*** Official WATCHMEN Discussion Thread - Page 4

Re: *** Official WATCHMEN Discussion Thread

I never felt Ozymandias was smug in the comics, and even then, his smugness is not what bothers me most about Goode's performance. He doesn't have the presence required for the character. What is chilling about Ozy is that he is not a total jackass.

Romier (over at LCVG) illustrated to me something I really, really, really missed. Ozymandias did not get an "origin" bit, something explaining how he got to the point he got to. You got his speech to the captains of industry, but that wasn't sufficient. I think the film would have been more powerful had we felt Ozymandias was akin to Nite Owl and Silk Spectre and Dr. Manhattan a bit more. If we felt more attached to him.

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Dave Gibbons is behind the project 110%, and Snyder was hoping that Dave's endorsement would at least get Moore to take a look at the movie. But as of last September, Moore remains unrepentant. I got the feeling that Zack Snyder's ultimate geek fantasy was to have Alan Moore rave about how great the movie adaptation was.

Marvelman/Miracleman is still unproduced, but that ending is kind of out there.

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Presumably this is director's cut material? The entire Tales of the Black Freighter thing by itself is supposed to reflect and comment on his story but I don't know if it really works that way as a separate dvd release.

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I hope a) it is director's cut material and b) said director's cut gets a theatrical release this summer. Even if so, I don't believe the connection such material would make is ancillary. I think it is key. Ozy is "us", not "them". Which is part of the horror. He's the ultimate "greater good" type of guy. Anyways, I do hope it is included in the LOOONG version. That might play a bit better for me.

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I think we have an HTF first.......Chuck and I actually agree on something.

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She is absolutely phenomenal in Sin City.. but I loved her in the spy kids film, but believing she had a pack of kids was tricky

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Glad to see so many in agreement that Veidt/Night Owl was horribly miscast. That was a really subtle role and the guy they chose just played boring all the way through. No chemistry between him and Laurie, who was too young, by the way, and should have been smoking her little bubble cigarettes. Little touches like that are what make characters interesting. The fact that they were both so lame went a long way toward bogging the story down, especially in the first half of the film.

The musical choices were hackneyed and unimaginative. Watchtower again? Hallelujah AGAIN!?!? I think there should be a rule that no one can ever use Hallelujah to score a film again. I think this was another missed opportunity - Didn't much of the action take place in the 80's? How about using some Bauhaus or Ultravox or Cure tunes? Maybe a little out there but it's creative risks that turn a good film into a great film.

And in the end, that's what we have - a decent film that didn't go far enough or take enough risks to become a truly great film, probably in an attempt to appeal to a broarder audience, but the irony is that I just don't see this story having mass appeal at all. By playing the middle ground and keeping things a little safe, they don't really satisfy anyone. With a movie like this, I think you really have to go for it.

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I thought Patrick Wilson did a great job. When we were "dream casting" Captain America months and months ago, I believe his name came up several times. I think he's an exceptional actor, and I thought he did well as Nite Owl. Especially towards the end.

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On a musical note, I agreed that the Leonard Cohen song need not grace a movie for a long time, thanks. That said, I did love that the muzak in the background when he met Lee Iacocca was "Everyone Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears. That was the kind of fun musical usage I love. After BSG, who needs "watchtower" but the lyrics do kind of fit the mood and the situation.

Let's face it, though...it was set in 1985 but it wasn't THE 1985 we all remember (if we were there then, you whippersnappers). It was some quasi-futuristic one that had little to no resemblence to the 80's we were growing up in. It was a project of the 80's, not about it (directly, anyway). This was actually a bigger switch from the original book than the squid, really. In my opinion, anyway (never liked the squid that much).

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Yes, but do we all remember her from this film???

Second from the right...


Troop Beverly Hills

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If those are their only options, using All Along The Watchtower yet again doesn't seem so bad to me.

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"I thought Patrick Wilson did a great job."

