Warning: The Following Blog Post May Contain Traces Of Hyperbole.
First, if you haven’t read Watchmen, go, buy it, read it. It is one of the best things I’ve ever read, unquestionably the finest ‘comic book’ I’ve ever laid hands or eyes on.
Second, if you’re not familiar with the recent work of Zack Snyder, I recommend 300. Note that this is also a treatment of a ‘comic book’.
Third, and where I find myself descending repeatedly into cackling fits of demented fanboy anticipatory glee: Have you seen the trailer for Zack Snyder’s Watchmen?
OMG! I find myself at a total loss to say anything coherent about it. No, wait, it’s a fabulous example of a movie trailer: It’s set to original music (not recycled O Fortuna or similar), they call it a teaser yet it introduces lots of central characters and some actual spoken lines. It manages to convey the scope in space and time of the plot, and it characterizes the mood and feel of the story fairly well.
But mostly, I keep watching it because it’s full of fan-food eye-candy. Visible proof that some difficult bullets have been bitten, just right.
…now I just have to wait a year.
A YEAR??? AAAAAAAAAARGH!!
I just discovered something which might cause some to question my assertion that the trailer uses ‘original music’. The music in the teaser trailer is The Smashing Pumpkins – The End Is the Beginning Is the End which was heavily associated with Batman and Robin. This may seem like a coincidence since the Teaser Trailer is going out with The Dark Knight right now. It’s not.
Here’s something I said to friend last night (before I resd your post or followup). In hindsight, these are nitpcks, and if that’s all I can complain about then it ain’t so bad…
Point One you’ve covered. Pray they doing ruin the film with his noise.
The second point in particular is important — the others you can put down to personal taste. The point is, these people are not heroes, they’re each (for different reasons) broken humans, and they’re past their prime. Night Owl in particular (unless you make the obvious exception for The Comedian since you see a whopper of a spoiler in the trailer) physically typifies “middle age”.
The third point…the cheap CGI effect annoyed me in the first season of “Babylon 5”. That was a few years ago and I didn’t know much about photography or lens technology back then and it still screamed “FAKE!” Nowadays, when I see it, it draws ire.
Anyway, on with my (unedited) initial thoughts:
Have watched the Watchmen trailer a few times now. I’ve got extraordinarily high expectations of this film — it’s my favourite graphic novel by a long shot.
If its any indication, the movie will be brilliant But three things about the trailer shit me.
(1) That the whiney fuck of a singer from the Smashing Pumpkins hasn’t had something plugged up his nose to stop him singing like that. Please to be singing through your mouth, not your nose.
(2) Night Owls outfit. They’ve all had tweaks, which is understandable, but his is quite different and the guy in the suit should be an aging has-been (like the rest of them).
(3) Imitation lens-flare. May sound like a technical quibble, but the DoP deserves a swift kick in the nuts, IMHO. It looks cheap and nasty and there’s no technical reason for it these days, other than to say: “Sure it’s CGI, but we want you, the viewer, to think it was shot on a $200 camcorder through a cruddy, plastic lens.” Please. It’s so 90s. (Admittedly, my sill camera gear is better than most, but I can shoot with my SLR into the setting sun without flare or ghosting, so I expect a modern movie camera to be even better). With today’s lenses, there’s no excuse. Flare is not “artistic”, it’s distracting and downright lame.
In another friend’s blog, I wrote:
Been waiting so long fr this, and it’s still looking like they haven’t bollocksed-up the film. Everything I’ve seen and heard so far hits the mark (well, with the exception of Night Owl’s suit, which doesn’t look like there’s a paunchy middle-aged former hero inside).
Little things matter, and they’ve nailed minute details such as the way the rain streams from the brim of Rorschach’s hat. Visually, it works. It remains to be seen how well the actors did their job or how on earth they’ve pared-down such a huge story into one film.
But, it might just work. 🙂
Damien, cheers for accentuating the positive. :-/
I can’t spot the lens-flare you’re referring to, not even slow-stepping through the trailer, but please don’t tell me where it is, I’d really rather not know.
I too am less than a fan of Smashing Pumpkins vocals, although I respect the style, of which I have to recognize their mastery. I love the eerie tone, and way the ticking clock motif is worked into it in the trailer. The cuts from one part of the song to another are a little jagged, but hey, it’s a trailer, and a teaser trailer at that.
Not sure what spoiler your referring to… surely not the death that forms the basis of the opening scene of the book? How is that spoily? Or have I missed something? *shrugs* This isn’t the place to discuss. Mail me if it bugs you.
Just saw Dark Knight (Heath Ledger totally owns that movie. Aeternum vale.) and sadly no trailer. Must be the US distribution.
It was striking though, to watch Dark Knight with my head full of Watchmen recollections, and reflect that such a violent, bleak, gothic, relatively twisted plotline, filled with madness, is in none of these respects a match for what Watchmen could be.
On a less grumpy note, E points out that I have misread the American-style date: I only have to wait until March. Huzzah!
It gets worse … the movie is facing the possibility of not being released due to copyright/trademark issues between (I think it was) Fox and Warner Bros ….