I'm pretty impressed, especially with the Comedian. Whoever that is playing him really nails it in that shot.
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I knew the Gibbons design wouldn't translate well in his case, but he looks like he stepped out of a Schumacher super-hero flick.
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I noticed the armor nipples but figured it was an intentional thing for Ozymandias only - He's the most intentionally self-manufactured and marketted of the Watchmen heroes, the most vain, etc. I think the overly sculpted chest works for the character. His face looks really thin, though, and I imagine he's going for "intense" expression there but it doesn't quite work.
Comedian and Rorschach look good, though. I think the pictures just made the movie "real" for me - there's been talk of a Watchmen movie for so long that I didn't really believe it until seeing something physical, you know?
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Despite feeling this movie is very unnecessary, and feeling occasional bouts of dread, these look pretty good.
I am okay with Ozymandias. He looks the way I have always mentally summed up the character. A skinny tool wearing a big ego.
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Nite Owl looks like Batman and Rosarch looks like the joker. The others remind me very strongly of Batman characters too. Are they supposed to?
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Actually, Nite Owl is based on the original Blue Beetle, and Rorschach is based on the Question. I thought Nite Owl looked perfect, btw.
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I really like how effectively they modernized the costumes. If they'd tried to do convey, exactly, the costuming as drawn, it would've looked campy at best. If they'd gone for overly perfect, super-bad suits it would've felt too fake. The way the costumes are now, I can believe that the people wearing them produced them.
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quote:Originally posted by porcelain girl: I am okay with Ozymandias. He looks the way I have always mentally summed up the character. A skinny tool wearing a big ego.
The next time a fanboy tries to convince me Veidt is the -real- hero of the story, I am so quoting you. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: I note Dr. Manhattan isn't shown. Guess we'll have to wait to see the glowing blue nudist.
I'm trying to figure out what they're going to do about Dr. M. Are they going to give him a costume? They're certainly not going to let him prance around naked the whole movie, but they can't remove his genitalia without removing some pretty important aspects of the character.
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Lisa is correct. The major Watchmen characters roughly break down like this:
*very minor spoilers.* * * * * * * * * * *
Dr. Manhattan: Loosely based on the Silver Age Captain Atom. A man who gains godlike powers at a terrible price.
Rorschach: Based loosely on the Steve Ditko version of the Question, but also strongly on Mister A, a far more severe and ruthless character. Also something of a meta-commentary on the tendency in 1980s super-hero comics to have glorified psychotic vigilantes. As Alan Moore demonstrates, a truly psychotic character would not be "cool".
Nite Owl II: Based loosely on the Ted Kord version of Blue Beetle. Became a super-hero because he was something of a gadget geek and a fanboy. The closest thing you'll find to a pure, "normal" super-hero in the cast.
Silk Spectre II: Based loosely on "sexy vigilante" characters like the Golden Age Black Canary. Shoved into the costumed crime-fighting business by her mother, but very good at it despite not really liking it.
The Comedian: Based -very- loosely on the Peacemaker, a super-hero who loves peace so much he'd use violence to get it. Yeah. There is nothing funny about the Comedian, except in the sense that he finds mankind's self-destructive urge hysterical.
Ozymandias: Based loosely on Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, a super-hero who could use "unused portions of the brain". Ozymandias is a genius, he's rich, he's powerful, he wants to save the world, and (like my sister said) he's an egotistical tool.
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: [*]Rorschach: Based loosely on the Steve Ditko version of the Question, but also strongly on Mister A, a far more severe and ruthless character. Also something of a meta-commentary on the tendency in 1980s super-hero comics to have glorified psychotic vigilantes. As Alan Moore demonstrates, a truly psychotic character would not be "cool".
I still think Rorschach is cool. Okay, he _is_ rather psychotic, and kind of a fascist to boot. But he's also kind of brilliant, and peculiarly sympathetic, given what's driven him to become what he is... Not to mention that he stays true to his conscience, even at a terrible price.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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The first time I read Watchmen I didn't know what characters anyone was supposed to be based on. One of the things that I noticed was that the Nite Owl / Rorschach relationship (they used to be partners but disagree on methods) seemed to really fit the diachotomy of different versions of Batman.
Nite Owl has lots of gadgets, special costumes, vehicles, mostly owl-themed. He's Campy Batman. Rorschach relies on criminals' fear of him, intimidation, and is far more dedicated to fighting crime than the other heroes - he's the one who never quit even when it was made illegal. He's Scary Batman.
After finding out more about the other characters Moore was inspired by, I'm not sure if that was intentional or not. But it still makes a pretty interesting theme.
quote:Originally posted by Sterling: I still think Rorschach is cool. Okay, he _is_ rather psychotic, and kind of a fascist to boot. But he's also kind of brilliant, and peculiarly sympathetic, given what's driven him to become what he is... Not to mention that he stays true to his conscience, even at a terrible price.
Moore was targeting the 1980s "crazed killer hero"...he wanted (in part) to de-romanticize and de-glorify them. Show that a truly insane, prone to murdering "hero" would be unable to work well with a team and be rather pathetic in most ways.
Many fans embraced such characters for traits and actions other than the ones you describe as drawing you to Rorschach.
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Moore's earliest version of what eventually became Watchmen featured (believe it or not) the all-but-forgotten Archie comics line of super-heroes! Yup, the (in his own words) "extremely lame" 1960s version of the Shield would have been found murdered in the first issue.
Later it became a proposal for using DC Comics recently acquired characters from Charlton Comics before finally becoming the story of brand new (yet tantalizingly familiar) characters.
