Watchmen

[Vision]

I knew that going in.  It aged poorly.

They make no attempt to hide the fact that it takes place in the 80's, and the characters are supposed to be self-parodies of other super heroes, thus the ridiculous costumes and names. The message of the comic is as pertinent today as it was when it was written, so I would disagree that it has aged poorly.

[ghost]

Yeah, I'm not sure I understand the hatred of this movie.  It is clearly a bit "spoofy" in regard to the superhero thing.  I guess people expected Batman to appear and start kicking everyone's ass Christian Bale style.

[NowhereMan]

The goofy superheroes is entirely intentional, the book is littered with fake articles speculating on whether people who dress as capes have sexual hang ups, etc. Rorsharch is pretty much a caricature of Ditko style objectivist heroes with an iron morality and so on and so forth. I'd guess it's partly the times as well but part of the reason the female characters are so generally shallow and second string is simply that they generally are in comics. The thing was meant as a comment on the state of comics generally at the time and women weren't really well portrayed so it's not entirely Moore's fault (and certainly not the director's).

[tazelbain]

I guess Watchmen could be an inside joke I am not privy to.  To me its a mundane dystopian movie based on the anxieties of the 80s. I am not worried about the Cold War escalating to nuclear war.  I am not worried about street crime raging out control.  I am not worried about the America's very questionable behavior during Vietnam War.  I am not so hysterical over these issues that I think terrorism would be a necessary or effective response.  Maybe there is a meta level that superheros are bullshit in dealing with real problems.  But I knew that ever since I learned the difference better fact and fiction.

[NowhereMan]

Yeah it really was a response to silver age style comics where the heroes were heroes and the villains were villains and everything was nice and straightforward. At the time introducing the moral ambiguity of Ozy's plan as well as the crazy yet morally incorruptible Rorsharch, etc. was an interesting slant on what comics were about. It's dated poorly in large part because those sorts of comic conventions have spent the last 25 years being torn apart and built back up. Moore's big name books were innovative but very firmly rooted in their time (thinking mainly of this and V here). V for Vendetta got an update so it wasn't immediately dated looking but lost some of its soul along with it, I feel they made the right choice in sticking with the comic as a storyboard.

Now I just need to wait for a Top Ten TV series.

[Yegolev]

It occurred to me that the world's smartest man might have come up with a better password.

[HaemishM]

Maybe he subconsciously wanted to be found out.

[stray]

Read the comic then saw the movie. At some point. I feel like I posted in this thread already can't find nuthin'.

Besides mild annoyance with just how close it was to the comic (including the framing), the only thing I didn't like was the casting and acting for Ozymandias. In the comic, the vibe I got was a really smart and friendly guy legitimately trying to do something good with a sort of child-like optimism and curiousity about the outcome and unlimited resources to make himself untouchable.

I think you read it wrong then. Any guy who sort of fantasizes and sees himself as the new Alexander the Great isn't supposed to be friendly or childlike.

That isn't to say Alexander was bad either. Just that the type of person who he feels that "responsible" for the world is inevitably going to engage in some very "grey area" behavior just to reach his desired goals. I thought the actor was really convincing in this respect. Kind of the admirable Golden Boy, yet untrustworthy.

[edit] My friend sold a car to Rorshach recently. Heh. Lives in this city.

I think I mentioned it when it came out but you know that's the rebel Kelly from the Bad News Bears right? Man he has not aged well.

[Yegolev]

Maybe he subconsciously wanted to be found out.

I'd prefer to believe it is another part of the Batman parody.  I need to read the book.

[Teleku]

Dude, it was the 80's.  Everybody had obvious passwords.

[Abagadro]

Haley is apparently going to be Sinestro.

[HaemishM]

Haley is apparently going to be Sinestro.

That's awesome.

[Venkman]

Wait, what? They're actually doing a Green Lantern movie? All I could find was a vague entry in imdb for 2011. No real info except Ryan Reynolds (I'd prefer Nathan Fillian, but he seems tied up atm...).

[stray]

I would have preferred the Jack Black one that nearly got made, but fanboys raged. Internet 1 - Movie Studio - 0.

[UnSub]

Written in 1984-85, published in '86, movie adapted almost verbatim from the original story. So yes, it is dated.

This was my biggest issue with this film. It felt like a history lesson in places, so I was oddly disconnected to the story. It was hardly edge-of-the-seat stuff to wonder if the world would survive 1985.

