Watchmen (2009) - The Squid Cut

[TriggeredPuppy]

@gleem suggested an edit that adds the Squid back into Zack Snyder's movie. Since I've already completed a project using the 2019 series (which has said squid footage), the raw material is at my disposal.

Let's start by saying that I have no intent to make the movie comic accurate. It's just not possible. And I would prefer to avoid integrating animation (definitely no Tales of the Black Freighter) or the motion comic (though I haven't entirely ruled the second out entirely if it could be sold as a flashback or similar to justify the change in style).

With those caveats, here are some of the changes I'm already working on:

• Removing especially superhuman feats from anyone but Dr. Manhattan (for example Comedian punching through a brick wall)
• Altering the music for (and possibly shortening) the infamous sex scene
• Changing Hooded Justice's voice to match my Watchmen (2019) origin story edit
• Add in footage from Watchmen (2019) of the squid, likely using AI to give Veidt a voiceover explaining what he's done
• Add brief scene from Watchmen (2019) of Veidt telling a future President Redford how he brought him to power

I wish I could make Patrick Wilson a little flabbier but technology probably isn't there yet

There seems to be an edit from 10+ years ago that also integrates Under the Hood. Pacing gets trickier but I like the idea.

What other things should I tinker with?

 

[gleem]

Awesome! I'm so glad someones doing this because it should be kinda simple to do. Place the squid attack flashback from the HBO series into the movie and have it replace the scene with the explosion.

Someone else is doing an edit where they add the voices from the movie into the motion comic to remedy the single voice actor problem that the motion comic has and they also had the idea of using ai to fix the problem with Ozymandias' lines about his plan being different but I had the idea of replacing every voice except Ozy's making it so that his voice was the only voice that used the original single voice actor so therefor you woulnd't have one guy voicing every character but you wouldn't have to use ai. Maybe you could do the reverse of that and instead of putting the live action voices into the motion comic you could put the motion comic's Ozymandias voice into the movie therefor fixing the problem with him saying different lines. Might be annoying syncing up the comic's voice with the live action Ozymandias' face though.

Just a thought since I'm kinda anti-ai especially in a creative medium since I think having a computer come up with something when a human could do it is kinda creatively bankrupt. Although shit, now that I think about it using ai voices to add your own dialogue is a pretty cool idea that could really open up a lot of doors for fan editing. And ai voices arent nearly as morally bankrupt as other uses of ai since you're actually directly creating the "art" aspect of it (ie writing the lines and having a computer read them, rather than having a computer come up with everything)

Also! About that last bullet point of adding the clip of Ozymandias talking to future president Redford about the squid, where would you put it? I've thought about it a lot and I actually cant really think of where it should go. It could be in voice over over the footage of the squid attack but I dont know...

 

[TriggeredPuppy]

I think a lot of us are going through the same complex thought processes regarding voice cloning and other AI. I'm going to try it here and see how it feels.

As for the Veidt bit speaking to future President Redford, it would go at the very end. Just before you see the Viedt blimps floating over the city. Haven't decided if I'll try to add a shot of a squidfall but that could be another piece to play with.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

likely using AI to give Veidt a voiceover explaining what he's done

How would you do this? I was recently reading about Eleven Labs voice tools, but I don't know that much about how AI voice stuff works.

 

[TriggeredPuppy]

@asterixsmeagol that's exactly the platform I'm looking at. I haven't tried it yet, but you basically upload at least a couple minutes of voice samples from the person you're trying to clone. I was able to put together about 8 minutes of Matthew Goode scenes (the actor who plays Veidt) from Watchmen and I'll probably try some outputs with it next week. Has to be dialogue only so you need to cut out any music or sound effects (basically center channel only as an mp3 file). I just need to look back at the graphic novel for some fitting squid explanation dialogue!

 

[ArtisDead]

 

[TriggeredPuppy]

Art just killing it with the poster! The edit is ready. I'll be submitting this week - today if work allows but for sure tomorrow / Wednesday.

 

[TinyBreadMouse]

@asterixsmeagol that's exactly the platform I'm looking at. I haven't tried it yet, but you basically upload at least a couple minutes of voice samples from the person you're trying to clone. I was able to put together about 8 minutes of Matthew Goode scenes (the actor who plays Veidt) from Watchmen and I'll probably try some outputs with it next week. Has to be dialogue only so you need to cut out any music or sound effects (basically center channel only as an mp3 file). I just need to look back at the graphic novel for some fitting squid explanation dialogue!

