WATCHMEN trailer.

UPDATE: In case the YouTube versions are removed, here’s the official one at EMPIRE, which appears to have gone down under the bandwidth rush.

51 COMMENTS

  1. OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!

    I believe I just looked directly into the face of God and he smiled back at me.

    I swear to God I just got chills. The slow driving melancholy Smashing Pumpkins music was a VERY nice touch. Thank you Heidi. Thank you. :)

  2. I liked it. It was a fun commercial. I can’t really get enraged or overjoyed about someone else’s commercials, but that looked like when they get the effects done it could be assured and pretty and pass the time reasonably well.

  3. I guess my pants are staying dry, it’s gone before I got here. Anyway I guess I’ve lost my nerd mojo cause I’m really not jazzed to see this. I’ll still see it of course but probably just once.

  4. I’ll still see it of course but probably just once.

    “Worst Cosmic Wars ever! I will only see it three more times…today.” – Comic Book Guy

  5. Anyone who doesn’t think that looks amazing is completely out of their drink. Or simply lost their will to live. I was all goose-pimply.

  6. Except for the costume changes, almost all of the shots in the trailer are faithful, yes even down to the colour palette, faithful renditions of the panels in the book. So if you’d like to complain (and you can), I wouldn’t necessarily put it at the feet of Snyder, but at the feet of the original comic, which was VERY 1980s, especially in the colouring.

  7. Looks overly stylized and very “of the moment”. I was hoping Watchmen would seem a little more timeless… I was hoping for a little more “The Wire” and less “This is a comic book movie.”

  8. I like it. I think it’ll do well, and I’m glad they’re not shying away from it being a comic book property (as in, Wanted, Road to Perdition, et.) It’s good to be “based on the comic” nowadays…. even for books that don’t feature iconic Americana-based characters.

  9. I was worried, but it at least looks nice. Very nice early trailer which sort of hints at some of the themes without giving away too much- exactly what a teaser a year out should do.

  10. How do you hold an opinion on the entire movie, based on that trailer? “The Dark Knight” is apparently amazing, but you wouldn’t know that from watching the trailer. I’ll say this: Visually it looks *faithful* to the original. My question is, who will watch it? Is there a way to convince my wife to see it? Can it serve anymore than a small audience?

  11. Hm. I was prepared to dislike this, because I don’t see the point of adapting a graphic novel as thoroughly embedded in its medium as Watchmen to film — but actually, it doesn’t look too bad. It’s not going to be as good a film as Watchmen was a graphic novel, but it could be good enough to be worth watching.

    The Silk Spectre’s costume is awful, though.

  12. The youtube link is down again, but you can get the Empire clip, which looks better, here:

    http://brightcove.vo.llnwd.net/d6/unsecured/media/494806221/494806221_1671975204_watchmen.flv

    You need VLC player, or something that plays flash video to watch it.

    I really, really liked this. I was wondering how they’d market Watchmen without it looking like ‘yet ANOTHER superhero movie but with characters you never heard of’, and I think Zach Snyder did it. Putting the tag lines of ‘from the director of 300’ and ‘the most celebrated graphic novel of all time’ certainly helps set it apart.

    Nothing in this looked cheesy, and it looks really faithful to the book. I’m sure I can go scene for scene in the trailer and match it to the book. Anyone bitching now has nothing to bitch about, in my opinion. They’re just trolling.

  13. Andrew Wickliffe,

    You’re not alone. It looks like a shitty-ass movie. I’m guessing it’s going to be as bad as 300.

  14. Am I the only one who sees complete faithfulness to the original comic as a detriment? I love Watchmen, but there are things that work in comics that don’t work in film–and vice versa (which is why a lot of “cinematic” comics don’t work either) I think part of the reason that V for Vendetta the film worked as well as it did, was that it remained faithful to the spirit and intent of the original story–but made adaptations where necessary to update the story. I’m reserving judgment until I see the finished film, but based on this trailer, it reminds me of the old Marvel cartoons where they would just use artwork from the comics and use limited animation and badly acted voice-over.

  15. F*** you and your CGI, Zack Snyder! Moore and Gibbons did more with just paper and ink than you’ll ever achieve with all the digital technology in the world.

    It pains me to think that this will be how most people know Watchmen.

  16. “Ok Billy, we want you to do a song for this trailer that sounds pretty much like all your music, but make it, you know, like more Nine-Inch-Nailsy. Cool?”

    Anyway, that looked sort of rad.

  17. Actually Evie, people on AICN are saying the Smashing Pumpkins song comes from, of all places, the Batman and Robin movie. Is this some ironic in joke for comic fans?

    I can’t remember the last time I watched a trailer about ten times. By the way, the official Watchmen website has some great behind the scenes videos, with the most recent one having Dave Gibbons talking about the movie. I wonder when they’ll put the one up about Alan Moore? ;)

  18. Thanks for the Apple tip, Kevin.

    I really like the cast list they have:
    Zack Snyder (dir.)
    Malin Akerman
    Laurie Juspeczyk
    Billy Crudup
    Jon Osterman
    Matthew Goode

    Quite a coup getting Juspeczyk and Osterman. I wonder if they’re playing themselves?