Being devoted to the source material is great (however, some of the changes they made to the source seem random) but it really made the film less relevant to the audience. It's a reason why I think "V for Vendetta" is a better adaption: the film is more applicable to the audience when it isn't about Thatherite Britain but about over-authorative governments and propaganda in general.

"Watchmen" could have said all similar points but been updated and more relevant. It would have made it a better film.

[HaemishM]

"Watchmen" could have said all similar points but been updated and more relevant. It would have made it a better film.

I disagree with what you said.

Also, how could it be a history lesson when the history in the story never happened? The fact that Nixon was still President in 1985 didn't set it apart from history enough for you? That's one thing the book did better than the movie - the cars were different (using hydrogen engines thanks to Dr. Manhattan's ability to create hydrogen cheaply) and they looked it, so you never quite got the idea it was THIS world, this history.

[Venkman]

I think his point was the style of the telling was mid-80s, even if it was an alternate history.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. The idea of a group of has-been comic bookish heroes coming back together to stop a global event is sort of timeless. So the only way this movie was made is because of the equity of the name "Watchmen" having already told the story, and therefore a potential audience who aren't quite sure what's going on with the alternate history.

I personally would have preferred the comic ending over the movie ending, but I suppose the former would be a bit harder to explain in a 90 minute flick. It would have generated a lot more of a believably sustainable peace though.

[Samwise]

Wasn't the comic ending "explained" in like one panel?

[Teleku]

Watchmen is set in an alternate history.  Thats the fucking point.  The movie would have been god awful if they even attempted to not put it in the 80's.  I can't even think of how they could have made an even slightly enjoyable movie otherwise.  A big part of the draw (at least for me) was the crazy alternate history/timeline world.  Thats a big part of what made it cool.

I sort of feel the same for the V for Vendetta adaptation.  There were a number of things I liked about the movie better than the comic, but the movie completely fucked over some of the most important aspects of the Comic and made me end up hating it.  I think it really might have ended up being better (and even more believable frankly) if they had stuck with the post apocalyptic setting instead of just saying crazy fascist were able to take control of the government and drastically change hundred year old institutions because of a sickness scare that didn't even effect many people.  With the setting they chose, they weren't able to really recreate the same ending as the comic (and thus the whole point) and we ended up with the shitty god awful ending the movie did have.

[Ingmar]

Watchmen simply can't work story-wise post 9/11, it had to stay set in the 80s. The Cold War is completely essential to the entire thing.

[tazelbain]

Sure you can set a movie in the 80s but you can't set the audience in the 80s.

[Teleku]

....what the hell does that even mean?

[Lakov_Sanite]

Yes, we should never set any movie in a historical setting ever, it's just too hard for audiences to relate to characters and situations that aren't occurring right now. I would even go so far as to say no movie should be watched five years after the making of it, burn all copies so we don't confuse the masses with thoughts and ideas beyond their own personal bubbles.

[HaemishM]

Yes, we should never set any movie in a historical setting ever, it's just too hard for audiences to relate to characters and situations that aren't occurring right now. I would even go so far as to say no movie should be watched five years after the making of it, burn all copies so we don't confuse the masses with thoughts and ideas beyond their own personal bubbles.

Hollywood would love that idea. They already make useless remakes of things barely 20 years old because they have run the fuck out of ideas.

[tazelbain]

....what the hell does that even mean?

It means that if you are making movie based on a dated source better make sure the source is something the modern audiences can relate to.  Watchmen fails at this.

[Yegolev]

Alternatively, Watchmen is for people in their late thirties.

vOv

[WindupAtheist]

The Cold War only ended like 20 years ago. It's not like the movie is about the Civil War. Also, sometimes they make movies about the Civil War.

[Evil Elvis]

Haley is apparently going to be Sinestro.

He's also Freddy Krueger.

[Teleku]

....what the hell does that even mean?

It means that if you are making movie based on a dated source better make sure the source is something the modern audiences can relate to.  Watchmen fails at this.

I don't understand this.  So, no more movies about Ancient Rome because modern audiences don't relate to their lifestyles?  Or is it that there is some magical cut off date where we can't do period pieces too close to present day?  Should they cancel Mad Men because nobody today really associates their life with the corporate chauvinist lifestyle of the 60's?  Or is the line drawn at the 80's?

