Why do some ppl hate Watchmen (the movie) so much?

Youtube videos by brainlets that dont care about philosophy or politics in the watchmen comics, they just see watchmen as reconstruction of capeshit comics, so they can't see any elements on the movie that go beyond that, the movie works as a deconstruction of capeshit and action movies, not comics and is extremely faithful to the themes and philosophies of the original story, but that doesn't matter, theres action in the movie and ozzy's suit has nipples, thats all brainlets see and cant underatand why.

For a movie adaptation of a story (rather than just adapting a character using a story as a vague starting point like other capeshit) it's pretty good. People are just autistic as fuck about Watchmen for whatever reason.

>the movie works as a deconstruction of capeshit and action movies
it literally does not
>is extremely faithful to the themes and philosophies of the original story
it literally is not

You literally had israel attacking british interests in Egypt and the brits did nothing, they are still Israel's allies. War isnt about retribution, war only happens when you know you will be attacked again or you have something to win. Even if russia attacks America, as long as there's nothing to win nothing will happen. The industrial military complex has nothing to say when nukes are involved.

The panel by panel crit is accurate, because comics aren't fucking movies. It works for certain aspects (Manhattan on Mars being the biggest) but it mostly makes every other time it's super readily apparent feel disjointed.
Also the ending is dumb, half the point of Ozzie's plan is trying to minimize casualties in the grand keikaku, and just nuking a bunch of cities and going "lol manhattan did it" doesn't gel with the surgical strikes he's pulled through the rest of the series.

The alien ending is the most crucial part, and yet you and Snyder miss the entire point

For one: You could do a panel-by-panel adaptation and have it work (tho it'd still be kinda dumb since they're different mediums), but that's not really what Snyder did. He may have transposed what is happening in each scene, but not how it happens. He's so enamoured with coolness that he misses part of the point of the comic and its characters.

Things that are, in the comic, brutal, sad, unpleasant, hokey, are instead slo-mo enhanced super badass. He's so concerned with being cool that he gets away from how sad and shitty some of what these people are doing is.

I think in a lot of ways the stuff he's interested in (the iconography, the "darkness", and shit like that) do not add up to the same meaning and impact when you take away everything that bolsters it (the mood, tone, plot elements, melancholy, etc)

Explain your points, otherwise you just soubd like a twat.

You really shouldn't have to explain why the space squid is important to the story.

Attached: 1559547563591.jpg (487x750, 131K)

Comic: Space squid used to destroy New York, and give a common foe, leading to (temporary) world peace.

Movie: Ozymandias frames Manhattan for destroying MULTIPLE cities (New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Hong Kong.), and didn't just destroy New York only. Up until that point, Manhattan was seen as a weapon that the US was using. You don't think people outside the US would get pissed?

Not them but the surreality of the fake aliens was to stress the message that even with fantastical powers and heroes, comic solutions don’t work in the real world. Making Manhattan the scapegoat because “the aliens are too silly” completely deters from the entire point. Furthermore, it makes even less sense because every nation would still blame the US because Osterman was a US asset that they dropped the ball on. So in an effort to “fix” the ending, Snyder made it dumber

I hate watchmen in general, but that's just because I've actually read it.

You're really making Watchmen seem like the /r/ick and M'orty of comics. When your explanation for why a story is good boils down to "It's just too intellegent, low IQs like you can't understand it" with no critical analysis or depth, then it just makes whatever you're defending look like a shallow, pretentious piece of shit. I think Watchmen is good, but placing it on a pedestal that it wasn't designed for is a good way to bring all of its flaws to focus.

The alien squid from space ending doesn't work because everything prior to it established the world as being realistic. Superpowers were the only suspension of disbelief, and the people in the Watchmen universe reacted to it in the same way we likely would. In other words, this is not the typical syndicated comic book world where people behave just a bit irrationally. Then the "aliens" show up and the tone takes a 180.

