Watchmen: Ultimate Cut Adds 'Black Freighter'

I just read over at BamKapow! that Warner Bros. is releasing another, even-fuller version of the movie, complete - now - with the Black Freighter thrown in for good measure. I knew I should have waited.

I knew I should have waited. In my impulsiveness, I couldn't help but get the Blu-Ray version the first time around. But I can't be completely to blame, since it came out two days before my birthday, and with no one to buy it for me, really, I had to do something, right?

Here is some more info from The Examiner:

Along with this updated version of the film, Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut, will also include two all new commentaries by Director Zack Snyder and Illustrator Dave Gibbons and over 3 hours of special features (see specs below), along with the complete collection of the Watchmen motion comics.

It hits stores November 3, 2009.

Watchmen Cast Comparison Over the Years

I've been unofficially obsessed with "Watchmen" since I first read it several years ago. I do not, by any means, have the right to call myself one of the book's biggest fans, mostly because I don't want to involve myself in that fanboy pissing contest, but also because I truly don't have the comic book pedigree to even enter into the discussion. I just like the hell out of the book and try to shoehorn its existence into every feasible conversation...because why not?

This post could easily turn into, "Well, this is what I think of this casting and this casting," so I won't do that to you, reader. I've posted the above picture for inquiry's sake. What is the consensus on these picks? I'm not sure just how accurate they're supposed to be, but for the most part, they're not bad casting decisions. I especially like Jude Law as Ozymandias. He seems to naturally possess the arrogant essence of Adrian Veidt. Ditto for Pearlman for the Comedian.

There is something innately unsettlingly 80s about Gilliam's casting vision of the movie. I can't quite get my finger on it, but maybe it has something to do with the casting of Jamie Lee Curtis for Laurie. I can see it, because in the book Laurie's not quite still the same sex bomb she used to be, but I don't know that I would have wanted to see it played out that way. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what the chemistry of the movie would be like, especially if Gary Busey took on the duties of the Comedian. His apparent insanity aside, he might've worked, or he might've not. No one will ever know.

Not to pour salt on Snyder's wounds, but - coming from Comicbookmovie.com - here's what Terry Gilliam had to say about the filmed version of 'Watchmen':

The pace is wrong. I was glad our version didn't get done, the one that Charles McKeown and I had wrote, because we had reduced it down to about two hours and five minutes I think and we lost so much. Comedian was cut down to next to nothing. So [Zack Snyder] did a good job, but it just felt… I also thought "The Incredibles" had kind of [frick]ed it for him... [S]o much of that material had been in a quarry that everybody had been digging goodies out of and suddenly you get lost. I think "Watchmen" really bothered me, because I thought it should be better. It was all there. It looked right, but to me it was pace. It didn't have pace. It needed a bit more quirkiness in there. Dr. Manhattan was getting boring, frankly, and then Ozymandias by the end I thought "Oh, come on!" They lost me by the end, frankly, but it was certainly looking better than what I was going to do! (laughs)

More Watchmen Fanboy Stuff

The Watchmen 'Cartoon'

'Watchmen' Midnight Showing

***UPDATE: The old post is at the very bottom.

I've found a veritable cornucopia of videos, commentary, etc. online regarding the Watchmen movie, especially on YouTube. Not all of it is good, but isn't that always the case on YouTube. Now, I find it interesting how much of the stuff out there takes the comic book and compares it to the movie, like the video below.



Zack Snyder has said, time and time again, that he used the comic as "an illuminated text" for the blueprint of the movie. I don't know how astounded we should be by the fact that it looks like the comic book. Okay, granted, Snyder could have completely dropped the ball and not made it look like the comic, but the reverence with which he's treated it almost precludes that such a thing would have happened. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and I did think it was very true to the comic, but I also thought that Zack Snyder added several of his own flourishes to the look and the feel of the film, so I can be confident in saying that he did both things well (both things being, keeping true to the book and yet making it an entertaining movie).



***Old Post: I was just looking to buy tickets for tomorrow night's 'Watchmen' showing over at Fandango.com, and I saw that there's a midnight show tonight at both Athens theaters. I can't decide if I want to go by myself tonight and tomorrow night, or just go tomorrow night. I've been so super pumped about the release of this movie that I may not be able to help myself. I may just have to go see it tonight and tomorrow night. Okay, now I'm rambling.

Alan Moore Talks Watchmen

Ever since I read Watchmen, I always thought Alan Moore to be incredibly unapproachable, and I guess I still think that, but because of this video I think it to a lesser degree. All you've been getting in the mainstream press is that he "Grr, doesn't want anything to do with this movie, or any other movie for that matter. They're all a bunch o' feckin' conts." Blah blah blah.



Has anybody ever seen The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though? The guy has just a little reason to be bitter about his movie-making experiences. And, while I share his opinion that Watchmen was made to exploit it for its singularly graphic traits and is (probably) unfilmable, I don't think the movie necessarily adds to or subtracts from the quality of the graphic novel. So far, and there have only been 26 reviews as of this writing, Rotten Tomatoes has it at 81%, which is certified FRESH!