It was a story about the life of depressed retired hero's in a crazy made up alternate timeline, with the moral question of "Is it OK to kill a million people if it saves a Billion" thrown in.  I just don't see how anybody would relate less to that today than in the 80's.  Or even in 2050 for that matter.

[Venkman]

No. It's about trying to set as a historical event a time period your primary audience lived during. We so clearly remember it, it's only through photographs of stupid hair, leg warmers and Michael J Fox they recognize the changes that have happened since.

We were also weren't so fundamentally different in the 80s than we are today, save some loss of national (and maybe niave) optimism. So what they can get away with on That 70s Show or Mad Men doesn't yet work for the 80s outside of a few edge cases, mostly because it's not long enough ago.

This is the risk of literally translating a source material from a different age. Sorta like New Line's Lord of the Rings vs Tolkien's original writings. Yes, you automatically make allowances for the medium. But there's also a whole bunch of other crap that just doesn't apply because enough cultural changes have happened over a significant spread of time.

The concept of Watchmen works well. Your second paragraph I totally agree with. But that story can be told without the extreme spectacle of comic book page framing on screen.

tl;dr: they literally translated the comic book rather than having harnessed its essence for a modern audience.

In my opinion, of course

[tazelbain]

....what the hell does that even mean?

It means that if you are making movie based on a dated source better make sure the source is something the modern audiences can relate to.  Watchmen fails at this.

I don't understand this.  So, no more movies about Ancient Rome because modern audiences don't relate to their lifestyles?  Or is it that there is some magical cut off date where we can't do period pieces too close to present day?  Should they cancel Mad Men because nobody today really associates their life with the corporate chauvinist lifestyle of the 60's?  Or is the line drawn at the 80's?

It was a story about the life of depressed retired hero's in a crazy made up alternate timeline, with the moral question of "Is it OK to kill a million people if it saves a Billion" thrown in.  I just don't see how anybody would relate less to that today than in the 80's.  Or even in 2050 for that matter.

Let me give a counter example, BSG.  Set in a time none of us lived in but regularly dealt with issues of our time and place.  Terrorism, Occupation, trying maintain ones values while under threat, etc.

[Vision]

Let me give a counter example, BSG.  Set in a time none of us lived in but regularly dealt with issues of our time and place.  Terrorism, Occupation, trying maintain ones values while under threat, etc.

So like The Dark Knight?

[UnSub]

....what the hell does that even mean?

It means that if you are making movie based on a dated source better make sure the source is something the modern audiences can relate to.  Watchmen fails at this.

I don't understand this.  So, no more movies about Ancient Rome because modern audiences don't relate to their lifestyles?  Or is it that there is some magical cut off date where we can't do period pieces too close to present day?  Should they cancel Mad Men because nobody today really associates their life with the corporate chauvinist lifestyle of the 60's?  Or is the line drawn at the 80's?

It was a story about the life of depressed retired hero's in a crazy made up alternate timeline, with the moral question of "Is it OK to kill a million people if it saves a Billion" thrown in.  I just don't see how anybody would relate less to that today than in the 80's.  Or even in 2050 for that matter.

It's because it runs up against the audience remembers. If any of those time travelling Centurions end up watching "Gladiator", they are perfectly open to criticising it.

A big part of "Watchmen" and "Mad Men" is the time they are set in. However, "Mad Men" is often about (from what I've seen) how unhappy the people are in this life and how different it is from our time - it's an approximation of a real era. "Watchmen" doesn't link this in nearly as well. I love the comic, but the film just doesn't work as well and setting it in 1985 dates it. Especially because it isn't real.

It might just be the "Hitchhiker's ..." issue again, where the film came out too long after the novel to have the same kind of impact.

Besides, if the key question ("doing evil for the greater good?") is so timeless, then updating it from 1985 to whatever time isn't a major issue. After all, if Nixon is President in 1985 he can just as feasibly be President in 2008. The Soviet Union could still be around. If you are going to play with alternate history, things can be repositioned very easily.

[Vision]

The whole "necessary evil" theme obvious isn't new, nor are many of the other themes present in Watchmen. What makes Watchmen a classic and extremely well written graphic novel is how it shows the consequences, results, and reasons behind actions that many characters in the real world use to justify their own decisions. It is more about HOW it reveals its underlying theme than what it ends up saying. Although this is the case for almost every story told. I like Mad Men not because it enlightens me to new trains of thought, but because changes how I look at already established themes in a way that impacts me.

[Venkman]

So Watchmen was emo before emo?