Filmstalker: New Watchmen trailer online

There's new footage online from the much anticipated Watchmen adaptation from Zack Snyder, aired at the Scream 2008 awards, it seemed to raise some excitement from the crowd – although not as much as the stars appearing on stage.

There's not loads of new footage as there's plenty from the original trailer still there, but if you have a look you'll see some new moments, some iconic comic book panels now in real life and some amazing effects with Dr. Manhattan.

There is one shot with Manhattan dismantling a tank that didn't quite look right and felt too much like CGI to me, but the rest looks great. You can see the footage right here:

What do you think? Liking what you see?

You'll also have noticed that I'm not entering into any discussion about the story that's flapping around the interflab at the moment, the one about the changed ending for Watchmen. Everyone seems to be up in arms about it, however I take a different view.

Firstly, I'm not going to read any of those stories as I don't want the ending spoiled, secondly I'm grown up enough to realise that you can't adapt a property word for word, image for image to the big screen. Well you can, but it would be a rather dull and uninteresting film. What you would end up doing is watching one of those storyboard comparisons on a DVD – I mean you've seen the film already in your head and on the comic book pages, so seeing it on the big screen played out exactly would be rather dull.

Frankly I always found the current ending of Watchmen just a little small considering the scale of the story up until then, and nowadays on the big screen there's the question of if it would really deliver the effect that it tries to.

Regardless of how I feel about the ending on the comic book, the film has to be changed in some way for the big screen, even some of the direct comparisons of film to panel we've seen to date are changed slightly, even the characters are. Sure they're close to the comic, but not identical.

If the film has the exact feel, tone, and carries the same morals and effect then is there really a problem if that very ending is changed?

Add a comment

Track comments made to this post with co.mments

Your Name:

Your Email:

Your URL:

Remember my details?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)

Site Navigation

Promotion

Comments

After reading those said reviews and spoilers on the end of the film the last few days, I was some what disappointed. Not ruined or thrown from my building excitement for the film, but kind of puzzled, not quite sure how a change like that would eefect my opinon because of my love for the source material.
But you are right, sometimes things have to change slightly to fit a different medium and time. The rumors I've heard would infact still carry the same impact and message, especially with our current global situation.
I've also heard rumors that they've actually shot both versions of that said controversial ending, and maybe merely testing this one in the early screenings.
I am still very excited about this, everytime new footage turns up I can't believe it actually looks that good.

Posted by: Matthew | October 22, 2008 8:12 PM

Matthew, real thanks there for giving me a hint of the ending without spoiling it - I'm afraid to read anything about it in case it's all given away.

I do believe that the current comic book ending is a little flat and wouldn't have the desired effect in the world today. Sounds like what you're saying is the possible new ending does just that, translates it to today's world and ups the ante somewhat. Now I think that's the way to go.

Posted by: Richard Brunton | October 23, 2008 8:10 AM