Fans will defend the campiness of the aliens by saying that it's some Alan Moore brilliance that pays homage to the type of goofy saturday morning shit that Watchmen was a subversion of, but that's a pathetic copout. The fact is, the setting was too grounded in realism for humans to suddenly lose their critical thinking skills and not ever research the recovered specimen. Scientists of the world aren't stupid enough to just take a quick glance at a creature like that and say "Yep, this carbon based life form that happens to be perfectly accustomed to our atmosphere and can breathe our air just fine and can launch an invasion despite not possessing any sign of sentience. Nothing fishy about this at all.". I get that Ozzy's plan is supposed to be flawed, but not to the point that he gets handed the idiot ball.

Face it, you're defending the squid because you think you're supposed to. I can't imagine these arguments being put out by someone that's not worried about how others will perceive them.

Attached: hqdefault.jpg (480x360, 34K)

This better be pasta.

This.

Lol half of the books is just monologuing Rorschach being like "GAMERS RISE UP"

One example of Snyder not knowing what he's doing: when Nite Owl and Silk Spectre get jumped by thugs he has them snapping the thugs bones just because he thinks the violence is cool. However this completely undercuts Rorschach being so extreme that he unsettles the other heroes. If they're all casually snapping bones anyway, what's the difference? In general it's a good movie insofar as it closely follows the comics, but everything Snyder adds or changes makes it worse.

I can't speak for other people, but I'll list the parts that matter to me and my dipshit opinion.

1. Losing or heavily scaling down the roles of a lot of the B-plot side characters was necessary for an adaptation, but it hurts the climax where New York is decimated because you don't see the corpses of these characters you've been following. It loses some of the impact that makes that moment so much more horrific.

2. The change from the Alien project to the framing of Doctor Manhattan is a divisive change. Again, I understand how it was neccessary, but it doesn't work for me personally. This change removes the real human element of the Alien's creation. It's a crucial part of the mystery in the books and further exemplifies how awful the means are to the ends Ozzy is working towards. Is it campy and cheesy and comic book-y? Absolutely, but it still looks absolutely horrific when covered in the blood of innocent people.

3. A lot of the violence feels misplaced. New York's destruction is further removed from the human horror of it when it is relatively bloodless. Meanwhile, scenes like the confrontation with the muggers are gratuitously violent for no real reason other than director preference. Say what you will about the original story, I would argue it handles it's violent moments with more tact. The scene with Rorschach and the kidnapper suffers heavily from this, losing the true cruelty of Rorschach's actions and replacing it with needless gore.

4. And the part that bugs me mostly is that a lot of it is VERY true to the source material after the changes they had to make. I really think it ends up detrimental to the film as a whole because it's lifting moments straight from the book without all of the material that makes it work. What you could is an adaptation that is faithful to a fault because it wasn't reasonable to just translate every bit of it from the page to the screen. So, instead of feeling like an adaptation, it feels more like a cliff notes version with unnecessary changes that don't mesh well with the story being told.

5. The loss of the pirate comic and supplemental reading at the end of chapters does hamper the experience quite a bit in my opinion, but I admit I'm just a nerd, so it's probably fine.

Pirate comic was always a slow slog, honestly.

It really is, I'm just a retard who enjoys the thematic parallels and it's purpose to give you the point of view of a character who mainly appears at the conclusion.

That said, there were probably tons of ways to do it better, so I understand why it tends to be one of the more disliked aspects of the source material.

It fell into a kind of adaptation uncanny valley, it was VERY close a lot of the time so the bits that deviated, that people have been pointing out, were particularly noticeable.

You know why, OP? Because Watchmen pioneered several techniques in comics that can’t be done in other mediums, much like how you can’t have omonionpeia in music or shot composition in text. Instead of trying to replace those pioneered techniques with their cinematic equalivents, the movie tried then to adapt the comic panel by panel instead like a retard. The movie is fundamentally flawed because of that. However, this is just a hypothesis since I haven’t watched the movie yet.

Zack Snyder is a semi-literate Hollywood asshole who created a hollow imitation of a smartly written Alan Moore comic. He barely could adapt over the top Frank Miller comics. He was a poor choice for the subtle writings of Alan Moore. He butchered scenes in BvS based on Dark Knight Returns too. He is a Hollywood centered director who has his head firmly up his ass. His superficial understanding of these books barely go beyond visuals.

