New WATCHMEN trailer

Ah! Finally a shot of Rorschach’s shifting mask pattern!

As thrilling as it is to see this imagery, can you imagine how jazzed Dave Gibbons must be when he sees his vision come to life? Unlike Alan Moore, Gibbons seems all in with this thing…which is refreshing to see.

First Smashing Pumpkins… now Muse? Someone sure loves their operatic whinge-rock.

If they played all the slow-mo shots in that trailer at full speed, the trailer would be about 2 minutes shorter.

* Insert whiny griping of no giant squid, Bale Batman voice for Rorschach and the characters actually referring to themselves as “The Watchmen” here *

More important than the Muse music used in this trialer is the Phillip Glass piece at the beginning. Hopefully he’s doing the score for the movie.

Yes, I have a very big problem with them referring to themselves as “The Watchmen” too. It’s not a matter of naming the group, but that the group never really existed, that these people were remnants of the prior generation of superheroes who at one point were just expected to group together. If I remember correctly the the name “Crimebusters” was thrown out there and quickly rejected, a great moment when you could see how silly the concept of superhero groups for the sake of superhero groups was becoming, even to the heroes themselves. And then there’s the matter of the “Who watches the Watchmen?” quote losing some of its context and being made more literal. I already had many problems with the movie just with the “To Squid or Not to Squid” issue and this doesn’t help.

Naming them the ‘Watchmen’ instead of ‘The Minutemen’ seems like a purely executive decision. Something along the lines of ‘the audience would get confused if theyre called something else’ probably also came up.

Don’t you love the fact that the Philip Glass piece they chose to use for this trailer comes from his opera “Akhnaten”, an opera about ancient Egypt, as in….Ozymandias !
Zack Snyder makes great trailers. Hope the film is as good as the trailer promises…

Is that Superman being burned in effigy?

Actually that Philip Glass piece can also be heard in another masterpiece of pop culture: GTA IV. It’s part of the playlist of “The Journey”, my favorite radio station in the game.

OK, trivia geek out. ;-)

I think that Phillip Glass piece is actually from the score for Koyaanisqatsi.

Akhenaten and the historical Ozymandias had nothing to do with one another, Patrick.

Next big costumes for Halloween ’09?

I was only referring to the egyptian connection….obviously Akhenaten & Ramses/Ozymandias were different pharaohs….

Another funny connection in the trailers is the use of the Smashing Pumpkins song from arguably one of the worst superhero movies ever to illustrate the trailer to the adaptation of the one of the best superhero movies ever….

“one of the best superhero comics ever”….sorry

“Muse” hum? My first thought was: why are Radiohead aping Queen?

Well, count me in as one of hose whiners complaining about the lack of genetically engineered squid. Plus the whole use of the term Watchmen by the characters. The ghost of Sam Hamm feels like it’s returned. It just feels so damn blunt hearing them call themselves that. The book was very subtle and this blunt use of the title stuck out badly.

Of course the idea that this may be studio mandate is a good point. It sounds like Snyder ‘s won a number of battles, like keeping it in the 80s Cold War era. Yet it looks like he didn’t win them all. Now he has to do damage control.

Meanwhile, I don’t mind Rorschach’s voice. It might not be pitch perfect to what Moore suggested, but it’s damn close. Personally, I expected more from Dr. Manhattan. I expected a more godlike, ethereal, and inhuman voice. They spent so much making him look inhuman and disconnected, I wish the audio matched a bit more. Yet that’s a more of personal nitpick of what I thought he would sound like.

This is very much the fanboy in me talking, but holy crap how hard is to grasp that Rorschach, Nite Owl, Sally Jupiter, etc. aren’t actually superheroes? Being a delusional psychopath doesn’t give you the ability to jump any higher than anyone else.

Its pretty cool seeing this right after reading it.

Where’s the disclaimer that says no blue pee pees were harmed during the making of this trailer??

And I could think of a better dozen songs of Porcupine Tree to use other than Muse.

~

Coat

Yeah, Koyaanisqatsi.

I wish Rorschach had more bulk, he’s the smallest guy in the line up.
I hope the voice doesn’t go too deep on the Dark Knight scale. Rorschach should steal this movie. I wonder how they’re going to handle his “diary”? In fact, Rorschach is talking a little too coherent for my tastes. Hah!

Frankly,…my hopes dwindle.
I understand that a movie ain’t a comic book and that Zack Snyder ain’t Alan Moore and/or Dave Gibbons,…but,…honestly,…the voices,…the overly youthful, miscast, players,…obvious make-up,…CGI,…
The Dark Knight returns.
It just all looks so slick.
I realize that I’m difficult to please,…but, none of the comic book movies seem to have an ounce of soul.
I know, one shouldn’t prejudge,…but this looks like it’s going to be arduous to sit through.

Re: Alex, “the audience would get confused…”

Don’t you just hate it when the executives start talking like that?

Well, consider me pumped. I haven’t read Watchmen in years, and haven’t really been following much of the more rabid hoo-ha over the production. The trailer looks great, and I went from thinking ‘I will see it’ to ‘I can’t wait to see it.’. Will have to give the TPB another read in the meantime.

Changing the method of destruction at the end of the movie doesn’t change the meaning of the story at all.

Making the completely loathsome racist “hero” of the story not racist and more likable does. I’m not crying over it, just saying. Fanboy nitpicking can be annoying but there is some legitimate criticism to be made here. Movies based on Alan Moore movies (I’m thinking specifically of From Hell and V for Vendetta) seem to keep the small details intact but completely miss the entire thematic point of what he wrote.

There, you have it.

I watched that MTV show and it didn’t have much new footage. It was mostly short on-set interviews.

It did also have a segment on The Spirit. Frank Miller looked really terrible!

Muse kicks butt. That song is poorly edited in this promo, but it’s good to listen to in full..

looks too boring for me.
steroid kung fu matrix green screen superheroes – no thanks.

AH! This is the sort of thing I have been looking for. Great article. Doing some research for an article. You should add buttons to the bottom of your posts to social bookmarking sitest.