Why Watchmen looks awesome: Part XXI

[The Fake Shemp]

 

[The Fake Shemp]

This has to be some of the most impressive set design in a long time.  Just talking about the film as a whole.

[Joe Molotov]

This movie looks sooo good.

[fistfulofmetal]

this will be better than the dark knight

[Vizzys]

damn they are doing pretty good

[cool breeze]

The movie is looking surprisingly good.  Still, hesitant because of 300.

[fistfulofmetal]

hesitant because 300 was so fucking awesome there's no way he can make another fucking awesome movie?
i agree

[cool breeze]

Just hoping this isn't a trailer stretched for 2 hours with slow motion most of the time.  The source material is much better, and most times humans learn from their mistakes, but you never know.

[The Fake Shemp]

300 was a fun action flick.  The source material was nothing special and it was pretty damn accurate.  I'm not sure how someone can shoot holes into Snyder's directing abilities with that adaptation.  That film would've been straight-to-home-video in another director's hands.

[TakingBackSunday]

I think this looks great, but the trailer didn't do much for me.  The music was probably the reason.

[patrickula]

Great photo 
I'm looking at the official site that's up now... I didn't realize that Silk Spectre II has rubber nipples (sort of).  Pointy boobs anyway, though there seem to even be sort of areola shapes in the comicon poster... they're really playing up her sexiness beyond even what's in the comic.  Might not be a bad thing but I'm not sure.  It could work well with Dan Dreiberg's arc with her, and I suppose she's supposed to be kind of embarrassed by what she's doing anyway.

[Mandark]

300 was stupid and boring and bad.  It's just like the source material, so that's Frank Miller's fault.

But you gotta wonder about anyone who read the graphic novel and found it so inspiring that they had to make a painstakingly faithful film adaptation.

[EvilBoris]

 part xxi? I don't get any of this... i watched the trailer and get the same extreme artificiality vibe and look of 300.

[cool breeze]

300 was a fun action flick.  The source material was nothing special and it was pretty damn accurate.  I'm not sure how someone can shoot holes into Snyder's directing abilities with that adaptation.  That film would've been straight-to-home-video in another director's hands.

Slow motion was way overdone in the movie.  There, that is a legitimate complaint!

I did really enjoy his version of Dawn of the Dead.  Only big issue with it is the absence of an arcade scene.

[Great Rumbler]

This is going to be a really great movie as long as they don't mess up the ending.

[cool breeze]

http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/watchmen/vidoe-journal-5-owlship

Part whatever roman numerals now.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

300 was a fun action flick.  The source material was nothing special and it was pretty damn accurate.  I'm not sure how someone can shoot holes into Snyder's directing abilities with that adaptation.  That film would've been straight-to-home-video in another director's hands.

pretty much. 300 was dumb jock shit comic to begin with. I'm eager to see what Synder cand o with real source

[cool breeze]

If this movie does turn out awesome, which I am mostly sure it will, and if Zack Snyder keeps on making comic movies, then I can only hope his next project is a DKR movie with Michael Ironside as Bruce/Batman.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

If this movie does turn out awesome, which I am mostly sure it will, and if Zack Snyder keeps on making comic movies, then I can only hope his next project is a DKR movie with Michael Ironside as Bruce/Batman.

or he could adapt a good comic instead of more dickswinging Miller trash

[cool breeze]

DKR is amazing.  A lot of what Miller does is shit, especially a lot of his Batman stuff (The Dark Knight Strikes Again is horrendous, both Year One and Two suck, and the Batman and Robin All Stars thing is crap outside of unintentional hilarity), but DKR is amazing.

[Eel O'Brian]

miller didn't do year two, and i liked year one, but yeah dark knight strikes again is almost parody bad, especially the "my first photoshop" gradient coloring

i liked 300 okay for what it was, modern eyecandy version of those cheesy 50s sword and sandal flicks

watchmen looks like it will be great, and seems to be addressing my single biggest complaint with the comic series (the "i have written myself into a corner" eyerolling ending) - and by the way, fuck calling it a "graphic novel," it's a goddamned comic book

i personally think it's going to tank at the box office, though

[Human Snorenado]

300 was stupid and boring and bad.  It's just like the source material, so that's Frank Miller's fault.

But you gotta wonder about anyone who read the graphic novel and found it so inspiring that they had to make a painstakingly faithful film adaptation.

I'm in this boat.  I'm becoming more and more optimistic- the movie LOOKS right, but if it's been wankerized then I totally reserve the right to say "Told you so!"  Not that a bunch of people that convinced themselves that Speed Racer was even watchable would be ready to admit that Watchmen was subpar, but there you go!

