So they’re calling the characters the Watchmen in the movie? That and the lack of giant squid (which is a key plot point and changes the plot without it unlike the Watchmen naming) is kind of annoying, but other than that hot damn this movie looks good.

I’m pretty disappointed that they decided to be so obvious about why the title is “Watchmen.” I remember hearing rumors that studio execs were afraid that audiences wouldn’t pick up on the whole “Who watches the watchmen?” theme unless it was made explicit through things like calling the group the Watchmen. Not a huge point, but still, if you’re not bright enough to pick up on why the story has the title it does without being smashed over the head with it, I doubt you’d pick up on or enjoy all of the subtle themes that make this such a fantastic work.

Hmmmm

Looks a lot more like a typical superhero film than you’d expect from Watchmen, but maybe that is just a ploy to get people in.

Blimey!! This looks much, much better than I ever hoped it would be. Love the music as well.

The following contains spoilers regarding the story and, more importantly, the ending of the Watchmen graphic novel. Dont read if you dont want to spoil certain details of the original novel and, possibly, the movie.

You’ve been warned.

Lately I’ve read a lot of fan response regarding the Watchmen movie and the way it’s been adapted. Now, I dont know whether it will be a good adaptation or even a good movie. And I wont decide on my judgement until I see it, and that’s something a lot of fans should do too. Our community tends to judge things like this months before they even come out and that’s a mistake.

Some of the comments seem really positive and even faithful, I won’t comment on those. The comments I’d like to speak about are the ones that resent the posible, almost certain, disappearence of the Giant Squid. Those who’ve read the graphic novel know what i’m talking about. The character known as Ozymandias realizes, through the course of the story, that mankind is doomed to disappear due to the constant fighting amongst each other. He then comes up with a plan to save the human race. He stages a fake “other-worldly” threat to humanity and lets it loose in New York, killing hundreds of thousands of people in the act. His idea was to confront the goverments of the worlds with such threat to force them to unite in the hopes of presenting a greater force to this “other-worldly threat”. And how does he do it? He teleports a giant squid smack in the center of the city that never sleeps.

Interesting plan he designs uh?

But guess what? It works. And I dont mean it works inside the world of the Watchmen. It works on th graphic novel. One of the themes of the graphic novel is the reconstruction, analysis and criticism of the comic book, and more specifically, the super hero genre. Having this luthor-esque plan carried out and ultimately succeed, as oppossed to being stoped by superman, doc manhattan or whoever, is one of the brilliant moments of the graphic novel. Most of who’ve read this agree with me.

But there’s no squid in the movie. And boy, do the fans got angry.
Now, lets stop for a moment to considere some important facts. Let’s say you are not a comic book fan. You’ve never read the graphic novel. You dont get why the characters resemble some other superheroes you might have heard of. You’re just a guy who went to the movies looking for a good time and this super hero flick caught your attention. You’re watching the movie now and (let’s also imagine Snyder managed to do a great work with the movie up the point the “Giant Extra-dimensional Alien Squid” should appear) it turns out the movie is pretty good. You’re treated to deep character like a superhero so lost in his alter ego, he becomes addicted to his masked persona. Or a god-like blue man that is so powerful he has lost his touch with humanity. And then there’s the supporting cast. From lesbian lovers to detectives to a comic book fan reading a pirate’s tale. But now you’re getting close to the end of this multilayered cake you’re eating. And remember, were imagining that we are not all-knowing and all-judging geek fanboys from hell. The climax comes and a fricking giant, extradimensional, alien Squid pops up out of nowhere and destroys the big apple. Be honest. That non-geek imaginary fellow we’re picturing isn’t liking waht he sees. He doesn’t get it, does he? Nor should he.

This is precisely that kind of details that only the comic book format allows. To fully grasp the meaning of this you need to know comics. You need to know a lot about comics. A-fricking-lot.

And movies aint just about comic book fans, are they? Nope. They’re not. There are not enough fanboy and fangirls in the world to sustain a movie like this on their own. But, does that mean Watchmen doesn’t deserve it’s chance to shine on the big screen? Of course not. And if you don’t agree with this you’re probably a gollum-like fanboy that doesn’t like anyone else touching his treasures.

So, let’s forget about the squid. Let’s face it, the cool part of the scene is the destruction, the havoc and what it means, not the fact it’s caused by a giant squid. Heck, it could’ve been caused by a fake Galactus for all I care.
As long as there’s a larger than life threat that unites humanity, the story will work as well as it did on the comics.
So please stop yor nagging.
If you can’t stop your nagging, please redirect it to something else. Go rent the Ang Lee’s Hulk and nag it til your heart’s content. Maybe go watch the crappy second season of Heroes. Those are crappy, those deserve your indignation.