Have you done this before with anyone else? I've been curious about trying my hand at AI voice cloning

 

[TinyBreadMouse]

Have you done this before with anyone else? I've been curious about trying my hand at AI voice cloning

Tested it for myself, the results are really good.

 

[TriggeredPuppy]

Tested it for myself, the results are really good.

This is the first project I've done any voice cloning with. There are definitely performance limitations from what I've found. Fortunately, Veidt and Dr. Manhattan have very calm, measured performances and those were the two characters I primarily needed dialogue from. I tried to clone Rorschach but it just wasn't quite right (Jackie Earle Haley has such a specific voice in the film).

Here's a sample of what I was able to accomplish:

 

[TinyBreadMouse]

That's incredibly clean. Veidt's line is particularly clean, and sounds very authentic. My only complaint is that Manhattan's line is a bit too rushed, doesn't feel like there is enough gravitas for it, but I'm sure your end result will be great.

 

[TriggeredPuppy]

That's part of the limitations - you really don't have control over the speed or emotion in a direct way. Unless you have someone else record the lines closer to what you want to achieve, you have to rely on changing a few parameters and generating enough times to get what you want.

Here's another, much longer example where I was able to integrate footage from the 2019 miniseries into the film:

 

[UniversalChimera]

Since I saw the squid scene I've been wondering if it's possible to properly edit it into the 2009 movie, so it's exhilarating to see such project come to fruition.

Thanks!

 

[TriggeredPuppy]

Since I saw the squid scene I've been wondering if it's possible to properly edit it into the 2009 movie, so it's exhilarating to see such project come to fruition.

Thanks!

It's certainly possible! Because of how short the actual scene is and the lead up requiring a bit of context, I decided to really use it as an excuse to expand the whole film. I hope I've done it justice!

 

[TriggeredPuppy]

Small update - really appreciate the positive reviews. @Meadows and @JasonFlippy had some fantastic feedback that I've now had a chance to implement. No major changes but nice little additions.

Besides fixing a couple broken transitions, the main items to note are:

Removal of the SaniFlush commercial (the least thematically relevant of the ads) and removing a few seconds of footage showing the crater when Dr. Manhattan is about the teleport to Karnak (hides some continuity disparities between the movie and miniseries).

But the most exciting change is matching the time setting of the film's climax with the TV series footage (approaching midnight, as the comic had it). I added just a few seconds of "Day for Night" color correction that I think also sells that and adds to the immense power surge at the end:

 

[Gieferg]

I think you really should stick with one aspect ratio. Adding material from another source with different AR kinda breaks the illusion that it really is the part of the movie.

 

[TriggeredPuppy]

I think you really should stick with one aspect ratio. Adding material from another source with different AR kinda breaks the illusion that it really is the part of the movie.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. But without accepting some aspect ratio changes, there's no comic ending to fan edit (which is the whole point of this project). Even back in 2009, the theatrical release of Watchmen was available with a taller aspect ratio for certain scenes (it wasn't really IMAX footage but that's what they advertised it as). And since I included many of those shots, the TV footage aspect ratio changes don't feel out of place. Christopher Nolan is doing the same thing with all of his movies for the past decade+. May not be your cup of tea, but what I'm doing here isn't anything new or even new to this film.

 

[Gieferg]

But without accepting some aspect ratio changes, there's no comic ending to fan edit

And why is that?

And since I included many of those shots, the TV footage aspect ratio changes don't feel out of place.

Well, if there is some actual movie footage in taller AR too, then that is not really an issue. My previous post was based only on the clips above.
But yeah, I dont like changing ARs in general. I've even reframed The Dark Knight IMAX scenes to 2.35:1 (only DVD has constant AR in this case).

 

[TriggeredPuppy]

And why is that?


Well, if there is some actual movie footage in taller AR too, then that is not really an issue. My previous post was based only on the clips above.
But yeah, I dont like changing ARs in general. I've even reframed The Dark Knight IMAX scenes to 2.35:1 (only DVD has constant AR in this case).

All the squid footage is in 16x9 because it's from a sequel HBO miniseries. Cropping it to 2.35:1 destroys the framing. Since that wasn't an option, I embraced the AR changes. The IFDB listing lays it all out but there's 3 different sources and 4 different aspect ratios (4x3 for the '60 minutes' style bonus feature interview footage, 16x9 for the miniseries footage, and the film itself having footage that's both 2.35:1 and 1.85:1).