Watchmen 4: Who watches the watchmen? Fox... [Archive]

Bells

12-29-2008, 04:42 PM

An attorney for 20th Century Fox says the studio will continue to seek an order delaying the release of 'Watchmen.'

U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess last week agreed with Fox that Warner Bros. had infringed its copyright by developing and shooting the superhero flick, scheduled for release March 6.

Feess said Monday he plans to hold a trial Jan. 20 to decide remaining issues.

Fox claims it never fully relinquished story rights from its deal made in the late 1980s, and sued Warner Bros. in February. Warner Bros. contended Fox isn't entitled to distribution.

Warner Bros.' attorney said Monday he didn't know if an
Other Entertainment Photos
Fox says it will try to stop 'Watchmen'
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appeal was coming, but thinks a trial is necessary and a settlement unlikely.

Jeff Jensen over at Entertainment Weekly recently analyzed the court ruling over The Watchmen. He stated that it is very clear that Fox owns the rights to everything!

Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the Watchmen motion picture," Judge Gary Allen Feess said according to Variety.

“In his ruling, Feess concludes that Gordon never properly presented Fox with the option to produce and distribute the version of Watchmen developed by director Zack Snyder,” Jensen wrote.

“He also makes it clear that neither Gordon nor Warner Bros. had bought out Fox’s interest before Warner Bros. went into production. Indeed, Feess’s ruling includes a rather sarcastic footnote blasting Gordon for his conduct in resolving this dispute. In section 3, Feess remarks that during Gordon’s deposition, the producer claimed he couldn’t properly recollect his contract with Fox.”

I'm sorry... but what a bumbling jack ass!

Jensen notes that the summary judgment, which had been requested by both studios on December 16th, “should be seen as an important move that really benefits all of Hollywood, as it affirms copyright laws that protect all studios. Fox deserves a break on Watchmen; according to Feess, their beef with Warner Bros. has always been legit.”

The court date is still set for January 20th(Me and My Wife's 3 Year Anniversary!), and those bastards are going to make me be distracted on that special date! The release date for the movie is still March 6th... Untl it is changed to Neverary 33rd.-saintc

According to a New York Times article, Fox's Watchmen lawsuit came to an abrupt end on December 24, 2008.

After initially denying a motion to rule in Fox's favor before trial, the federal court judge in the case reversed and ruled that:

Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the ‘Watchmen’ motion picture.

In essence, the judge has found that producer Lawrence Gordon's grant of distribution rights in Watchmen to Warner Brothers was invalid and in violation of Gordon's agreement with Fox.

Warner Brothers now has limited options if it wants to ensure the March 6, 2009 of the Watchmen movie. The quickest path to maintaining the release schedule is through a quick settlement, which would undoubtedly give Fox an interest in the film's future profits and reimburse Fox's development costs.

If no settlement is reached, it is entirely possible that the judge may impose remedies requested by Fox, including an injunction against the releasing of the film at all.

If, on the other hand, Warner Brothers chooses to appeal the ruling, a delay in the March 6, 2009 release is highly likely. Appealing a final judgment is a lengthy process that could potentially extend this case for longer than a trial.

Thanks to Rodney Perkins of Film Esq. for help in writing this article. For more information about the Watchmen lawsuit and other Hollywood legal cases, please visit Rodney's Web site at www.filmesq.com.

Forget about Watchmen folks.... it aint coming out soon

Meister

12-29-2008, 04:46 PM

From the trailers and just about everything I've read Watchmen looks like a good movie and Snyder seems like a guy who has the right idea about making the book into a movie, but if it had never been made or never came out I wouldn't mind at all.

Mirai Gen

12-29-2008, 04:53 PM

Respectfully disagree. It seems like a common thought is that the movie's ending completely screws over the whole movie but honestly they seem to be doing everything else right and I'd love to see it.

When you get right down to it yes the ending seems a really odd but maybe the execution will change my mind (as it often does with me).

Corel

12-29-2008, 05:24 PM

Bells

12-29-2008, 05:27 PM

There is a good chance fox dosent WANT to release it. if they did release a movie that Warner made (regardless of whatever) warner is simply going to sue over the profits for the movie... if fox wants the Watchmen franchise, they would probably have to realease their own work, unless they want a new battle over this to start...

other than that... we have Fox's Chun-li movie....

Meister

12-29-2008, 05:31 PM

I'm usually a big stickler for authenticity but I don't even mind the prospect of a changed ending that much. I'd certainly watch it in the theater on day one, too, and I'm sure I'd greatly enjoy it; it's just I'd much rather just keep reading my book, lending it to people and, yes, talking to people about it without having to first clarify which version the conversation is about.

Either way: this film is completely finished, right? Someone's gonna leak it.

Tev

12-29-2008, 05:33 PM

Well if Fox stops it from being released at all then it succeedes in punching WB in the face for the hundred million plus dollars that went into making the movie that now won't get shown.

If they let it get released then they'll nab some proffit from the film and stick WB with all the costs for the legal issues.....and let it be known that they were right and everyone should tread lightly, cross all their t's and dot all their i's from now on or else.

So yeah, it just boils down to what would make Fox happier.

Either way: this film is completely finished, right? Someone's gonna leak it.
That would just about be the coolest punch in the balls the WB could do. Just leak it to the internet and let Fox scurry around trying to stop it's spread to fans everywhere.

