Tuesday, October 21, 2008

More Watchmen News (Sorry for the Delay!)


I know I had to apologize for this once before, and then I never got back on track like I said I would, but I'd like to apologize again for not updating regularly. I swear to you I'm doing my best, but Philadelphia is just crazy when you're a full-time student holding down your own blog, a position at another blog, a position with the school paper, and an actual part-time job. It barely leaves enough room for me to actually see movies!

Anyhow, I was listening to the (ever present on filmadelphia) /filmcast last night, and then discovered this article this morning. I did not read this article, and I also muted the /filmcast while they were talking about this because I don't want to know, but apparantly Zack Snyder DID change the ending to Watchmen. HOWEVER, whatever it was changed to does not actually change the theme of the book or the point made in the ending, simply the events by which it happens. IE, no squid. If you haven't read the book you probably don't know what I'm talking about (and you should go buy it right now!).

I didn't want to know what it was changed to, as I'd like to be surprised, but Dave Chen assured listeners on the /filmcast last night that it didn't actually change anything except the way in which the ending occurs. For me to continue on would be to reveal too many spoliers, so I'll leave you to /film's article about the ending change if you'd like to know more.

But rest assured Watchmen fans! This will still be excellent. From the preview screening last week came rave reviews, just a few dissenters who were die hard fans that simply don't want to see any element of the book changed at all. While I admit, it does suck that an artist can't adhere to another artists source work for whatever, but in this case it makes sense. The ending of the book is a very comic book ending that comments on the medium of comics. Film is a different medium as they pointed out on the /filmcast last night, and this ending wouldn't work in that medium. Hopefully whatever they changed it to will be a comment on film, and still adhere to the themes, which I'm assured it does.

So again, unless you're one of those whiney fan boys who MUST have everything complete and the same, it sounds like Watchmen is going to astound us. Is anyone truly upset by this news, or does it make sense to you as it does to me? (obviously, I've posted wayyyy too many Watchmen posts, as I'm reduced to pictures like the one you see above)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

they also screened the new flash trailer there! here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O_benaKlsA

Dustin said...

I really think it's an alternate ending for the testing purposes. Let's face it, despite the Non Disclosure contracts people signed, this was going to be talked about.

My guess is Snyder knew that, so he threw a curveball on everyone. Now, a select group of know it alls will probably go into the film proclaiming to know the ending and have the rug pulled from under them when the ending turns out to be the original ending from the book.

The idea the Snyder would pay so close attention to the source material and then change the ending sounds odd considering they've pretty much stuck to the book by the teeth.

But since the actual reasoning and motive for the ending stays intact, I'm open to seeing how it's different.

Alan Moore is probably banging his head against a wall right now.