V For Vendetta & Watchmen Movie Thread (mostly Watchmen now)

[anephric]

Oh yeah, I agree that's a bad idea - I was just suggesting that there's no way visually they could have got that squid onscreen without evoking guffaws from the audience (it's an ALIEN come to GET US!). Comic book fans are a lot more forgiving of what's on the page than most casual movie goers - all they had to do was get Veidt to invent some nebulous, cataclysmic terrorist threat: I don't see why it has to be Doc Manhattan or what resonance that has, and why Doc would even care if he was a threat, or what mankind in general could even do about it.

[Spatial]

[Dazzyman]

Couldnt ask for a better birthday pressie next year

[Family Fry]

The more I see of this movie the more I just go
This is going to be a crazy cinema experience.
Some new footage mixed with old trailer was shown at 2008 Scream Awards, video is linked here..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GUmgQHvqqc

Click on high quality for best version or...

The end of this new trailer is just a fantastic looking shot, slow mo or not.

[Matt]

The tank bit looks good. But slow-mo? Come on! It's in half the shots! As though the book is too short and they need to slow things down as extra padding...

I'm hoping this comes together still, despite my reservations. Always good to hear the Pumpkins

[Matt]

Oh yeah, I agree that's a bad idea - I was just suggesting that there's no way visually they could have got that squid onscreen without evoking guffaws from the audience (it's an ALIEN come to GET US!). Comic book fans are a lot more forgiving of what's on the page than most casual movie goers - all they had to do was get Veidt to invent some nebulous, cataclysmic terrorist threat: I don't see why it has to be Doc Manhattan or what resonance that has, and why Doc would even care if he was a threat, or what mankind in general could even do about it.

Yeah, Doc as the threat that unites is too immediate, too recognisable as human. If he just packs up and leaves, then the world would quickly go back to their fighting. I can see them copping out and having Doc agree to take the fall, then basically saying to the world, "Peace out or else!". He'd have to play the bad guy afterwards, he'd effectively be the Ruler Of The Earth. That doesn't work for me, he's so removed from humanity that even though his interest has risen a little, ultimately he'd not hang around long. Can't shake the feeling this is all a setup for a sequel. And Ror won't die.

The squid worked because there was nothing recognisable about it. As daft as you may think it would be on screen, something that out there is probably the only thing that may actually unite the world. I'm sure Moore chucked around a few more grounded ideas before coming to the conlusion it needed to be that insane.

Would the audience have laughed at a squid? I don't think so. If they accept a 300 foot naked blue dude, I think they'd go along for the ride. With the amount of carnage it causes, it wouldn't be a scene to laugh at. A great director could have handled that, built the tension up, kept the audience aware that everything is at stake.

[anephric]

It should be noted that in at least one of Hayter's drafts (that Moore said was as close to working onscreen as he thought possible) Nite Owl kills Ozy with Archie (whilst uttering some pithy one-liner).

In that draft, Ozymandias uses a solar laser sort of thing to destroy NY - obviously, they didn't go with that, and I'm slightly mystified as to what Veidt's "new method" is when Snyder said he was originally going to do the alien. Of course, the trouble with any conventional terrorist threat is that, post 9/11, it doesn't work because the world didn't unify behind America, hell yeah.

I still maintain that most audiences will accept one ridiculous "thing"/macguffin in a film - be it time travel, doppelgangers... whatever. So, they might accept Doc Manhattan, but then sticking a great big squidgy squid as the thing that mankind's supposed to be afraid of... just wouldn't cut it - it's sooo B-movie. You're risking being laughed off the screen, and you're already on dangerous ground anyway with a comic book film of this scale that isn't predicated on simple, universal things the non-comic-savvy audience can relate to, like Spidey having teen problems, or Bats being all broody and conflicted, or the X-Men dealing with prejudice.

[Geoff D]

Perhaps they'll just go the whole hog and have

->Open Spoiler<-

Rorschach standing in the snow, giving a speech on how we should all, like, you know, love one another and stuff. Then he takes off his mask and they all hug and go back to Silk Spectre's house for sex play.

[randombs]

The hotly-anticipated Geoff D cut will apparently be on the special 3-disc dvd boxset...

Although I don't think the audience would accept Rory taking his mask off twice, based on anephric's assumption.

I'd imagine the dialogue and those other important things are going to be pretty naff, in which case they wouldn't be enough to convince the audience to suspend their disbelief and not think it a B-movie.

I'm sort of starting to see why Moore put a curse on this lot, though.

[johnno15]

For anyone thats interested Dave Gibbons is at waterstones tonight in Manchester signing his new watchmen book

[randombs]

I found three Watchmen scripts online (incl. Hayter's). Here they are, if anyone wants a gander:

http://www.bilalsheikh.co.uk/watchmen/

FADE IN ON: A LAPEL PIN. Yellow, round, depicting the "Have a nice day" HAPPY FACE. SMOKE rises before the pin.

No. Not smoke... Steam.

[Matt]

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=18583

WATCHMEN ENDINGS
Last week's LITG talked about the different "Watchmen" endings that are being tested. And the one ending that's been seen and reported that has a bombed out New York, but no hyperdimensional alien squid.
I'm told that this screening was intentionally leaked to the fan press - with the exact time and place posted online with details of how to evade the security. The intent is to gauge fan reaction to a squidless ending for Watchmen and see what they can get away with, believing it to be more suitable for a more mainstream audience. The FX for the squid has been completed however.
And the "Watchmen" footage from the Spike TV Scream Awards (and online here on CBR) does appear to show a bombed out New York City sans squid.

Sounds an expensive thing to do, shooting such a different alternative ending. It's not as if it's simply the ending, large segments of the rest of the movie would have to play out differently.

I still say go the alien route

[Spatial]

Do I see Manhattan's wanger there?

[anephric]

Do you think they scanned in Billy Crudup's old chap like they did Nic Cage's skull for Ghost Rider? Excellent. R-rated blue balls ahoy.

I'll eat my dingleman if they go with the squid ending for theatrical, although if they're filming all this stuff anyway (like the Black Freighter) it'll be a wet dream come DVD time - squiddle me do.

[Matt]

Pah to the DVD, bring on the BR!

I didn't notice the Blue Wang, TBH I was more looking at the nuked New York and wondering if they'd be able to use the same shot with the squid, given the background is bound to be green screen and the foreground I'd imagine an actual set.

Look, there's just no way they'll have him full frontal in the final film. This is America. You can show people being chopped up in to a hundred million little pieces but anything to do with sex gets a hard time with the MPAA. I agree it's ridiculous, but that's for another thread.

If they're worried about the hard sell with the alien, how would they get Joe Public to pay to see Doc Blue Balls? Unless that's the marketing pitch?

Knowing the Black Freighter is coming to the DVD/BR, without the alien for that edition, it would lose a lot. I'm crossing my fingers the studio has seen how upset the fans are by the alien going and will reinstate it in the final film. Apparently all the effects work on that is done.