So, what did you think about it Cinemaphile ? I went into the moving looking for the scene where the guy explodes and really liked it, especially the ending.
So, what did you think about it?
So, what did you think about it Cinemaphile ? I went into the moving looking for the scene where the guy explodes and really liked it, especially the ending.
it was ok, too long though and directing style was very annoying at times.
it was pretty good, hard to believe it's the same guy behind Justice League. He really fell off lmao
The only reason this was sneider Kino is because Alan Moore's graphic novel of the same name is essentially an illustrated screenplay. Sneider didn't put much flavour on the movie that wasn't already in the novel. Sneider is a fraud but it went unnoticed because this movie was Kino.
>inb4 if you like Rorschach you're le wrong
if you like Rorschach you're wrong
It's hard for me to judge on its own merits cause I read the comic first. To me it's the uncanny valley of storytelling, it's like reading Watchmen through the eyes of someone who fundamentally does not understand what is happening in Watchmen. And normally I'm fine with an adaptation, good or bad, because the original exists, but Watchmen's the one exception because a single viewing of it can cause people to misread/misremember parts of the original comic book and they'll remember bits that were invented for the movie being in the comic. I've never seen any other adaptation do that to such a degree.
I think it's a complete failure but again, I can't really judge it on its own merits so what do I know? But then again, they really made a point of trying to be EXACTLY like the comic but they just... failed completely at that
>muh giant squid
Not really. If anything that change is at least something new(ish.) The bigger problem is literally every scene, ever single directorial choice, every single line change, every single camera angle that isn't 100% taken directly from the original comic is the wrong choice. And even then, when it is seemingly doing it EXACTLY like in the comic, it still usually somehow misses what was actually going on it that page/panel. It's mind-boggling.
I'm fine with adaptations changing things and I'm fine with adaptations trying to be as close to the source material as possible. I think both can work depending on the material. The problem with Watchmen is that it's trying to be the latter, it's trying to be as close to the source material as possible, and somehow fails dismally. I've never seen anything else quite like it. It genuinely baffles me.
>when it is seemingly doing it EXACTLY like in the comic, it still usually somehow misses what was actually going on it that page/panel
example?
Sure. When we're introduced to Rorschach in the comic we see him fire his grappling gun and then for a single panel we see him scaling the building to get up there, like some realistic Adam West. In the movie the same thing happens except now the grappling gun is able to woosh him up the building in seconds (somehow without tearing the muscles in his arm) and he's able to balance perfectly on the windowsill despite it later being confirmed that he's wearing elevator shoes:
(Note: the "I'll look down and whisper no" speech is moved to here but that's in the comic too)
And just like that suddenly the character's no longer realistic and now kinda has superpowers (when part of the whole point in the comic is that he doesn't) And that might sound like a minor thing but it's like this with almost EVERY SINGLE PAGE and sometimes even every single panel, and the net result is that he made a subtle but different movie, with a very different point. And I don't think he knows he did
Do you suffer from autism?
>critiquing a movie and actually paying attention to both it and the source material is le autistic just turn your brain off bro
You deserve the mindless marvel slop that gets churned out year after year. Fricking idiot.
No. I just really like Watchmen (the comic) and read a it a ton as a kid.
I'll give you another example: in the movie Ozymandias is probably (almost certainly) gay. In the comic, he (probably) isn't - that's just Rorshach being a paranoid nutjob. In the comic the only "hint" (and it's not even a hint) that Ozy's gay is when Rorscach says:
>[Veidt] possibly homosexual? Must remember to investigate further
In the movie meanwhile the first (proper) shot of Ozy is during the opening credits where he is standing in front of Studio 54 (a famously debauched gay club in New York in the 70s) in front of the Village People (duh) and Mick Jagger and David Bowie (who were rumored for years to have slept together - plus 70s Bowie was a gay icon despite not actually being gay.) And in addition his costume's one of the few that got redesigned to be a parody of the Batman and Robin costumes, with plastic and nipples. Famously director Joel Schumacher was gay and there's been jokes for years about how gay Batman and Robin is.
