revelation of Laurie's paternity enormously shortchanged. All that said, I did enjoy it very much, though I feel that was due more to seeing this world brought so vividly to life than it was seeing it successfully transistioned into a film. The opening credits montage was wonderful, as was the Manhattan origin story. Performances on the whole very good. Eagerly anticipate the extended cut in order to see if it assuages any qualms. Did like, quite a lot, though as said - not quite sure it worked.

Actually recording the second podcast for my blog this weekend dedicated entirely to this discussion. I might go see it again to see how it sits second time around.

Gerard said...

...FYI, caught it again this evening and enjoyed it a lot more. Works a lot better than I'd first thought. Probably shouldn't have reread the book again so recently...

Stram said...

My friends want to go and see it at the Imax, but all the good seats are booked until like the end of march! so we're struggeling between waiting for the Imax or go and see it now anywhere.... I think we might go and see it twice!

Unknown said...

@ Stram. I don't really think you have much of a choice there. I'm either going to go see it twice OR I'm going to go see it twice.

For me, it was one big bag of awesome. Granted, there are ommissions, but 100x better than what the studios wanted. Could it have been better? Sure. A movie dealing with this kind of mythology will always be lacking SOMETHING but what is there is awesome awesome awesome.

The one thing I think they could have evened out was the ratio of man-ass to woman-ass... just sayin, you know, forget all the blue penis action. a little too much man-ass.

Mark Salisbury said...

Go see it now, and then see it in IMAX when the seats free up.

If you're in the wrong seat at IMAX it can be hell...

Unknown said...

Gerard said:

"Any chance you can clue us in as to what's going to make the extended cut?"

According to Snyder, stuff like Hollis Mason's murder will be included and also the entire storyline of THE TALES OF THE BLACK FREIGHTER pirate comic book will be integrated in, which I can't wait to see.

Mark Salisbury said...

Sorry, Gerard, I saw this the other day but it slipped my mind.

It's between 20-30 minutes of material, mainly missing from the final third but it's in addition to the Black Freighter stuff which will not be included in the Director's Cut but a later, even longer version.

I'll dig out what Snyder said about it and post here soon.

Gerard said...

@ JD and Mark

SO glad to hear both Hollis' murder will be in there, and that most of the footage to be reinstated will be from the film's final third. I'd read that the Black Freighter version would be further down the line - that will be interesting to see as I'm not certain the film will need it. Would love to have some more of the newsstand and the Two Bernies though.

I'm very glad I caught it again so soon as it really is pretty rock solid, and its faithfulness is astonishing. Thoroughly pleased.

Unknown said...

the animated "Black Freighter" is out on blu-ray and dvd (or coming out soon. i'm not sure right now and am too lazy to research.).

Gerard said...

March 24th in the US, I do believe. I'm actually more keen on the supplement - the Under the Hood documentary...