WATCHMEN - Movie Discussion and Grading (SPOILERS)

[Harry Palmer]

I think we were better off talking about the mask.

 

[Praetor]

I missed the black suit that they tried to get him to wear at first in the book, and the whole scenario of him rejecting their attempts to 'brand' him.

 

[ITL]

You never know, it may be in the extended cut - which is apparently over 3 hours long. The DVD is going to fly off the shelves in a few months.

 

[Jim Steele]

Can't wait for the home release. super extended mega bastard cut = wife wants divorce but I don't care

 

[Aragorn]

If any of you don't visit General TV and Media, there are two threads there for voting on whether you think Carla Gugino and Malin Akerman are hot or not.

 

[suarezguy]

I thought Nixon's makeup was decent enough, he was a decade older than when the real one resigned. The McLaughlin parody was fun, and Sally's old makeup also worked for me, with the acting she seemed old and I didn't recognize Gugino.

 

[Stevil2001]

Old Nixon looked like he could stab you with his nose! It drove me batty.

 

[Caligula]

If any of you don't visit General TV and Media, there are two threads there for voting on whether you think Carla Gugino and Malin Akerman are hot or not.

Although I won't think twice in my answer for both, I must ask... Where's the thread for Laura Mennell (Janey Slater)?

 

[Agent Richard07]

^ She's quite the looker too, but probably doesn't have enough good pics out there.

 

[JuanBolio]

Still the best joke in the movie:

--Ted

I don't get it...?

 

[Caligula]

^ She's quite the looker too, but probably doesn't have enough good pics out there.

If it interests anyone, there's about 20 or so pics in slideshow form on this fan site here: http://www.laura-mennell.com/

Best I could come up with.

 

[ITL]

Still the best joke in the movie:

--Ted

I don't get it...?

It's a play on words. A reference to the poem "Gunga Din".

 

[Dream]

I thought Nixon's makeup was decent enough, he was a decade older than when the real one resigned. The McLaughlin parody was fun, and Sally's old makeup also worked for me, with the acting she seemed old and I didn't recognize Gugino.

I didn't think Gugino looked old enough. Whatever. I guess it's not possible to make her look ugly.

 

[Australis]

I just came in to say that I thought the movie sucked, and strongly suspect the novel would too. The effects were good, the acting good, but the story is hollow, I find its nihilism unattractive. It's a quality of Alan Moore's writing tthat puts me off, and he's nowhere near as original as he thinks he is. I could do what he does - grab a bunch of characters from other stories and recast them. Blah.

Ozymandias smartest man in the world? A smart man would figure out how to sacrifice millions to save billions. A really smart man would figure out how to sacrifice thousands to save billions (and I can glimpse an alt.universe where 9/11 has that effect, which could have happened) (but don't take that the wrong way, 9/11 was an obscenity). The smartest man on Earth would know how to save billions without sacrificing a single person.

Maybe there is more in the novel, and I will read it at some point. But I don't know. I'm pretty sick of the wholer "human race isn't worth saving" shit, or the idea that people have to be tricked to pull back from the brink.

That's $15, 2 bus trips and 5 hours (there and back) I won't see again.

 

[Bishbot]

I just came in to say that I thought the movie sucked, and strongly suspect the novel would too. The effects were good, the acting good, but the story is hollow, I find its nihilism unattractive. It's a quality of Alan Moore's writing tthat puts me off, and he's nowhere near as original as he thinks he is. I could do what he does - grab a bunch of characters from other stories and recast them. Blah.

Maybe if you could have done what he did in 1986 then you might have a case. His work has been the gold standard for 23 years now - of course it doesn't seem as original as it did when it came out.

 

[Ceridwen]

Maybe there is more in the novel, and I will read it at some point. But I don't know. I'm pretty sick of the wholer "human race isn't worth saving" shit, or the idea that people have to be tricked to pull back from the brink.

The thing that gets completely lost in the film's adaptation (and the reason I pretty much hated the thing) is that humanity is worth saving, and that it really isn't humanity's fault they wound up in the situation they were in. The book features a number of characters that would simply be background fodder in any other book (a newsstand owner, a kid who reads pirate comics, a taxi cab driver and her activist girlfriend) and really develops the relationships between them. At first it seems like a completely unrelated thread (which is probably why it got cut), but it ultimately proves to be one of the book's most important points. The world is full of normal people making the best of their lives despite the fact that their leaders spend all their time in pointless posturing, despite the fact that it could all end in nuclear fire (this was written in 1986). Superheroes, in Alan Moore's Watchmen, aren't something to be glorified; they're part of the problem, and this is something that the film misses completely.

 

[JoeZhang]

I could do what he does - grab a bunch of characters from other stories and recast them. Blah.

Could you link to your multi-million copy selling opus? I mean if it's that easy - where is it?

 

[Praetor]

Maybe there is more in the novel, and I will read it at some point. But I don't know. I'm pretty sick of the wholer "human race isn't worth saving" shit, or the idea that people have to be tricked to pull back from the brink.

The thing that gets completely lost in the film's adaptation (and the reason I pretty much hated the thing) is that humanity is worth saving, and that it really isn't humanity's fault they wound up in the situation they were in. The book features a number of characters that would simply be background fodder in any other book (a newsstand owner, a kid who reads pirate comics, a taxi cab driver and her activist girlfriend) and really develops the relationships between them. At first it seems like a completely unrelated thread (which is probably why it got cut), but it ultimately proves to be one of the book's most important points. The world is full of normal people making the best of their lives despite the fact that their leaders spend all their time in pointless posturing, despite the fact that it could all end in nuclear fire (this was written in 1986). Superheroes, in Alan Moore's Watchmen, aren't something to be glorified; they're part of the problem, and this is something that the film misses completely.

Very well put.

 

[Jim Steele]

I could do what he does - grab a bunch of characters from other stories and recast them. Blah.

Could you link to your multi-million copy selling opus? I mean if it's that easy - where is it?

 

[Norrin Radd]

A 70% drop is expected.