WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

Do you think the Watchmen movie is underrated? I do.

I just recently got around to buying the Ultimate Cut of the film and I thought it was great! Now, the original Theatrical version, yeah, that was very much incomplete. But let’s face it, it’s not the definitive version. The Ultimate Cut is fantastic! All the added scenes from the Director’s Cut and the Black Freighter with newly added Newsstand scenes for blending! Seeing the Ultimate Cut I thought it was very well done. And not just “as good as we could’ve hoped for in a Watchmen movie” either. I don’t agree with the notion that Watchmen is not filmable. It is. You can’t bring everything from a novel into a movie, especially for the theatrical version. But let’s face it, the novel had a lot of things that weren’t needed either.

What gets me are the criticisms that contradict one another. Some complain the movie did too much in following the novel to “breath on its own”. Then there are others that say it didn’t include enough of the novel. LOL I thought the changes the movie made were fantastic and well-needed. From the addition of the Comedian fight scene to the removal of the Alien invasion, the movie made the right decisions. All the major themes and plot twists were there. The Black Freighter being an animation was very clever and worked just as well in the movie as it in the book.

Overall, I would say that the Watchmen film is a classic, same as the book. The special effects and acting were done very well. The visuals, the sounds… all the things you can’t get from the book… the movie delivered in spades!

Yes. I think I agree with all of that.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

I agree that, on the whole it was a fan-boy's wet dream, but, I don't think that if you have never heard of Watchmen and you are renting to watch a "comic-book movie", then the average viewer is not going to have the patience to sit through 3 hours plus of film. I think, not knowing what the Black Freighter was, or what it's significance is, it would slow down the film and make it disjointed for someone watching it for the first time (as I kind of felt when I read the book for the first time). Yes I love the film, yes I think it is about the best it could have been, yes I think the squid would have been out of place, and yes, from my perspective the film was underrated, but overall, from the movie-goer, unknowing of what they are about to sit through, I can understand why it was poorly received by many, as I am not sure it stands well alone as a film.

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http://www.last.fm/user/nomapple

I think it warrants multiple viewings regardless of whether the viewer has previous knowledge of it or not. That could be perceived as a weakness considering that the casual movie goer doesn't really rewatch movies. Yeah, I'd say that this movie really isn't for the type of person who just watches a movie for the sake of killing time.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

I always liken the Watchmen to Metal Gear. The level of depth and complexity, as well as the unique quality of rising above it's own medium. And I think much like Watchmen, the "average gamer" doesn't appreciate the full impact of the Metal Gear games. The delicate attention to detail in both design and plot. Watchmen seems to have the same attributes.

I fully agree here as well.

And the word is spreading. All versions of the film are still ranked very high on amazon's best selling DVD lists. Now if we consider that most of the fans have already bought some version of the DVD, then we can assume that new folks are becoming interested in the movie and want to see what all the hype is about.

So if we keep spreading the word we'll convince people of what we already know: WATCHMEN is the best superhero movie ever made.

If you rent this movie wanting to see a typical comic book movie, you are sure to be very disappointed.

But, that's true for any movie. The trailers for Inglourious Basterds painted it as a hardcore action film. My experience has been that the people who believed those trailers did not like it. The people who knew better (especially those who had seen Tarantino's previous films) loved it.

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"Computer unnecessary."

I feel the movie is overrated on this forum.

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"Heard them Walthers like to jump some" "As will you, with one in your elbow."

Thems fightin' words.

Edit: Wait, have you even seen the Ultimate Cut yet? Or the Director's Cut for that matter?

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

Nope.

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"Heard them Walthers like to jump some" "As will you, with one in your elbow."

Ummm you should. Otherwise, maybe you should...ummm shut your clam.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

Not really...

I'm pretty sure everything the novel had was needed.

And now you all know why I put the qualifier, "think", in my post.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

It might be ranked high on Amazon, but Wal-Mart in Canada doesn't even carry any version of the film anymore

Right, for the novel. But if you are making a movie, there are things you can safely cut out.

i wouldn't say needed, but certainly everything in the book added something to the whole,


i think the movie is under-rated, but not by much, most people who i know that have seen it really like it, it didn't do very well critically, but i think that's because of the fact that critics are professional movie watchers and over-analyse, whereas the movie you have to just watch.
i think rather than being under-rated it is just not well known enough

in summary, critically i would say it is under-rated, but i'm yet to find a normal person who has seen it and didn't like it, so in that sense it is not under-rated.

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We're all actors, Laurie. I'm just an actor who read the script.

The problem is just the opposite. This film is under-analyzed. People are quick to dismiss it as either a overlong silly comic book film, or a useless carbon copy of the graphic novel.

I've spent quite a bit of time skimming reviews. The most common criticism seems to be that it was too faithful to the graphic novel, and therefore lacked an identity of its own. To which I say, forget the book and watch the movie: It's a rather uninteresting adaptation, but it works by itself.

I think this reviewer, who had never read the book, gets it right:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieOLAM1Bkj4

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"Computer unnecessary."

Pretty damn much, although we would have to remove Master Ebert from that bunch, funny enough, his favorite character was Manhattan

I remember some critics who thought the movie was too "slow paced"

I can't even imagine what the Director's Cut would've done to their patience !

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The Ultimate Cut would have made their head asplode.

...I was going to put the image but..I use it way too much.












Aw, the hell with it.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."