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Watchmen


Schwaltzvald
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You should go read it. Even just flip through it.

As for the "is there room?" thing, The Watchmen was a different enough story that a movie of it would also be different enough to allow it a share of the currently saturated super-hero movie summer we live in.

If you haven't read it, you may want to just to familiarize yourself with the plot and characters. I can't see how a book with that much going on in it can come out as a movie without i either being cut back a lot, or 4 hours long.

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When I saw this trailer in Dark Knight I heard that Smashing Pumpkins song and thought "Why would they remind me of the Batman & Robin movie right before seeing Dark Knight?

My brother just got the graphic novel, it's pretty ok so far.

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Read half the graphic novel about 2 years ago, borrowing it from a coworker, but never finished cuz I got caught up with doing other things. Last week after seeing the trailer (and some of the film makers' video blog entries about Watchmen), I decided to finally buy my own copy and finish it. Very excited about this movie; it has a lot of potential, and the director is intent on sticking very closely to the source material (just like for 300).

Offtopic, but I'm also rather interested to see how Frank Miller does in his solo-directing debut with The Spirit.

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I'm wary of how this is going to turn out. I thought 300 was crap but there wasn't too much to work with in the first place.

Meh, I've heard people bash on 300 lately, saying it's all flash and no substance/gimmicky. To each their own, but I thought it was still fun to watch, and despite the very 2-dimensional characters they were able to add some nice subtle character depth. What I liked most was that they actually made action sequences dynamic, without a hint of shakey cam in sight(and yes, those are mutually exclusive). Zach Snyder is no Hitchcock, but if he can make entertaining movies that's more than I can say for a lot of mainstream Hollywood directors nowadays (I'm looking at you, Michael Bay).

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When I saw this trailer in Dark Knight I heard that Smashing Pumpkins song and thought "Why would they remind me of the Batman & Robin movie right before seeing Dark Knight?

That song was the only good thing to come out of the horror that was Batman & Robin.

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That song was the only good thing to come out of the horror that was Batman & Robin.

indeed

watchmen looks great though... i'm weary of miller's style now but my one consolation is that the watchmen graphic novel is the shit. our showing of dark knight did not play the watchmen trailer so i had to watch it when i got home...

i instead got to see christian bale slotted as john connor

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If anything, with all of these superhero movies right now it's the perfect time for Watchmen, seeing as it really isn't so much a superhero story as it is a story about the superhero genre.

Belive it or not, my first time reading the graphic novel was for a college American Literature course. Normally I would balk at that sort of thing, the efforts to try to make things "hip" or whatever, often to the detriment of the academic value of the course. But the professor had very much the same view on things, and wasn't just one of those teachers who tries to cram the course full of "alternative" voices to bury the "dead white guys" of classic literature.

Most of the course was very strongly focused on the classics, but when we got up to more modern times, he included the graphic novel because he genuinely thought it had significant value as a new form of literature. And his analysis of the novel was indeed fascinating to listen to and discuss -- he's written books and articles on the history of comic books and the way they've both influenced and been influenced by cultural trends.

Oh, if you're wondering why the heck he included a British graphic novel in an American course, it's because in his view, the novel falls into the category of literature about America, and I think he did a pretty good job of defending that decision.

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i instead got to see christian bale slotted as john connor

We got this and Watchmen. And The Day The Earth Stood Still. And Quantum Of Solace.

If they hadn't also showed the Twilight trailer, it would have been the best bunch of trailers I'd ever seen.

fucking twilight

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IT ENDED WITH T2 PERIOD!! WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO DOOHOOOHOOOO...

My sentiments exactly. It's like there was no massive outline for an entire series to start out with, or else at the end of T2, it accidentally got put through a shredder about 17 times and now nobody can make cohesion out of anything. Therefore (as the original writer and story creator forgot himself), there has to be some sort of half-arsed compromise. A mediocre-at-best third movie, a pretty good TV series and what could be a saving grace of a fourth movie was that compromise.

However, back to Watchmen. When i first heard the rumour little over a year ago, I was skeptical that it wouldn't work. There's too much going on and they'd have to split it into 2 parts. I can only hope this is the epic we've all been waiting for.

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First of all, for those of you who haven't read or finished the book, READ IT. And read it slowly. There is a lot in the book. It is not your average superhero comic. It's hardly what you expect. Don't expect many action scenes either. Watchmen is a deconstruction of the superhero genre. In fact, the only person with superpowers at all is Dr. Manhattan (the blue man). There are many themes in Watchmen. If you're reading it and thinking "this book is alright," you're clearly not understanding the subtext. Watchmen is the only graphic novel to be on Time's 100 Greatest Novels of All Time list, and to win the Harvey Award. Zack Snyder is working hard to make this movie as close to the book as possible, he really understands the importance in this.

Having this said, I can understand if you haven't read the book and weren't impressed with the trailer. The trailer was really only designed for the fans of the book. Joe Shmo's trailer will be out closer to the release date.

I don't mean to come off as an intellectual snob here, but this isn't just some average movie sequel or chick sci-fi movie here. It's Watchmen. This is important. Read the book. And think hard about it.

Edit:

As for my opinion on the trailer? It blew me away. I'm heavily looking forward to this. It might be better than The Dark Knight, and I love that movie. The music? Ironically perfect. It fits the atmosphere nicely. I read somewhere that they wrote it with the 1939 Bat-Man in mind, even if it was for Batman & Robin.

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I will be honest in that I have not read the book but was still impressed with the trailer

I downloaded the book and it's all in .cbr format; does anyone know what this is

in before 'google fgt'

You will need to download a program called Comic Book Reader.

Of course, nothing beats comic books on paper.

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First of all, for those of you who haven't read or finished the book, READ IT. And read it slowly. There is a lot in the book. It is not your average superhero comic. It's hardly what you expect. Don't expect many action scenes either. Watchmen is a deconstruction of the superhero genre. In fact, the only person with superpowers at all is Dr. Manhattan (the blue man). There are many themes in Watchmen. If you're reading it and thinking "this book is alright," you're clearly not understanding the subtext. Watchmen is the only graphic novel to be on Time's 100 Greatest Novels of All Time list, and to win the Harvey Award. Zack Snyder is working hard to make this movie as close to the book as possible, he really understands the importance in this.

Rofl, this made me laugh for a second because like ten minutes ago I went to Wikipedia to see what Watchmen was about and this paragraph is almost like word for word what Wikpedia says. :<

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Rofl, this made me laugh for a second because like ten minutes ago I went to Wikipedia to see what Watchmen was about and this paragraph is almost like word for word what Wikpedia says. :<

Really? I haven't read Watchmen's Wikipedia page in a couple of years.

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I'm anticipating it. Between the Spirit and Watchmen, I actually am anticipating them more than Batman or any other 2008 superhero movies personally.

Mainly because both have the potential to be either REALLY GOOD or really bad depending on how they stick to the source material. From the overall look of things, it looks like they will both get the visual look of it right.

I think the Watchmen will fit in a movie just fine personally. There's surely a lot of scenes and dialog in the graphic novel, but you can always pare them down to the most crucial parts and put more words into actual action instead. Or split it between two movies. Either way, if there's any justice for the comicbook movie industry,I think the Watchmen should become a critical and commercial success. Too bad it doesn't have the idiot-proof factor of most major superhero movies.

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