Me too.

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i liked Wilson too. he was unassuming and introverted which was just what the character was.

if there was any fault in the Ozy character it's that he was too idealistic and not intelligent enough. sometimes he kind of came off like a dumb blonde who had delusions of grandeur. obviously someone who schemes to do what he did needs some kind of psychosis, but i was thinking more of a Batman-type intelligence that went wrong early in his character's development. having said that, the Ozy character in the graphic novel was just as idealistic and the most 2-dimensional as well, except for the revelation near the end where he has doubts about what he did. but by then it's too little, too late.

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I agree with this. In addition, as someone who has never read the work, I thought this tipped the hand of the mystery. He was mentioned as the smartest man in the world, was a part of Watchmen, yet his role in the movie was fairly slim, all of which meant that I was not surprised to see him being behind the murder of the Comedian.

Like many here, even disregarding the Rorschach journal, I don't think the ending of the movie is a long term guarantee for world peace. But I can understand where A.O. Scott is coming from. It's one thing for Ozy to say his plan is the solution, another for a supreme being like Dr. Manhattan to agree, and yet another step for Manhattan to kill the uncompromising Rorschach. However we may think this alternate timeline works out, I don't think Scott mis-characterizes the arguments at the end of the film.

I too was unimpressed with many of the music choices*, but thought two of them were excellent. Dylan with the opening credits was my favorite part of the movie. It set the stage for the movie perfectly, showing the alternate universe, and engaging the world in a way that no "superhero" movie had before. I also liked Philip Glass' other-wordly Koyaanisqatsi for the Dr. Manhattan sequence.

**which reminds me: Walter Murch was correct in guessing that Ride of the Valkyries would be used again for the Vietnam war, when he made that pre-emptive decision for Jarhead.

Carla Gugino fans, don't forget to watch Righteous Kill.

Re: *** Official WATCHMEN Discussion Thread

Okay the 80's was a bit of a dicey decade musically. I'm just saying a little imagination was in order. Watchtower made no sense in the context of the scene. Was it supposed to play up the fact that they were going to a fortress? It really put me off and took me out of the scene as did many musical choices in the film. Dylan's Times was very appropriate for the opening credits and that was one of the best sequences in the film. As for the rest, I think an original score might have suited it better than a bunch of blaring classic rock.

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The issues of the comics all end with a quote and the issue with them heading to Veidt's castle has "Two riders were approaching and the wind began to howl...- Bob Dylan" as its quote so I assume that's probably why they used it. That being said, I think a better or less obvious choice would have been to use the Dylan version of the song but then they risk turning it into Bob Dylan: The Movie.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I love the Hendrix version of the song but it has been played to death.

Re: *** Official WATCHMEN Discussion Thread

The way I read the book, Adrian's problem is that he takes the ultra-motivated idealism of superheroes to its final conclusion - he genuinely believes it's his responsibility to Save The World even if it means butchering a few million people to make it happen. That's what makes it so unnerving, because he's not an evil man in the traditional sense of the term but rather he's a very nice man who's decided some eggs need to broken to fix an omelette and if it means sacrificing his soul in the process, well, hey, sacrifice for the greater good is what being a hero is all about, right?

Re: *** Official WATCHMEN Discussion Thread

watchtower = karnak
2 riders approaching = Night owl + Rorschach
Wind began to howl = the wind
A wildcat did prowl(or is it Howl) = Bubastis

Also Wildcat could = Ozymandias


seems to work for me.

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It definitely works and the song is in the graphic novel. If he didn't put it in all the fanboys would be saying he made a mistake.

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Like I said, I only wish they used a different version of the song.

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Hey!! 80's music wasn't dicey! I resemble that remark! :-) There probably isn't a decade of music that you can't pick some of it and say, "yeah, we don't need to hear this again."

