the world will look up and shout "save us!"...and i'll whisper "no"
Hehehehe! I cannot tell you how long that line has been giving me chills ever since I first saw the trailer, god knows how many months ago, and all of the times I watched it since then. I can't actually describe the feeling I got finally hearing it from the big-screen, but it was amazing. Watching the film for the first time, I was just in a constant sense of squee and awe all at the same time, I felt fit to burst! In short, Watchmen completely lived up to my expectations, and I freaking LOVED it.
Warning: this post will contain excessive amounts of squeeing and fangirlism. And minor spoilers, (if you haven't read the book), under the cut.
You can tell this film was Zack Snyder's baby, and the effort he put into trying to keep the movie as close to the graphic novel as possible is just immense, because so many shots had been lifted exactly from the panels and pages of the book. And considering how complicated some of them are, that was freaking awesome. It was just like 300 where it felt like I was watching pages on-screen, I loved it. Combine that with his crazy-angle shots, the bright, vivid colours and the special effects (especially the slow-motion fight scenes), and it makes the entire thing just a FEAST for your eyes!! It was graphic, stylistic and just visually stunning, seriously. A lot of the time I was just sat there with eyes wide and mouth dropped open.
The storyline was pretty much exactly the same as the graphic novel too, again I was impressed with how closely Zack managed to follow it. Even though he had to cut masses out (because it's a bloody long graphic novel!), the overall arc was the same, and for fans of the book, there's references to the things he couldn't include throughout the entire film. So that was a lot of fun! And even though he changed the big aspect of how things happen in the end, it actually made a lot of sense to me, and I think it makes more sense in the film, and in general.
Having Veidt blow up NYC by replicating Dr. Manhattan's power made so much more sense than having him create a giant squid and let it loose in the city. I know that the purpose of the squid was to trick people into believing in an alien threat, and then uniting against it, but since everyone was already feeling hostile towards Jon, that was achieved easily by framing him! Plus it fits with the overall theme of an impending nuclear war, so yeah, I really liked that. Liked as in, I liked the change, not the whole planned nuclear explosion for the greater good, because that's just scary.
The cast was all awesome too, I thought they were each perfectly-suited for their roles, honestly. Billy Crudup played Dr. Manhattan exactly how I'd imagined him to be in the book, how he carried himself and the way he talked, and Patrick Wilson was so great as the Nite Owl! Dan is a bit of a nerd but then when he's in costume, he's focused, strong and just kickass, and he caught the balance between and portrayed all of that really well. Rorschach is just so badass, it hurts. And JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN!!!! Oh my God, his character is a total dick with seriously questionable morals but I liked him anyway! XD And it's all because of Jeff! ♥ I just loved them all, Rorschach was my favourite from the graphic novel, but I'm fairly torn for the film!
Oh yeah, it was unexpectedly gory. I was left cringing and mentally going "eewww!!!" at a lot of the injuries inflicted on the good and bad guys alike, but then with an 18 rating, I don't know what else I expected!
And the soundtrack was great! I had no idea that Tyler Bates (who did the score for 300) also did the music for this until his name popped up, but it was awesome. And there was also an entirely different soundtrack where they used songs from the era over certain scenes, and they were just well-suited and fun. In particular, there was a really pretty Simon and Garfunkel song used that instantly made me think of blackbirdj2 when I heard it :-P
Honestly, I ADORED it!!! Like I said, it completely lived up to my expectations which makes me so happy because I've been looking forward to this for months and if it'd been even a bit crap, I'd have been so gutted. But it was just immense! I need to go see it again as soon as, because once is definitely not enough. It's epic genius.
Who's watching the Watchmen? I AM! ♥
Warning: this post will contain excessive amounts of squeeing and fangirlism. And minor spoilers, (if you haven't read the book), under the cut.
You can tell this film was Zack Snyder's baby, and the effort he put into trying to keep the movie as close to the graphic novel as possible is just immense, because so many shots had been lifted exactly from the panels and pages of the book. And considering how complicated some of them are, that was freaking awesome. It was just like 300 where it felt like I was watching pages on-screen, I loved it. Combine that with his crazy-angle shots, the bright, vivid colours and the special effects (especially the slow-motion fight scenes), and it makes the entire thing just a FEAST for your eyes!! It was graphic, stylistic and just visually stunning, seriously. A lot of the time I was just sat there with eyes wide and mouth dropped open.
The storyline was pretty much exactly the same as the graphic novel too, again I was impressed with how closely Zack managed to follow it. Even though he had to cut masses out (because it's a bloody long graphic novel!), the overall arc was the same, and for fans of the book, there's references to the things he couldn't include throughout the entire film. So that was a lot of fun! And even though he changed the big aspect of how things happen in the end, it actually made a lot of sense to me, and I think it makes more sense in the film, and in general.
Having Veidt blow up NYC by replicating Dr. Manhattan's power made so much more sense than having him create a giant squid and let it loose in the city. I know that the purpose of the squid was to trick people into believing in an alien threat, and then uniting against it, but since everyone was already feeling hostile towards Jon, that was achieved easily by framing him! Plus it fits with the overall theme of an impending nuclear war, so yeah, I really liked that. Liked as in, I liked the change, not the whole planned nuclear explosion for the greater good, because that's just scary.
The cast was all awesome too, I thought they were each perfectly-suited for their roles, honestly. Billy Crudup played Dr. Manhattan exactly how I'd imagined him to be in the book, how he carried himself and the way he talked, and Patrick Wilson was so great as the Nite Owl! Dan is a bit of a nerd but then when he's in costume, he's focused, strong and just kickass, and he caught the balance between and portrayed all of that really well. Rorschach is just so badass, it hurts. And JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN!!!! Oh my God, his character is a total dick with seriously questionable morals but I liked him anyway! XD And it's all because of Jeff! ♥ I just loved them all, Rorschach was my favourite from the graphic novel, but I'm fairly torn for the film!
Oh yeah, it was unexpectedly gory. I was left cringing and mentally going "eewww!!!" at a lot of the injuries inflicted on the good and bad guys alike, but then with an 18 rating, I don't know what else I expected!
And the soundtrack was great! I had no idea that Tyler Bates (who did the score for 300) also did the music for this until his name popped up, but it was awesome. And there was also an entirely different soundtrack where they used songs from the era over certain scenes, and they were just well-suited and fun. In particular, there was a really pretty Simon and Garfunkel song used that instantly made me think of blackbirdj2 when I heard it :-P
Honestly, I ADORED it!!! Like I said, it completely lived up to my expectations which makes me so happy because I've been looking forward to this for months and if it'd been even a bit crap, I'd have been so gutted. But it was just immense! I need to go see it again as soon as, because once is definitely not enough. It's epic genius.
Who's watching the Watchmen? I AM! ♥