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Here be the comments. |
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It looks like Batman with turned ears! |
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Looks more like "The Holiday Armadillo" from that episode of "FRIENDS". |
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Here's a pic for anyone who doesn't know what I'm referrring to: |
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Wasn't the pot-bellied Adam West-ean Nite Owl supposed to be a deliberate reference to the pathos and absurdity inherent in the concept of a grown man dressing up in a costume and fighting crime? |
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OK, so the costume's not fabric, and it doesn't look EXACTLY like Dave Gibbons' design. But it's got the same colors, same patterns, and, most impressively on the part of the designers, a visible paunch. It's not too much of a stretch for me to believe that any guy smart enough to build ol' Archie in the background there would give himself a little armor, too. Especially if he was over the hill and out of shape. C'mon, it's not like they made Rorschach all buffed-out and armored... |
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Isn't that the Evil Batman in Grant Morrison's latest? |
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Yeah, I find it hard to pass too much judgement simply because the costume doesn't look just like the book. I do hope that this is "young" Dan, not "old" Dan, because I would hope that his gut would show a little more. Or Kevin, are you simply manufacturing your own posts for getofftheinternet.org? |
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The cowl does look a little odd. But as a first pic, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. It'll grow on me, I think, especially if this is "young" Dan. The Ozymandias costume struck me as a little bland, but it might just be the color in the photo. But I thought they totally rocked the Comedian and Rorschach. |
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I'm sorry, but the letters used to spell "wrong" are far too small. |
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"Let's make a superhero costume and design the shit out of it! You know what the original _________ costume didn't have? Stuff! Just all kinds of layers of plastics and crazy textures and just... make it busy as fuck! Yeah!" |
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Rorschach and The Comedian look pretty good though... |
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As I think about this more, I wonder if they're trying to mirror the over-the-top ridiculousness of 90's superhero movie costumes (Batman & Robin). |
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Why are all these pictures so drab? Even the darkest scenes (color-wise) in the watchmen are brighter than this. |
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Hopefully it's a flashback picture to before he gains the paunch. After all, they have a picture of the Comedian, and isn't he dead at the beginning of the comic? |
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Perhaps wrong in the right way? |
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I think it looks pretty good, actually. |
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It's a bit cosplay-y, innit? |
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I don't know, Rorshach isn't quite filthy enough, and the Comedians mask looks crazy. Silk Spectre is laughable (is she wearing latex?) and Ozymandias looks like he'll break his neck if he falls. |
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I promised myself I wouldn't go into explaining why I feel the costume is so wrong (outside of the cheap piss-take that I am always, always willing to dive for), but fine. |
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Yeah, it doesn't convey anything originally intended by the source material, but what did you expect from a man whose conception of style is derived entirely from Xbox 360 games? |
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Is it just me, or does this not scream, "I only use comics as glorified storyboards, and will only make a minimal effort to expand upon them because I consider the comics 'totally kewl'"? |
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I'll admit that this is probably my least favorite of the posted costume photos, but I don't find it egregiously wrong. |
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As David said. I understand the reaction, but kind of feel about it like I felt about the "organic web shooters" bit. There's going to be some give, and some gimmes, in any movie translation. Sometimes it's a Hollywood thing, but sometimes it's about simplifying the story so it fits in 2 hours. |
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I am so glad me having a goof at 7:30 in the morning has spawned so much discussion. |
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"I'm the goddamned Owlman!" |
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Wasn't Ozymandias meant to be a Charles Atlas-type figure? |
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I'm convinced. This movie will be as big a piece of crap as From Hell was. Good thing I'm seeing this now, so I won't have to spend my hard earned money later. |
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Ah. I see, now. |
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Wow. |
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Probably this shouldn't matter to me, but I think it's stupid that they made him look less like an owl, even though they gave the armor a "feather" pattern. |
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Watchmen was set in 1985 (and the movie will be too, apparently) but it was an alternate 1985 where the advent of an atomic superbeing who could create basically anything out of matter and a supergenius bent on saving the world had advanced technology beyond what it was like to us 20 years ago. It's more of the inverse of a "post-apocalyptic future"--a "pre-apocalyptic past." |
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If they had kept the material that the costume is made of as a rubbery "WETSUIT" kind of thing, and still applied some of the textures and details of the "feathers" (sculpted as additional "chainmail"-type "armor"), then this might have worked. |
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So much of what I've seen so far has been spot-on, I choose to give them the benefit of the doubt that they'll make it all work. |
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I agree with Church -- this isn't what Moore wrote. Watchmen is a deconstruction of superheroes of the Silver Age. |
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Yeah, I hate the casting for Nite Owl on this, its fucking terrible, but I'm inclined to also agree with what Journalista said: "With the possible exception of Rorschach, the original costumes from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen would look really fucking stupid on grown adults projected onto a big screen — you know, the way the Daredevil costume looked really fucking stupid on Ben Affleck? Of course they’re being modified for the film version. They need to be modified. Calm down." |
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From a lot of people who are putting comments on here saying "what's the big deal?", I agree with Kev that it doesn't fit the character. |
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That's a good way of looking at things, Garth, I think. For me, it'll only exist exactly as it was presented: a comic book, I'm not expecting the movie to be absolutely amazing and match up with the book there's no way it can. I'm simply content to see it on the screen and that's it. If anything positive things will come out of this and people will be attracted to the book unless the movie is utterly wretched and the vast majority of people hate it. |
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One thing I keep wondering is if NiteOwl is a sort of Mary Sue for many "true Watchmen fans." If Watchmen is "a deconstruction of superheroes of the Silver Age," wouldn't it necessarily also comment on the adolescent fantasy of dressing up in tights to fight crime and save the world? I don't think the big screen allows the opportunity for the blatant swipes Moore might have made; it might require more subtlety, more for its ideas than for its depiction thereof, if that makes sense. |
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Will, I really wonder at your having any sort of qualification to make those points, considering that you've never finished the source material (or, indeed, any Alan Moore story), and I think your "Mary Sue" comment shows your ignorance of the comic. From what I've seen (and we do have no small amount of time to correct this), there has been nothing to indicate that this film is more than an attempt to adapt the plot of the comics while ignoring the story, something that should make a writer like you cringe a bit. |
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Heh. V for Vendetta is one of my favorite ever movies. I loved the hell out of it and thought it included Natalie Portman's best performance to date. But then, as you point out, I also love Orgy's "Blue Monday" cover, so what do I know? |
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Yikes. |
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Will, your ability to wallow in your own ignorance is fascinating and somewhat refreshing in this learned era. |
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