Choices could have been worse: "Drive" by the Cars as they were flying in the Owlship.
The Gap Band's, "You Dropped the Bomb On Me" for the finale.
Greg Kihn's "Breakup Song" when Sally left Doc Manhattan...or worse, "Our Loves in Jeopardy."

"Sharp Dressed Man" from ZZ Top to introduce Ozy.

Ugh, is all I can say.

They had to really dip into other decades to get the better music, I guess.

Sadly, the better songs from the 80's are all overused. Violent Femmes had great songs but they are too recognizable. It would have been neat to use Husker Du or Sonic Youth or some Elvis Costello (isn't there some in the comic, come to think of it?). Maybe some Joy Division (that would have fit the tone, certainly) or Nick Cave or Billy Bragg.

Oh well, repeat of Leonard Cohen will have to do, I guess.

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Hey shame on me. I didn't pick up on that at all. I stand by my criticism of Hallelujah tho, unless someone can explain that.

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Actually there isn't a lot of overtly 80s music in the film; practically none at all, actually. 99 Luftballoons was the main one.

Synder I think is more gulity of mining the 60s/70s for somewhat obvious choices.

"Times They Are A Changing" for the opening scene, OK, that you have to give him.

But "The Sound of Silence" ripped from the Graduate and "Ride of the Valkyries" from Apocalypse Now ... it's been overdone, could've been more original there.

"Unforgettable" worked, but again another song that's been overused.

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I thought this song worked because its from Apocalypse Now. Like it was meant to emphasize how similar the alternate universe is while the visuals show the main difference (aka Doc M).

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Isn't Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walkure Much like Watchmen, Apocalypse Now merely appropriated it for usage during the film.

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Yeah, that element played as a joke to me.

EDIT: To clarify, I meant 'joke' as in I'm laughing with it and not at it.

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Exactly. A lot of these audio cues people are complaining are cliched are intentionally so. Just as the Watchmen comic was apparently a commentary on comic books, the Watchmen film is a commentary on cinema. That scene needs you to think of Apocalypse Now while watching to be completely effective.

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An Open Letter From WATCHMEN Screenwriter David Hayter - HardcoreNerdity

AN OPEN LETTER FROM A WATCHMEN SCREENWRITER, David Hayter.

"So it has been five months since I saw my first rough cut of WATCHMEN, and eight days since the premiere of the film I've been working on since late in the year 2000.

The reviews are out -- Some outstanding, others rankly dismissive, which can be frustrating for the people involved, (though I can only speak for myself,) because I firmly believe that WATCHMEN, the novel, must be read through more than once to even have the faintest grip on it. And I believe the film is the same.

I've seen it twice now, and despite having run the movie in my head thousands of times, my two viewings still don’t' allow me to view the film with the proper distance or objectivity. Is it Apocalypse Now? Is it Blade Runner? Is it Kubrick, or Starship Troopers? I don’t know yet.
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"

David Hayter

Re: *** Official WATCHMEN Discussion Thread

An Open Letter From WATCHMEN Screenwriter David Hayter - HardcoreNerdity

AN OPEN LETTER FROM A WATCHMEN SCREENWRITER, David Hayter.

"So it has been five months since I saw my first rough cut of WATCHMEN, and eight days since the premiere of the film I've been working on since late in the year 2000.

The reviews are out -- Some outstanding, others rankly dismissive, which can be frustrating for the people involved, (though I can only speak for myself,) because I firmly believe that WATCHMEN, the novel, must be read through more than once to even have the faintest grip on it. And I believe the film is the same.

I've seen it twice now, and despite having run the movie in my head thousands of times, my two viewings still don’t' allow me to view the film with the proper distance or objectivity. Is it Apocalypse Now? Is it Blade Runner? Is it Kubrick, or Starship Troopers? I don’t know yet.
.
.
.
.
"

David Hayter

Re: *** Official WATCHMEN Discussion Thread

Good point. Music is used to help with the connection to another time. Most of the choices I thought were pretty effective. Now the original score, that's another story.