Watchmen: Midnight (Updated version!)

[edit0r]

So, with all the attention - how about that hardcore, absolute russian version?

 

[WyndorfDave]

***Deleted by mod***

 

[TV's Frink]

Post deleted. Look two posts above yours.

 

[Flix Capacitor]

So, with all the attention - how about that hardcore, absolute russian version?

The Runtimes They Are a-Changin’

Thanks to everyone for continued interest in Watchmen: Midnight. I'm almost ready to release an updated version of this edit -- so, it's a re-edit of a re-edit, a fanedit redux -- or "fanedux" ?

My first version of Watchmen: Midnight was liked by many fans of the comic and the movie, but there were always some aspects of the film that I wanted to revisit. I read all of the reviews of my first version and some viewers made some great suggestions. I've considered all of that input during the making of this revision. So, thanks for your support!

I haven't decided on how to title this revision yet. In order to tie-into the "Absolute" editions of the comic book, we kicked around the idea of Watchmen: Absolute Midnight or Absolute Watchmen: Midnight. Also, in reference to the "Ultimate" version on DVD/Blu-ray, the title Watchmen: Ultimate Midnight was suggestioned. I've even considered something simple like Watchmen: Midnight Revisited, so I'm still open to suggestions

Most of the previous changes to the film remain in the new version of Watchmen: Midnight, but here are some of the new additions:


Overview of NEW Changes

Available in three official home video versions, Watchmen is a fair adaptation of an excellent comic book, but even in its most extended official version (the “Ultimate Cut&#8221 it lacks the character depth of the original comic.

Theatrical Cut (cinema/DVD) = 162 minutes
Director’s Cut (DVD/BD) = 186 minutes
Ultimate Cut (DVD/BD) = 215 minutes

My new version of Watchmen: Midnight runs 214 ½ minutes and is a further attempt to recapture some of the spirit of the original comics created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Although its net runtime is half a minute shorter than the Ultimate Cut, Watchmen: Midnight is significantly different and hopefully a more satisfying version for fans of the comics.


* General *

Narrative “chapters” are organized like the original comic, each starting with a title and ending with the proper quotation, each lifted from Watchmen: The Motion Comic. In this updated version of Watchmen: Midnight I have restored the “Fearful Symmetry” chapter, so it is now distinct from “The Abyss Gazes Also” and the film finally has twelve complete chapters as in the comics.

This version of Watchmen: Midnight includes newly created chapter inter-titles that are superimposed on screen approximately where they were placed on the original comic book panels.

Other subtle and significant changes are made throughout the film, for example: Nite Owl II’s goggles no longer scan fingerprints with Google Glass technology.


* Tales of the Black Freighter *

This updated version of Watchmen: Midnight includes segments from the animated "Marooned" adventure from Tales of the Black Freighter. I was initially disinterested in this short film because its animation style did not match Dave Gibbons’ art and because I thought it was irrelevant due to the fundamental change to Ozymandias’ plan – the lack of the Squid and therefore the lack of a connection to the fictional comic book writer. I've learned that Zack Snyder originally wanted to shoot these segmentslive-action in a highly stylized way, similar to 300, but he could not get the $20 Million necessary for the production. So, animation was his Plan B.

Live action would be been brilliant; I never thought that a live-action adaptation of the Watchmen comics would necessarily use animation for a comic-within-the-comic. However, Tales of the Black Freigher stitches together several themes in the story and characters of Watchmen and it belongs in the film adaptation. It is integral to Watchmen as a story and my effort to make the film closer to the comic book should include it.

Earlier, I considered recutting the Watchmen: The Motion Comic segments ofthe comic-within-the-comic, but it juxtaposes and blends with the main action of the story so intensively -- just like the original comic books -- that I was sure to lose important aspects of its story unless I superimposed the text-scrolls on screen during the main movie action. Although I opted to super-impost chapter titles on screen, I didn't want this edit to start to resemble Ang Lee's Hulk in terms of very comic-booky aesthetics. I wanted to strike a balance between comic book narrative structure and film aesthetics/conventions -- it is a film adaptation after all, not a motion comic. So, I decided against using it as the source for Tales of the Black Freigher in my edit. I also prefer Gerard Butler's narration from Tales of the Black Freighter to Tom Stechschulte's narration from Watchmen: The Motion Comic.

Whereas the “Ultimate Cut” on DVD/Blu-ray just chopped Tales of the Black Freighter into short segments and dropped them very roughly into the places of the story that they appeared in the original comics or where there was room to fit it between scenes, for this new version of Watchmen: Midnight I have recut Tales of the Black Freighter to better fit with main storyline of the film according to its organization in the comic books. This was also necessary because I had already recut the main action of the film to reflect the comic books, and simply dropping Tale of the Black Freighter in there would not have worked.


