Watchmen Casting Announced

[Tebonas]

Or the murder of Hooded Justice?

Hell, there are so many bis secrets with that fucktard you don't know where to start.

[DraconianOne]

I saw “Watchmen.” It’s fucking astounding. The Non-Disclosure Agreement I signed prevents me from saying much, but I can spout the following with complete joygasmic enthusiasm: Snyder and Co. have pulled it off.

Remember that feeling of watching “Sin City” on the big screen and being blown away by what a faithful translation of the source material it was, in terms of both content and visuals? Triple that, and you’ll come close to watching “Watchmen.” Even Alan Moore might be surprised at how close the movie is to the book. March can’t come soon enough.

This doesn't help if you didn'ike Sin City (EDIT: or Kevin Smith) but I get the sentiment.

[Velorath]

I saw “Watchmen.” It’s fucking astounding. The Non-Disclosure Agreement I signed prevents me from saying much, but I can spout the following with complete joygasmic enthusiasm: Snyder and Co. have pulled it off.

Remember that feeling of watching “Sin City” on the big screen and being blown away by what a faithful translation of the source material it was, in terms of both content and visuals? Triple that, and you’ll come close to watching “Watchmen.” Even Alan Moore might be surprised at how close the movie is to the book. March can’t come soon enough.

This doesn't help if you didn'ike Sin City (EDIT: or Kevin Smith) but I get the sentiment.

It also doesn't help that Smith wrote a similarly glowing review after seeing an early screening of Revenge of the Sith.  I could say many things about that movie but "fucking awesome" wouldn't be one of them.

[Margalis]

Kevin Smith is a fanboy.

"Revenge of the Sith" is, quite simply, fucking awesome. This is the "Star Wars" prequel the haters have been bitching for since "Menace" came out, and if they don't cop to that when they finally see it, they're lying. As dark as "Empire" was, this movie goes a thousand times darker - from the triggering of Order 66 (which has all the Shock Troopers turning on the Jedi Knights they've been fighting beside throughout the Clone Wars and gunning them down), to the jaw-dropping Anakin/Obi Wan fight on Mustafar (where - after cutting his legs and arm off, Ben leaves Skywalker burning alive on the shores of a lava river, with Anakin spitting venomous sentiments at his departing mentor), this flick is so satisfyingly tragic, you'll think you're watching "Othello" or "Hamlet".

The whole thing is like this. It's hilarious.

Similar to Knowles from AICN a good review from Kevin Smith is more of a red flag than an endorsement.

[DraconianOne]

Very good point. I had totally forgotten all about that.

[schild]

Kevin Smith is a fanboy.

"Revenge of the Sith" is, quite simply, fucking awesome. This is the "Star Wars" prequel the haters have been bitching for since "Menace" came out, and if they don't cop to that when they finally see it, they're lying. As dark as "Empire" was, this movie goes a thousand times darker - from the triggering of Order 66 (which has all the Shock Troopers turning on the Jedi Knights they've been fighting beside throughout the Clone Wars and gunning them down), to the jaw-dropping Anakin/Obi Wan fight on Mustafar (where - after cutting his legs and arm off, Ben leaves Skywalker burning alive on the shores of a lava river, with Anakin spitting venomous sentiments at his departing mentor), this flick is so satisfyingly tragic, you'll think you're watching "Othello" or "Hamlet".

The whole thing is like this. It's hilarious.

Similar to Knowles from AICN a good review from Kevin Smith is more of a red flag than an endorsement.

So, the Watchmen sucked. Awesome.

[Ironwood]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Gie it a chance, eh ?

We did the same shit with both Batman movies.

 

[schild]

No we didn't. Or at least I didn't. The Batman movies were guaranteed to be awesome. or at least I thought so. And it was always based on who was playing everyone BESIDES Batman.

[NowhereMan]

I think a good review from Kevin Smith is more indicative of Kevin Smith liking Watchmen than any actual judge of quality. Based on his reviews I think he's a fanboy, clearly he loved Star Wars and he loves Watchmen, the quality of the films doesn't really come into it. I don't think it's poor taste so much as his brain just disengages itself the moment something he likes comes on the screen.

