Watchmen / Les Gardiens (Widescreen Edition)

This is just to point out something not mentioned in the description. As you know, this comes with an exclusive Nite Owl Ship.

First, it looks cool. Nice details, looks 'properly used'. But here's the thing. After I unpacked it I noticed a slip of paper at the bottom of the box. It described how to replace the batteries in the Nite Owl Ship. Wait... BATTERIES?

So I then discovered the ship is made to easily come off it's stand. Under it there is a battery compartment. It requires a small Phillips head to open. I opened it to confirm... yup a battery compartment with two batteries!

But for the life of me I could not figure out what the Nite Owl Ship was suppose to do! I saw no switch. So I even tried talking to it... nope, no voice recognition.

*** spoiler **

Finally... I figured out the top plate (circular on the very top) is a hidden switch! You press it... and it lights up (detail lights and bright main front lights)! And, for about 5-10 seconds... it makes the SOUNDS of the Nite Owl Ship flying around! The lights stay on until you press the hidden switch again...

This ended up being much more than advertised! :)

And of course the movie is great... but you already know that (or else what the heck are you reading this for)!!!

They year 1986 was a watershed year for comic books. It was the year that people started taking comic books seriously as a form of literature. The reason? Alan Moore's Watchmen (along with Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns) introduced readers to superheroes with real problems. This was a vast departure from the the years of the kid-friendly Super Friends and the campy Adam West Batman television series.

When Watchmen hit, that all changed. Hailed for its deconstruction and examination of superhero tropes, it won a Hugo Award in 1988 and it is the only graphic novel to be listed by Time as one of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century.

Naturally, Hollywood wanted in on the action, and attempts to make a Watchmen movie have continued since its publication. However, they were never able to crack the Watchmen nut. How do you take such a layered, complex book like Watchmen and turn it into a two-hour movie? How much would the material need to be changed? What elements would need to be left out? Many concepts were pitched - making it a buddy film centered on Rorschach and Nite-Owl, getting rid of crucial characters, setting the film in a contemporary setting instead of the 80's, the list goes on. Several directors were involved. After attempting to make his own Watchmen movie, Paul Greengrass ultimately deemed Watchmen "unfilmable."

But Zack Snyder, who had just come off the huge success of directing another graphic novel adaptation with 300, stepped forward and was given the task to film the unfilmable. Using the graphic novel itself as the film's storyboard, Snyder succeeded. His Watchmen film is as faithful to the graphic novel as you can expect. The Comedian is still a cynic who takes pleasure in his violent "crimebusting", Rorschach is still a brutal vigilante who sees everything in black-and-white morality (and is played with fury and intensity by a resurgent Jackie Earle Haley in the film's standout performance), Nite-Owl still can't "get it up" without being in his superhero costume, and Dr. Manhattan is still as naked as a jaybird and apathetic to the plight of humanity.

Most of the film's departures from the graphic novel are understandable. The graphic novel's out-of-deep-left-field finale involving a cataclysmic event is altered, though the goals and motives behind it are unchanged. This new ending actually makes more sense and ties to the characters much better, but it still doesn't quite have the gut-punch shock that the book's end had. Perhaps this has more to do with the fact that Snyder is forced to cram as much into the film as possible while trying to keep the film's runtime from getting too long that the audience isn't given much time to really absorb it.

Another element that Snyder has included in this film is moments of horror-movie gore that almost seem out of place. Perhaps the book's violence lends itself to a very violent film interpretation, but I felt Snyder (who directed the remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead) may have gone overboard during a few moments, like Nite-Owl breaking a thug's arm to the point that the bones burst through the flesh. Ouch.

The Director's Cut adds nearly a half an hour of footage that Snyder was forced to cut to keep the film under three hours. Most of this footage comes in the form of lengthened scenes. In one, Rorschach's investigation of The Comedian's apartment is interrupted by the police and a fight ensues, and Rorschach's questioning by Dr. Malcolm is longer. Hollis Mason's sad and brutal death at the hands of a street gang is also reinserted in the Director's Cut, a scene I was disappointed to hear that it was omitted from the theatrical version.

