lol - well you see this is interesting, because the impression I got from youze lot is that Snyder pawned the whole sequence off on another company (like with Yawn04, correct?)
Also, the company putting the sequence online gave me the impression they'd composed the whole thing, not just stuck some text on it. 
...
Anyway, I'm still mulling it all over - and listened to the rather spiffing 1 hour 46 minute long review chat with Kevin Smith at "/Film" - and of course I'd be reviewing it from the perspective of having not read the book.
However, I do want to read the book at some point.
Anyway - is it Snyder's best film? Yes, undoubtedly.
However - the writers who adapted it into a script did a significant amount of the adapting I'd say - without a script, or without a good script, you've just got a turd to make look pretty (kinda like with Yawn04 then ).
Also, the actors all did fantastic jobs (e.g. Haley and Crudup - both phenomenal I thought).
So I'm not bemoaning directors who don't write the shit they direct, I'm more saying "well calm down on the sheer volume of praise" because Snyder is directing a well written adaptation (written by two dudes - Hayter & Tse) of an absolutely sublime piece of original work (this is what I've constantly heard about the source material at least, as I've not personally read it yet) - Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons having done the actual hardcore leg work years ago.
Then factor in Snyder basically using the book for the story boards, and it really does - in sheer practical terms - diminish the role of the director as a creative entity. It's more about pointing people about, rather than anything else perhaps.
Yawn04 was fucking abominable, and 300 was the gayest movie homophobes have ever called their own (plus it was fucking stupid).
...
I certainly object to Snyder being labelled a "visionary" by the trailer - by definition, he just isn't. Pretty pictures and music videos isn't a visionary, that's a visual director.
Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott - to name but three - they are visionaries.
Citizen Kane - 2001 - Blade Runner ... ... Yawn04 (gash remake of a well, and long, established seminal horror classic) and 300 (history-raping pile of macho-pish created by Frank Miller, then adapted by someone else, then directed by a music video director) - not exactly the same league really is it?
I'm not a fan of Snyder the man, I think that's plain to see. He just annoys me when I see interviews with him, and Yawn04 and 300 were either god-awful or just plain pish.
Watchmen - the source material - is so considered, and out-right strong, that it shines through the skilled adaptation by Hayter and Tse.
This all said though - being such a literal translation, is it that creative? Does Snyder deserve the ball tickling he's been getting, really?
It's like with Sin City (a flick which I love) - as kick ass as it is, again it's a case of taking the panels and pretty much doing that but 24 times a second - it's not exactly the most creative thing really, is it? It's not like many of RR's other works where he's written the script ... ... mind you, RR also does his editing, scoring, does the effects "in house", shoots it in his town and so on - so even when doing Sin City, RR himself had a lot more input into it generally than I'd say Snyder did in Watchmen.
There's LOTS to mull over as I said before ... but as I said, out of the work Snyder has done, it's his best - but the strength of the work from the others involved (especially the source material), makes Watchmen far more a case of a collaborative effort, rather than the work of an auteur (which certainly isn't a label you could attach to Snyder, in all honesty).
The film itself - I can certainly see how a full cut will plug the various holes that the theatrical cut length forces upon it, and I look forward to seeing that, as well as of course reading the source material, which I must do sometime soon. I dug the flick.
There are plenty of little things to go "nuh" about, such as certain pieces of music (which in general flags up MUSIC VIDEO DIRECTOR quite a bit), and - during the action scenes (because it doesn't fit in dialogue scenes of course), that bloody mid-shot slow-mo/normal-mo/slow-mo crap.
300 totally ruined that trick, just do whole shots in slow-mo, for goodness sake!
Anyway - fully realised thoughts coming soon - even though, indeed, I've rambled on quite a bit here.
|
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. [click for more]
Posting Permissions
Originally Posted by MoonSylver
Reply With Quote
Maybe Snyder uses other people's material because he's illiterate. Damn, this stuff writes itself. 
It just seemed like a cheap gimmick.
Bookmarks