I just got back from the midnight showing, and.. Wow. What a fantastic movie.

I loved the ever-loving hell out of it. It was afraid they would muck with the story, the characters, etc... but it was almost a page by page representation of the book. They added some subtle things to further illuminate the story, but nothing to complicate it. The cast was wonderful, especially Rorschach and Nite Owl, and the visuals were absolutely stunning. The movie clocked in around two and a half hours, and no concessions were made in the story.

Absolutely fantastic. Everything I wanted it to be.

Except for the ending, I don't know if the squid would have worked, but the change in the ending shifted the disposition of how people reacted to the disaster, and made an enemy out of Manhattan that I'm not sure needed to happen.. but there's not going to be a sequel or anything, so it doesn't matter

The spoiler makes me want to see it even more now!

So, it's a movie about rounding up illegal aliens, right?

jk, I'm seeing it in IMAX tommorrow at 3:40 because that was the only half-decent time it wasn't sold out.

I just read the comic 2 weeks ago, I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Yea the ending sucked, but it was basically the same. Excluding the part about how the end is resolved( i would go into more detail but I dont know how to do the spoiler text thing)

Also butchered Dr. Manhattans line in the end about all people being miracles, they focused to much on the girl.

Also the way Rorschach killed the one guy in the book was WAYYY BETTER.


All in all it was great and even the soundtrack was perfect. I mean Simon and Garfunkel come on what can be better?

Archerzz, do spoilers by doing the following:
[ spoiler] spoiledtexthere [ /spoiler]

Just don't include the spaces after the [

They didn't do the squid ending because there wasn't enough time to draw focus to the comics and the news stand, turning Dr. Manhattan into the bad guy was a fix that worked great without needing to explain things they didn't show throughout the movie.

I thought it was great. Akerman bugged me a few times, she made Laurie's lines seem forced at times, but over all the cast was pretty much what I was hoping for. And naturally, the visuals were great.

Loved the soundtrack

I saw the watchmen at the midnight showing last night also. I have to admit, there were things that I was a little dissipointed with. I mean, their was way to much of the floosie, bimbo girl (Jupiter) to begin with, and I wanted to see more of The Comedian and less of Dr. Manhattan's blue swaying penis. I know it was in the comic, but come on.

However, once I was able to see through Dr. Manhattans penis and the other flaws I found with the movie, It is a shineing example of how comic movies should be made. Rorschach was one of the greatest super hero's ever to grace the big screen with his presence, the films over the top violence and goar was great, and to top it all off, their was an amazing all star soundtrack featureing music from, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Dylin, Nat King Cole, and Simon and Garfunkel (as mentioned above). The music flows flawlessley with the movie and wins you over early on. Amazing.

Another noteworthy thing to mention about this movie is the beginning. Within the first 5 min of the movie, when the comedian is fighting adrian, I dont think that their has been a cooler into to a movie yet... I mean DAMN granite countert tops?! Ow.

My Dr. Manhattan Costume.

http://media.comicmix.com/media/2009/02/19/watchmencondom.jpg

The movie was perfect right up until the end, but they completely destroyed new york in the movie and the squid only killed the people and a few buildings that it landed on when it was teleported. Although I did like that they destroyed key cities around the world, because with the squid it was like we hate each other but OMG there are ALIENS!.

if Dr. Manhatten blew up new york the world would just say your weapon backfired and blew up in your face.

And the gore was exaggerated it was to the point of being stupid.

sorry that was long

But it wasn't just NYC, I don't see what your point is.

It was kind of moot, but in the book it was only new york, but the destruction was different. Which is my point, that they changed the part of the book that just made it fantastic.

EDIT:
Fight scenes were above and beyond my expectations. Everything was fast paced and the hits were solid.

I thought the movie was amazing. The two parts I was looking forward to the most: Manhattan and Rorschach's origin stories, were executed perfectly (albeit a bit of fat trimmed from each). Which I don't particularly understand because the sex scene should have been cut down a lot, if anything.

Also, the opening credits were AWESOME.

Yea the song that they put them to was perfect.

I perfer Rorschach's story from the book, where he chains the kidnapper to the heater gives him a hacksaw and tells him he wont have enough time, then burns the house down and watches from the street. Better than hacking a guys head up with a cleaver.

But Manhattan's story was perfect even the position of his body when he was fried

How many men would the watchmen watch if the watchmen could watch men?

The comic book was kinda neat so I'll catch this movie on DVD some day unless the movie ticket fairy brings itself to existence all of a sudden.

Just got back .. pretty good movie.
I only half read the comics .. so I don't care about any differences there was.

The song to the sex was funny along with the fire burst.

I saw it at the IMAX in London, utterly fantastic. The changing of the doomsday weapon was a good one and the casting was excellent. It was also amazing how close to the panels in the graphic novel the action sequences were.

I like the current run of superhero movies, we've come a long way from the cheesy superhero movies of yester-decades.