This version of the Blu-Ray comes with a handful of featurettes that reflect on the graphic novel's impact on comic books. Another examines the psychology and cultural impact of actual vigilantes like New York's Guardian Angels, Bernard Goetz, as well as the recent trend of "real life superheroes" who dress up in costume and patrol their neighborhoods. One featurette even delves into the real scientific basis behind the elements of the Watchmen world.

For me, the best feature would have to be the special commentary performed by Zack Snyder himself, who will step in during the film and explain aspects of the film's production as opposed to just giving a voice-only commentary. Then the audience has the option to view a vignette about that aspect of the film or continue watching the film.

This Amazon-exclusive version of Watchmen: Director's Cut comes in a replica of the Owlship, Nite-Owl's hovering vehicle, which emits lights and sounds with the press of a button. The Owlship itself can be removed from its base, and I'm sure your kids would like to run around the house with the Owlship in their hands pretending it can fly (note: Watchmen is an R-rated film and NOT for children, but i'm sure kids will still get a kick out of playing with the Owlship).

There is a Digital Copy for your computers and iPods, but I was disappointed to find that it is of the theatrical version and NOT the Director's Cut.

There is an "Ultimate Edition" of Watchmen being released around Christmas, which will include the animated "Tales of the Black Freighter" feature spliced into the film as it appears in the graphic novel, so if you want a copy of Watchmen: DIrector's Cut that will give you the most bang for your buck until it comes out, the Amazon-exclusive Owlship version is probably the best way to go.

This movie is a masterpiece in my opinion. And so is the collectible case for this edition of the DVD. The movie was a classy production from top to bottom and the Nite Owl ship version of the DVD looks fantastic!

I can't really review the DVD yet as it isn't out yet. But the Director's Cut is about 30 minutes longer than what was shown in theaters and I'm dying to see it.

My own view as to why it didn't clean up at the box office is because the movie is ahead of its time. When the graphic novel came out in the 1980s, comic readers were tired of the same old same old in comics. WATCHMEN came along and blew up the traditional superhero stereotypes.

A lot was said in interviews by the creators of the film that MOVIE audiences were tired of "typical" superhero movies (just as those comic readers were back in the 80s) and the timing was right for WATCHMEN to blow people's minds.

Well, it did and it didn't. For those who "got" the movie, mission accomplished. For most fans of the novel, mission accomplished. But for the "masses", it didn't quite work. I've read a lot of complaints about the film and there is a common thread running through them. Folks who didn't like the movie complain that it was not what they expected. In other words, it was not a typical superhero movie.

From this, I think it's safe to say that movie goers WEREN'T ready for a different kind of superhero movie.

Yet.

When Blade Runner came out it was a dismal failure. Many of the same complaints being made now about WATCHMEN were made about Blade Runner: it's too long, it's too slow, there's no action... Now Blade Runner is generally considered (not by everyone, I know) one of the best science-fiction movies ever made. It has become a classic. It was ahead of its time and audiences eventually caught up.

I think the same will be said of WATCHMEN. Hollywood is cranking out superhero movies faster than we can watch them. Movie goers are loving the CGI and action sequences. We're eating it up! But the time is coming when you'll see a trailer for one of these and groan: "My God, not ANOTHER superhero movie."

And that's when it'll be time to check out WATCHMEN again. You might just see the movie a little differently then.

I'm convinced that WATCHMEN, like Blade Runner, will become a classic. I loved the movie. Saw it 5 times in the theater and will probably wear out the DVD. Zack Snyder stayed true to the source material, he didn't dumb it down. And the movie looks stunning! In my mind it is already a classic.

Let's see what time does to the general regard for the film.

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