    It was interesting. Some of the “ripped from the panels!” shots looked pretty nice. I’m wary, still. I always am. Sometimes movie adaptations work out, but not very often.

  19. RJT,

    You’re also not alone. I think comic adaptations work best when they try to stand up on their own, using the source material as inspiration. If I wanted to go through a greatest hits of the panels of Watchmen, I’d read the book again. Movies like V for Vendetta, the Crow, and Ghost World were so good because they were different approaches to the same basic ideas. 300 sucked for many, many reasons, not the least of which was its slavish devotion to the comic.

  20. One of the great things about Quicktime is the way you can scrub back and forth thru a movie using your computer’s left and right arrow keys. Great for picking out details and such…

  21. I have to say I was impressed! I am really rooting for this to work not just because I want to see a great movie made out of the material, but to also silence some of the snobbery and scoffing.
    If I read the line, “They should make this a six hour HBO miniseries” once more in my life I’m gonna hammertoss my desktop down the street.
    Even if its a bad movie what the hell difference does it make? Like bad adaptations of good books hasn’t happened before.
    Go Zack!

  22. Evie, Billy totally ripped off Richard Gibbs & Johnathan Davis’ “Slept So Long” from their rock opera masterpiece of a soundtrack from Queen of the Damned. (which if you watch, by the way, you will realize is the best super-hero movie ever, only with vampires instead of super-heroes.) This movie does look cool though. Queen of the Damned was not faithful to the books, but was still a damned fun movie. Yes, I pun. I don’t see why we can’t enjoy Watchmen in the same way. Seeing Dr. Manhattan blowing people up in Vietnam was pretty unsettling. That more then anything told me that this movie is going to push the whattayacallit.

  23. Seeing how the Wach. Bros. adapted the 10-issue V FOR VENDETTA into a 2hr. film, the prospect of making a completely-faithful film version of all 12 issues of the WATCHMEN seemed doomed at the start. However… seeing that trailer, looks like Snyder at least got some important aspects correct (such as Doc’s ‘look’ and Rorshach’s moving mask), and the inkling that he might NOT completely screw it up has grown.

    Hall H on Fri next week will reveal more.

  24. I liked the kiss.

    The costumes, not so much.

    Archie, though…

    I feel that the music might make or break this thing, in places. In the actual film, I mean.

    Were there any marred smiley face motifs in the trailer? I’ll have to have another look.

    //Oo/\

  25. Hurm. While I know a movie, or to be fair even any filmed medium, never can match the Moore’s dense graphic novel…

    Wow. I think this may be the best we could ever hope for in a Watchmen film. Looks fantastic. After viewing this again a number of times, I just looked at the Rorschach head on my wall and squealed in fanboy glee.

    Plus despite it being from a different era as well as the worst comic book movie ever made, that song is actually amazingly fitting. Listen to the lyrics. Look them up. Wow. Even the trailer uses layers of meaning. Color me impressed.

  26. Well, if you can’t catch it online, you’ll see it at Batman: The Dark Knight. I saw the trailer last night on the big screen, completely unprepared because I didn’t think they were releasing footage already but it was a welcome surprise.

    Complete shock and awe.

    And now that I’ve seen the trailer, I am just psyched for March 2009.

    It looks like they did a really, really good job.

  27. Actually Christopherand Evie , Billy’s song was recorded in 1997 and Queen of the Damned in 2002 so it seems that Gibbs and Davis ripped Billy off and not the other way around.

  28. Actually, Watchmen should be a twelve-part miniseries on PBS’ Mystery. In addition to the original plot, PBS would “license” their other shows to produce the “documentary” footage seen in the back of each issue. “Under the Hood” shot by Ken Burns. Dan’s ornithological writing featured on “Nature”. “Frontline” discussing the political ramifications of Dr. Manhattan…

    And in the same parallel universe, there’s a DVD copy of “Cowboy Wally”, featuring an Oscar-nominated performance of Chris Farley, and David Duchovny.

  29. It’s kind of interesting to me to read the comments by people on the previews for this movie and for The Spirit. Generally speaking, sticking to the comic = good, while deviating from comic = bad. There are other things going on, I’m sure, but a more in-depth analysis from studios might be good if future movies are planned.

    However, this analysis could be applied to anything really, whether it’s Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter or a Tom Clancy novel: if the preview seems to deviate from the source material, you run the risk of setting up bad word-of-mouth and lowered expectations. (This was certainly the case in our house with the previews for “Speed Racer”… my wife, a fan of the original series, didn’t like what she saw, which insured that the family wouldn’t see it when it came out!)

  30. I felt it deviated from the source material in being three-dimensional and starring actors instead of drawings. I plan on seeing instead one of the other many blockbusters out in March.

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