Kaneda

12-29-2008, 05:47 PM

I don't quite see why a settlement is so unlikely at this point. Obviously things are notably worse, but why exactly is the general consensus "IT WILL COME OUT FOREVER FROM NOW"?

Smarty McBarrelpants

12-29-2008, 06:16 PM

They'll probably be a settlement with WB giving Fox a share of the profits. That should be better for WB than just throwing away all thier work.

Bells

12-29-2008, 06:18 PM

as it seems, things like they are now, the group that makes the wrong move can loose quite a few millions... so untill one group is 100% secure that the other is fucked, they will stall this and leave it in court...

If Fox gets the full rights to the movie they can make a LOT of cash over Warner's work. But if Warner gets it back, they can easily fuckup Fox for all the trouble they caused

They are basicly seeing who gets tired and gives up first... and since the movie was schedule for March, it can easily get pushed back to June over this

Masked Jedi

12-29-2008, 07:11 PM

Except June will be bad, because it'll place it in direct competition with Wolverine.

Edit: Which Fox is releasing.

If Fox can keep this from being released, they'll own the only major superhero movie to be released in 2009.

It's brilliant.

TheSparrow

12-29-2008, 07:30 PM

Would anyone be knowledgeable on the major releases Fox Studios will be doing this year? I expect they will slot this in not against their major films this year and put it in for holidays or rival movie releases for maximum business effect.

Mm, it's a shame how this whole escapade went down. I was quite looking forward to it's release; with or without Doc Oc.

Hmmm Fox's Wolverine comes out a week before Watchmen is supposed to come out. What are the chances they will allow Watchmen to come out against what will probably be their only money maker of the year?

Either way: this film is completely finished, right? Someone's gonna leak it.

If I was an exec for WB and Fox managed to get the movie shelved, damn right it would get leaked. In high quality too. Just make everyone more pissed at Fox. Good business, that. :P

Fifthfiend

12-29-2008, 08:11 PM

That would just about be the coolest punch in the balls the WB could do. Just leak it to the internet and let Fox scurry around trying to stop it's spread to fans everywhere.

See, this is the kind of thing that 'Fox is evil WB is our pal' thinking leads you to. Why on earth is Warner Brother going to flush what little value it might recoup from this debacle down a drain by deliberately giving away its own movie for free, and why on Earth would Fox care? Warner Bros. is not your ultimate Superfan buddy on a mission to fill your life with Watchmensy goodness no matter what the cost, with the evil Movie Fox standing in their way. They are trying to extract money from your pocket and put it into their bank account and are using Watchmen as a vehicle for doing that. They do not care whether you ever get to see their movie, unless they are getting paid cash money for you to have the priviledge of doing so.

Mirai Gen

12-29-2008, 08:17 PM

Yeah as much as I love to hate on Fox I really don't see their fault in this whole thing, they legitimately had the rights and Warner Brothers didn't. The most I can hope is that WB owns up and is like okay, sorry, our bad, and cuts them a sliver of the profit because honestly this is a goldmine regardless of how many people hate it.

Kaneda

12-29-2008, 08:26 PM

If I was an exec for WB and Fox managed to get the movie shelved, damn right it would get leaked. In high quality too. Just make everyone more pissed at Fox. Good business, that. :P

It won't get shelved though. At least 120 million dollars were spent on the movie and there's no way WB is going to let themselves just lose all of that.

Lawrence Gordon's career has probably been deservingly assfucked by all this, but aside from that I'd imagine a lot of the wrong people will be negatively effected by this. The people who actually put work into the movie, and we the consumer. I'd like to say it's primarily the copyright system's fault, but WB shouldn't have messed up to this extent.

TheSparrow

12-29-2008, 09:09 PM

It won't get shelved though. At least 120 million dollars were spent on the movie and there's no way WB is going to let themselves just lose all of that.

Lawrence Gordon's career has probably been deservingly assfucked by all this, but aside from that I'd imagine a lot of the wrong people will be negatively effected by this. The people who actually put work into the movie, and we the consumer. I'd like to say it's primarily the copyright system's fault, but WB shouldn't have messed up to this extent.

I assume it will come out, but I was saying if Fox DOES get it shelved, that would be the appropriate asinine response to that asinine action.

People who's fault this is and why:

1. The Copyright Laws, and by connection the industries (movies and music) who make these often asinine laws.
2. Lawrence Gordon - What the hell was he thinking
3. Fox legal department, for their late actions. Cmon, they new what was going on and didnt act till the last minute. Gordon rather publicly shopped that around for 15 years and they watched it.
4. WB Legal Department for not checking into Gordon's ownership beforehand. And also for dismissing Fox's (apparently verbal) claims that they had a right to the movie. They basically assumed Fox didnt know what they were talking about...

...and after watching Babylon A.D. and Eragon, there was plenty of evidence to back that up :p

Lumenskir

12-30-2008, 02:34 AM

So I'm taking a Script Writing class this semester, and my teacher gave us a shit ton of screenplays for reference, and the Watchmen script was one of them.

Can anyone tell me how the "3 hour movie" thing makes any sense with a 122-page script? With a page=minute conversion, that's roughly 58 minutes of slo-mo.

Smarty McBarrelpants

12-30-2008, 02:37 AM

Wait, you have the actual script of the movie coming out?

Lumenskir

12-30-2008, 02:40 AM

I believe so. It says it's written by Alex Tse, and I checked the ending and it's all about This Dr. Manhattan guy exploding a bunch of big name cities.