Attached: Zack Snyder just blue himself SL1500_.jpg (1021x1500, 143K)

>When your explanation for why a story is good boils down to "It's just too intellegent, low IQs like you can't understand it"
That's not what what was said at all. Apparently you're just a moron.

The whole fucking point of the squid was to have a band new alien threat to unite America and Russia. Having America's blue poster boy cause the attacks weakens that. Snyder and his supporters are idiots for not understanding basic concepts from the book.

Attached: -vwY_RgcVM7Hm5i6QGGFNG66mAFNP4AogoIukKrhh4wLdAFruGZIpmvJ0yPdaRDNqm9ued5wvc0IPo6yVnRnFiYf4mudXF_Wpoo_ (626x418, 45K)

Yes. A giant geniticalky engineered squid, created with the same technology as Bubastis, doesn't make any zense. Meanwhile a biant blue man who can teleport to Mars and liquify Vietcong is wholly realistic.

Do you hear youself? Why even have Bubastis? She was created as part of Viedt's genetic engineering company that created the squid. It was part of the smartly written set up of the book people like you aand Snyder are too illiteratr to see. Why do Snyder fans still defend his idiotic comments about the squid. He was wrong then and he still is now.

>Face it, you're defending the squid because you think you're supposed to. I can't imagine these arguments being put out by someone that's not worried about how others will perceive them.
You say that as if you're not brainwashed by Hollywood to think their shitty movie adaptation needs defending. You think you need to defend these piss poor changes Snyder made. Why are you defending this weak adaptation? Without the original book Snyder would have nothjng. He made a cheap superficial copy of the book that doesn't stand on its own.

I saw it and you are 100% correct.

user the point of the alien is to have a new enemy the super powers can come together and focus on. It was already established that Dr. Manhattan was American and fought for America along with getting funded and help from America for his research. Not only that but as far as what were shown America also owns majority, if all of the super heroes. If Dr. Manhattan blew up any city the rest of the nations aren't just going to shrug and ally up to take him down. They are all going to blame it on America since they where the ones who created him, trainined him, used him for war and funded his research in the first place.

not enough braps?

The alien squid is dumb and ridiculous and comic-booky because Watchmen is a comic book.

It’s a book where Nixon is still president, a bunch of guys and girls run around being vigilantes and a naked blue god just hangs around. Watchmen shows how ridiculous the concept of superheroes is and how it does not apply to the real world at all and the squid perfectly encompasses that.

Basically this. The greatest complain I hear about the movie (coming from the great wizard himself) is that the characters are too sympathetic, nobody should want to be Rorschach for fuck's sake.

Attached: Alan_Moore1.png (287x293, 129K)

Fucking Yea Forums crossposters...

At least the Space Squid has actual build up and makes sense within it's own universe. Framing Manhattan doesn't work logically OR narratively. First of all, Manhattan was an American asset and any attack by him would immediately be seen as an attack by America to the Soviets. The Soviets wouldn't immediately know Manhattan had gone rogue, they would try and immediately retaliate the destruction of their major cities and not wait to hear that America had been hit too.

Ignoring that and the Soviets magically stayed their their fingers that were almost literally on the launch button because tensions were that bad at that point in the Watchmen universe, why the fuck would framing Manhattan push them to collaborate with the Americans? Again, he's an American asset and America would receive the blame for letting a nigh indestructible demigod they had under control go off his leash. It was America that weaponized Manhattan in the Cold War, their weapon being responsible for one of the biggest tragedies in human history probably isn't going to sit well with most nations. If everyone didn't die in a nuclear Armageddon from Russian retaliation then you can get their would be winger pointing all around only resume the exact problem Ozymandias was trying to solve.

