More New York Comic-Con: We’re still catching up.
Warner Bros. opened up the day early with a big panel set to dwarf the rest of the day’s festivities. With a month before release, their big gun remained “Watchmen,” and so they brought out original artist Dave Gibbons to introduce what ended up being the first twenty minutes of the movie. Gibbons was as gracious and polite as can be, noting, sagely, that he had absolutely nothing to do with the film, and, as such, would only be able to discuss the film as a fellow fan.
We here at the Playlist have been strong skeptics of the project thus far, finding director Zack Snyder to be an arrested development manchild with unimaginative ideas for translating the work. Nonetheless, we went in with a fair mind and were fairly impressed with the footage shown [ed. relatively. I certainly wasn’t blown away per se, but it is interesting to note how densely packed with images — and subtle ones — “Watchmen” is].
– The film opens with the Comedian/Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in his apartment in 1985, watching the McLaughlin Group on television, as heavily made-up actors playing John McLaughlin and Pat Buchanan discussed nuclear age superhero Dr. Manhattan’s effect on the Cold War.
– The Comedian chews on his cigar before flipping to a speech by five term President Richard Nixon (the actor and make-up look terrible). and eventually a soothing commercial that plays Nat King Cole’s’ “Unforgettable” as a barely clothed man walks to the camera. The camera lingers on the Comedian’s relaxed, pleased expression- very odd moment, a knee-jerk reaction suggesting the implication of the Comedian’s sexuality, perhaps? He also has a Hustler magazine on his desk, so not likely, but still, a puzzling moment.
– The apartment of Blake’s is Apt #300. Nice in-joke.
– The Slo-Mo Matrix Fight Scene: Soon, a figure at the door emerges, kicking down the wood paneling and posing in the doorway in true Snyder fashion. The Comedian comments on how it was “just a matter of time” before the two engage in a fistfight only glimpsed in the comics, set to the strings of “At Last.”
– The beating the Comedian suffers is both overly showy and satisfyingly brutal. “300” may have reveled in the puerile violence perpetrated by its characters, but here, there’s a weight to the shocking violence. It’s a bit over-the-top and comic bookish, but that helps in conveying these characters’ larger-than-life reputations (those who know the killer know what we’re referring to) while also suggesting that we’re watching something sacred here, that the murder of the Comedian is rooted in years of history, reflected well through the pictures, memorabilia and newspaper clippings seen all over Edward Blake’s apartment. What the sequence conveys, through very little dialogue, is that the Comedian’s death was long foretold but still cruel and inhumane, and despite Snyder’s avid farts that speed up and slow down the action, its an effective sequence for setting the tone of the movie.
The Credits To Bob Dylan: A Weird, But Impressive Moment
We then move into the opening credit sequence, which may be worth the price of admission by itself. Set to Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A Changin’,'” each credit title card highlights a specific bit of history that outlines the alternate reality the characters inhabit. It’s alternately laughable, odd and impressive that this song soundtracks the history of “Watchmen” and it’s something that everyone has to see at least once. We’re not 100% if they used the full song, but we’re pretty sure they did which from a licensing perspective is huge.
– For those coming in fresh to the film, this will be an ideal ice-breaker, as we see the Minutemen striking out on their first missions, followed by Dr. Manhattan meeting President Kennedy, who is then taken out by the lone gunman Edward Blake, followed by Richard Nixon’s third term heralding a new nuclear age, and so on. Causing the most titters in the audience was a recreation of the famous V-J Day kiss with the nurse clutched and kissed by a spandex-clad superwoman that seemed like Snyder’s appeal to the his geek audience. It really felt out of place and gratuitous. We also see Kruschev and Fidel Castro during this credit sequence that is jam packed with backstory. We can’t help, but wonder if it’ll be confusing for audiences that haven’t read the graphic novel.
Rorshach investigates the Comedian killing,
– Using his grappling hook to shoot up to the skyscraper level and into Blake’s apartment. He pokes around before uncovering a secret compartment in the Comedian’s closet, housing his costume, weaponry and old newspaper clippings of his adventures. At this point, the screen went blank, and the audience defiantly screamed for more…
The Bonus Rorschach Prison Scene
…only to receive a bonus scene from later in the film. Running approximately one minute or so, it featured a decostumed Rorshach (Jackie Earle Haley) in a prison lunch line, threatened by a fellow inmate with a shiv. Rorshach, predictably a fanboy favorite, acts quickly in subduing the attacker before yanking a fryer from the kitchen area and flinging it in the convicts face, the victim’s skin bubbling horribly. “I’m not locked in here with you,” he says as cops subdue him, before growling, creepily, “you’re locked in here with ME.” Haley’s runt-ish physicality- it doesn’t look like he did much physical training for the role, thankfully- helped this scene come across more unsettling than heroic.
After the footage, Gibbons was brought on to answer more questions. He was coy but did a poor job trying to provide a non-answer to the film’s reported changed ending, but that’s OK, we’re cool with those changes. Not every detail has to be 100% faithful. He fielded questions about Alan Moore (“the sanest person I know”) as well as his feelings about a proposed sequel (bad idea, but not in his control he says), the negative effect “Watchmen” had on super hero comics and he relished confirming exactly how much of Dr. Manhattan’s penis we would be seeing. – Gabe Toro