Watchmen

[ThryllSeekyr]

Too Rude



I was wondering if he's opposed to Hellboy, because of the gang colours thing.

[Goaty]

LEAVE THE HELLBOY OUT OF IT.  

[JOE SOAP]

2000AD connection here:

Jackie Earl Haley (Rorshach) was in the '77 film Damnation Alley which was based on the Zelazny book of the same name which in turn was a big influence on the world concept in Judge Dredd and in particular the Cursed Earth storyline.

Both the short story and the novel open in a post-apocalyptic Southern California, in a hellish world shattered by nuclear war decades before. Several surviving police states have emerged in place of the former United States. Hurricane-force winds above five hundred feet prevent any sort of air travel from one state to the next, and sudden, violent, and unpredictable storms make day-to-day life a mini-hell. "Hell" Tanner, a convicted killer and the last Hells Angel alive, is offered a full pardon in exchange for taking on a suicide mission - a drive through "Damnation Alley" across a ruined America from Los Angeles to Boston — as one of three vehicles attempting to deliver urgently needed plague vaccine.

//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffhkJkJx-Yw&feature=PlayList&p=394C6A90DDE70E73&index=6

[Bouwel]

I managed to get the whole film from Isohunt. God it's tedious although the Landmaster is cool.
The book is copy-right infringingly close to the Cursed earth story, and is well worth a read.

-Bouwel-

[johnnystress]

Watchmen -game footage

//http://1nation.eu/post/93406223/watchmen-leaked-game-footage

[Kerrin]

That's hilarious Johnny, cheers mate.

[I, Cosh]

Finally got around to seeing it yesterday. Thought it was too long and too short. Too long because I had to sit for two and a half hours slowly stewing in my own sweat in a cinema with faulty air conditioning and too short because there was so much left out or rushed through. The need to include all the flashback origin sequences made the contemporary part of the story hard to keep on track of, both in terms of what it was and when it was actually happening. I will concede that the former isn't really the fault of the filmmakers.

There was nothing that I thought was technically wrong with it, in fact it's about as well done as it could be given the format, but it just never seemed to come to life. Decent actors with a decent crew simply acting out the scenes from the comic decently but never managing to engage me and get me to care about the characters on screen other than the five minutes of Jon's time-hopping origin sequence. I will almost certainly watch the longer version when it's released, but I can't see it being something I rewatch.

The two biggest problems, for me, were the absence of any of the incidental characters and the narration. I know the psychiatrist was in it and the newsstand guys get blown up at the end, but you don't get the same view of them as real people with lives beyond those isolated incidents, providing a counterpoint to the bunch of nutters in the main story and I think that's a big ommission. Funnily enough, it's one of the things my mate, who hasn't read the comic, picked up on. The other thing he wanted to know was why Rorshach's mask kept changing.

The narration is a difficult one. In the comic (and comics/prose in general) the use of different narrative voices is an essential part of developing the characters. In film, it's generally indicative of either a lack of imagination or pretty low estimation of your audiences intelligence. Either way, it's intrusive and annoying and here it's compounded by the old problem of things that sound great when you read them seeming a bit ridiculous when spoken out loud.

SOme things I did like about it:
Rorschach. Pretty much perfect. It's been interesting that everyone I've spoken to who has seen it without reading it has singled out the classic "I'm not locked up in here with you" scene as a favourite. That's one scene where the slightly more graphic violence works to give exactly the same shiver I got on first reading it.

The titles. Did a great job of giving some of the background and nodding to the fanboys. The rest of the film could've benefited from the imagination that went into that sequence.

Silk Spectre's arse. Even better than Rorschach. I didn't really have a problem with her acting either. She's supposed to come across as a bit naive isn't she?

[Buddy]

Silk Spectre's arse.

I hear ya brother, I hear ya.

[JOE SOAP]

Retrocasting: I think Simon baker would have made an ideal Ozymandias.

[ThryllSeekyr]

Retrocasting: I think Simon baker would have made an ideal Ozymandias.

Alterantively, I always thought he's make a good Flash Gordon.He even sort of resembles Buster Crabb.

[TordelBack]

He does, doesn't he?

Yeah, he would have been a perfect Ozzy.  Tant pis.

[JOE SOAP]

surprises me he was never considered, his profile was growing around the same time as casting especially post Land of the Dead.

[Colin YNWA]

Retrocasting: I think Simon baker would have made an ideal Ozymandias.

Yeah based on looks alone he's completely there.

[House of Usher]

The other thing he wanted to know was why Rorshach's mask kept changing.

Heck, that was something I wondered when I read the book 22 years ago!