OK I'm seeing like one or two threads on Watchmen but they're all a year old, so I didn't feel the need to bring one back from the dead.

Anyway I rented Watchmen: Director's Cut the other night via iTunes and honestly, I thought it was awesome. In fact, I've put it up there in my top ten list of favorite comic book movies. I'm very surprised that the movie did so badly, but then again, the movie in the theaters wasn't the director's cut, so maybe that made a difference.

The movie was unique among all the fake cornball action you see in comic movies nowadays. It was a brutally honest mystery movie (definitely not for kiddies--boobs and wangs and dismembered fingers, oh my!). What I also liked about it was that none of the characters (except for one) have super powers--they're just costumed vigilantes trying to make a difference. It was a fresh perspective on heroes, and I appreciated that.

...Plus the music rocked. Good stuff like Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and Billie Holiday. I especially loved the opening credit montage scene; it was very well done.

Has anyone else seen the Director's Cut? What did they cut out of the theater version (I'm guessing the sex scene, for one)? What are your opinions on this movie?

The book was still better.

Wait, only Dr. Manhattan has real super powers? SERIOUSLY??
Holy crap, now I might want to read Watchmen...

What could the director's cut have that the movie didn't? More superfluous violence? An additional awkward sex scene? The Watchmen movie was already a monument to excess and lack of restraint, so I can't imagine what they'll do to it when the director can add whatever he wants.

(shrug) I liked it....I must be in the minority on this one.

No, it was a perfectly fine movie. It's just vogue to criticize it.

kingofsnake
No, it was a perfectly fine movie. It's just vogue to criticize it.

It's vogue to criticise it because it was crap.

Nah. People on the internet are notorious for not being able to differentiate gray area. Everything is either awesome or crap and there's nothing in between.

Watchmen wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. It was fine. It got a 64 on Rotten Tomatoes and a 57 on Metacritic. That seems about right to me.

I misspoke. I meant to say it's vogue for fanboys to criticize it. Critics mostly gave it a mixed bag.

lastcall
(shrug) I liked it....I must be in the minority on this one.

Don't get me wrong, I mostly enjoyed the movie. My main point I was making is that director's cuts are usually a version of the movie that include the most extreme material because the director was now able to release the movie the way he wanted it. But the the original theatrical release seemed to not hold back on anything, so I'm wondering what more could be added or changed for the director's cut.

I'd actually like to see them remove things. I've been watching a lot of Hitchcock lately and noting that subtlety and implied violence can have a greater impact than showing us every bone-cracking or hatchet-chopping... if done right.

kingofsnake
People on the internet are notorious for not being able to differentiate gray area. Everything is either awesome or crap and there's nothing in between.

That is very much true of people on the internet. Everything's either "epic win" or "epic fail", and that's unfair to a lot movies, books, games, and more.

Movie > Book

I like Moore and all but that book was fuck awful. There is nothing intersting about a big blue baby and his floppy wang brooding in space. Purists be damned, the movie basically took all the good parts of the book and made them better while toning down all the BS that was important yet plodding.

fake edit: I was trying to find a word to sum up that whole Dr.Wang thing while avoid outright calling it "boring as shit", but you know what its boring as shit.

I'm very surprised that the movie did so badly, but then again, the movie in the theaters wasn't the director's cut, so maybe that made a difference.

The diredctor's cut really doesn't change that much. The issues people had are still there.

Wait, only Dr. Manhattan has real super powers? SERIOUSLY??

You wouldn't know it watching the movie.

Purists be damned, the movie basically took all the good parts of the book and made them better while toning down all the BS that was important yet plodding.

Don't forget they also added an ending that didn't make any sense and threw in a few plot holes and cliches that weren't in the book for good measure.

I didn't really care for the movie. It wasn't terrible, but I wasn't really impressed with it. However, I think someone should be fired for casting Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, as he does not fit the role at all.

isukun
Don't forget they also added an ending that didn't make any sense and threw in a few plot holes and cliches that weren't in the book for good measure.

Somehow making everyone think that a man who is practically a god is an easily upset douche who spreads cancer and then suggesting he might have snapped and blew up a fuckload of people makes less sense than a giant squid?

Rich
Somehow making everyone think that a man who is practically a god is an easily upset douche who spreads cancer and then suggesting he might have snapped and blew up a fuckload of people makes less sense than a giant squid?

Yes, the giant space squid is an unknown entity. Humanity don't know what it's capable of, or what the species who might have sent it capable of. So it makes more sense than trying to unite against a man who can turn the planet to dust with a thought.