EDIT: Ok, finished reading the entire thing (hello 3 extra credit points) and if this is the real, working script (and seeing as the other scripts he gave us for work reference match up with the movies I've seen, it might be), I'm going to try and harness the frothing anger that follows in order to power a hate-fueled death ray.

RESEARCH EDIT: Wait, I think I have Tse's 2006/7 script, as it has the changed ending but was set mostly in the 'present', whereas I think the current film is in '85? I dunno, apparently the ending I have is still a lot like Hayter's was, so if the trend continued in the rewrites, the death ray might still be a go.

Kaneda

12-30-2008, 03:29 AM

I assume a death ray of sorts would be what they use, seeing as the squid is out. I think one of the sort of early Tse drafts has Veidt dying, which might be the one you have.

Fifthfiend

12-30-2008, 03:57 PM

And also for dismissing Fox's (apparently verbal) claims

If by 'verbal' you mean 'written down in a letter, which at no point Warner Bros. contests having received, which was sent to them in the summer of 2007', then yes.

Kaneda

12-31-2008, 12:32 AM

On a slightly more upbeat note there's a little featurette of sorts (http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=48917596) out. Mostly just Snyder talking about everything anyone who read the graphic novel already knows, but there are some very nice new clips.

TheWolf13

12-31-2008, 11:25 AM

I think he meant verbal in the fact that Fox didn't provide any legal paperwork. Honestly Gordon is an idiot for agreeing to the original deal in the first place. Having to allow Fox the chance to jump on board any time a major change is made. What studio would knowingly develop a movie that another studio could sweep in and grab at just about any minute. I am assuming that WB's story is true and they were assuming that Gordon had full rights like he told them. I don't see how Gordon doesn't deserve the lion's share of the blame here. Trying to rip off one studio and lying to another.

Corel

01-01-2009, 02:14 PM

Here be Zack Snyder talking about the film and the characters (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/video/index.jsp), now with some newer scenes appearing.

NonCon

01-01-2009, 02:24 PM

Why do you taunt me with more scenes? It looks so good. So very good. Even if it isn't a true satire of superhero movies in the same sense that Watchmen was a satire of superhero comics, it still looks like a good movie in its own right and I want to watch it.

Khael!

01-01-2009, 03:05 PM

Ahh, they can't stop it from happening. It'll hit theatres regardless of whether the timing costs people money, whether it's March or later. I will get to see it and it will be good.

And if it isn't good? Well, harsh criticisms aside, I don't have high standards for entertainment. The cast they've picked looks great, the effects and style looks fantastic. If the story completely fails to be like the original I might be a bit disappointed, but since I own the novel it's not like the original story's going away. Plus special effects are always fun no matter what.

Mirai Gen

01-01-2009, 03:10 PM

EDIT: Ok, finished reading the entire thing (hello 3 extra credit points) and if this is the real, working script (and seeing as the other scripts he gave us for work reference match up with the movies I've seen, it might be), I'm going to try and harness the frothing anger that follows in order to power a hate-fueled death ray.
That bad huh?

Invisible Queen

01-02-2009, 05:56 AM

... since I own the novel it's not like the original story's going away.
It's nice to see someone besides myself say that.

On topic, yeah, it looks like WB have been really stupid. But Fox are still evil for capitalizing on their stupidity. :<

Solid Snake

01-02-2009, 12:47 PM

If the story completely fails to be like the original I might be a bit disappointed, but since I own the novel it's not like the original story's going away.

You see I'm going to completely disagree with this if only because my perception of novels has been subtly yet decidedly altered by watching their movie adaptations.

For example, as much as I love the LOTR movies? I mean, I really love them, probably my favorite movie trilogy of all time. As awesome as they are? I can't escape a certain sense of nostalgic sadness upon reflecting at the fact that the movies altered my perceptions of the characters. I mean while reading the novel I used to imagine my own ideas as to what Frodo, Aragorn, Sam, Legolas, and the rest of the fellowship looked like. Now every time I read about Aragorn an image of Viggo Mortensen automatically accompanies Tolkien's description. It's like I no longer have my own imagination's conceptualization of what Tolkien's world is like.

We humans are visually-oriented creatures so the images of the movie adaptations definitely end up distorting our views of the novels, even if only in very subtle ways. The movie Watchmen will not only distort the views of an entirely new generation who's never read the comic, it will also distort our own views of the work, to the point where I'm not surprised if our imaginations attach Jackie Earle Haley's voice to Rorschach every subsequent time we read the original.

NonCon

01-02-2009, 12:49 PM

But a comic is visual. And nothing can change my original view of Rorschach's voice, which was deep and kind of dumb sounding, but fit his speech pattern.

Solid Snake

01-02-2009, 12:59 PM

Comics are visual but they leave a lot of room open for interpretation. We know the hair colors and skin tones of characters, but the artform is inherently limited, exact facial profiles can't be adequately constructed. So yeah, we know Ozymandias is blonde, but we could have also known that simply by reading a description of his hair in a novel. The moment actor's faces and voices and personalities are attached to an image of the character, there's much less room for the imagination to define characterization.