* The Intermission *

I created an intermission sequence for the first version of Watchmen: Midnight in order to distinguish the final act of the film from the rest of the story and act as a buffer after the Under the Hood segments concluded. With the incorporation of Tales of the Black Freighter, the film feels more balanced and I removed the intermission.


* The Slow-Motion Credits Sequence *

This new version of Watchmen: Midnight also has a new opening and closing sequence. I have moved the slow-motion credits sequence from the start of the film and placed it at the end. Now the film begins with the smiley face pin as in the comics. At the end of the film, after the final chapter quotation, the slow-motion credits sequence now appears at the start of the closing credits.

The portion of the credit sequence that shows JFK getting assassinated and the Comedian holding a smoking gun has been removed entirely –- after reviewing some suggestions about my earlier version of this fanedit I decided that it needed to be removed because it's very over-the-top and makes a giant assumption about the Comedian when he barely referenced JFK in a scene in the original comics.

This new closing credits sequence functions like a post-script that looks back on all the main characters’ origins. Now that we’ve seen how everything falls apart and their relationships change by the end of the story, we conclude by looking back at them in their heyday. I trimmed the last shot from the sequence and now the last image that we see in the film is the group photo of the Comedian, Silk Spectre II, Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias, Nite Owl II, and Rorschach. I created a new director’s credit for Zack Snyder, which leads into the rest of the traditional scrolling end titles.

I initially used a Philip Glass song when this sequence opened the film because I wanted to establish an ominous tone. Now that the sequence has been moved to the tail of the film, I have changed the music to “The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” by The Smashing Pumpkins, which was used in the teaser trailer for Watchmen. The song title reflects Laurie's final line that John would say "Nothing ever ends." Also the song captures the new tone of the sequence with its lyrics sync with the footage in interesting ways.

Some examples:

1) Group photo shoot of the 1940 Minutemen, with lyric: "Relive the pictures that have come to pass"

2) The US bombing of Hiroshima, with lyrics: "For now we stand alone / The world is lost and blown / And we are flesh and blood disintegrate / With no more to hate"

3) Silhouette and her lover found murdered, with lyrics: "We can watch the world devoured in it's pain"

4) Young Laurie watching her mother and stepfather fighting (a broken home), with lyric: "The pale princess of a palace cracked"

5) Dr. Manhattan meeting JFK in front of the White House (the Kennedy presidency was popularly referred to as "Camelot" and JFK was of course assassinated later), with lyric: "And now the kingdom comes / Crashing down undone / And I am a master of a nothing place / Of recoil and grace"

6) Ozymandias greeting fans and rock stars in front of the flashy Club 54 (the costumed "hero" who would later kill millions), with lyrics: "Is it bright where you are / Have the people changed / Does it make you happy you're so strange"

7) The final group photo shoot of the Comedian, Silk Spectre II, Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias, Nite Owl II, and Rorschach (the defenders and destroyers of the world, the principal characters of the Watchmen story), with lyrics: "And in your darkest hour / I hold secrets flame / We can watch the world devoured in it's pain / Strange... Strange... Strange..."


* New Opening Title *

Moving the credit sequence to the end meant that I had to create a new opening film title for Watchmen, which now appears super-imposed over a wide shot of the New York skyline after the police detectives search the Comedian’s apartment.

 

[geminigod]

Look forward to checking it out. Is there going to be an HD update by any chance?

Also, I hear you are going to blastercon. Should be fun. Wish I could go!

 

[Flix Capacitor]

Look forward to checking it out. Is there going to be an HD update by any chance?

Also, I hear you are going to blastercon. Should be fun. Wish I could go!

Yes I'm getting set to eventually remaster the update in HD.

Definitely looking forward to BlasterCon. Too bad you can't join. I wonder how many others will be there?

 

[geminigod]

Sounds like a decent number.

 

[addiesin]

I had an idea a while back that parts of (please don't throw bricks at me) Green Lantern, specifically Parallax attacking the city, could be used as "The Squid" to recreate the comic's ending. Seeing as your updated edit is about to include everything but the kitchen sink, I thought I might toss in an idea to really bring it home.

Parallax looks about as much like the comic's squid as, for example, the film's Nite Owl costume looks like the comic's iteration, so it's not that far fetched. The shots of it attacking the city and vaporizing people are graphic enough to be cool but short enough that you won't notice they're from a different film and different time period. Audio might need to be rebuilt but it would be very cool to see the comic truly come to life.


Tangentially speaking, the world of film is INSANELY lacking in giant squids, I did a bit of research out of curiosity and it's like your choices are Pirates of the Caribbean footage or nothing. Hence, my suggestion is more of a smoke blob than a squid.