I've never read the comics (or even heard of it before the movie), but my favorite parts from a storytelling/cinematic point of view were the opening credits and the flashbacks/character development as the Comedian was being lowered into his grave .

That was the best video ever, TimeWolfofthePast!

I think they were trying to show that being heroes was a larger part of who they were than they realised. Dr. Manhattan couldn't pleasure Laurie and Nite Owl couldn't get hard for her because they were unfulfilled as people. I don't think the sex scene was supposed to be gratuitous, but more that they were finally getting off because they were awesome crime fighters again.

But I haven't read the book yet so I don't know if that bit is explained proper or not. In any case, Malin Akerman is f'ing hot and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My only query is, will it be any good if I've never read the graphic novel or whatever it is?

I'd never even heard of it until Vin started moaning about some lawsuit.

In the book the sex scene is just like a short few panels if that. They went into a little to much detail, it didnt need to be that long. Didnt know they based this movie off the Kama sutra. lol

Is this movie tolerable for non-watchmen/comicbook fans? I mean, is it an entertaining movie in its own right?

(I haven't read anything in this thread yet because I want to go unsullied, but my hot redheaded friend wants to do something today.)

Oh yea its fantastic. I highly recommend it

Yes and no. I think a lot of my enjoyment of it comes from the novelty of seeing the comic literally brought to life. But I can also see myself not liking the movie down the road when I realize more and more than the movie had nothing new to add to Watchmen.

The sex scene wasn't that long, it was fairly typical of movie sex scenes

For a movie yes, but more than the comic intended. imo.

I saw it and I've never read the comic book. It was entertaining and worth seeing, but I definitely think I would have enjoyed it more if I was into the comic book.

Someone explain to me Rorschach's mask and why it shifts. I wanna say it has something to do with those "what do you see in this" type pictures that the shrink showed him.

Edit: My opinion. I wasn't that overly thrilled with it. Yeah, I never read the comic(s) so that probably takes away a lot (I was a Marvel child). There were some good spots in it and I thought the sound track was nice. You can't go wrong with Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. C+ IMO.

I think it was just a random fabric he found and liked.
In the comic book it was explained as a failed fashion fabric, but I don't know if there was a reason he used it other than "Hey look at this!"

It was a fabric that was invented due to Dr. Manhattans scientific inventions/influence. Rorschach was working at a dress making company and a woman special ordered a dress made from the fabric she hated it and he took it and learned to cut it using heated scissors. When he got bored with it he didn't use it for a while then when he decided to be a mask he pulled it out and made a mask out of it.

I'm having a really hard time imagining Rorschach in a dress making company especially after he busted a prisoner's hands, tied them up, and watched them get sawed clean off .

He just did menial labor, working with machines and stuff, to pay the bills.

Yea he did the sewing and stuff in the graphic novel. (which everyone who hasn't should read)

I though the movie was great. Though I only read the first 10 pages of the Watchmen graphic novel, I'm assuming that most of the movie doesn't stray too far off from the comic aside from the ending. Speaking of the ending, it was quite thought provoking. You can't help, but question the moral outcome of the situation.

The violence level in this movie wasn't too bad in my opinion. Some crazy extreme right-wing woman who wrote a review for this movie said it's more violent than 300 (did you catch the reference in the beginning?), but I think she's wrong. You see limbs dismembered once and there's absolutely no decapitation.

I must be one of the few who didn't like the soundtrack too much. It lacked any centralized theme, which gave the movie a lack of an identity. Personally I wanted more original score instead of lifting tracks from pop culture. Then again that's just me, I'm into orchestrated classical music that's sometimes done with an epic choir. Sorry, I'm not really into the rock, pop, or rap that kids listen to these days.

Oh and Rorschach is my hero. He shares my views of how criminals and the scums of society should be handled....



I think the Watchmen was pretty recent for a comic book. It was written in the 1980s? In some ways, I don't really see Watchmen as a typical superhero movie since the first two hours felt more like a detective story. After seeing the movie, I'm starting to see why the graphic novel was critically accalimed back then.

Oh and a question about Ozymandias. I know Dr. Manhattan is suppose to be the only one with super powers, but what's up with Ozy? He's already the smartest man in the world, but somehow he's also the most gifted fighter in the world. Furthermore, he's so quick that he even dodge or catch bullets.

Saw it today, really enjoyed it. A bit long, but I'd rather that than skimp in parts. I had not read it beforehand so I can't speak on those differences. The way everything went seemed to fit nicely though.

They didn't really say that he had gained super powers per se, but I think he was considered an actual super hero. He was in any case extraordinary.

Ozy doesn't have super powers, he was just obsessed with training himself mentally and physically that he had insane reaction times.

I never read the graphic novel, but it did seem like it was more than that.

Ozymandia's speed did seemed superhuman. He managed to dodge Dr. Manhattan's giant fist, someone who can apparently perceive time in the smallest of increments.

Oh, and I loved it. Great movie.