If a picture tells a thousand words then the first (proper since he did kill the Comedian) image you see of Ozymandias is telling you that he's gay as frick. And none of that was actually in the comic. All there is is Rorschach's deluded thoughts. They believed Rorschach at his word, they didn't understand what he was actually saying. This is what I mean when I say they read the comic wrong.
And to prove that I'm not insane they added a file labelled "BOYS" in Ozy's computer when Nite Owl's looking through it. His porn folder basically. And this is not in the comic. I have gotten into arguments with people on here who claim that it's in the comic book and it objectively isn't. This is what I mean when I say the movie causes people to either misread or misremember the comic and it's why I find the movie an utterly baffling failure.
Here's the page in the comic. Notice how there's nothing saying "BOYS" on his computer. They somehow managed to read a comic book wrong
It's capeshitters like you, who are for crushing any alteration or creative impulse in any work that are partly responsible for the sad state of hollywood these days. Making the guy bisexual is a totally fine choice. And he may even be gay in the comic, if he has a porn folder or not.
I'm not a "capeshitter" though. I really dislike Marvel and all that stuff. I just really liked the Watchmen comic when I was a kid (and still do.) My point is that it wasn't actually a "choice" per se, he'd actually misinterpreted the material. That's what I mean, it's like reading Watchmen through the eyes of someone who does not understand Watchmen at all.
Also really? Snyder's DC fare is capeshit too, come on. And I don't think he has that much creativity. Most of his visuals come from pre-existing material (I mean, did you see Rebel Moon? Half that stuff is just edgy Star Wars, as in it literally lifts images directly from the 1977 movie with edgier aesthetics.)
Even something like Batman V Superman has bits that are just lifted from comics like The Dark Knight Returns. That whole Superman/Batman fight is directly lifted from it. Except DKR is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT story with a completely different point (it's essentially the "bad ending" for Batman,) that's why the Superman fight is so iconic. Lifting that whole bit and putting it into a different story with a completely different point just makes it meaningless. And it shows how little creativity Snyder has, it's a visual from another work that's been haphazardly stapled onto something with a completely different point... which is very close to the problem I have with his Watchmen movie
>2024
>not having a BOYS folder
ishygddt
But I'm not gay. I do have an "Alexander" file though since I jerk off to pictures of Alexander the great
>no longer realistic and now kinda has superpowers
that's all of them though, comedian and ozy punch through stone bricks, laurie knocks out two male bodyguards with ease
I always saw rorschach as the more realistic one
>that's all of them though, comedian and ozy punch through stone bricks,
THAT'S WHAT I MEAN! That isn't in the comic, if you are remembering it as being in the comic you are mistaken.
no I haven't read the comics, but I always assumed they were supposed to be just regular dudes who were good at fighting, except for dr. manhattan
Okay then. Well, they are good at fighting in the comic but all that stuff where they're punching through stone bricks is Snyder. The fights in the comic are actually realistic looking but, again, I think Snyder may have read it wrong.
Sorry, quick follow-up question: do you think the characters in Watchmen have super-powers (other than Dr Manhattan obviously)? I just mean super-strength and that kinda thing.
If so, I hate to tell you this but they don't have super-powers. At all. Snyder kinda whiffed on that one
The movie getting Rorschach wrong is a big change. Movie Rorschach is consistently seething with anger, but comic Rorschach is mostly dead inside, monotone voice and dead eyes. I think he's both cooler and more tragic in the comic.
This flashback scene is where this difference is most glaring. In the movie, the supposed kidnapper admits to the heinous crime, and Rorschach goes ballistic and kills him immediately, then continues chopping up his face in a blind rage.
In the comic, Rorschach snaps, but he does the Mad Max thing and calmly walks out while the guy burns to death. Then he watches the guy's place burn for an hour.
