Posts by Steve Parks
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In the comic it was an attempted rape. The report I saw that covered the allegedly more expicit version of that scene switched from "rape" to "attempted rape", so I'm a bit unclear as to whether they were saying the film changes it to an actual rape. If so, that would be gratuitous and in really poor taste. But I think it quite likely the report was just confused.
Snyder's said he's got studio backing for a near-four hour director's cut and (NOT including animated 'Black Frieghter' side project), so I'm assuming he's trying to out-Jackson Jackson. Or he get a tasty bonus for every fanboy head he makes explode. :)
This is their plan:
- First release a dvd version of theatrical cut. All the fanboys buy this.
- Release WATCHMEN: "Stop Watch". The Director's Cut version. All the fanboys buy this as well.
- Release WATCHMEN: "Stop Watch: Ultimate Package". The Director's Cut with additional animationed "Tales of the Black Freighter" featurette. All the fanboys buy this as well.
- Release WATCHMEN: "Stop Watch: The Ultimate Package Redux". The Director's Cut with the 'Tales of the Black Freighter' spliced in to the the original feature , as Snyder originally intended!! All the fanboys who don't die of nerdileptic shock buy this version as well.
- Release WATCHMEN: "Stop Watch: The Ultimate Package Redux Extended Really This Is The Best And Final Megatastic Version!" version. Same as previous version, but with outakes of the crew laughing at the Billy Crudup's CGI penis. Alternate cover versions are also released. Fanboys buy this as well. Many get it slabbed.
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I'd suggest 'Weaveworld', which is a more successful exercise in big baggy epic fantasy, or 'Cabal'. And there's always 'The Books of Blood' ...
Those are the only Barker I've ever read. They are really good, especially Weaveworld and Books of Blood. Yet somehow, I've never felt a strong desire to read more Barker.
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I just hope the 'squid-free' ending really works; because I not only think the original ending was damn near perfect, but I don't see why it wouldn't have worked in cinematic terms. For someone who has fanboys squeeing over every shot that looks identical to a panel from the book, it just seems a pretty damn strange place to decide to get creative.
From what I've heard, the ending isn't the only place there's varition. The beginning credits summarise some parts that were covered in the comic; obviously some stuff is just left out; some parts of the extended material at the end of the comics becomes live action in the film somehow or other; some fight scenes are extended (eg, Comedian puts up a bit of a fight at the beginning). What other changes are made/needed, and how much all this matters - well, we'll see.
But it sure has the whiff of reaching for spurious "contemporary relevance".
Yeah, I'm a bit worried by the global environmental concerns riff. On the other hand it was Snyder who brought the adaptaion back from being set outright in contempoary times and back in an alternate 80s.
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Goodness.
I like the comment from Lucy, though:
“assuming of course the Policeman who shot him was a man”
Maybe she meant to write ‘white man’ here? The rest of it is so goddamn crazy its hard to tell.
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Oh, wait... (SPOILERS again...)
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Craig,
That guy you like to doesn't summarise it well. Here's what someone else said (my emphasis):"There was no squid... He and Dr Manhattan built a machine to mimic the powers of Dr Manhattan, under the guise of "free energy" to solve the energy crisis. Unbeknown to Manhattan, he used the machine to set off an atomic bomb like thing in various large cities around the world."
That's sounds fine. The only concern I now have is the suggestion that they leave out the final "reach for the journal" moment at New Frontiersman. But I suspect that will be there in the final cut - it's just essentail.
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"My god..." not "may god". And Ozy, not "the Ozy". Shows how perturbed I am at the thought of that new ending.
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WATCHMEN SPOILERS in this here post:
I'm still rather nervous about reports that Snyder has changed Moore's pitch-black ending to something weird and not a good kind of weird either. I'm just hoping that turns out to be an elaborate fan-boy fake out.
Oh may god, that sounds awful. Please let that be a hoax. It would make no sense at all. The ending was already flawed, but that version would be a moronic re-interpretation of the Manhattan character for one; he never bought into the Ozy's plan, he just accepted that as a fait accompli it would do more harm than good to expose it at that stage. If Snyder pulls that ending off, he's a frickin genius.
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Comics: Fables, Pride of Baghdad - by Brian K. Vaughn, and re-reading Watchmen before the movie obliterates it...
sigh...yes, Fables has also been recommeded to me. As has pretty much anything by Brian Vaughan. Just started reading "Y - The last Man", which is okay so far (bit too early to tell yet).
Watchmen holds up on re-reading. And damit - I'm I'm determined to be recklessly optimistic about the movie!
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Would she cry along to this? I wouldn't, of course. But, umm, I have to go now...<sniff>...
"Why are there so many
Songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side
Rainbow's are visions
They're only illusions
And rainbows have nothing to hide
So we've been told and some chose to
Believe it
But I know they're wrong wait and seeSomeday we'll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me
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Worthy (maybe too worthy for summner):
Achieving Our Country by Richard Rorty.
Very apropos in light of the recent election (the USA's, not so much ours). The late Pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty riffs on Whitman and John Dewey, and describes his views on "spectators" vs. "agents" in leftist politics in America. He argues for more of the latter.
I was surprised how much I found his commentary - written several years ago specifically for the American political scene - relevant to contemporary leftist politics in general. Rorty's a philosopher, but this is not pure philosophising; its philosophy, politics and sociology - very "applied philosophy", if you will. He writes really well, it's about as uncynical as you can get while writing realistically about politics, and won't take much out of your day (the primary text is only about 100 pages).
Highly recommended. I can't do better than to paraphrase one of the back cover comments: It feels like a lay-sermon for the untheological.
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Worthless pop culture trash:(I kid, I kid... but this is unlikely to be reviewed on Kim Hill any itme soon.)
Planetary by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday.
I heard plenty of good things from the nerdsphere about this comic by Ellis and Cassaday, so I bought the first trade paperback collection "Around the World" from Graphic the other day. It's basically a superhero comic, but with more of a science fiction style than usual, in terms of the presentation of ideas. The three principal characters are "Archaeologists of the unknown", who discover the secret history of the world (well, worlds, as it turns out) on their adventures. Ellis throws sci fi ideas out there like they're going out of fashion, tells a (roughly) coherent story usually in the one issue, then swiftly moves on the next concept. Somehow original in its derivativeness (is that a word?), it's lots of pulp fun, if that's a cup of tea you like to taste from time to time.