Regulus Tera

01-02-2009, 01:00 PM

Invisible Queen

01-02-2009, 04:59 PM

It's like I no longer have my own imagination's conceptualization of what Tolkien's world is like.
I guess your imagination wasn't very strong then, if it's so easily conquered. You don't even remember how you used to imagine it? Sucks to be you, but don't group everyone else in with you. :P

Solid Snake

01-02-2009, 05:54 PM

Fifthfiend

01-02-2009, 06:05 PM

I guess your imagination wasn't very strong then, if it's so easily conquered. You don't even remember how you used to imagine it? Sucks to be you, but don't group everyone else in with you. :P

I'm pretty sure SS actually isn't the only person ever to have his visual imagining of a literary work replaced by said work's cinematic adaptation and even if he were I can't imagine why it would be necessary to personally insult him over it.

Corel

01-02-2009, 06:12 PM

Tales of the Black Freighter is confirmed to be within the Extra Features isn't it? I imagine all the passages of articles and letters contained within the graphic novel will also be there as well. I wonder if they will include extra ones?

Lumenskir

01-02-2009, 06:30 PM

Hey, Lumenskir.

Yes, you.

Share the thing. Please.
Kaneda pretty much has it right. BIZARRO SCRIPT SPOILERS: The squid thing is replaced by 'Dr. Manhattan' death rays vaporizing a bunch of cities, causing all the terrorists of the world to realize that they don't want to cause any more death. Then Rorsharch is killed, Dr. leaves, and then (this is where it breaks from Wikipedia) Dan grows a spine and attacks Ozy, but Ozy beats down him and the girl until Dan makes an owl joke and then AN OWLSHIP CRASHES INTO OZY, KILLING HIM, DEAD. Which, like, -1000 Lumenskir-stars just for ripping off the end of Spiderman right there. It still has the DUN DUN DUN 'will they print Rorscharch's journal' ending though.

But, like Kaneda said, it's probably an early draft because it's only 122 pages and set in the wrong time frame, although it does still have the crimefighters being called the Watchmen so who knows just how much actually transferred over to the finished product.

Nikose Tyris

01-02-2009, 06:36 PM

That isn't sharing the script. That's posting yet another snippet. Link up the script, if you have to host it send it to someone to host it for you.

Solid Snake

01-02-2009, 06:46 PM

Kaneda pretty much has it right. BIZARRO SCRIPT SPOILERS: The squid thing is replaced by 'Dr. Manhattan' death rays vaporizing a bunch of cities, causing all the terrorists of the world to realize that they don't want to cause any more death. Then Rorsharch is killed, Dr. leaves, and then (this is where it breaks from Wikipedia) Dan grows a spine and attacks Ozy, but Ozy beats down him and the girl until Dan makes an owl joke and then AN OWLSHIP CRASHES INTO OZY, KILLING HIM, DEAD. Which, like, -1000 Lumenskir-stars just for ripping off the end of Spiderman right there. It still has the DUN DUN DUN 'will they print Rorscharch's journal' ending though.

But, like Kaneda said, it's probably an early draft because it's only 122 pages and set in the wrong time frame, although it does still have the crimefighters being called the Watchmen so who knows just how much actually transferred over to the finished product.

As much as I absolutely despise this alternative ending (I mean I'm a huge Rorschach fan and I didn't care for Ozymandias, but even I appreciated the delicious ambiguity of leaving Ozymandias alive yet haunted in Watchmen's ending I can almost understand why Hayter (or whoever else was responsible for this screenwriting debacle) would have chosen this route.

I think the (misguided) intention was something like this: To condone Ozymandias' actions in this alternate timeline in which the Soviet Union has been destroyed and no longer exists is sort of equivalent to condoning actions of mass terror (nuking entire cities) in order to achieve a greater goal of "peace." In the 1985 timeline in which the Soviet Union still exists nuclear Armageddon between two superpowers is imminent, so Ozymandias' actions have greater justification. He sacrifices a city to save the world. In a modern day reinterpretation no counterweight to the United States actually exist, so Ozymandias has a lot more in common with al Qaeda. ("Maybe if we nuke enough cities they'll realize we're right and we'll win!" Islamic terrorists actually believe a form of this; an idealistic interpretation of their justification for terrorism is that they're slowly paving the way for everyone to convert to Islam and for the western world to fall apart.)

So I think the idea here was that U.S. audiences wouldn't appreciate Ozymandias escaping unscathed for his sins because he sort of becomes equivocal to any other terrorist organization in his efforts to apparently stop terrorist organizations. So Dan has to kill him, which just completely screws over the entire point of Watchmen. But Watchmen really only works in the Cold War timeframe, because the stakes are just so much higher when the Soviet Union and the United States aren't just threatening a few nuclear attacks here or there but thousands upon thousands to eradicate the entire world several times over. So in the original Watchmen when Ozymandias sacrifices only a single city to stop Armageddon, it's a lot more ambiguous and Ozymandias' point of view is better understood.

I really hope in the final draft of Watchmen, the one we're likely going to see, New York is the only city destroyed, because that was the entire point of Ozymandias' actions. He only sacrifices a single city because it's the minimal amount he has to sacrifice in order to instigate change. Anything more monstrous in scope would be unnecessary and it'd make Ozymandias a much more stereotypical villain when he's really a much more complicated character than that. But that's just another reason I really suspect I'm going to dislike the Watchmen movie.

Mike McC

01-02-2009, 07:10 PM

I'm pretty sure SS actually isn't the only person ever to have his visual imagining of a literary work replaced by said work's cinematic adaptation and even if he were I can't imagine why it would be necessary to personally insult him over it.Yeah, now my mind is plauged with images of Elijah Wood looking like he's getting off when I read of the ring weighing down Frodo with despair. It's not that I have a weak imagination, it's that bad adaptations taint the way a person visualizes a work.