[cool breeze]

miller didn't do year two, and i liked year one, but yeah dark knight strikes again is almost parody bad, especially the "my first photoshop" gradient coloring

All these years I have been hating Miller for Year Two, and no way I will stop now even if proven wrong.

[Eric P]

miller didn't do year two, and i liked year one, but yeah dark knight strikes again is almost parody bad, especially the "my first photoshop" gradient coloring

All these years I have been hating Miller for Year Two, and no way I will stop now even if proven wrong.

hate mcfarlane's shit storytelling.

[Tauntaun]

Pic in OP

 

[Mupepe]

Dawn of the Dead remake =

300 = decently entertaining eye candy the first time, boring shit after that.

[Eric P]

i love our new members

[jiji]

I'm reading Watchmen now. I don't know how I managed to avoid it for so long, but it's so so so incredibly good. It's exactly the kind of comics I found myself wishing for when I read Essential X-Men vol. 2 and realized that I'd grown out of that kind of junk a decade before.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I'm reading Watchmen now. I don't know how I managed to avoid it for so long, but it's so so so incredibly good. It's exactly the kind of comics I found myself wishing for when I read Essential X-Men vol. 2 and realized that I'd grown out of that kind of junk a decade before.

honestly, if all the movie does is get more people to read Watchmen, it's already a success! the fact that it may actually be good is just icing on the cake

[WrikaWrek]

Can i expect some crazy action sequences from this movie or is it so serious that it forgets about action?

[cool breeze]

Can i expect some crazy action sequences from this movie or is it so serious that it forgets about action?

There isn't as much action as most comics, but there is a good amount to keep you interested if you have crazy ADD or something.  It also looks like they are adding a lot more action in the movie.  I don't understand why

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nite Owl looks like a badass when they are trying to break out Rorschach.

[close]

[Eel O'Brian]

multiple parts = serialized

you lose

[Mandark]

Here we go again!


Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[APF]

Who seriously gives a fuck?

[Eel O'Brian]

the frosting on the cake of lose:

http://blather.net/articles/amoore/northampton.html

But first a couple of general things about comics. What do you think of the term "graphic novel" that has come into use?

It's a marketing term. I mean, it was one that I never had any sympathy with. The term "comic" does just as well for me. The term "graphic novel" was something that was thought up in the '80s by marketing people and there was a guy called Bill Spicer who used to do a brilliant fanzine back in the sixties called Graphic Story Magazine. He came up with the term "graphic story". That's got something to recommend it, you know, I can see "graphic story" if you need it to call it something but the thing that happened in the mid-'80s was that there were a couple of things out there that you could just about call a novel. You could just about call Maus a novel, you could probably just about call Watchmen a novel, in terms of density, structure, size, scale, seriousness of theme, stuff like that. The problem is that "graphic novel" just came to mean "expensive comic book" and so what you'd get is people like DC Comics or Marvel comics - because "graphic novels" were ge tting some attention, they'd stick six issues of whatever worthless piece of crap they happened to be publishing lately under a glossy cover and call it The She-Hulk Graphic Novel, you know? It was that that I think tended to destroy any progress that comics might have made in the mid-'80s. The companies, the marketing people, who are not terribly bright individuals, they're not terribly creative, they don't really have the hang of - well, I mean, they really haven't got the hang of the 1970s yet, so the 21st century is a long way behind them and they think in very short term measures and consequently they were more or less to blame for destroying whatever kind of momentum the comic book picked up in the '80s by immediately using it predictably to sell a load of Batman, Spiderman shit. But no, the term "graphic novel" is not one that I'm over-fond of. It's nothing that I might carry a big crusade against, it doesn't really matter much what they're called but it's not a term that I'm very comfortable with.

The word "novel" is kind of empty anyway, because I mean Ulysses is a novel and so is Jilly Cooper's Riders.

Oh, exactly. You know, these literary terms, they've probably got more to do with... Well, genres. I'm sure the whole idea of genres in fiction was probably invented by some bored stocking clerk at W.H.Smith, fifty years ago or something like that. That everything has to be pigeonholed and packaged. I suppose, you know, "sequential art", you could call it that but then that's a bit of a mouthful, really, I mean "comics" is as good as anything.

Yeah, I think that's the most generic term and also it covers both episodic stuff and the single stories.

Absolutely.

