SCI FI PI

Yesterday Watchmen director Zack Snyder revealed around 25 minutes of Watchmen footage to a select group of industry types in Sydney.

To say that the crowd went away happy would be an understatement. The real shock is the reception of those who have no prior knowledge of Watchmen - overwhelmingly positive. It seems that the 'unfilmable' novel has broad appeal.

The opening sequence and credits were shown, the prison break out sequence and the full 'birth' of Doctor Manhattan, as well as a montage of previously unreleased footage.





For those with a vested interest in Watchmen (readers and devotees of the graphic novel) the footage seemed designed to allay their principal fears - a) how does Doctor Manahattan look? b) how are the fight scenes? c) how is the 'tone'?

a) Doctor Manhattan looks, as Snyder would say, 'awesome'. It may be Billy Crudup rendered into CGI, but it is pretty difficult to look at it and say that's not a live human somehow infused with glowing blue paint and no irises.

A faint blue glow at just the right intensity imparts a feeling of otherworldly radiation, and in his initial 'birth' sequences, two key points stand out -
1) when he is demolecularised, he does so from skin out, and then disappears, organ by organ, and finally a skeleton that shatters - the trailer is only a hint at the complexity of the process
2) when he reappears in complete human form he does so with no regards to how the censors may feel about full frontal blue nudity

b) Seeing the 'bust Rorschach out of prison' sequence shows that these are merely human superheroes, but skilled fighters. The relationships that the characters in this case Silk Spectre and Night Owl have with their 'suits' and their sexual lives are a little more overt than you may have expected (they literally become aroused when 'adventuring') but the world of smart quips and cheesy lines from 80's action movies does not belong here. That said, the director who brought you 300 does not shy away from stylized violence. They know kung fu.

c) The tone of the film, as far as this footage shows us, matches the book perfectly. Dark. A case in point would be Doctor Manhattan's brutal disposing of humans - he literally blasts their meat atoms apart, and they end up splatted against the ceiling, bits of teeth stuck in the wall. The sequences where he contemplates his disconnection from humanity hit the nail on the head - the good, the bad, the appalling - all treated as events of equal value as they have now, to him, lost their emotional content.





The opening sequence shows the end of The Comedian, in a fight that has far more detail and 'cool bits' than in the book. It 'hits the panels' but there's a brutal practicality to the fight that blends well with the heightened physical prowess of the antagonists. As a skilled rendition of not quite so 'super' superheroes, it sets the tone well. The opening credit sequence lays out the alternate history of the world that The Watchmen inhabit, using frames from the book as references for three dimensional snap-shots. By the end of it, you have a very good idea of what you're dealing with.

The production values are lavish - the music includes the likes of Bob Dylan. For those who went in worried, they came out excited. March 2009, people. Get ready.

To check out our Watchmen Behind The Scenes Webisodes, click here






PS. The Ending!
Snyder revealed that he enjoys the continued and varied speculation about the 'changed' ending, and so stuck to being very cagey when pressed for details. He did say that the "kill millions to save billions" result is still in effect, but that the mechanism of how that occurred had altered. He was very strenuous that the emotional and philosophical confrontation that made the book's ending so interesting is still there.

The film hasn't been entirely locked off, but is down from its original 3 hour cut to "two hours and change", which is "more than two hours fifteen minutes, but less than two hours fifty nine minutes".