Fifthfiend

01-02-2009, 07:29 PM

So I came across this LA Times interview with Alan Moore.

"Will the film even be coming out? There are these legal problems now, which I find wonderfully ironic. Perhaps it's been cursed from afar, from England. And I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come."

I was right!

Khael!

01-02-2009, 07:57 PM

Solid Snake, you make an excellent point about the visuals of a movie overtaking one's own interpretation.

NonCon makes a good point about Watchmen already having pictures too. In my case the pictures solidified their appearances quite well. Had Watchmen been a regular novel, I suspect I would experience a greater issue with the movie's interpretation.

And yes I think Nite Owl's helmet looks dumb as hell. The other one was dorky in it's own way, but it suited the character/rest of the costume better. Only complaint about Rorschach is that given the description of how his 'face' works, I'd have thought it would look more plastic-y. Y'know, to keep the black ink goop in.

Funny though, I always though of him sounding like your typical present-day Batman impersonator, at least when he's in uniform.

BitVyper

01-02-2009, 08:40 PM

Solid Snake, you make an excellent point about the visuals of a movie overtaking one's own interpretation.

It's not just the visuals either. How many people remember Gimli as comic relief as opposed to a serious character who was always on roughly equal footing with Legolas?

Kaneda

01-02-2009, 11:57 PM

I really hope in the final draft of Watchmen, the one we're likely going to see, New York is the only city destroyed, because that was the entire point of Ozymandias' actions. He only sacrifices a single city because it's the minimal amount he has to sacrifice in order to instigate change. Anything more monstrous in scope would be unnecessary and it'd make Ozymandias a much more stereotypical villain when he's really a much more complicated character than that. But that's just another reason I really suspect I'm going to dislike the Watchmen movie.
I'm pretty sure it's going to be more than just New York destroyed, in their vague descriptions of the ending, many of the people who saw screenings mentioned the effects being more "global" than in the graphic novel.

Dan makes an owl joke and then AN OWLSHIP CRASHES INTO OZY, KILLING HIM, DEAD.
Yah, a lot of what Zack has said makes me almost positive they changed this for the real thing.

causing all the terrorists of the world to realize that they don't want to cause any more death.
That's retarded.

Solid Snake

01-03-2009, 12:47 AM

I'm pretty sure it's going to be more than just New York destroyed, in their vague descriptions of the ending, many of the people who saw screenings mentioned the effects being more "global" than in the graphic novel.

Sorry, but that's just really stupid (of the writers.) Ozymandias sacrifices New York City, and New York City alone, to save the world. If he's suddenly destroying a lot more cities with 'death rays' then how is the carnage he wreaks any different than the Armageddon he's presumably preventing?

And isn't the notion that the Soviets / the U.S. / terrorists would suddenly find weapons they nearly used absolutely barbaric borderline idiotic? The entire point of Ozymandias using the alien squid was he needed something completely and utterly foreign -- something literally "out of this world" -- to so shock and disgust the superpowers that they'd unite against a presumed threat. As the Soviets and the United States wouldn't know if the aliens would "strike again," the notion is that humanity would be forced band together and compromise.

But this Ozymandias is using terrorist weapons to...stop terrorists from using terrorist weapons. It's kind of like saying, "Geez, these countries are about to unleash a thousand nukes at each other, but maybe if I unleash my nukes first, they'll realize how terrible it is and stop!" But it's one thing to rely on a terrifyingly unknown extraterrestrial force to unite the world, and quite another to use manmade technology (or even a sentient human being like Dr. Manhattan, if that's what these "death rays" are really all about.) The latter is just more likely to convince the U.S. and the Soviets that their counterparts have unleashed Armageddon, so they're going to be more likely to unleash their arsenals immediately in retaliation!

Finally: since only the United States was hit by Ozymandias' alien strike, the U.S. wouldn't retaliate against the Soviets (they knew the Soviets did not have access to freakish extraterrestrial squids) and the Soviets certainly wouldn't hit the U.S. because the Soviets would not have been attacked. But a "global" strike implies both the U.S. and the Soviet Union have been hit by more "acceptable" or "conventional" weapons which should only lead both nations to assuming the other was directly responsible (facts be damned, this is the Cold War) and going MAD.

Really I'm hoping that the writer takes this in a totally unexpected direction because right now my biggest qualm with Watchmen the movie is that this ending makes absolutely no sense. Well, the ending doesn't make sense because it (possibly) relies on cheap gimmicks and (possibly) involves killing Ozymandias. I guess what I'm really bitching about now is even worse -- Ozymandias' plan makes absolutely no sense, and this baffles me because the guy is supposedly the smartest in the world and his original plan in the original comic was absolutely brilliant. As much as I disliked Ozymandias and as much as I preferred Rorschach in the comics, I always respected and understood Ozymandias. But this version of Ozymandias is kind of an idiot, and his devious plan is what this story's supposed to be all about.

Mirai Gen

01-03-2009, 02:28 AM

Sorry, but that's just really stupid (of the writers.) Ozymandias sacrifices New York City, and New York City alone, to save the world. If he's suddenly destroying a lot more cities with 'death rays' then how is the carnage he wreaks any different than the Armageddon he's presumably preventing?
From what I understand he's trying to prevent Fallout from happening and in the process killing a few cities.