Also, the squid isn't real, so they'll never actually have to deal with an invasion, unlike Doctor Manhattan.

What makes the least sense to me is that Dr. Manhattan was an American weapon, created out of American technology. We allowed such a weapon to get out of hand, but it doesn't remove the stigma of who created that weapon or the fact that such a weapon COULD quite easily be recreated. Such a threat didn't bring about peace on Earth in the post WWII era, why would it in this case?

As was previously stated, the squid creature was an unknown creature of unknown origins and unknown intentions. There is no clear way to prepare for such a threat, nor any nation to blame for its creation.

isukun
What makes the least sense to me is that Dr. Manhattan was an American weapon, created out of American technology. We allowed such a weapon to get out of hand, but it doesn't remove the stigma of who created that weapon or the fact that such a weapon COULD quite easily be recreated. Such a threat didn't bring about peace on Earth in the post WWII era, why would it in this case?

Except for the fact that Dr. Manhattan wasn't a weapon at all and was in fact just a man with near endless power. If creating him was so easy they'd likely have done it again, and to everyone's knowledge, he was busy doing peaceful things, thus posed little direct threat to anyone as far as they knew.

As was previously stated, the squid creature was an unknown creature of unknown origins and unknown intentions. There is no clear way to prepare for such a threat, nor any nation to blame for its creation.

The squid also would eventually become a non-issue down the line once everyone has realized it's not going to be around again. Dr Manhattan would not.

Rich
The squid also would eventually become a non-issue down the line once everyone has realized it's not going to be around again. Dr Manhattan would not.

Yes he would, once people realised he wasn't actually doing anything.

Besides, Dr Manhattan can see all points in time at once. If he thinks it'll work, then it almost certainly will.

Dr. Manhattan was quite emo, I must admit. The only thing that wasn't emo about him was his enormous blue wang. ...Because everyone knows that emos have no wangs at all. lol!

That's another problem I had with the film. Mention it to anyone now and the response you're likely to get is 'HURR HURR BIG BLUE WANG HURR HURR'

Not that I'm accusing you of that, lastcall, your post just reminded me of it.

I saw the movie before reading the comic(yeah, I know, shame on me), and even tho I wasn't particularly fond of the ending in the movie, I thought the idea of the squid was quite ridiculous at first. Now I think both are kinda equal, even though it's still hard to imagine the squid without smiling.

The violence was extreme, but I didn't think it was necessarily too much. It was too much for a pg-13. I also agree that the actor in the role of Ozymandias could have fit better.

And one last thing:

I'm not particularly promoting men nudity in movies, but why does it matter so much to see Dr. Manhattan penis in some scenes? I mean, it's not like there were close-ups on it and that it would be there all time. Many people seemed to only remember "a big disgusting dick" when asked about the movie. It's just a penis...

demontales
I'm not particularly promoting men nudity in movies, but why does it matter so much to see Dr. Manhattan penis in some scenes? I mean, it's not like there were close-ups on it and that it would be there all time. Many people seemed to only remember "a big disgusting dick" when asked about the movie. It's just a penis...

Human beings seems to always have a fascination with anything sexual, whether they will admit it or not. Personally, Fat Man's little boy was far more noticeable in the comic than the movie, and I wasn't really looking for it in either.

They're just gay for Dr. Manhattan. EVERYONE is.

elektro
Human beings seems to always have a fascination with anything sexual, whether they will admit it or not. Personally, Fat Man's little boy was far more noticeable in the comic than the movie, and I wasn't really looking for it in either.

QUICK. i need that photo of fry with squinty eyes "i see what you did there"
----------------


i enjoyed the movie, the directors cut just added a violent scene or two. and extended the movie to 3 hours.

my wife did not enjoy the movie. but was entranced by the penis, since it's rare to see a penis outside of a comedy, where they're normally out numbered by 1:300 pairs of breasts.

Custard Trout
'HURR HURR BIG BLUE WANG HURR HURR'

Mine's more a purpley hue... as you're well aware.

seventy2
my wife did not enjoy the movie. but was entranced by the penis

A big swinging... That would be an entertaining way to hypnotize her.

Quick, get your kit off!

Except for the fact that Dr. Manhattan wasn't a weapon at all and was in fact just a man with near endless power.

Except that he was. That's exactly how he was protrayed in both the book and the movie, as an American weapon.

he was busy doing peaceful things, thus posed little direct threat to anyone as far as they knew

Yeah, like dismantling tanks and killing Vietnamese. HE TOOK PART IN WARS. That's not doing peaceful things and posing little threat to anyone. He was housed by the military for a reason and he was supposed to be the single element that kept the commies in check during that alternate version of the cold war.

