Film Club Meeting #7: Watchmen
11 2019-07-28 by Mrtheliger
Before I selected this film for our club and called together this meeting, I began reading Watchmen for the first time in almost 15 years. The gripping story and gritty, but not too gritty, characters gripped me just like they did as a younger lad. Mind you, I remembered the story beats, the themes, etc. But I'd forgotten just how bleak and depressing the story was. How it leaves no hope, and the self hatred it had for itself. This made me remember the movie, and how stark the contrast between them is
Watchmen is a film by, in my opinion, visionary director Zach Snyder. It is a pure vision from someone who either had no understanding of the source, or knew he could never do the source Justice if he followed it exactly. In fact I think the world will never know as his responses to questions related to this are always slightly veiled and you can't tell what he really means unless you've already made up your mind about it.
Watchmen stars Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian, Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, and Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II. Big cast I know, but it balances them all well. I personally don't think there is a bad or average performance from the main cast, but Haley and Morgan give the best performances.
Now that I've gushed and ranted some, haha, let's get into the actual movie. Going back to earlier, as I said, I began reading Watchmen again. But as I remembered and fully realized the differences between book and film, I thought it might be a good idea to hold this meeting before I finished the book. Just to keep them separate if you get what I mean. I want to appreciate the movie for what it is and the book for what it is, only intersecting the two when I'm talking about both
The opening credits of Watchmen are some of the best in a film ever to me. They tell a great prologue, introduce the original team, and are stylized in an awesome way. I'm honestly kind of a sucker for a good opening credits scene. I have already gone on for far too long so I'll only focus on my absolute favorite parts for specifics
Let's talk about how the movie portrays itself. Very stylized, gratuitous, and seemingly reveling in every moment of itself. It's a movie that takes a dark plot and has fun with it while still being able to throw its weight around with heavy moments. It's a kind of celebration of comics, specifically the overly edgy 90s era. Yes I know this is not what was intended, but friends, I implore you to have an open mind. The action sequences are great, overall, and very unique, which makes them rather unforgettable
Before I finish, let's talk about a couple of my favorite scenes. First, Dr. Manhattan's interview. You can feel his stress building each moment that passes, the buildup is great, the dialogue is grand, and the catharsis of it.. mm mm mmm it's something. Crudup's delivery as he vanishes an entire room of people is tremendous. Second the turn of Dr. Manhattan. Veidt/Ozymandias was a fairly obvious turn for me, ignoring what I already knew. While I don't think that was intended, I do fully believe Snyder wanted Manhattan's turn to mean more and have more impact, which he succeeded in. Vaporizing Rorschach as he did was shocking and seemingly just disgusting, and Wilson's grief and dismay as Nite Owl is felt. Just an absolutely glorious and heartbreaking scene, after all hope had already been lost just moments before
I believe I'll stop here. Let's hear your thoughts on the film! Do you enjoy both it and the comic? If only one or the other, why? Do you believe Snyder intended its strong departure from the comics, or that he just misunderstood something he calls one of his favorite books? If you saw the film before the book, how did you like it then?
30 comments
1 Mrtheliger 2019-07-28
As always, any requests for our next movie can be commented under this one. Thank you everyone for coming!
1 OverSocialization 2019-07-28
Adaptation
Best Nic Cage movie ever and one of the best movies ever.
1 Mrtheliger 2019-07-28
I will look into it! I haven't seen it before so I'd definitely have to check it out beforehand
1 MasterLawlz 2019-07-28
bruh did you see Mandy lol
1 OverSocialization 2019-07-28
I did
Crazy ass movie
1 TheRootinTootinPutin 2019-07-28
Dredd (2012), if we're still taking gritty cape(?)shit
1 Mrtheliger 2019-07-28
We're covering anything and everything!
1 MasterLawlz 2019-07-28
I don't think Dredd was a superhero movie. It was more like an 80's Cyperpunk movie.
1 ironicshitpostr 2019-07-28
Pink Flamingos
1 gunowner63 2019-07-28
The Thing (1982)
1 femroot 2019-07-28
I don't know which of these is your kinda thing but a serious man (2009), blockers (2018), widows (2018) or just any other superhero type movie you like
1 Stoicpeace 2019-07-28
A good movie dragged down by Snyder's usual shortcomings like terrible performances, often bad music choices and turgid pacing.
You can praise them for smartly abridging the overall plot while remaining as close to the comic as possible.
This change was unnecessary and dilutes Manhattan's character as well as Nite Owl.
1 Mrtheliger 2019-07-28
Which performances did you dislike?
