Okay everyone! It’s time for a little update on Watchmen. Director Zack Snyder sat down to talk with Garth Franklin over at Dark Horizons about all things Watchmen. There a quite a few interesting tidbits that I think you’d love to hear. First, let me just warn you that this story may contain mild spoilers. If you don’t want to know anything about the movie, please enjoy the image of the new movie poster! And navigate away from this story.
Gone? Ok. Snyder talks about the opening montage of the movie, and it sounds very intriguing. It’s a series of scenes establishing an alternate version of history, from the 40’s to the 70’s, in which super heroes were around. It’s set to Bob Dylan’s “The times they are a-changing.” Dr Manhattan shaking JFK’s hand, the Comedian on the grassy knoll as JFK’s assassin, Ozymandias hanging with David Bowie and the Village People outside studio 54, Castro and Kruschev watching American fighter planes fly over Moscow, Andy Warhol and Truman Capote admiring a Nite-Owl themed painting, and a lesbian version of that famous sailor-nurse post-WW2 kiss photo. Sounds like a pretty good way to introduce us all to the world the Watchmen currently live in. I like the use of iconic images and iconic people straight from the headlines of that era, we all can recognize that and link it up to a time in American history. I can only imagine how cool that footage looks. If only I was at Comic-Con!
Snyder stated that he considers the film almost finished, with some minor effects sequences being all that was left for him to finish. The run time right now is about 2 hours and 42 minutes, with credits. But there is a whole section of the movie that fans of the graphic novel will recognize, that is being cut out and made into its own short film to accompany the film upon it’s release. It is being called “Black Freighter.” The directors cut of the film will have all of the action scenes “fleshed out” and include the black freighter story line incorporated. That will run over 3 hours.
Is there anything else missing from the film, aside from the Black Freighter story, Mr Snyder? Well, hardcore fans of the graphic novel are all up in arms about the ending. The graphic novel ending included a giant alien squid being teleported into the city. Apparently this is not in the film, but Snyder did state there will be a disaster in the end. And Snyder stated that the ending scenes of the graphic novel with the main characters will be included, as well as the “moral imperative.” Snyder’s solution to the squid problem remains his secret, but he did have this to say about it.
“… there was this elegant solution to the squid problem that I kind of embraced. I’m a fan of the thing as much as anyone, I was saying what are we going to do about this before I even read the script.”
Enough of that you say! When will we get to see new footage? Snyder said that a new trailer for the film will run in front of the new James Bond flick “Quantum of Solace.” He goes on to say that the trailer shows more story elements, it’s more like a full trailer. Here’s some of what he had to say.
“This is much more like ’someone’s picking off costume heroes’. You’ll get a sense of the characters plight you know, ‘we were supposed to make the world a better place… what happened to the American Dream’.”
All this sounds pretty exciting to me. I’ve been a big fan of the Watchmen for a long time. I’ve read the graphic novel over and over and found myself wondering why a movie has not been made yet. But now we are getting one, and I for one am super psyched about finally seeing this classic comic come to the big screen. So, what do you think? Will you watch The Watchmen?