Even the nihilistic speech is more fricked up in the comic. The movie just has the punchline, which is understandable, but so much is missed.
To be completely fair that's at least a conscious change. Now, it's worse than what's in the comic and fundamentally changes Rorschach's character (I'd argue he's totally justified in the movie version which IS NOT THE POINT) but it's at least an intentional change.
What drives me insane are the bits where they try to adapt the comic straight but somehow manage to get it wrong. And then people somehow end up remembering/reading the comic wrong afterwards. It drives me nuts
Even the way it's shot could have been more comic accurate. The uncomfortable frontal shot of singular characters reminds me of Winter Light or Come and See. They could have kept it at least for the interrogation scenes. Maybe if it was a show.
Incidentally, the Dr. Long/Rorschach interrogation is almost a reversal of the scene from Winter Light where Pastor Tomas talks to Jonas. There, Tomas is the nihilistic one that negatively influences Jonas.
Well yeah, but it's a big change for which they let of his comic scenes play out, leading to the problem you're describing.
Snyder is a shitter, simple as
Oh yeah, it's the moment I gave up on the movie completely. That moment in the comic was fricking intense (at least when I read it as a kid) and while the movie version's gorier the actual effect is SO MUCH weaker. It's actually disturbing in the comic, what the frick are you doing Snyder?
I did want to admit the movie has quite a few good lines that aren't in the comic, and I don't even have a problem with scenes being left out or changed to suit different purposes, but the movie is largely badly acted. Based on that, I don't get why so many people think it's great.
Another thing that was stronger in the comic that a lot of people say otherwise is Rorschach's death. Jackie Earle Haley did a very good job in the confrontation scene (though they completely changed the dynamic, corned it up, and even removed a lot of the visual poetry in the section preceding the scene in question). But adding Nite Owl to the scene, which many claim makes the scene more powerful, is in fact a lot less powerful.
The way the comic did it was bleak as hell, and reminds me of the ending of McCabe & Mrs. Miller (there's a sequence earlier in the comic, pic related, that could also be compared to McCabe's demise). All that was left was a blood stain that would soon be completely buried under endless snow.
It wouldn't work with the movie version of Rorschach.
>It wouldn't work with the movie version of Rorschach.
I don't disagree BUT that's kinda the issue isn't it? It's trying to be incredibly faithful to the comic, almost to a fault, and yet the characters end up becoming completely different in the telling. I agree, movie Rorschach's actually a subtly but noticeably different character. But most of the script is still literally taken verbatim from the original comic. It's why I find the film baffling
For me the bigger problem is that they cut out the scene where Rorschach confronts his landlady but, upon seeing her crying kids, does nothing. It's the first, and only, time in the comic when Rorscach compromises, and I'd argue it's a pivotal moment for his character. If you look closely he starts behaving slightly different from then on and it's like a tiny bit of humanity's come back. I think it's a really key moment.
In the movie they cut that out and had him doing a fricking one-liner (frick I hate this movie)
?t=8
And I get it, you can't include everything and you've got to change/shorten some shit down when adapting into another medium but that one-liner just completely misses the point of the character (and Watchmen in general... did I mention I hated the movie yet?)
>I've never seen any other adaptation do that to such a degree.
Lynch's Dune and The Grinch cartoon come to mind
>The Grinch cartoon come to mind
Oh good point. The Lorax cartoon as well. Never watched the Lynch Dune despite loving both Lynch and the book, always heard too many bad things about it
>Watchmen through the eyes of someone who fundamentally does not understand what is happening in Watchmen
I think Snyder might have a problem understanding comics in general. Take the scene where Comedian shoots the pregnant woman in Vietnam for instance. In the comic Manhattan says "Blake don't do it" very casually, like he's only saying it because he knows he's supposed to, but he doesn't actually care. While in the movie he gets extremely agitated and shouts "BLAKE DON'T!" then appears to be shocked by the incident. Which makes no sense because if he were that emotionally invested he would have done something to stop it, the point of the scene being that he's already so far removed from humanity that he didn't care to intervene. But that point was lost on Snyder, he simply shot the scene as he saw it in the comic by having the actors perform the actions and say the lines, while not understanding what was being communicated.