I suppose the reason that I'm still patiently awaiting the movie and not partaking in the hatred yet is because there were so many script revisions and theories and AWESOME INSIDE SOURCEs getting kicked around it's impossible to tell really what the final plot is.

I mean I know for a fact Squidbilly is out and that already makes me iffy but I'm hoping for the best anyway.

Lord knows the movie will come out and then I'll start flinging fire but for the moment I'm being patient and calm.

NonCon

01-03-2009, 02:43 AM

I'm an optimist, and I don't see the movie influencing my views on the book in any way. If you're really worried it'll influence your opinion, don't watch it. I don't mean that in the, "If you don't like it don't watch it you aren't allowed to criticize it" way, but rather that, like it or not, the movie is coming out eventually, and if you're that sure it's going to suck, your best bet would be to just avoid the thing all together.

I know that it would deprive you of being able to rant about every single thing wrong with the movie, but if you think it'll affect your views on the book, shouldn't you just stay away from it?

Solid Snake

01-03-2009, 02:49 AM

From what I understand he's trying to prevent Fallout from happening and in the process killing a few cities.

Yeah it's not so much that Ozymandias' motives have necessary changed it's more that Ozymandias' specific "plan of action" now has so many flaws ridden in it that it's nearly impossible to envision a hypothetical circumstance in which he could reasonably expect his plan to come to fruition.

I mean the beauty of The Squidbilly Plan is that it has a near 100% certainty rate. If you can beam in a certain alien monster to a single American city, the reactions around the world, the death toll and the impact of the destruction can all be quantified beforehand and minimized. More importantly, you know with 100% certainty (assuming Ozymandias studied Squidbilly thoroughly) exactly how it's going to play out and you can rest assured that despite the violence you'll cause in the short term, that Armageddon will definitively be prevented.

The problem with Ozymandias' new plan, whether it relies on the active cooperation of a sentient human being in Dr. Manhattan or if it just emulates his power in manmade deathrays (I've heard conflicting information on that plot twist), is that it introduces all kinds of dangerous variables that completely fuck the plan up. The impression I always had with Ozymandias was that deep down inside he was a genuinely decent idealist who would only embark on his sacrifice of New York City if he knew -- or felt he could know with nearly 95-99% certainty -- that Armageddon would be prevented. He's the smartest guy in the world, so he's not going to go, "Well, there's a decent chance that this might play out in a way that the Soviet Union and the United States don't wipe each other off the map, so I'll give it a try and hope for the best." And that variation of an Ozymandias who's engaging in exercises of such flawed logic just comes off as an idiot who's willing to possibly destroy the world because he can't think his plans through. No wonder why this version of Nite Owl wants to kill him!

I just can't think of a way they'll pull it off so that Ozymandias' reputation as a morally controversial villain/hero survives the onslaught. It seems like this version of Ozymandias, complete with death by Owlmobile, is just going the "straight-up villain path." That's just profoundly disappointing. The far-left extremist visionary is now just a stereotypically sinister villain who Nite Owl and Silk Spectre want dead. I can't escape the impression that far-right Rorschach, particularly in light of the recent Dubya Administration, will be portrayed as even more psychopathic (and less likable) in the movie as well. Which kind of leads to me to main criticism of the impression of the Watchmen movie I have so far: it's a grotesquely simplified version of the original product that has distilled the essence of Watchmen into some Hollywood pro-"moderate values America" message in which the "good guys" win and the "bad guy extremists who don't believe in our traditional unquestioning values" pay for their sins. And that's sort of the exact opposite of the message found in the original Watchmen comics, where everything was far too ambiguous to ever be neatly resolved.

Mirai Gen

01-03-2009, 02:53 AM

Well SS let me say that if we really do have Owlmobile crashing into Ozzie and killing him as well as an absence of Squidbilly I will totally back you up on the "god damn this never should have come out, why'd they have to fuck it up so bad?"

I was just under the impression that they had only changed Squidbilly.

Solid Snake

01-03-2009, 02:59 AM

Whether they do or don't almost doesn't matter, I perceive that particular potential "plot twist" as only a final nail in the coffin, and a lot of my criticism on the notion of Ozymandias' plans being absolutely idiotic in this new version still stands regardless of whether he ultimately lives or dies.

I mean a very small part of me really wants to hold out hope that the writers of this movie's script are far more intelligent people than I and maybe, just maybe they'll come up with a possible reinterpretation of the ending that actually makes sense. I think one of the reasons why I indulge in so many rants on the subject is out of sheer desperation that, while concentrating on writing my arguments in my ranting and raving sessions, maybe an answer will miraculously appear of a way Ozymandias' new plan could actually flawlessly ensure Armageddon couldn't possibly happen and that the deaths of civilians would be appreciably minimized. The solution just hasn't come to me. It just seems like a terrible idea through and through.

Mirai Gen

01-03-2009, 03:11 AM

It wasn't necessarily about if he lives or dies, it was mostly referring to the severing and boiling of the plot into Generic Action Movie garbage. I can take Squidbilly being cut - if we seriously get a final car chase scene with Ozy versus Nite-Owl plus big car wreck instantly following with a gunfight where Ozy claims that he's the best gunslinger as well and then promptly misses Dan in the ensuing final fight I'm just going to leave the theater and possibly kill myself/Snyder (Chose appropriate).