Hmm I would disagree about it diluting their characters in the film. Nite Owl is definitely portrayed as nostalgic and sentimental the entire movie, having truly missed his days with Rorschach. On the other end, Manhattan is most definitely more of a villain figure the longer the movie goes, and killing Rorschach cements him as such
1 MasterLawlz 2019-07-28
At least in the comic, I always thought of Manhattan as morally neutral. He had been a god for so long that he lost almost all connection with humanity and our problems were irrelevant to him. So he wasn't on the good or bad side because he mostly just did not care.
1 Stoicpeace 2019-07-28
You're right though I would say he cares about humanity's survival(in the sense you would care for your ant-farm's survival), he just doesn't want to get caught up in our relationships and other issues which he now feels are petty.
So at one point killing Rorschach who is a long time collegue might have been a moral dilemma for Manhattan but by the end it feels like a minor thing to him.
1 Stoicpeace 2019-07-28
Silk spectre and Ozzy.
It's not about Manhattan killing him, it's about how dramatic and emotional the scene was. In the comic Nite owl didn't care enough about Rorschach to even follow him and Manhattan doesn't seem hesitant and doesn't make an attempt to reason with him.
Rorschach acts as if he is presenting Manhattan with some difficult choice but at that point Manhattan's persepctive of the world is in line with God like powers and status. To him killing Rorschach at that point is a minor insignificant thing and is treated as such.
1 Dramautist 2019-07-28
I like fat blue swinging dick.
1 Mrtheliger 2019-07-28
Then this was definitely the movie for you, friend!
1 MasterLawlz 2019-07-28
Watchmen fans are unironically really irrational when they criticize this movie. They hone in on the few details Snyder got wrong while ignoring the fact that he adapted the other 95% of the movie really well and with a lot more care than most other directors would have. I guarantee that the novel could have been fucked up WAYYYYYYYYYY more. The main issues I had was that the casting of Ozymandias felt off and it sucked not having the moment where Ozy asks Manhattan if his actions will actually be permanent.
I still think the movie is great though and it's the only Snyder film I'll defend because his later DC movies weren't anywhere near as good. I would like even the most hardcore Watchmen fan to tell me that the birth of Dr. Manhattan and the Death of Nite Owl weren't great scenes.
1 Mrtheliger 2019-07-28
I agree even though I understand where they're coming from and can sympathize. It's a very bad adaptation in arguably the most important ways, the underlying themes and subtext in general, but the literal parts of it are astounding. But I think they are definitely unfair because when you separate it from the novel it's just a very good movie with a simpler narrative
Do agree on the Ozy casting overall, although I think he did well even though it was a miscast. I bought into him
1 AnnoysTheGoys 2019-07-28
Staying so close to the source material was it's biggest weakness tbqh
1 MasterLawlz 2019-07-28
Damned if you do, damned if you don't in this situation. Watchmen is the most popular graphic novel of all time so drastic changes would have gotten just as much, if not more backlash. I still think it's impressive how much ground he was able to cover in three hours without it feeling super rushed. Yeah, stuff got glossed over but they still got the gist pretty well.
1 AnnoysTheGoys 2019-07-28
That's exactly my point, it was just a fan service jerk-off playing it safe.
1 MasterLawlz 2019-07-28
Nah, he still changed the ending so it's not like he was a slave to the material. But if the dude was adapting the book then clearly he had a lot of love for it so he probably wouldn't have wanted to make changes unless it was absolutely necessary. Watchmen is probably the only film adaptation I've seen get criticized for being too accurate to the source material.
The truth is that the book was way too popular for an adaptation to ever please everyone, especially not comic fans. I still think the movie we got was one of the best-case scenarios.
1 Ebony_Eagle 2019-07-28
Visually good but some casting is wrong and Snyder clearly didn't get the comic whatsoever, every change they make is worse (aside from not doing that pirate comic).
I'd like to move past just comparing it to the comic, but I really can't see past it. The ending of the film makes so many changes, an unknown threat vs a known, we never know any of the civilians really, former foreshadowing that was kept is now meaningless, Manhattan's freedom is removed and by cutting his final conversation you remove lots of character depth for Veidt as well as one of the best conversations there. Things like the way the comic presents time, the symmetrical issues and the notes aren't something that could have been adapted in a film either.
If anybody hasn't read the comic I would recommend reading it.
1 MasterLawlz 2019-07-28
I think the ending makes Manhattan's story more tragic and interesting. It was kind of a Lex Luthor move because while he could not defeat Manhattan physically, he defeated him in every other way because he ruined his reputation.
1 cjsavage10 2019-07-28
was a cool movie i liked when ink man died.
1 Mrtheliger 2019-07-28
Truly, that was a captivating scene!
1 [deleted] 2019-07-28
[removed]
1 searingsky 2019-07-28
best superhero movie dont @ me