[Eel O'Brian]

Who seriously gives a fuck?

that could apply to any thread posted on any message board anywhere

you or mandark don't need to be acting as if you're above discussing trivial shit at length, considering where you're at

[APF]

I thought we enjoyed media here, not have pathetic semantic debates over what to call its medium.

[Eel O'Brian]

you obviously cared enough to post about it

twice

you'd think the best way to express not giving a fuck about something would be to ignore it

and are you seriously suggesting you have never participated in "pathetic semantic debate" on the internet, really now

[Vizzys]

COME ON EVERYBODY LETS GET TOGETHER

[APF]

Argue semantics when questions of meaning have actual significance.

[Great Rumbler]

miller didn't do year two, and i liked year one, but yeah dark knight strikes again is almost parody bad, especially the "my first photoshop" gradient coloring

All these years I have been hating Miller for Year Two, and no way I will stop now even if proven wrong.

Forget about those two comics and get in on some Year 100 action.

[patrickula]

Year One is good 


<-I love Year 100.

[cool breeze]

I'll check out Year 100 then. 

[Great Rumbler]

Year One is good 


<-I love Year 100.

Yeah, I like Year One as well. Year Two...not so much.

[WrikaWrek]

Can i expect some crazy action sequences from this movie or is it so serious that it forgets about action?

There isn't as much action as most comics, but there is a good amount to keep you interested if you have crazy ADD or something.  It also looks like they are adding a lot more action in the movie.

I don't suffer from ADD but cmon give me a break, if i'm watching some dudes in costumes i want some action to come with it.

[cool breeze]

I don't suffer from ADD but cmon give me a break, if i'm watching some dudes in costumes i want some action to come with it.

Just don't go expecting Spider-Man level or action, or even The Dark Knight, or even Iron Man.

And I don't hate Year One, but I don't like it too much.  I am fine with saying it sucked, but it didn't offend me like The Dark Knight Strikes Again did.

[Great Rumbler]

I don't suffer from ADD but cmon give me a break, if i'm watching some dudes in costumes i want some action to come with it.

Just don't go expecting Spider-Man level or action, or even The Dark Knight, or even Iron Man.

And I don't hate Year One, but I don't like it too much.  I am fine with saying it sucked, but it didn't offend me like The Dark Knight Strikes Again did.

My only gripe with Year One is that almost half of it is a Commissioner Gordon origin story, whereas my expectation was that it's main focus would be on Batman's origin.

[Mandark]

Who seriously gives a fuck?

that could apply to any thread posted on any message board anywhere

you or mandark don't need to be acting as if you're above discussing trivial shit at length, considering where you're at

I'm all for trivial shit.

I just don't like when entertainment threads get derailed into pleas for validation.  Demanding that people recognize your favorite whatever as Art/A Novel/Oscar Worthy doesn't breed fun discussion or arguments.  It's needy and annoying and I feel the same way now as I did then even though Jesus was I an insufferable dick in that post.


NON-META:

The trailer is a bit too 300 for my tastes.  It looks like it uses the same sort of cinematography to glorify the heroes, when a big part of Watchmen's appeal to me was the schlumpiness, frailty, and mundane humanity of the characters, Naked Blue excepted.

I'm not going in thinking "Boy, I hope they give the owl guy really cool karate moves!"

[Eel O'Brian]

i think snyder has mentioned that at first the costumes were a compromise with the studios - they wouldn't budge on wanting superheroes that looked like superheroes

they worked it into the story as a bit of a jab at all the rubberized modern superhero costumes in movies - underneath the nite owl costume, dan drieberg is still out of shape like in the comics, so it's almost a corset for him

[Draft]

People tend to forget (or they're Miller fans) that 300 was aggressive dickswinging trash (and hey, look at the source) in the first place whose only saving grace was its stylishness.  The exact same can be said of the movie.  It is almost too good an adaptation given the source material.

On the same note, 300 is so stupid, and so overblown, that it practically writes itself into a summer blockbuster, so just because the man turned 300 into a decent movie doesn't mean he has the chops to tackle something like Watchmen.

I mean Goddamn it, his name is "Zach."

[The Fake Shemp]

Actually, his name is Zack.

[Eric P]

On the same note, 300 is so stupid, and so overblown, that it...

...is used in Italy by the Fascist party for propaganda and political posters

[WrikaWrek]

I had my eye on Zack Snyder since Dawn of the Dead remake. I knew he was good, because that movie was awesome, and then 300 was awesome, and watchmen does look awesome.

[Reb]

I saw the trailer in an IMAX theatre, it was awesome.