Who Watched The Watchmen? Well… Geekscape Did!

I’m just going to cut to the quick instead of rambling on and on about the importance of Watchmen as the most important limited series in comic book history or about the boiling point-reaching anticipation/dread harbored by fanboys everywhere at the thought of Zack Snyder’s big screen anticipation.

Today I got a chance to watch a few scenes from the upcoming Watchmen film and listen to Zack Snyder speak at a Warner Brothers hosted press event. And put your worries to rest. In the imagined words of Frank Miller’s All Star Batman: you’re getting your goddam Watchmen film, so shut up already. Is it awesome? Is it perfect? Is it everything we dreamed of? In the words of this Geekscapist: “yes” and “I don’t know”.

Zack Snyder was introduced by DC Comics’ Gregory Noveck, Senior Vice President of Creative Affairs. Noveck did a brief job of giving Watchmen it’s proper context in history for the assembled crowd of journalists and then introduced Zack, who I was really impressed by. Zack Snyder is a really charismatic speaker and did a great job of introducing the selected clips while answering questions and alleviating fears. And be assured, he shared many of the fears.

Why would anyone make Watchmen? Isn’t it “un-filmable”?  Snyder admitted that he “never considered or thought about making it. Thank god I didn’t have to think about it for a while.” He admitted that had he sat on the decision, he probably would have been scared off of doing the film. But he wasn’t just driven by impulse and quick decision-making. “A draft existed. For me that made it easier.” He was presented with the current draft of Watchmen. “Here’s Watchmen? Yeah… we’ll see…” he would respond suspiciously.

Snyder made it very clear that early on he approached the existing draft and the entire project with trepidation, followed by extreme care. The powers that be wanted to “update it”, make it about the War on Terror, have it feature an approximation of the current president and reference the modern world. And for all intensive purposes, it could have happened that way. But Zack missed the idea of having the character of President Nixon in the film. Maybe he would set the film in 1990? The script started inching back towards resembling the comic. Once that change had been approved, why not just put it back in 1985? “That’s how I slowly got the rest of the graphic novel back in. There’s a reason why the book works and is groundbreaking.” The director didn’t start there, but as he started to look for answers on tackling some of the bigger problems of bringing such a dense piece of storytelling to screen, he found the answers back at the source material.

And boy, did he trust in the source material.

BRACE YOURSELVES FOR SPOILERS… UNLESS YOU’VE READ THE BOOK, OF COURSE.

The first clip we were shown was the first 12 minutes of the film: the murder of The Comedian and the opening credit sequence. The effects weren’t finished but as soon as you saw the Warner Brothers logo cast on familiar Watchmen yellow, you didn’t care. This was going to be a VERY immersive experience. And EVERY visual detail is spot on. Fine toothed comb spot on. It’s almost exhausting to watch the amount of detail in every shot. The casual moviegoers may only appreciate the complete world of the film, but this is Geekscape, where the true fanboys will have their brains scrambled by the level of dedication shown on screen.

The scene plays out with The Comedian pouring a drink and sitting down with a stogey in front of the TV to watch period television. A lot of the current history plays out but it never feels like exposition. The writing is very, very good and the editing and shot composition is sharp. There are no dropped balls here. As Nat King Cole’s Unforgettable plays, a stranger approaches the door, busts in and The Comedian and the unarmed stranger have at it. The fight is extremely physical and brutal, as it should be. The Comedian is Watchmen’s approximation of Sgt. Rock or The Punisher, a gun toting, tough guy who plays hard. Too bad the assailant (who is cast in shadow) plays harder. After most of a wall, a coffee table, a TV set, a mini-bar and the rest of the living room are torn to pieces, The Comedian is thrown out of his skyscraper apartment window and sent plummeting to the pavement below.

The movement and action of the scene is where Snyder puts in his familiar style. This movie looks nothing like 300, but the speed ramps and slow motion shots are in full effect here. You readers know that I didn’t enjoy 300. I thought the pacing was labored and the story played out like an arcade fighting game with wave after wave of increasingly badass villains. And were there 300 soldiers or 300 speed ramped shots? Both? I don’t know. After about the fifth slow down of a guy jumping up in the air or tossing an enemy, the effect was completely lost on me… and the redundancy hadn’t even started yet.

