Just came back from watching the limited release of the Director's Cut of Watchmen in theatres on Sunday. Only four cities are showing it New York, Los Angeles, Minnepolis, and Dallas and I'm in Dallas. Well, technically, it was being showed at the Rave Motion Pictures Theatre in Hickory Creek, Texas, which is considered part of the DFW metroplex, barely so. It was a hour away from my house!
What did I think of the film? It is fan-bloody-tastic! And I'm a person who HATES and DESPISES extended cuts! But this is how Watchmen was really intended and it is amazing! The Director's Cut is far more superior to the Theatrical Cut, without question. I am still quite surprised at how adding forty-five extra minutes could make such a difference! It doesn't feel rushed or exhausting. It flows a great deal better. It grabs your attention better as well which, ironically, makes the film feel shorter than the Theatrical Edition. It does seem like the film is saving the all the Bernie scenes for the Ultimate Edition scheduled for December, sigh!
My favourite parts are:
The first extended scene with Rorschach searches through the Comedian's apartment. Two police guards hear the noise he makes and investigate and Rorschach's knocks out one of the cops, scares the hell out of the other cop, and leaves. At first, I wasn't sure why this new scene was added, but it was then followed by two more extended scenes, which were equally awesome. The Director's Cut finally established why the police hate and fear Rorschach and, as a result, made their attack on him at Moloch's even more powerful, which was extended by a new scene with the grappling gun knocking the wind out of one of the SWAT men, as it was meant to be!Comedian's scenes in Vietnam are extended, where we see him come out of a helicopter and a longer scene of burning the VietCom solider, and made it more AWESOME!Crimebusters Meeting is longer. Ozymandias' and Comedian's talk is extended, of course, but what makes this scene EPIC is Nite Owl II and his adorableness, such as his nervous ticks, his line about "no drinking," giving not-so-secretive flirtatious glances toward Laurie (and finding himself pitifully defeated by the "manliness" of Manhattan, d'awwww!), and him holding back Rorschach as he verbally attacks the Comedian and then he apologetically straightens his trench-coat collar. It is sooooo fuckin' cute! It's a such tiny, tiny little gesture that happens to speak volumes! The Happy Harry scene is also extended greatly and, again, Nite Owl II steals the scene!Rorschach's scene is added where he gets his costume out of a dumpster and stops a "rape/mugging/both" and it's a fantastic scene!The gore is more intense with the extended scenes of the murder of Gerald Grice, Roy Chess' attack on Adrian Veidt What the hell! That poor secretary didn't do anything to you! and, of course, Dr. Manhattan's attach in Moloch's vice den. They look fantastic, but....DAAAYYMMMNNN!"Possibly homosexual" and "We're all puppets" are back in the film and they rock!Laurie has a lot of new scenes: While she was just "meh" in the Theatrical Cut, she advances greatly in these new scenes. She really got the short end of the stick in the Theatrical Edition! I actually ended up really, really LOVING her in the Director's Cut (even though I despised her in the book!) and my favourite scene with her is when she returns to the research facility, learning that Jon has vanished, and beats the shit out of one of the creep-o agents. It was epic!The scenes with Kovacs and Dr. Long, the psychologist, have been extended as well, however the Kitty Genovese speech is still missing from the film, but I'm rather glad they didn't add it in because what they did add was excellent! It's a real improvement from the Theatrical Edition, making the flashbacks appear a little more intense and emotional than before. The ending is wonderful, I ended up busting out in laughter, and I won't spoil it for you! You just have to see it!Anything with Moloch, even if they were just a total of twenty seconds, he really makes the most out of these seconds and made me squee! He comes off a little more pitiful and all the more tragic in those little glances we're given into his life. We even get to see him a shot of him in his glory days, which made it all the more GLORIOUS!Anything with Hollis Mason is AWESOME! He's my favourite character after Rorschach and I'm a huge fan of Stephen McHattie (or as I petnamed him "McHottie"). He has three-and-a-half new scenes and each one gets better as the film progresses. The highlight event, of course, his death, which was my major complaint about the Theatrical Cut editing the scene out and it was well worth the wait: It is so emotional, so brutal, so beautifully executed that it gave me chills and broke into tears! My one problem is that it was not milked enough and, instead, it quickly dissolved into the next scene. I wasn't given enough time to recover my tears!In the restaurant scene, where Laurie and Dan are meet for the first time in years, did anyone else hear someone in the background say "four-legged chicken"? Perhaps a possible reference to the four-legged bird seen in Karnak in the novel?Ozymandias' "asshole smile" (or "shit eating smile") is still rad!Walter Kovacs + Wifebeater + Ripped Shirt = SQUNF!!! There are several more extended scenes besides these mentioned. I just wanted to talk about my favourite ones.