Smarty McBarrelpants

01-03-2009, 03:34 AM

I agree with SS analysis so far, especially re the gross simplification of characters and their motivation.
I mean it's possible that that won't happen but it seems possible enough to be worrisome.

Kaneda

01-03-2009, 10:58 AM

If Ozy dies die, which as I said is unlikely, it really shouldn't be held against Zack or the writers, as Snyder had been fighting for that aspect of the movie to be faithful. So it would really be the studio's fault if he dies.

While Snake makes very good points, I don't think the increased fallibility of the plan really simplifies Ozy into an outright villain. It's just a plot hole. Him dying however, if executed improperly could make him appear that way.

Premonitions

01-03-2009, 02:42 PM

First thing, everyone keeps talking about terrorists when it's been officially stated (http://www.ifmagazine.com/feature.asp?article=3186)that the movie would reain the original setting.
Actually, The Doc. manhattan death ray plan can make even more sense than squiddy
if done properly.

With squiddy, one city was destroyed and numerous other people worldwide were given psychic shots of acid (sorta) to give the overall impression that an alien had come, died and cause destruction, letting everyone know there were bigger things to worry about then they're petty differences and wars
but there's always dissent, worries that "The commies" would ally with the aliens, stuff like that, as well as the fact that noone knows anything about the "aliens" and whether they wanted to kill us or not

with doc manhattan death rays, we've got something we know a lot about, doc manhatten, who, over the course of the movie has been proved to be a general misanthrope, possibly by a direct conspiracy by Ozy, and dissapears in space, now, the world at large has to be always prepared for his return, not to mention the satellite telescope images of his big freaky mars city.

Meister

01-03-2009, 03:00 PM

as well as the fact that noone knows anything about the "aliens" and whether they wanted to kill us or not
That's the thing though: the psychic emanations do an excellent job convincing everyone. But I agree with your second point.

Archbio

01-03-2009, 03:18 PM

If you think it likely that people thinking that the (utter, complete) aliens could ally themselves with the opposite faction could disrupt Ozymandias' original plan, then I don't see how the fact that Doc Manhattan has already been strongly aligned with one faction isn't a fatal problem with the revised version of the plan.

I certainly don't see how the latter is supposed to make more sense than the former in any case.

Smarty McBarrelpants

01-03-2009, 05:21 PM

Also the fact that Ozy's new plan requires directly on Dr Manhatten not saying "Hey I didn't do this." Surely he'll need to come outright with this plan and tell Dr Manhatten at the very start to ensure cooperation.
With the original plan the others stumbled across the truth, Ozy didn't plan to tell anyone and more importantly didn't have to.

My other problem is that Dr Manhatten and contemporary technologies at the time have considerable overlap. The USSR/US could just say it wasn't Dr Manhatten but in fact their opposite side as the destruction wrought by the space laser is in line with what the opposition could be expected to have. This would give a pretext for increased hostilities. The alien was just completely unknown to them.

I mean maybe they have thought it through but I don't have a lot of faith in them.

BitVyper

01-03-2009, 05:28 PM

Squidbilly had a lot of theatrical value too. Such an image could be pretty convincing in itself.

Kaneda

01-03-2009, 09:12 PM

Squidbilly had a lot of theatrical value too. Such an image could be pretty convincing in itself.

Agreed. I don't really see why the studios decided "Nobody will like the squid, everyone will like death rays."

I really don't care all that much about the new ending's plot holes, but a giant squid is just so much more memorable than a generic energy destroyer thing. Something that has been in just about every sci-fi movie ever won't have half the "holy shit" factor of the squid, and the first few pages of Chapter 12 were all about the "holy shit" factor.

Mirai Gen

01-04-2009, 02:46 AM

Yeah that's one thing I can't get. Maybe they were trying to avoid alienating an audience with something so incredibly far fetched? Maybe they didn't have the time or the budgeting to show small snippets of people involved with the project? I dunno, I can't quite get why it was cut, it seems like an event just ready to happen on the big screen.

Because honestly if I had never heard of Watchmen and they said hey at the end A BIG FUCKING PSYCHIC SUPER SQUID HITS THE CITY AND KILLS EVERYONE I think my first reaction without having actually read the comic would be oh, yeah, can we get that out?

Bells

01-04-2009, 03:10 AM

just getting this out there guys, y'know... for a thread about a movie where pretty much all of you already know how it will play out (and that you would probably have to read the comic book to be excited about it anyway) you guys are really concerned about spoilers...

The only thing im thinking about is the "codumentary" about this whole damm mess that someone is going to slide in the DVD for this movie...

I mean, it's all nice and pretty when Warner and Fox are like this, both caught in a Double headlock at the same time... just wait untill the actors and their lawyers go "Dude where the fuck is my monies?"... then we'll see fox and warner going from "it's mine!! Gimme!" to "It's yours man! Take it!"

Mirai Gen

01-04-2009, 03:20 AM

Well it is an upcoming movie and we all know the ending therefore we don't want to spoil it.

On top of that the movie, if they change anything, could be very easily spoiled by us since we've been scouring for the information and discussing it.

Better just to be safe.