Holy Cow!!!

That’s the first thing I thought after Watching the Watchmen (pun intended) trailer… There’s only one thing that worries me and is Silk Spectre. Maybe it’s because her lines are too short in the trailer, but as powerboy puts it, she sounds kind of wooden… hopefully is just because her lines were not that great as compared to the male characters, and she has a topnotch performance… here’s to hope that the best part of the movie is not the trailer…

And by the way, if I’m not mistaken the song in the background belongs to Muse, Great Song for a Great Trailer…

Peace

it is not possible for me to be any more excited about this movie then I already am.

I thought the original team that was put together with Hooded Justice, Mothman, etc. was The Crimebusters and that the later team put together by Captain Metropolis was The Watchmen. I probably have that mixed up.

Correction: There is no team called ‘Watchmen’ in the comic, but there is a team called ‘The Minutemen’…

I’m guessing this name is avoided due to the current poltical connotations around the right-wing vigilantes that patrol the Mexico/America border. My speculation only of course… I would never accuse Zack ’300 isn’t a right-wing, homoerotic, justification for western imperialism based upon the defence of a mythological and historically inaccurate notion of democracy’ Snyder of defending or not wishing to offend right-wing sensibilities……..

will not look at the new trailer. i’ve already seen too much. i already know how the movie ends, so i am ignoring all new info til the movie comes out.

Go Mavs!!!

Wow, I thought nothing could make me want to see this movie less than the teaser.

This isn’t about the squid, this isn’t about the new costumes, this isn’t even about using the word “watchmen” or Malin Ackerman’s wooden performance.

This is about the neon tone everything has. This is about bullet-time This is about making 1980s Times Square look “cool”, instead of the whore-infested, trash-littered dump it actually was. A Watchmen film should look like an early Scorsese film, not like a prequel to the Matrix.

Film looks like a visually impressive piece of crap.

Ozymandia looks and sounds ridiculous. Shouldn’t be calling themselves Watchmen.

Silk Spectre’s wooden dialog could be due to teh fact that Enlish is actress Malin Åkerman’s second language….

Know what I noticed…since Watchmen, in several mediums (video games, cartoons, etc.) more and more times I’ve noticed the big bad be this big dangerous octopus type creature. Metroids, Naraku (Inuyasha), Queen Ing (Metroid)… I guess its something about tentacles…

Trailer looks great.

I’m glad there’s no stupid big squid at the end of this movie. All of you complainers seems to forget this is a movie made for EVERYONE, not just the people who read comics, and in particular, have read Watchmen. Get off your high horses, and just enjoy the movie for what it is.

I think this movie is going to be a big hit.

Only fanboys can ruin it for themselves.

“His character simply does not work when you just replace the squid with some dumb Bond villain plot.”

I think that’s Republic Serial villain plot.

Cheers,

B

Come on – the squid was the stupidest part back in the comic.

Everything was so pompous and serious and then in the last chapter they drop a fricking giant squid in the middle of NY and we’re supposed to take THAT seriously? Yeah, talk about realism…

Hopefully, Zack Snyder & co. will make this more interesting.

I’ve always felt the joke that the Comedian gets comes from the fact that it would take millions of deaths to ensure the survival of humanity. That’s irony. Hence the whole “Does the ends justify the meaning?” theme the graphic novel constantly dwelves upon. The squid is just the trigger of the catastrophe, not the event on itself. I think that as long as the concept of a bigger-than-mankind threat appears, it should be alright.

Spectropoetics, you wrote a very articulate and well argued post, and I understand your trepidation. But this is still just a trailer. Think back to the movies you’ve seen–how many of them are capable of conveying all of the themes within the film, and all of the story? Your hesitancy makes sense, the work is a classic, after all. At the same time, it can’t really be judged at this point whether or not all of the complexity present in the book will be absent.

Personally, I don’t think there will be any group known as the Watchmen in the film, it sounded weird in the trailer. And if there IS a Watchmen group, it’s probably the revived Crimebusters that was attempted to be formed with Rorscharch, Nite Owl, etc in one of the flashback scenes, not any kind of team to go up against Ozy. And while your right, any reference to a group of heroes called the Watchmen does distill some of the meaning, I think that generally it won’t hurt the movie in a major sense.

