July 24th 2008
The Watchmen trailer
So, we have a first trailer for the “Watchmen” movie, and, my, doesn’t it look great! Zack “300″ Snyder seems to have once again succeeded into depicting comic book illustrations and style on the big screen. But will this be enough? After all, these are “The Watchmen” we’re talking about.
A side note for the uninitiated: published in the 1980s by DC Comics, “Watchmen” was a first graphic novel to seriously examine the superhero genre making them much more human, fallible and messed up because, well - as Bob Kane, creator of Batman said - you have to have a loose screw in your head in order to put on tights and fight crime. The result was dark and sophisticated story about old superheroes in the alternate history 1980es where Cold War is almost hot and Richard Nixon serves his fourth term in the White House. Cheery stuff.
Illustrated by Dave Gibbons (also responsible for one of the movie posters) “Watchmen” were written by mad English genius Alan Moore also responsible for “V for Vendetta”, “From Hell” and “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”. The fun part is he hated the movie versions of his graphic novels so much he even refused to take his legal share of the copyright money.
It remains to be seen will Synder be up for the task. “300″ was visually beautiful but it’s was also a movie with really simple story and almost laughingly one-dimensional characters. “Watchmen”, with it’s moral ambiguity, complex characters and parallel plot lines will be a whole different beast.
Personally, I’d love to see Christopher Nolan’s take on the story, but I’ll satisfy myself with his second Batman movie.
Oliver out.