[HaemishM]

Similar to Knowles from AICN a good review from Kevin Smith is more of a red flag than an endorsement.

Only on Star Wars stuff. Kevin Smith is like Sam Jackson - he'd play Luke Skywalker's slave just to be in a Star Wars movie. I wouldn't read anything into his review of Revenge of the Sith, because he is a Star Wars fanboy.

[Drugstore Space Cowboy]

No we didn't. Or at least I didn't. The Batman movies were guaranteed to be awesome. or at least I thought so. And it was always based on who was playing everyone BESIDES Batman.

You thought Katie Holmes was a good casting choice?

[Raguel]

Are you talking about the Rape or the war crimes ?  Or the shooting of his child ?

Nah, just talkin' about his, y'know, his friend's daughter (last one, I swear  )

IMO, humanizing someone so unrepentantly and relentlessly evil like the Comedian is one of the strongest parts of the story. 

[Ironwood]

I think you may have read that bit wrong....

[Raguel]

I think you may have read that bit wrong....

Which bit? the article, the "big secret", or my view of Blake's character?

I just took a look at Watchmen. Laurie's only 16 in 1964. The Minutemen photo was taken in 1940.

[Ironwood]

Never mind. I took it that you meant the Laurie relationship he was attempting was a 'bad thing', which it wasn't.  But I think it was ME that read YOU wrong.

In fairness, my head really, really fucking hurts today.  I hope it's not a toomer.

[Samwise]

Don't worry.

It's not.

[Ironwood]

Hey, I'm not even talking to you.  The wife found out you got rid of the beard and asked straight out 'When's he coming back over to visit ?  I liked him.'

So I hope you're free on the fifth of Never.

 

[Samwise]

 

[Hoax]

Finally read it.  Started hella slow, but was unable to put down once I got around halfway point.  Pretty damn good, meant a lot less to me because I always thought comics were pretty "meh" unless they were dark/adult/twisted so having someone pull DC superheroes towards that wasn't a big deal.  Instead it was just some really poignant moments, interspersed with a bunch of backstory clippings that seemed like a big crutch looking back on them and were annoying at times.  The characters were well developed though and the story interesting.  The pirate story was annoying as hell.  I kept skipping it for a page then going back and reading it out of obligation.  It was a kind of cool story in its own right but along with the backstory clippings I really had a hard time getting into the flow of the book.  If I hadn't heard it was the greatest thing evar so many times I probably would have put it down unfinished tbh.  But once good characters are given a chance to grow on me I have to see what happens to them, once I got that far it was money.

I still got a much bigger kick out of Transmet to be sure.

[Margalis]

I think Moore's big weakness is that he doesn't trust comics to do the job.

Both League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Top 10 were full of non-comic text that to me detracted from the story. In a way it's kind of an admission that comics are not a good medium if you constantly have to go outside of it. And in his case going outside the medium often feels extraneous at best.

[Velorath]

I think Moore's big weakness is that he doesn't trust comics to do the job.

Both League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Top 10 were full of non-comic text that to me detracted from the story. In a way it's kind of an admission that comics are not a good medium if you constantly have to go outside of it. And in his case going outside the medium often feels extraneous at best.

I'm struggling to think of any non-comic text in Top 10 outside the two-page intro in the TPB.  The text in League and Watchmen is completely optional reading, so I'm not sure how adding in bonus material is an admission that comics are not a good medium.

In conclusion, what the fuck are you talking about?

[Margalis]

Alan Moore defense force activate!

If the text is supplemental and really irrelevant to the story it should be removed. If it matters it should be included in the actual comic.

It's like packaging a movie with a little book that includes backstory on the characters, or how old video games would include the plot description in the instruction manual.

I'm not opposed to author introductions and things like that, I'm talking about story-related text. It's a comic do it as a comic. Saying it's optional is a copout. So is reading the actual comic, nobody puts a gun to your head and forces you to do it. Reading Alan Moore comics is entirely optional to start with.

[Velorath]

Alan Moore defense force activate!

If the text is supplemental and really irrelevant to the story it should be removed. If it matters it should be included in the actual comic.

It's like packaging a movie with a little book that includes backstory on the characters, or how old video games would include the plot description in the instruction manual.