Kaneda

01-04-2009, 03:50 AM

Invisible Queen

01-04-2009, 06:27 AM

I'm pretty sure SS actually isn't the only person ever to have his visual imagining of a literary work replaced by said work's cinematic adaptation and even if he were I can't imagine why it would be necessary to personally insult him over it.
I apologize if it came off as insulting, I was trying to express sympathy. To Snake and all the people without the imaginative fortitude and willpower to withstand another's picture of their favorite works, it sucks for you, and I'm sorry. But I think you can try harder and get better if you really want to.

You know, as a more difficult but more effective alternative to complaining on the Internet.

Solid Snake

01-04-2009, 12:02 PM

I apologize if it came off as insulting, I was trying to express sympathy. To Snake and all the people without the imaginative fortitude and willpower to withstand another's picture of their favorite works, it sucks for you, and I'm sorry. But I think you can try harder and get better if you really want to.

You know, as a more difficult but more effective alternative to complaining on the Internet.

...I mean the thing is, Stephen King has complained about the effect terrible movies have on the perception of the original literature. (Of course this hasn't stopped King from releasing crappy versions of his own novels, but anyway.) I'm pretty sure Alan Moore has a similar opinion because otherwise, why bother opposing the movie release of Watchmen? Are you telling me these authors have terrible imaginations?

I don't think there's necessarily any correlation whatsoever between one's ability to conjure images independently of "interference from a recently viewed movie adaptation" and the objective merit of one's imaginative ability. I can write pretty nifty short stories and novels, but it doesn't stop me from conjuring Viggo Mortensen when anyone mentions the name "Aragorn" to me. For that matter, I don't remember ever saying my original imaginative interpretation of Aragorn outright disappeared -- it's more like the more inherently visually detailed nuances of Stephen Jackson's cinematography superimposed itself on my own comparatively vague imaginings, to the point where I see my own perceptions and Jacksons' as intertwined.

I'm pretty sure this is also an entirely common phenomenon -- I mean type in "movie adaptations ruining novels" into google and you'll get tons of results, including http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/18445/sample/9780521818445ws.pdf, a two-hundred plus page book debating the subject.

There seems to be a rather rigorous debate among academics as to the merit of film adaptations and to what extent an interpretation of the quality of a novel is affected by the quality of a film -- is everyone who takes an opposing position someone with a "poor imagination?"

Finally, your "more difficult but more effective alternative to complaining on the Internet" quip just reeks of crossing an absolutely unnecessary line. You can make your points without resorting to that.

BitVyper

01-04-2009, 12:09 PM

. To Snake and all the people without the imaginative fortitude and willpower to withstand another's picture of their favorite works

See, now that's still condescending. In fact, it seems intentionally so. Honestly, I can't see how this line was intended to be anything other than insulting. "I'm sorry you aren't smart enough to agree with me."

Anyway, the problem isn't that fans of the original work have their perceptions of it ruined by adaptations, but that an adaptation affects the popular perception of the work, thereby affecting any future interpretations.

TheWolf13

01-04-2009, 01:59 PM

To go off on a tangent completely unrelated to everything else we've been talking about, I really hope they keep Bernard and Bernard in. Even if the Black Freighter doesn't make it into the theatrical cut, I think the two of them are necessary for grounding part of the movie in "ordinary people" and to really enhance the effect of the ending event on the audience/readers. If they aren't really in the movie, nobody the audience has a connection with will die as a result of Ozy's plot.

What about the prison psychologist and his wife? It has been awhile since I read Watchmen but I thought they were there too.

C.S. Lewis didn't want any of his works turned into movies and I think both of those have been very good at capturing not just the plot but also the theme of the movie. I know a lot of people who went out and read Tolkien after the movies came out. I am not talking about just the trilogy either but a lot of his other works. Not all of them became fans but it was still a good thing. I am hoping the same thing happens with Watchmen.

That said Watchmen in some ways is even more complicated. I am very worried that it will be easy to screw up even by people who are trying hard to keep it as close to the original as possible. I don't see how you can fit everything that needs to go into Watchmen in a 3 hr. movie.

Masked Jedi

01-04-2009, 02:02 PM

Invisible Queen

01-04-2009, 04:17 PM

There seems to be a rather rigorous debate among academics as to the merit of film adaptations and to what extent an interpretation of the quality of a novel is affected by the quality of a film -- is everyone who takes an opposing position someone with a "poor imagination?"
No, just the ones who feel that they lose something from watching a movie adaptation.

Kaneda

01-04-2009, 04:34 PM

They are in the movie. The first pictures released were all dealing with the smaller, non-cape characters.

Yes, but there is a very good chance that those shots are very brief, only for the end of the movie, or just for the dvd release (which should have the black freighter)

And Snake, I definitely understand where you're coming from, the same thing happens to me with Lord of the Rings, but the difference is that Watchmen is a graphic novel. I'm not going to imagine Nite Owl as Patrick Wilson when there's a picture of Nite Owl right in front of me. The worst the movie can do in this sense is make me imagine Dr. Manhattan sounding slightly like Billy Crudup, and that's something I can live with.

Mike McC

01-04-2009, 05:15 PM

Wow, Invisible Queen, I'm not sure I want to see you when you're unsympathetic.

I think this boils down less to 'having a weak imagination', because, let me tell you, I think my imagination could beat the crap out of reality any day. I think it's mostly to do with how the brain works and stores/retrieves information, and the shortcuts it likes to take. It's easier to fill in the gaps with information it already has, rather than trying to construct new imagery from scratch. And so it does. It's a process rather divorced from imagination.

Smarty McBarrelpants

01-04-2009, 05:41 PM