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THOUGHTS ON WATCHMEN MOVIE, MOST OF WHICH ARE NOT BY FRED

Started by Fredfredly ⊂(◉‿◉)つ, March 08, 2009, 04:35:08 AM

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Suu

They did an animated short for Tales from the Black Freighter.
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Quote from: Triple Zero on March 12, 2010, 07:42:25 PM
Quote from: -Kel- on March 10, 2010, 03:34:27 PM
i read the graphic novel before seeing the film. I was really happy they stayed so close to the novel and was OK with their reasons of changing the film ending from the book.

I also absolutely positively LOVED the fact that they left out the utterly lame and redundant pirate story. Why pull your readers out of the flow of the story at the end of every chapter with a failed attempt at transparent metaphor?


Because it built suspense for climax of the story. It was left out because it wouldn't work at all in a movie.
I've been thinking about the film again recently and why it bothered me so much, because I was never able to pin it down to any one thing that made it feel so sterile but I think I've found a huge contributing factor; In the comics there is a strong sense of the passage of time and the story being built upon. In the film its all rushed and just sort of plopped down on top of you in one go, it left me feeling really uninvolved with the characters.
For this reason I think it would have worked far better as a series
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Cain

Yeah, a mini-series or something would've worked really well.  Some things just can't be condensed into 150 minutes, no matter how hard you try.

-Kel-

Quote from: Triple Zero on March 12, 2010, 07:42:25 PM
Quote from: -Kel- on March 10, 2010, 03:34:27 PM
i read the graphic novel before seeing the film. I was really happy they stayed so close to the novel and was OK with their reasons of changing the film ending from the book.

I also absolutely positively LOVED the fact that they left out the utterly lame and redundant pirate story. Why pull your readers out of the flow of the story at the end of every chapter with a failed attempt at transparent metaphor?



when i was reading, i did find myself skimming over parts of the black freighter. i haven't gotten a chance to watch the ultimate un-cut version, but i hope it is worked in well. 

NotPublished

Quote from: Cain on March 12, 2010, 08:27:20 PM
Yeah, a mini-series or something would've worked really well.  Some things just can't be condensed into 150 minutes, no matter how hard you try.

A montage?
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Requia ☣

Quote from: Cain on March 12, 2010, 08:27:20 PM
Yeah, a mini-series or something would've worked really well.  Some things just can't be condensed into 150 minutes, no matter how hard you try.

Terry Gilliam tried to get them to let him make a 6 hour mini series of it, they turned him down.   :argh!:
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Quote from: Requia ☣ on March 14, 2010, 07:01:08 AM
Quote from: Cain on March 12, 2010, 08:27:20 PM
Yeah, a mini-series or something would've worked really well.  Some things just can't be condensed into 150 minutes, no matter how hard you try.

Terry Gilliam tried to get them to let him make a 6 hour mini series of it, they turned him down.   :argh!:

All that I had ever heard of it was that Terry Gilliam and Alan Moore had communicated with one another about the idea of Gilliam adapting the work, and that it never happened. Now that an adaptation has happened, I feel that it could have been a lot worse, although Gilliam directing a miniseries would have been fucking awesome.

Faust

Quote from: Requia ☣ on March 14, 2010, 07:01:08 AM
Quote from: Cain on March 12, 2010, 08:27:20 PM
Yeah, a mini-series or something would've worked really well.  Some things just can't be condensed into 150 minutes, no matter how hard you try.

Terry Gilliam tried to get them to let him make a 6 hour mini series of it, they turned him down.   :argh!:
Aronofsky said the same goddamn thing, both were far more competent directors then zack snider, why the studio went with him I'll never figure out.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Cain

Gilliam and a miniseries would've been perfect.  Aronofsky did Pi, right?  Or am I thinking of someone else?

I suspect Snyder was chosen because he had previously performed competently on Sin City and The 300, and so was seen as "that comic book director".  That Watchmen is a very different story to either of those seems to have been overlooked.

Faust

Quote from: Cain on March 14, 2010, 06:01:23 PM
Gilliam and a miniseries would've been perfect.  Aronofsky did Pi, right?  Or am I thinking of someone else?

I suspect Snyder was chosen because he had previously performed competently on Sin City and The 300, and so was seen as "that comic book director".  That Watchmen is a very different story to either of those seems to have been overlooked.

Ah hold up, Robert Rodregiuz did Sin City not Snyder, he did however do 300, Sin city was enjoyable, 300 was incredibly poor.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Cain

So he was.  Why did I associate Snyder with Sin City?

Thurnez Isa

After reading the comics and seeing the movie a second time I do think that Snyder did actually make a pretty good movie, minus two things. The conversations between Rorschach and the psychiatrist should have been expanded a bit, and I do question his choice of music. Dylan worked in the opening credits (it's the opening credits so who cares), but the rest of the soundtrack was good tunes but was cheesy and distracting as hell. The most successful music in the movie is the ripped Philip Glass soundtrack. Orchestrated minimalism worked perfectly. So that begs the question. Why didn't he just spend the money and get Philip Glass to write the entire soundtrack? or fail that another classical composer. Just imagine that movie with a soundtrack penned by Micheal Nyman. It's instantly that much better.
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Quote from: Cain on March 14, 2010, 07:43:29 PM
So he was.  Why did I associate Snyder with Sin City?

Frank Miller wrote Sin City and 300, maybe that's it?  I think Miller was technically a co-director for Sin City (which made Robert Rodriguez resign from the director's guild, because two directors were against their codes).  300 was then billed as "FROM THE WRITER OF SIN CITY" to piggy back on that movie's relative success.

I thought Zack Snyder was fine for 300 because it was a visually driven graphic novel, with maybe 30 lines of dialogue.  Watchmen looked good enough, possibly even too stylish, but it had very little else.
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Fredfredly ⊂(◉‿◉)つ

Quote from: Thurnez Isa on March 14, 2010, 10:23:23 PM
After reading the comics and seeing the movie a second time I do think that Snyder did actually make a pretty good movie, minus two things. The conversations between Rorschach and the psychiatrist should have been expanded a bit, and I do question his choice of music. Dylan worked in the opening credits (it's the opening credits so who cares), but the rest of the soundtrack was good tunes but was cheesy and distracting as hell. The most successful music in the movie is the ripped Philip Glass soundtrack. Orchestrated minimalism worked perfectly. So that begs the question. Why didn't he just spend the money and get Philip Glass to write the entire soundtrack? or fail that another classical composer. Just imagine that movie with a soundtrack penned by Micheal Nyman. It's instantly that much better.

AGREED

Quote from: Fredamir Putin on March 14, 2010, 11:17:35 PM
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on March 14, 2010, 10:23:23 PM
After reading the comics and seeing the movie a second time I do think that Snyder did actually make a pretty good movie, minus two things. The conversations between Rorschach and the psychiatrist should have been expanded a bit, and I do question his choice of music. Dylan worked in the opening credits (it's the opening credits so who cares), but the rest of the soundtrack was good tunes but was cheesy and distracting as hell. The most successful music in the movie is the ripped Philip Glass soundtrack. Orchestrated minimalism worked perfectly. So that begs the question. Why didn't he just spend the money and get Philip Glass to write the entire soundtrack? or fail that another classical composer. Just imagine that movie with a soundtrack penned by Micheal Nyman. It's instantly that much better.

AGREED
Also;The music is (should be) as much a part of the setting as the scenery, the use of contemporary music in the soundtrack did not fit the setting.