My complaints are (which I can't help but nitpick):
Although they are still fantastic scenes in themselves, there are three minor little things that I wished they added into the film: (1) It would loved it if the Comedian shot his pregnant Vietnamese mistress twice because it would have been crueler (and cooler) if he did! (2) I would have loved it if Gerald Grice, the pedophile, would have added another one tiny sentence to his speech: "Alright, I confess. I kidnapped her. I killed her," and then add "I fucked her," and continue on with "Arrest me," because it would have driven the point further and made the extended "killing" even more dramatic and emotional. (3) I wanted more on Adrian Veidt's mysterious background, which wasn't expanded in the book anyway. Actor Matthew Goode theorised and played Adrian as that parents were Nazi sympathisers and members of the Third Reich, gaining wealth by stealing valuables from the Jews taken to concentration camps, and his birth may have been attributed to the practice of Eugenics. Now, this, of course, was not mentioned in the film because it wasn't in the book, it doesn't change what is in the book, but what it would have done is fill in the blanks. It explains his motivations of why he gave away all his entire inheritance and re-started his life and wealth from scratch, and explains his obsession with "world peace" in a clearer light.Laurie's surname is still "Jupiter" and not the original "Juspeczyk". It was a complaint I had with the Theatrical Edition, which I still befuddles me. In the advertisements and merchandise, such as the movie posters, the Film Companion, and the action figures made for the film, they address her name as "Juspeczyk" and credits her name in the end tiles as "Juspeczyk" and yet the film, they call her "Jupiter"! What the hell is going on? Is it a goof? Or is it a last minute change?In the same scene, we see Dan and Laurie leave the Gunga Diner and walk past Kovacs, where Rorschach's Journal voice-over said that they "didn't recongise me without my mask". Doesn't he mean that they didn't recongise him because he wasn't wearing "his face"? He is suppose to call his Rorschach mask "his face", while his Kovacs face is referred to as "his mask". In the film, he does say this when the Rumrunner scene where he is unmasked by the cops and when he threatens the psychologist. Was anyone else confused by that?Although the scenes of Rorschach leaving Moloch's to walk to the Comedian's grave are extended, the "American love" speech is still missing from the film. The entire monologue at the end of Chapter 2 is my favourite Rorschach's Journal entry in the novel and possibly my favourite part in the novel as well. (I love that monologue so much that I've actually memorised it!) To be fair, I understand why it was edited out because, in reality, it wasn't really that important to the film. However, because of the fact that it's missing, the scene isn't as powerful and as emotional as it should be. The Motion Comic adaptation of this scene is far superior!The scene of Rorschach looking up at the nude woman in window wasn't added to the film. The scene really is a window into Rorschach's sexuality. In the book, particularly emphasized in the Motion Comic, Rorschach stops to watch a nude woman up in an apartment window from the street. He stares at her we don't see her face and Rorschach does leave until he sees her lovers wals in and closes the curtains. He doesn't even write about this encounter down. Does he feel loneliness? Does he feel sexual attraction? Does he feel pain? And I would have loved to see the film's take of this scene.The film never explains Bubastis yet again. I do love the character and I do appreciate that she's there, but in the context of the film, she's useless. They should have removed her completely from the film.Where is the Nite Owl Dark Roast Coffee (by Veidt) scene? (I strongly believe the lawsuit against the film forced this scene to be removed, not the one by Fox, but an equally stupid one done by Chock Full o' Nuts! Arrghhhh!)I demand more Minutemen, particularly of Dollar Bill, Mothman, Silhouette, and the sexiness that is Nite Owl I!Were there any of the extended scenes that would have been considered superfluous? Honestly, no. ALL the extended scenes, I felt, fit in beautifully and perfectly in the film and were all quite necessary for the film and I'm more shocked at WHY they were even removed in the first place! Damn WB suits! You can probably say "insert-scene-here" could be removed, like the gore, the nudity, the sex scene in Archie, blah-blah-blah-blah, yak-yak-yak...but seriously TOUGH NOUGHIES! I'm sticking to my guns! This is a great story and it's a great film! If you don't like it, go watch Twilight!
If you liked the Theatrical Cut of the film, guaranteed, you will LOVVVE the Director's Cut! And I honestly loved the Theatrical Edition, I really do, and my original intention is to get both DVDs, but after watching this, I will probably never see the Theatrical Cut ever again and, even if I did buy it, for posterity, I would probably never open it. The Director's Cut is THAT great! Check it out!
Mood of the Moment:
excited
Music of the Moment:
"I'm Your Boogie Man" by KC and the Sunshine Band.
Media of the Moment: Watchmen (2009).
Book of the Moment: Watchmen: The Film Companion, by Peter Aperlo.
Food of the Moment: Rice with boiled eggs and fish sauce.
Lust of the Moment:
Walter Kovacs.
Research of the Moment: Watchmen.
Quote of the Moment/Philosophical Perspective of the Moment: "We don't do this thing because it's permitted. We do it because we have to. We do it because we're compiled" (Rorschach, Watchmen).