Even if you don't like the idea or don't use it, I wish you luck on your new version. Your Watchmen:Midnight has already replaced my theatrical DVD.

 

[Flix Capacitor]

I had an idea a while back that parts of (please don't throw bricks at me) Green Lantern, specifically Parallax attacking the city, could be used as "The Squid" to recreate the comic's ending. Seeing as your updated edit is about to include everything but the kitchen sink, I thought I might toss in an idea to really bring it home.

Parallax looks about as much like the comic's squid as, for example, the film's Nite Owl costume looks like the comic's iteration, so it's not that far fetched. The shots of it attacking the city and vaporizing people are graphic enough to be cool but short enough that you won't notice they're from a different film and different time period. Audio might need to be rebuilt but it would be very cool to see the comic truly come to life.

Thanks for your suggestion -- I also thought about the possibilities of recreating the squid when I started work on Watchmen: Midnight but because Ozymandias' master plan in the film is so fundamentally changed I decided against it. The squid monster never physically attacks people in the film, it just gets teleported into New York and promptly explodes and sends out a psychic shockwave. We never see this happen in the comics, we just see the aftermath, so I think scenes showing the monster attacking the city would be a big departure from the comics.

Unfortunately, even if I created a good looking squid monster for the film it would not make sense in the new context of the film.

Tangentially speaking, the world of film is INSANELY lacking in giant squids, I did a bit of research out of curiosity and it's like your choices are Pirates of the Caribbean footage or nothing. Hence, my suggestion is more of a smoke blob than a squid.

Even if you don't like the idea or don't use it, I wish you luck on your new version. Your Watchmen:Midnight has already replaced my theatrical DVD.

You're right, movies need more giant squids! Thanks for your support and I hope you enjoy the updated version when it's released.

 

[Neglify]

Definitely don't put a squid in there. Snyder misunderstood Watchmen so much that the squid ending would be out of place. His Dr. Manhattan scheme fits the movie better. It's terrible, but it fits.

 

[Flix Capacitor]

It's terrible, but it fits.

"Without condoning, or condemning..." the Dr. Manhattan plot is functional, but not ideal -- much like Veidt's method of "saving" humanity. One of the first questions I usually get asked by fans when I talk about my fanedit is about restoring the squid.

 

[addiesin]

Understood, and I agree with both of you. The source material to truly end it like the comic just isn't there and Snyder totally thought that he one-upped the comic while in actuality he totally missed the point.



I still think it could make a neat special feature on the dvd, as like an "un-used alternate ending", even if just to show how it wouldn't work. I won't get my hopes up but I will continue to share ideas as they come.
A short making of documentary would be really cool too, especially if you have any footage of the public screener with you answering questions or presenting or anything like that. You could explain the changes and why they were done, the removal of the slow-motion, etc.

 

[Flix Capacitor]

Thanks for all your ideas. I forgot to mention in my reply that it might be a fun experiment to cut together an appearance of the squid monster using footage from different films as a stand-alone trailer not related to this edit, or even an "unused alternate ending" as you said

As for a "making-of" or other supplemental features, I have also been encouraged to record an audio commentary and I'm considering it. I'm going to be writing a detailed article about the the making of Watchmen: Midnight, but an audio/text commentary would also help point out many of the changes.

Thanks again for your feedback -- give me your thoughts on title ideas for this revision

 

[Neglify]

I like the title Watchmen: Absolute Midnight.

 

[BladeRunner391]

I like the title Watchmen: Absolute Midnight.

Clever, I like it Neg!

 

[addiesin]

I think

Watchmen: Absolute Midnight

or

Watchmen: Ultimate Midnight

or

Watchmen: X Minutes to Midnight (and replace X with a number)

all seem equally acceptable to me. The title doesn't matter too much, just make sure it's not a "Super Street Fighter Midnight II Turbo X: Grand Master Challenge Watchmen - X-Treme Edition!!!1!!!?!" sort of tongue-twisting mishmash, and it'll be fine.

 

[geminigod]

agreed on absolute midnight.

 

[Flix Capacitor]

...just make sure it's not a "Super Street Fighter Midnight II Turbo X: Grand Master Challenge Watchmen - X-Treme Edition!!!1!!!?!" sort of tongue-twisting mishmash, and it'll be fine.

Hahaha, agreed.

If anyone isn't familiar with it, the idea behind the possible title Watchmen: Absolute Midnight was to recall the "Absolute Watchmen" hardcover edition of the comics which is the best collected volume of Watchmen ever printed.

 

[Flix Capacitor]

Neglify made this cover art a while ago:

 

[Flix Capacitor]

Watchmen: X Minutes to Midnight (and replace X with a number)

Because it's such a long film--

Watchmen: 214 ½ Minutes to Midnight

Just kidding