Via neil’s del.icio.us: This Watchmen Trailer.
I always get annoyed when internet comic nerds pick apart movie trailers, but then I find myself doing it when it’s something I care about. This is the first time so what the hell I’ll try not to make a habit out of it…
Reactions in order:
- The look is quite generic comic book movie, special effects and finish wise. Maybe this is a good thing, part of the strength of the comic comes from the way it takes the look and strictures of the format and subverts them
- correct font, attention to detail at least on a superficial level
- The Dr. Manhattan scenes at the start are framed just like in the comic
- Ozymandius looks too dark, it’s meant to be a surprise when MASSIVE SPOILER: it turns golden boy is the bad guy.
- They’ve made Night Owl into Batman, all angsty, hopefully it’s shy, slightly over weight middle aged nerd angst rather than Batman angst. So far this doesn’t seem to be going too well.
- The Dr Manhattan stuff looks good actually
- “the visonary director of 300″ I really didn’t like 300 (mind you I probably wouldn’t have like the comic much either)
- Dr Manhattan’s wearing pants :(
- The mars thing looks cool
- All in all the characters just don’t quite have that past it faded look
- Can it be any worse than V?
What do you think?
I’m re-reading Watchmen tonight to cement the original in my head before the torrent of marketing bullshit that’s inevitably going to accompany this thing hits.
And then Charlie said:
I’m sure it won’t be good in the way that the comic was good, but it might be fun.
And then tom said:I’m probably being a little down on it because most of the rest of the internet is acting like it’s the most amazing thing ever. The most irritating thing for me is that none of the characters look nearly middle aged enough and that’s fairly large part of the point. Also that Dr Manhattan is wearing pants. But yeah, potentially fun in an X-men type way. I just wish that there could be a super hero film that celebrated the hyper-active wierdness of great superhero comics and didn’t feel the need to be all dark and emo/goth.
And then tom said:though I guess Watchmen is dark, just in more natural way.
And then Charlie said:I’m a bit more of a fogey than you I think. I can’t think of any comics (apart from most of the Alan Moore ones) that I actually think are any good. I quite like some of the Sandman ones, but they are pretty repetitive.
I’m excluding all the proper arty comics like Joe Sacco, Marjane Satrapi, Art Spiegelman, by the way. I more meant the old-fashioned superhero type comics.
It just seems to me that if you’re making a superhero film, you’ve got a pretty limited palette to start with. You could try to make it “serious”, or you could try to keep it bonkers. You’ve either got Batman or Hellboy, depending on which way you go. I can’t see where else you can go, really.
And then tom said:Yeah which is why whilst I enjoy comics I never get particularly excited about them being adapted into films.
The best/ most interesting super hero films tend to be original to the medium (The Incredibles, RoboCop, The (first) Matrix, Mystery Men, Unbreakable etc.). That said I like Guillermo Del Toro’s super hero stuff so they might do a bit better if they chose more interesting directors (Aronofsky’s Watchmen would have been interesting) but I guess they want to make loads of money so sticking with appealing to males 14-25 is a good bet.
And then Dan said:Agree with you that the Dr Manhattan stuff looks excellent. Zack Snyder seems to be pretty obsessive about getting the detail right - see his production blog (http://rss.warnerbros.com/watchmen/), esp the design bits fairly early on in the process. He apparently never worked a day without having the comic on him to check that everything was right. However, I’m not sure that I buy into that “keep the nerds happy” propaganda… But who are we kidding? We’re all going to go and see this anyway. It’s like the Indiana Jones sequel of comics - everyone will grumble, but everyone will pay to see it anyway.
And then Dan said:Actually, watching it a second time, I’m now quite excited. I guess there are before and after heroes to consider. As you say, I kind of hope they get paunched up.
And then Jim said:I’m going to go in with low-as-can-be expectations, mainly because I don’t see how much of what made Watchmen special - minute dissection of ennui-stricken relationships, ruthless stripping of all glamour from its ’superhero’ protagonists - can survive the translation to Hollywood blockbuster movie. If it’s remotely true to the source, it shouldn’t try to be cool, but it will.
IIRC Terry Gilliam was the first to try make a Watchmen movie. He sat down with Alan Moore and asked, “So Alan, how would you turn Watchmen into a film” to which came the response “Well Terry, I wouldn’t”.
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