Watchmen trailer is up!

[triggercut1]

I was feeling rather apathetic to a movie version of The Watchmen, simply because reading the book/books (depending on whether you've got the original comics), I couldn't see how it'd be film-able.

This, though. This looks awesome...can't wait to see it now.

[backstop]

Billy Corgan sure likes comic book movies.

[triggercut1]

Billy Corgan sure likes comic book movies.

and they love him right back.

[ppg shg]

Dog Carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!' And I'll look down, and whisper 'no.'

[backstop]

and they love him right back.

The original version of that same song was in...one of the old Batman movies.

What's the premise behind this? I'm completely unfamiliar.

[triggercut1]

The original version of that same song was in...one of the old Batman movies.

What's the premise behind this? I'm completely unfamiliar.

Well, I'd imagine they've updated it for 2009, but the original was set in an alternate history 1985.

Plot summary

The novel opens with the October 1985 murder of retired New Yorker Edward Blake. An introductory narrative and investigation by a pair of police detectives yields nothing conclusive: Blake, formerly affiliated with the United States government, might have been murdered by Communist Russians, but this could be suicidal considering America's current superiority in the arms race; also, Blake kept himself in excellent physical shape, raising the question of who could have overpowered him in the first place. The detectives conclude that, above all, they want to keep the murder quiet, for fear of attracting the attention of the last "costumed adventurer," the vigilante Rorschach.


Rorschach does investigate, however, and discovers that Blake was also a costumed hero: The Comedian, one of only two costumed adventurers who accepted government patronage under the Keene Act, which otherwise forbade costumed adventuring from 1977 onward (hence Rorschach's status as a vigilante). Believing that Blake's murder is part of a greater plot to eliminate "masks," as Rorschach calls them, he warns others: Jon Osterman, AKA Dr. Manhattan (the other government-sponsored hero and the lynchpin of American nuclear superiority), his lover, Laurel Jane Juspeczyk (the second Silk Spectre), Daniel Dreiberg (the second Nite Owl and Rorschach's former partner), and Adrian Veidt (Ozymandias, reputedly the smartest man in the world, who retired in '75 and built a commercial empire).


Within the fictional context of the story, the United States and the Soviet Union have been edging toward a nuclear showdown since the 1959 nuclear accident that transformed Osterman into the super-powered Dr. Manhattan. Dr. Manhattan had disrupted the mutually assured destruction doctrine by possessing the power to neutralize most of the Russian nukes in mid-air. With this trump card in hand, America has enjoyed a distinct strategic advantage, allowing it to defeat the Soviet Union in a series of proxy wars, including victory in Vietnam. Richard Nixon used this success and, unmarred by Watergate (in a flashback, the Comedian alludes to having assassinated Woodward and Bernstein), encouraged a repeal of the 22nd Amendment, removing Presidential term limits allowing him to serve an unprecedented fifth term of office during the events of the novel.


Dr. Manhattan's existence has accelerated the nuclear arms race and dramatically increased global tension. In seeming anticipation of global war, American society has assumed a general sense of fatalism about the future. Signs of this in daily life range from "Meltdowns" candy to graffiti inspired by the Hiroshima bombing to the designation of many buildings in New York as fallout shelters.


As Rorschach continues his investigation, he is framed, captured by the police, jailed and subjected to psychiatric examination. Meanwhile, Adrian Veidt is attacked by a gunman in an assassination attempt that he survives.


Dr. Manhattan, though supremely powerful, suffers from a decreasing ability to relate to normal humans. He accidentally upsets his lover, Laurie, and she leaves him. Soon afterwards, evidence comes to light that a number of his co-workers, including his former girlfriend Janey Slater, have come down with terminal cancer. Manhattan feels that he poses a threat to others, and he relocates himself to Mars, in a chapter that reveals that he experiences time in a non-linear fashion. His break with the U.S. government prompts Soviet opportunism in the form of an invasion of Afghanistan (a delayed version of the real-life event), greatly aggravating the global crisis and prompting Nixon to consider nuclear reprisals.


These events are coloured by commentary from a bevy of secondary characters, such as a teenage reader of the Tales of the Black Freighter comic-within-a-comic, the newsstand vendor from whom he purchases said comics, the psychiatrist evaluating Rorschach, the police officers from the first chapter and others.

[triggercut1]

Dog Carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!' And I'll look down, and whisper 'no.'

I think Rorschach was the closest Alan Moore has ever come to writing an autobiographical character.

[jhanke]

looks fucking awesome

[Glovey]

Linky no worky.

[triggercut1]

The studio is frantically trying to quash the trailer, which was supposed to premiere during midnight showings of Dark Knight.

They're fighting the internet though. The internet always wins.

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Watch...iler-9552.html

[Glovey]

Well, I suppose I can wait 6 hours. I'd rather see it on the big screen than on my PC monitor. I've been interested in it ever since I heard it was being made into a movie.

[jhanke]

it will take a brave man to play Dr Manhattan!!

[triggercut1]

Billy Crudup is the Doc. I'm sure he was CGI "enhanced".

[jhanke]

Billy Crudup is the Doc. I'm sure he was CGI "enhanced".

I was wondering that, did they make him more or less real?? will he look like a blurred out ken doll?

[YYZ]

I might get excited with a different director, but this is the hack that did 300.

Whither, Terry Gilliam?