I think that this scene in Watchmen picks its spots a lot better than the excessiveness of 300. I’m not in love with the music video action, but it is intense. The use of slow motion has become a lost art in modern cinema and Snyder has no intention of playing conservationist in his action sequences. They lose their unique importance after a while and put the movie at risk of moving like pretty molasses (300). But let me tell you, when The Comedian is tossed out of that window (he might have taken diving lessons from the doomed Persian dignitary in the “This is Sparta!” scene), and you see shards of glass and the Watchmen happy face pin spinning mid-air, it is a pretty beautiful fanboy sight. And when the camera comes to rest on a close up of that pin, now at street level, as the crumbled Comedian’s blood runs down its yellow face, you’re ready for the entire ride. And we haven’t even gotten to the incredible credit sequence.

The intro credit sequence plays out under Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ (supposedly there are a total of three Dylan songs in the film) and it is breathtaking. We see the superhero-present history of the United States play out in front of us in moving stills. Here is some really strong slow motion work. The sequence is stunning and starts in the 1930s, with the golden age heroes from The Watchmen books and continues through to the early 80s. Each shot begins with a familiar historical composition but reveals itself to be effected by the presence of The Watchmen in this world. Some of the shots that stood out for me was the reveal of the young Rorschach, Andy Warhol presenting a painting of Owl Man, Dr. Manhattan shaking hands with President Kennedy, The Comedian revealed to be the second shooter in Dallas and Dr. Manhattan taking the photo of the first man on the moon. This sequence is spot on perfect and this fanboy has zero complaints as the lights come back up.

Explaining Dr. Manhattan’s origin to the audience, Snyder comments “it’s superhero lore or mythology… showing us a cliché.” If someone did get powers through radioactive means, like the Hulk or Spider-Man, what would really happen? This is what Alan Moore’s writing explored and one of the things included in the film. It references the medium heavily, exposing it for what it is, but never to the point of breaking the imagination of it. Snyder explained that he and Dr. Manhattan actor Billy Crudup talked about these questions and theories at length. What would happen if a Dr. Manhattan truly existed? “What does it do to religion? Or us as a race?” This is a different character to play than most completely CG created characters and Crudup’s performance left the animators excited for any big movements they could work with in the performance. Dr. Manhattan’s depiction is “not a bombastic CG character. It’s very subtle.” But relax. It’s incredible when you see it on screen… even the Little Dr. Manhattan that is present when the character is nude.

Snyder rolled into the origin of Dr. Manhattan clip. This sequence is completely heartbreaking. Almost completely narrated, we jump around in time, seeing different points in the story of Dr. Manhattan’s history: his normal life, the accident, his increasing detachment and use as a US super weapon. The writing here is powerful. There’s a moment where you see a normal Dr. Jon Osterman, trapped in the nuclear test room scared out of his mind, look down at his Swiss watch as the hairs on his arm start to stand up. There are five seconds left before he’s vaporized. We’ve seen this moment in the trailer by now. But what we HAVEN’T seen is the scene that it flashes to in this brief moment: a young Jon, at a work station looking at all of the pieces of the Swiss watch laid out before him on a table. His father encourages him to learn to put it together piece by piece. Then… wham. He’s vaporized, forced to put himself back together atom by atom over time. There is no deviation from the book. If anything, this sequence makes the book more accessible emotionally. This really is a profound tragedy playing out before us and it ends with Jon, alone on the surface of Mars, erecting his fortress of solitude. It’s jaw dropping.

The last sequence we were shown was of the second Silk Specter and Dan rescuing Rorschach from prison during a prison riot. This sequence was the one that I felt least spirited. By now, the movie is clicking, we know all of our major players and the situation and this is a pretty standard action scene. It’s a bit of the rescue scene from the first Matrix. You guessed it. Lots of slow mo kung fu. Mr. Snyder, when will the world have too much slow mo kung fu? Hopefully not by the end of Watchmen’s current 2 hour and 43 minute running time, which the director really hopes not to lose too much more of. Maybe if some of the shots weren’t in extreme slow mo, we could fit in some other cool stuff? No? Not going for it? Okay.