The squid also would eventually become a non-issue down the line once everyone has realized it's not going to be around again. Dr Manhattan would not.

How do you figure? Nothing was known of the squid apart from what people could discover studying the single corpse available to them. There could be more of the same kind of creature, maybe even more powerful creatures. What it did was throw into everybody's face that there were more powerful forces out there that the world needed to unite against. People had no idea where it came from, why, or even how it got there. It could have been the forerunner for a race that would invade 100 years down the line, and the nature of the threat was totally unknown. Who knows what quantity or of what nature the next threat would be? That's a threat that would really require global cooperation. We would be fighting as a species.

With Dr. Manhattan, the basic principles were understood and he was not a threat that necessitated global cooperation. People knew what he was capable of. Quite frankly, if there were anybody they would consider a non-issue, it would be him. He abandoned the planet, he didn't make himself an overlord. Plus, the offenses against him were perpetrated by the US, not the world, and in the movie, his revenge was against the US. What reason would he have for coming back again and what reason would the world have to help us out of our own mess? If anything, an event of that kind would more than likely trigger World War III, not bring about world peace.

lastcall
(shrug) I liked it....I must be in the minority on this one.

Join the club!

I haven't seen the Director's Cut yet but I thought even the cinema version was pretty good. It was never going to be able to live up to the hype but, as I said in a thread here at the time, I think its reputation will grow with age.

Bladerunner was hated by both critics and scifi fans alike when it was first released but has since become acknowledged as one of the finest pieces of cinema in the scifi genre (some would say in any genre!) It suffered at the time largely because it wasn't another Star Wars and I suspect the same is probably true of Watchmen. It's not that it was a bad movie, it's just that it had to suffer unfair and inappropriate comparison with the likes of Spider-Man and X Men which had preceded it.

Then, of course, there are the fans of the book. Some were prepared to hate it even before they'd seen it (because Mr Moore told them they should!); some hated it because it couldn't capture every last nuance within the book; and others hated it because it dared to try. Personally, I think its true worth will only become clear when people have some more distance from all the hype that was inevitably going to surround a project like this.

Until then I'm holding to my opinion that, whilst it had a few flaws, it was still a pretty good attempt at making an intelligent superhero movie and may eventually come to be seen as so much more!

Bladerunner was hated by both critics and scifi fans alike when it was first released but has since become acknowledged as one of the finest pieces of cinema in the scifi genre

Bladerunner did poorly in it's initial release for two reasons. One was because it was released alongside a number of other heavy hitting scifi films like E.T. and Star Trek II. The other was due to the rather lackluster quality of the initial version. Many reviewers hated the initial release because the pacing was poor and the advertising campaign for the movie was misleading. Most changed their minds after the release of the director's cut, which offered a significantly different experience from the original.

I doubt Watchmen will be following in those footsteps. The director's cut doesn't really change anything or fix any of the issues critics had. Plus, despite the more complex source material and underlying storyline, the movie is far too cornball for anyone to really take it that seriously. The unrealistic violence and gratuitous sex and nudity really don't help to establish the film as a sophisticated scifi epic, either.

isukun
Many reviewers hated the initial release because the pacing was poor and the advertising campaign for the movie was misleading. Most changed their minds after the release of the director's cut, which offered a significantly different experience from the original.

I disagree with that. Bladerunner's reputation had grown even before the Director's Cut was released. Like Citizen Kane, The Wizard of Oz, The Shawshank Redemption and many, many others, it was just one of those films that people didn't take to on initial release. In none of those cases, has the critics' initial complaints been addressed through the release of a "dirctor's cut" and yet they have all come to be regarded as classics.

That may or may not happen with Watchmen (I'm certainly not saying it definitely will!) but I do believe that a lot of the negative reaction to it has nothing really to do with the quality of the film itself. Only time will tell!

DAJB
I do believe that a lot of the negative reaction to it has nothing really to do with the quality of the film itself.

I agree with this statement. I didn't read the book, so I was able to go into the movie without expectations and found it enjoyable. Not perfect mind you, but enjoyable. I'm luke warm on the whole thing really.

I did know about the ending from the book though, and honestly, it sounds crazy to me, while the movie ending made sense.

isukun
Plus, the offenses against him were perpetrated by the US, not the world, and in the movie, his revenge was against the US. What reason would he have for coming back again and what reason would the world have to help us out of our own mess? If anything, an event of that kind would more than likely trigger World War III, not bring about world peace.

he felt that he was no longer human, and so people could construe that as he has a vendetta against them.

also, the bombs went off in every major city around the world.