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quote:Originally posted by porcelain girl: I am okay with Ozymandias. He looks the way I have always mentally summed up the character. A skinny tool wearing a big ego.
The next time a fanboy tries to convince me Veidt is the -real- hero of the story, I am so quoting you.
I can't believe anyone really claims that. Veidt is a megalomaniacal fruitcake. Murdering upwards of 10 million people to achieve his kind of peace is never acceptable. I guarantee you that if they ever continued the story, his "peace" wouldn't last.
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: [*]Rorschach: Based loosely on the Steve Ditko version of the Question, but also strongly on Mister A, a far more severe and ruthless character. Also something of a meta-commentary on the tendency in 1980s super-hero comics to have glorified psychotic vigilantes. As Alan Moore demonstrates, a truly psychotic character would not be "cool".
I still think Rorschach is cool. Okay, he _is_ rather psychotic, and kind of a fascist to boot. But he's also kind of brilliant, and peculiarly sympathetic, given what's driven him to become what he is... Not to mention that he stays true to his conscience, even at a terrible price.
I think the reason they made Rorschach a nut in the book was political commentary aimed at Steve Ditko and his Objectivist views.
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Lisa, in a world where fans embraced The Authority as being "REAL heroes" (totally missing Warren Ellis' point about such a team), can you really doubt there exists a faction who embrace Veidt as a heroic champion of the greater good?
Also, Moore has been very open on what he thinks of Ditko's views, but I highly doubt he included the character solely to poke at Ditko.
Reading Moore's own thoughts, it's more Ditko's work was used to inform Moore's version of a character who truly sees the world in only black and white values.
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: I note Dr. Manhattan isn't shown. Guess we'll have to wait to see the glowing blue nudist.
They're certainly not going to let him prance around naked the whole movie,
They aren't? Aw. How disapointing
I love Watchmen. I just read it a few days ago and now I'm reading it again. I like Rorcharch the best dispite the fact that he's a right wing nutwit. But he has guts, convictions. Plus he's badass. I dislike Dr. Manhattan the most as he is a wuss. He is the strongest character in the whole story and he lets everyone rule over his life. At least Nite Owl 2 looks less like a roach, but those muscle suit things sort of bug me. Especially when they have nipples and manly bulges. Why are the bulges needed?
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These images are probably of the characters as they were during the mid-60s. The Comedian isn't a heavily scarred wreck, Nite Owl isn't pudgy, etc.
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Okay. So they're not based on Batman characters. I still think that those versions of their costumes on the posters look like bad ripoffs of Batman.
I mean come on, take one look at Nite-Owl and Rorschach on those posters and tell me they don't look like Batman and the Joker.
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Rorcharch looks like Rorchach. Not the joker. He's got the mask (hopefully they will have it change) unless my screen is too dark. Now Nite-Owl 2 does look a bit Batmany. And again, these folks need to chill with the bulges. At least Rorcharch isn't sporting one.
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: The last one can't be, since that's definitely Silk Spectre II.
How so? She was active in the mid-sixties. True she doesn't look like a teenager, but they may be fudging her age at that point in her career for the film.
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: The last one can't be, since that's definitely Silk Spectre II.
How so? She was active in the mid-sixties. True she doesn't look like a teenager, but they may be fudging her age at that point in her career for the film.
It's two Her hair doesn't look like a poodle.
But it's hard to tell if her breasts are being held up by a little hook thing.
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: The last one can't be, since that's definitely Silk Spectre II.
How so? She was active in the mid-sixties. True she doesn't look like a teenager, but they may be fudging her age at that point in her career for the film.
Edit: misread your post. I suppose they could be trying to convince us that that's teenage Malin Ackerman, but I seriously doubt it.
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I know it's not Carla, it's Malin...who -is- playing Silk Spectre II. (feeling a bit frustrated, now.)
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She's 29. The reason why I think they aren't trying to convince us is they actually have her made up to look older in that picture, not younger. She's more mature looking in that picture than I've seen her in any other role she's been in. If they wanted to convince us she was young, it would have been very easy.
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Where did I say they were trying to convince you she was younger? I said they may be fudging her character's age for the film. Adaptations do that.
Example: Did Frodo leave the Shire many, many years after Bilbo left...or within the span of days? Adaptations often fiddle and mess with character ages. It happens. Posts: 6689 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: I still think Rorschach is cool. Okay, he _is_ rather psychotic, and kind of a fascist to boot. But he's also kind of brilliant, and peculiarly sympathetic, given what's driven him to become what he is... Not to mention that he stays true to his conscience, even at a terrible price.
Moore was targeting the 1980s "crazed killer hero"...he wanted (in part) to de-romanticize and de-glorify them. Show that a truly insane, prone to murdering "hero" would be unable to work well with a team and be rather pathetic in most ways.
Many fans embraced such characters for traits and actions other than the ones you describe as drawing you to Rorschach.
Perhaps Moore gets too drawn into his own worlds, and is too good a writer, to spend that much time with a character and not invest in him some redeeming qualities. Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: Lisa, in a world where fans embraced The Authority as being "REAL heroes" (totally missing Warren Ellis' point about such a team), can you really doubt there exists a faction who embrace Veidt as a heroic champion of the greater good?
quote:Originally posted by Puffy Treat: Lisa, in a world where fans embraced The Authority as being "REAL heroes" (totally missing Warren Ellis' point about such a team), can you really doubt there exists a faction who embrace Veidt as a heroic champion of the greater good?
Ew. Just... ew.
I agree. I read Watchmen again. He is such a NAZI jerk, I can't stand him
Also that picture was cute.
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