Seeing Rorschach’s moving inkblot mask was pretty damn cool and the characters are spot on, voices and all, but I wasn’t blown away by this sequence. It seemed the closest to what you would see in any other superhero film and was followed by a brief sizzle reel of some of the comic con and trailer footage. And you know that a modern rock hit from the late 90s was present over what we saw. That being said, watching Dr. Manhattan walking casually through Vietnam, frying enemy soldiers with his hands, will never get old to me, no matter how slow mo the slow mo gets. I’ll run that shot on a loop.

Following the clip there was a brief Q&A. Zack touched on the Black Freighter and how he purposefully filmed the shots that lead into and out of each Black Freighter sequence. Warner Premier will be releasing the animated Black Freighter around the release of the film along with a documentary called Under the Hood about Hollis Mason (the original Night Owl)’s writing of the biography on being a superhero. The show will play out like a news show and a small clip of it may be included in the film in the scene where The Comedian is watching TV prior to being murdered. Ultimately, Snyder hopes to release Watchmen at some point with the Tales of the Black Freighter sequences included in the cut of the film.

When talking about the film’s score, Snyder revealed that the music is “Blade Runnery” and has a techno-noir feel. There is also a Watchmen game in development although he is only giving notes on the project and not intensely involved in the process. On the subject of the actor’s contracts supposed sequels clause, Snyder exclaimed that there couldn’t be a sequel or prequel to Watchmen. “They might be able to find someone to do it but it won’t be me.”

He seems satisfied enough with what he is accomplishing this time around and the thematic similarity to the source material. Snyder views his film as a commentary on the superhero movie as much as the original Watchmen series was a commentary on superhero comics. And the time for a Watchmen movie is better now, with an audience well versed on superhero films, than it would have been at any time earlier. “You can’t make a superhero movie that is self aware that doesn’t acknowledge the marketplace of superhero movies.” And the film seems to be as dense with self-analysis and commentary as the Moore/Gibbons work was over two decades ago. “We worked really hard to make everything (in the film) mean something.” And, as I said before, the effort not only show, it is exhausting to witness.

So am I satisfied as a fanboy? I don’t know if I’m the proper judge. Because of its density, Watchmen is not a book that I recommend to comic book first timers. The first time that I read Watchmen, already pretty well versed in comic book history and appreciation, it dwarfed me. I didn’t get it. But the book gets better every time I read it. A new layer or detail is revealed with every fresh visitation. So will the movie give a similar feeling? I’m not sure. As impressed as I was by what I was seeing on a technical level, I was left a bit ambivalent. As loyal to the source material as the visuals were on screen, I found myself feeling guardedly apathetic to it all. It’s not the whole film. The pacing issues that I had with 300 seemed present in two of the three clips that I saw. The style over substance argument of 300 threatened to creep into the amazing pieces you watched right as the lights came up. I really want to see the finished film before I pass judgment because what I saw was incredible, but what I felt was detached.

If the film, as a whole, can match the quality of what I saw during the Dr. Manhattan sequence, we not only have a faithful comic book movie on our hands, we have an Oscar winner. Those five minutes moved me more than anything in this summer’s The Dark Knight. But if that sequence is an exceptional highlight in a film defined more by its strict visual faithfulness and slow mo kung fu than its cinematic pacing, we’re in for a pretty good movie that could have been great. Right now, I’m forecasting something along the lines of The English Patient of Superhero movies: admirably entertaining, but in the end, too long-winded and self-aware.  Nothing that I saw however, preemptively exempts Watchmen from possibly being something greater: The Citizen Kane of Superhero movies. And forget what you think. Citizen Kane is the greatest movie ever made.

Watchmen is being released nationwide by Warner Brothers on March, 6th 2009.