You should 100% make a 3-hour video essay titled “watchmen: a quick retrospective” where you outline all this. You’d get hundreds of thousands of views. Imagine the seethe from snyderjeets
Once you find out Snyder's dyslexic a lot of his choices make a lot more sense. What puzzles me is that despite clearly only really getting the visuals he managed to miss a lot of what was going on visually in Watchmen too since it isn't in his movie
Yeah it's fricking bizarre isn't it? Man clearly loves Watchmen but also doesn't actually understand what happens in Watchmen
I think he and his writers understand most of it, but it's hard to adapt while having to cut out hours of material while also removing it from its context. Then there's the need to appease normie audiences, which seem to be the ones that loved it.
Also, keep in mind all of the people that didn't understand the comic.
Disagree I don't think he get Watchmen at all. He's one of those people who doesn't understand the comic
No he genuinely doesn't understand the comics he loves. The easy example is actually Dark Knight Returns, from which he stole much of the imagery for Batman V Superman from. Anyway, Snyder says, "Batman kills all the time," in DKR and references this bit in particular:
?t=175
There's only one slight problem: Batman literally doesn't kill anyone in Dark Knight Returns and they constantly talk about how he hasn't killed anyone throughout the comic. I'll admit this scene is a bit confusing and I can't blame anyone for thinking that he did kill the guy but he didn't. It's really clear if you actually read the whole comic. Somehow he just completely missed all of that.
Now I could give less of a shit about Batman V Superman, there's already plenty of Batman and Superman movies already so who gives a frick if it's a shit one. But it is a really good example of how Snyder doesn't grasp really basic shit in the comic's he's adapting. And that's why his Watchmen movie is the way it is
Is it considered capeshit ? I mean it came out in 2009 before the superhero thing was massively popular
There's a certain irony in a film adaption of a comic that was a critical reaction to generic superhero comics is partially responsible for ushering in an era of film adaptions of generic superhero comics
Raimi Spiderman and the Dark Knight trilogy are what made capeshit movies mainstream.
it was kino
and rorschach did nothing wrong
One of the best superhero movies from the last forty something years. The director’s cut is superior over ultimate and theatrical.
On the better end of 'superhero' films.
The images are still exciting, like a dayglo noir
Easily one of the best supahero films and one of Snyder best.
I love the way this movie looks, idk if it was shot on digital or film
I like just about every about it (only seen the theatrical cut) except the banal period music choices... "Times they are a-changing". They made me groan early and nearly put me off. That one famous main character death scene is one of the greatest in cinema.
I thought it was a very lousy adaptation and cemented Sneeder as a talentless hack
Who is Steve Jobs?
The one good thing to come out of the movie is that we've now got a live action version of Ligma:
The past where they saw the fat guy's arms off was so disgusting I walked out of the theater. Sadistic violence is fine if it advances the story or develops a character but this was just completely pointless.
And again that's something that was added to the movie that wasn't in the original comic and served no fricking purpose whatsoever. Snyder just likes gore I guess
nobody cares nerd
>Calls someone else a nerd while in a capeshit thread
Bought it on bluray in 2009 and it's still in the shrink-wrap on my shelf
It's cute how the pseudos in this thread think Watchmen is some deep misunderstood masterpiece. It's babby's first deconstruction. Get over yourselves. The film is excellent and i'm tired of pretending it isn't.
It's shit.
>It's cute how the pseudos in this thread think Watchmen is some deep misunderstood masterpiece
That's not what's being argued though? Watchmen's absurdly famous and every nook and cranny has been analyzed from virtually every angle at this point. It's the opposite of being misunderstood. What's being argued is that the movie (which by extension means Snyder) somehow misunderstood the material, which is crazy because it's not that fricking hard to get