I'm not opposed to author introductions and things like that, I'm talking about story-related text. It's a comic do it as a comic. Saying it's optional is a copout. So is reading the actual comic, nobody puts a gun to your head and forces you to do it. Reading Alan Moore comics is entirely optional to start with.

I'm trying to come up with a response to your post, but I can't for the life of me figure out what your actual objection to supplemental material is.  It's extra material, like illustrations in a novel, extras on a DVD, or whatever.  You'll note that any inclusion of text in Moore's comics take place either at the beginning or end of the TPB, or where the end of an individual issue would be (where a letter column would usually be).  It's never just dropped into the middle of a chapter as something necessary to understanding the story.   Your argument seems to be that more material is somehow inherently bad and casts a negative light on the medium somehow.

[Margalis]

The Watchmen text is in the middle.

League had so much extraneous crap in it (the second TPB in particular) that I started to feel like the actual comic (which sucked balls) was an excuse to include the horrible text story. It seemed really self-indulgent to me to include a whole bunch of boring text at the end of a terrible story. How about we spend less time writing about the adventures of scantily clad females and more time on the actual thing that I paid for?

The text at the start of Top 10 was totally extraneous, like an opening narration that explains the whole story.

I don't mind the stuff like playbills and fun things like that, thbut big walls of text I can do without. "Big crutch" is a great term for it.

[Velorath]

The Watchmen text is in the middle.

The text is at the end of each chapter.  In other words, when Watchmen was originally released as a 12 issue series, the text was a supplementary feature at the end of each issue.

Edit: LOEG is similar, although it has a couple less pages of story than Watchmen, and more supplemental material.  Both of them have more pages of story than a standard comic though.  Unlike Watchmen, when LOEG was collected into TPB form, all the supplemental text was placed at the back of the collection.

[stu]

I always thought the extra stuff was cool. That supplementary material is a great tool for opening up the reader to a wider world outside of the central characters and even reinforces them.

With League, I had the feeling that Moore was actually trying to push readers away from a nothing-but-comics mentallity with that stuff in order to get people to read the original classics. It didn't feel pretentious at all. In some ways it reminded me of my older Marvel comics which had adds for gag gifts or Mr. Atlas training guides, only the adds were meant to be 100 years old.

That said, I didn't immediately read the supplements at the end of each issue, but on the days I was going through my back issues to find something to re-read, I ended up finding those and liking them. I'm a geek for things I want more of though. Last week I watched all of Freaks and Geeks and then Undeclared because I am unable to function for long periods of time without Apatow productions in my life. So, Moore's supplements serve me well.

edit: Last year, I gave my cousin a Watchmen TPB to read on his flight to grad school in London. I asked him what he thought of the extra stuff and he told me he skipped it all. I guess it's the kind of thing for a person who is collecting a full run of Spider-Man and just has to have the What if...?! issue with Aunt May gaining The Power Cosmic.

[NowhereMan]

I've got to admit that your complaint about extra material feels a bit like someone complaining about including a director's commentary. "If talking about what this is meant to mean and what's going on in this scene and difficulties the actor had with how to react can't be done as part of the movie it seems like they're admitting there's some problem with movies as a medium." It's not information you need to understand and appreciate the story but can add some depth and colour to world in general if you want to get into it.

[Margalis]

But as I already said author commentary is different. That's not supposed to be part of the fictional world, it breaks the 4th wall on purpose.

[Velorath]

The Watchmen text is in the middle.

League had so much extraneous crap in it (the second TPB in particular) that I started to feel like the actual comic (which sucked balls) was an excuse to include the horrible text story. It seemed really self-indulgent to me to include a whole bunch of boring text at the end of a terrible story. How about we spend less time writing about the adventures of scantily clad females and more time on the actual thing that I paid for?

The text at the start of Top 10 was totally extraneous, like an opening narration that explains the whole story.

I don't mind the stuff like playbills and fun things like that, thbut big walls of text I can do without. "Big crutch" is a great term for it.

It would be a "Big crutch" if it were essential reading to understand the story, rather than bonus material which adds backstory. 

Going with just text with maybe a couple B&W illustrations here and there allows the writer to add in pages of extra material without adding to the workload of the artist (comic art is an order of magnitude more time intensive than the writing).