Wow, to squid or not to squid? That seems to be the question. Look, I can see the points re: the teams name, the squid and other plot points but I think if we had the 12 hour mini-series on HBO or whatever one version was going to be these things could have been left in but we are talking about a movie that is fighting for a longer run time as it is. I believe , from the trailers and the video blogs on the Watchmen website, that Mr Snyder WILL do the book justice in the long run.
And with Hollywood’s penchant for coming up with new ideas it’ll only be 10 years or so (if that) before the re-make….

@John L & gohanwinner

I’m very grateful for you guys responses.

I think my issue with this film, as opposed to say my appreciation of the newer Hulk film, or the Dark Knight, or the Iron Man movie, is that with these adaptations the film teams had decades of ideas, plot-lines, narratives and aesthetics to draw upon.

In some ways they had a job that entailed more difficulty, as the sheer volume of information they were having to edit was much more monumental.

Having said this, what I will say somewhat paradoxically is that I think this results in an EASIER task in adapting these characters to film. This is because, in my opinion at least, having such a wealth of material to adapt will make it IMPOSSIBLE to make a direct story adaptation that maintains true, unaltered fidelity to any one given moment of the 30+ years of stories would be problematic (obligatory origin movies notwithstanding )

With a movie like ‘Watchmen’ I feel like the problem is that Moore had to establish a story which established these conventions of superhero narratives without the 30+ years to do it in. He had to condense in order to achieve the story of the comic in the first place, so with the condensation going on for the film I’m worried that what will be taken from the comics story will be totally stamped with Snyder’s own prejudices and predelictions.

What also worries me is that ‘Watchmen’ is a closed narrative, unlike the other superhero movies, in which it could be said that the movies participate in the greater mythology of a character beyond only the stories actually featured in the comics themselves. With the ongoing story universes of the DCU & MU, having other media forms contributing to the general ideas and principles of the characters is often a valuable a productive mechanism for creativity i.e. Superman’s flight, x-ray vision coming from the radio show etc.

The issues with this adaptation is that it will not add anything to the history of the narrative of the ‘Watchmen’ universe as it evolves over time, as it obviously is not going anywhere!

These means to me, any deviation from the story is just a cynical and narcissistic exercise on behalf of the people adapting the comic to film. If one is not going to remain ‘true’ to what is the content of the comic which is “SO important”, and ‘MUST’ be made into a film, then why make it into a film? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Plus, I must say, it’s not as if the film is NOT cashing in on the cultural capital attached to the comic. The teaser trailer was all over the ‘best graphic novel ever’ hyperbole. I think this film is being made to make someone a lot of money. Hence my reluctance to buy into a Zack Snyder product, given the history of his film-making not going far beyond making politically dubious, superficial adaptations of other people’s work.

I’m not against a shallow, pop culture piece of entertainment… I loved the OC, for example!

My issue is how a story is adapted. I’m worried that a story written by a left-leaning, most definitely liberal, ex-Anarchist like Moore, will be augmented by Snyder, who seems to me to have an obsession with glorying in quite depth-less celebrations of violence.

I guess I just can’t get over my own distaste for Snyder’s work, on one level, and my own desire to see the key ideas of what I loved in the book to remain.

All the stuff that is being shown of this movie seems to show action, violence, and visuals. I want to see the characters come through, the tensions and emotions of the story.

Plus, I’m very worried about the costume changes, more specifically, Silk Spectre. I’m not liking the fetish gear. Makes her far too much of an object of lust for the audience. I think that will undermine the depth of the journey her character goes through. I think she’s gonna be reduced to being the super eye-candy, without a serious dynamic of her own.

“Plus, I’m very worried about the costume changes, more specifically, Silk Spectre. I’m not liking the fetish gear. Makes her far too much of an object of lust for the audience. I think that will undermine the depth of the journey her character goes through. I think she’s gonna be reduced to being the super eye-candy, without a serious dynamic of her own.”

Laurie’s costume in the comic was a bathing suit with a neckline down to her navel, covered by a see-through yellow negligee. I’m sorry, but how is that not sexualized? Quite frankly, I think the new costume is, if anything, less so.

All the stuff that is being shown of this movie seems to show action, violence, and visuals. I want to see the characters come through, the tensions and emotions of the story.

Fair enough, but those are the things that draw people in from a trailer, in most cases. I think that these action packed “typical” super hero ideas are an attempt to trick the average movie goer to go see it.