the vynsane asylum

anarky wrote: The graphic novel is freaking everywhere right now. Even Target has it. It's well worth reading.

That's what I was going to get. I haven't paged through it so I wasn't positive on weather or not it was a novel or graphic novel.

The show I saw said they put detail in the movie you won't even see. There is a pistol on the wall that has actually says "From Richard M. Nixon 1970".

Ran wrote:

anarky wrote: The show I saw said they put detail in the movie you won't even see. There is a pistol on the wall that has actually says "From Richard M. Nixon 1970".

probably in blake's apartment.

The only other place it could be would be Elvis' apartment. But he was already dead in 1985 in the Watchmen world, too, I believe.

Double_G wrote:My review has some spoilers in it, but if you already read the book, it shouldn't really be anything surprising.

i agree with everything double_g said save for the 'origin' of rorschach. i thought they messed it up. setting the house on fire with the guy cuffed to the stove was so much better than what happened. i guess they wanted the impact of what he did to the dog, but without the animal cruelty watchdogs (heh) breathing down their necks? whatev.

dr. manhattan's entire recounting of his origin after appearing on mars was almost dead-on. i just wish they had done the bit with the photograph - the 'i am holding the photograph. in 12 seconds time it falls to the ground...' thing. that was all that was missing. that's probably my favorite issue of the entire series, it really gives you a glimpse into his mindset.

and holy shit! malin ackerman!

Damn. They cut out him smashing the dog's head? That was one of the most disturbing parts of the book, and it was supposed to be.

I was wondering why the one commercial that intersperses his interview with the shrink only had "butterflies" and the other cutesy stuff he said. I thought it would've been a much better commercial if it had that, and, at the last shot of the ad, it had him saying, "I see a dog with its head smashed in."

Extreme cruelty to animals is always a great way to sell a movie.

they do show a flash of the dog's head in the movie... just basically instead of showing him do that to the dog, they show him doing it to the murderer.

I didn't mean showing it in the ad. I meant him saying it. Sorta a contrast to the "duckies and bunnies" obvious bullshit. People who read the book will know the references, everyone else will think this Rorschach guy is severely fucked up. Which is true.

Rorschach is an extreme right-wing psycho. I wonder if he's Ben Reilly?

Since I've got a cold I'm going to wait a few days before I see it. Dammit.

You guys haven't really mentioned the new ending. Does it work?

Diabolical wrote:You guys haven't really mentioned the new ending. Does it work?

I think it works because, in my opinion, everything about the squid is way too complicated to squeeze into a film, even a 160 minute one at that. I can't really say it's better than the graphic novel's ending. They more or less have the same outcome, but they each work in their own seperate medium: the squid in the graphic novel and the Dr. Manhattan energy blast in the film.

I have a $25 Amazon gift card coming. They have the graphic novel for $10.99.

As I wrote elsewhere, I saw it and liked it but didn't love it. It seems like one of the great things about the graphic novel (which I haven't read) was the depth, and it seemed like they tried to cram too much stuff into the movie and couldn't give it all justice. A friend I saw it with (this was her second time) loves it but loved the book, so who knows. For the whole "transcending the genre" thing, Dark Knight did it a whole lot better.

anarky wrote:I was wondering why the one commercial that intersperses his interview with the shrink only had "butterflies" and the other cutesy stuff he said. I thought it would've been a much better commercial if it had that, and, at the last shot of the ad, it had him saying, "I see a dog with its head smashed in."

Wonder no more: he only says cutesy stuff there. After each one, it cuts to a part of his past.

And was it just me, or were the effects kind of shitty?

Diabolical wrote:You guys haven't really mentioned the new ending. Does it work?

the movie version of the ending works because it still does the same thing without throwing you a complete curveball (space squid). it utilizes the already-established suspension of disbelief fostered in the audience as opposed to them trying to buy another whole level of oddity.

Senor JabbaJohnL wrote:As I wrote elsewhere, I saw it and liked it but didn't love it. It seems like one of the great things about the graphic novel (which I haven't read) was the depth, and it seemed like they tried to cram too much stuff into the movie and couldn't give it all justice. A friend I saw it with (this was her second time) loves it but loved the book, so who knows.

i'm not sure that there's all that much more depth in the book... just a lot more weight. the movie was perfectly distilled, forming all the correct points but cutting the wheat from the chaff.

For the whole "transcending the genre" thing, Dark Knight did it a whole lot better.

but it wasn't supposed to 'transcend the genre' - it's a commentary on the genre. unfortunately, the book was taken seriously and along with 'DKR' (the comic, not the movie) partially ushered in the mid-80's era of 'grim and gritty' comics which basically led to movies about batman that take themselves a little bit too seriously.

anarky wrote:I was wondering why the one commercial that intersperses his interview with the shrink only had "butterflies" and the other cutesy stuff he said. I thought it would've been a much better commercial if it had that, and, at the last shot of the ad, it had him saying, "I see a dog with its head smashed in."

Wonder no more: he only says cutesy stuff there. After each one, it cuts to a part of his past.[/quote]

which, once again, was a perfect way to distill the multiple sessions with the doctor into a manageable amount of time. in an example of not enough time, they hit all the points they needed and got rid of extraneous stuff.

And was it just me, or were the effects kind of shitty?

which effects? the only complaints i've heard were for dr. manhattan, which i didn't agree with. the mars scenes were incredible, the owlship was awesome, rorschach's mask was great...

vynsane wrote:which effects? the only complaints i've heard were for dr. manhattan, which i didn't agree with. the mars scenes were incredible, the owlship was awesome, rorschach's mask was great...

The lion-thing was pretty terrible, but semi-realistic creatures almost always are. Dr. Manhattan's Great Glass Elevator was a mixed bag - sometimes good, sometimes not. Dr. Manhattan himself was one of those "why they fuck didn't they just use the actor, or at least his head" kind of things since the mouth was always off. He looked fine, but he moved poorly. As for non-CGI, the aging makeup was crap and made the ladies look like chipmunks (Silk Spectre I and Dr. Manhattan's girlfriend come to mind, and their old-age acting was similarly terrible).

From what I've heard, it seems to me that you really had to love the comic before going into the movie since I really didn't give a shit about the characters. The backstory was explained fairly quickly - why did people hate the Watchmen, why did they disband, etc. - and there was never really an urgency to anything. As a companion piece to the comic, I'm sure it's fine, but as a standalone movie, it doesn't work. Zack Snyder seems more interested in ramping up the violence to well past 11 than actually making compelling characters.

I think I already said this, but I would like to give the book a shot.

Damn.

Minor spoiler, JJL, but really minor, since you've already seen the movie:

In the novel, Rorschach sees everything in the test as the dog with its head bashed in or his mother (who was prostituting--dunno if the movie includes that) with a "client." He keeps giving bullshit answers like "duckies" and "fluffy clouds" and the shrink knows it's bullshit. Finally, either Rorschach tires of it or the shrink says he knows he's lying, and Rorschach admits to seeing the dead dog. "Who bashed its head in?" "I did." Then he gives the full account of finding the dogs eating the dead girl and how he kills them and the kidnapper and basically went from being something of a hero in a silly costume to a vigilante with absolutely no faith in human nature. It really gets under the psychiatrist's skin until he's killed in the giant (squid) explosion.