You still haven't really made clear what you find so objectionable about it, and it's starting to come off like a Geldon argument.

[Margalis]

I made it clear, you just don't agree, and because you are apparently some sort of Alan Moore superfan the fact that someone has a differing opinion is not something you can swallow. Hoax made his case well that the supplemental stuff also interrupts the narrative flow.

I admit that the idea that extraneous material can bloat something and reduce it's quality is an amazingly novel idea I just invented on the spot.

The problem with "well you can choose not to read it" is that you can say that about anything. The bible is a great detective novel if you choose not to read 90% of the words. It's not like the "supplemental" material comes in some separate package. Without reading it how do you even know that it's supplemental and not integral?

[Rasix]

You're starting to become a parody of yourself.

[Hoax]

To be clear though, the scenario that sparked this slapfight was as follows.  Everyone here, my good rl friend, comic book store employee guy who I've known since I was a super small kid and the bookstore people near my current apt all told me to read the book.  Nobody mentioned I might want to skip the walls of text that end each chapter.  So I didn't think, oh that text would have been at the end of the comic, instead I felt like I better read it.  So I did.  It was long.  It wasn't very well done.  It was ok in the early chapters that weren't interesting comic-wise.  But once the story got going it was a chore.  In a chapter with heavy pirate-story fucking up the flow it was enough to really make the book less readable in a bad way.  I'm sorry that I wasn't smart enough to know it was ok to skip.  It was there.  I felt I should read it.  Some of it was good, I'm not saying it was all crap.  Just it fucked up the comic book format, because I was reading more comic book right after being thrown out into black and white text format for 5 pages.  Yes, that is only because it was a TPB.  So my bad I guess?

[HaemishM]

They put the supplemental text in between the chapters in the TPB?

Bad editing. I'm not sure I've read all of that text even now, 22 years later, and I was buying that series monthly. That kind of stuff should be collected and put at the back of the book. Hoax has a valid point, but it isn't agianst the writer so much as the editor who decided to set it up that way.

Dave Sim had a real bad habit of slipping into long walls of text in Cerebus. It wasn't that the text wasn't good, it was that it hurt the flow of the story, even when it WAS the story.

[Samwise]

The first time I read Watchmen I skipped the extra stuff; I got about halfway into the first bit and said "oh, this is obviously supplemental material that went at the end of each comic issue but is not integral to the story.  I don't think I want to read it now."  And then I skipped the rest of them so I could get to the main story faster.

Kudos to those of you that felt as I did but slogged through it anyway.

(Note: on subsequent reads I've read the supplemental stuff and liked it.  I just wasn't in the mood for the reduced pacing while I was still itching to find out how everything wrapped up.)

[Velorath]

I made it clear, you just don't agree, and because you are apparently some sort of Alan Moore superfan the fact that someone has a differing opinion is not something you can swallow. Hoax made his case well that the supplemental stuff also interrupts the narrative flow.

I admit that the idea that extraneous material can bloat something and reduce it's quality is an amazingly novel idea I just invented on the spot.

The problem with "well you can choose not to read it" is that you can say that about anything. The bible is a great detective novel if you choose not to read 90% of the words. It's not like the "supplemental" material comes in some separate package. Without reading it how do you even know that it's supplemental and not integral?

I've got no problem with Hoax's opinion because for him it's really a problem with how the TPB collects the material (well, that and the fact that he just didn't care for the Black Freighter).  I can understand that at least.  Perhaps they should have put the material at the back so people piciking up the book for the first time wouldn't think it was integral to the plot.

Your opinion though is that it shouldn't be there at all because this is a comic, and stuff that isn't comics has no place in it.  You can try to piggyback onto Hoax's argument now but your original point was that "Moore's big weakness is that he doesn't trust comics to do the job.", and "it's kind of an admission that comics are not a good medium if you constantly have to go outside of it".

As for your point about how all reading is optional, quit being intentionally fucking retarded.  I'm sure you understand that people are saying that you can avoid reading the supplemental material and still have a full understanding of the actual story, as opposed to your stupid fucking Bible comparison where you don't read 90% of the words.

Oh, and I'm an Ellis superfan.