What the hell are the world's nations supposed to do about Manhattan anyway? From their perception he's nearly all-powerful, obliterated the world's major cities simultaneously, offered no reason for why he attacked in the first place, and he could do it again at any moment for any reason. Sure, the Space Squid is an "alien" threat but at least it's a threat that offers the possibility of fighting back. It might have destroyed NYC and traumatized millions from psychic backlash but at least the thing died like everything else. How the fuck are people supposed to fight Manhattan when for all they know trying to figure out ways to fight him could easily incur his wrath again.

Yeah and the point is that he's a sociopath who murders people and desperately wants to die. Snyder missed that memo.

And another thing, why the fuck would Ozy use such a wasteful and excessive plan as destroying more than one major city? The Space Alien works so great because it's not just about the death toll, the psychic shockwave it creates lasting trauma on the survivors making the event seem all more "real". Ozy outright destroying multiple cities seems little better than just letting nukes hit them, it's like amputating your entire leg to stave off infection when only your pinky toe was infected. It feels like Snyder had to inflate the body count because that's what he always does.

We're talking about nukes and "weapons" with greater or equal power here. If any nation managed to actually detonate a high-yield nuke in a major city there would be immediate retaliation, especially in a moment of heightened tensions where world leaders are in their bunkers prepared for a nuclear attack at that particular moment in the Watchmen universe.

It’s got no soul to it, visually it’s great but Snyder has no understanding of the deeper themes in the book which tends to be the case for most Snyder films.

Not one of the movie defenders will ever address your posts

This is like the Beastie Boys being mad that people actually liked the song "You Gotta Fight For Your Right to Party" unironically.

because you guys are all smooth-brains
Dr. Manhattan was never an "American asset", he was a power of his own only loosely aligned with US. Nobody points fingers at this country because that's our fucking game.

"hurr durr why multiple cities"
this post is pretty clear
One 9/11 would never work during a suped-up Cold War, you need something beyond human like real tangible aliens (not present in the book, you people are too easily impressed I guess) or A FUCKING DEMIGOD WHO'S FUCKING THE ENTIRE WORLD UP RIGHT BEFORE THEIR EYES

The pacing of the novels was certainly more leisurely, and the movie focused too much on things and situations the novels left as mere detail. Gratuitous sex and fighting scenes where there should have been more world-building and character background info killed my interest in it.

The casting was great, the props and costumes were spot-on, some of the minor changes to the plot seemed necessary (alien squid -> doomsday bomb, makes better sense). It's just the pacing of it all. Too much good stuff was left out, too much stupid shit was elaborated, and it felt like there was never enough time to get to know the characters and their motivations.

Idiots are going to screech about the differences between mediums as an excuse for it, but it's just poor storytelling.
Half-baked director with a history of being just so.

It should have been an HBO miniseries with the extra stuff at the end of each issue being adapted into TV interviews and documentary clips.

>Gratuitous sex and fighting scenes where there should have been more world-building and character background
this is probably the worst part about the movie. Interesting setting, interesting premise- NO LETS FOCUS ON SLOMO PUNCHING AND ORGASM GAGS.

Attached: forfuckssake.jpg (935x606, 54K)

He fucking won the Vietnam war for them, if that's not an asset I don't know what is.

Why didn't Ozy cook up a plan where the "aliens" threaten mankind with destruction first, before resorting to genocide? This is the problem with writing characters that are supposed to be super intelligent.

Attached: now-i-am-the-master-gort-shows-the-x-men-what-a-real-the-day-the-earth-stood-still-1951-directed-by- (720x480, 28K)

>you need something beyond human like real tangible aliens
But in this case the entire world perceives Manhattan as a madman with a nuke essentially. How the hell are they supposed to come together to fight Manhattan when they don't even know why Manhattan had destroyed major cities in the first place? How do you react to a borderline god smiting a city without giving you a reason why, especially when he can just as easily start smiting more cities at will? Manhattan can't be a common enemy because people don't even know if he can be attacked in the first place.

How would he achieve that though? Space Squid was incredibly complex but it was essentially just an organic bomb that also left a lot of "evidence" of its existence. It fools people into thinking there's life other than them out there but at the same time showing it's extremely dangerous without having to through all the trouble of having to hoax alien contact.

same applies to aliens really
Veidt can probably manage the illusion in both cases