What Director would you have wanted?

[Gilpesh]

Great Film

Which shows Terry Gilliam knows how to do an interweaving story.

 

[Noir]

Which shows Terry Gilliam knows how to do an interweaving story.

Indeed, I've never doubted his abilities, I've loved just about every movie he's done but my favorite is Brazil.

 

[Sandman138]

As much as I love Gilliam, Watchmen doesn't really seem up his alley. I think of all the directors listed, Aranofsky could have gotten the mood perfect, but probably wouldn't have been able to deliver on the more important subtexts. I would have said Greengrass, since he has proven he understands how to direct stories about political unrest and the themes that underly it with Bloody Sunday, but he wanted to update the story and set it in the present, and that would have been terrible. Watchmen is a story about America in the eighties and if you change that, the characters and the plot don't make any sense at all. Honestly, even the worst stuff I hear coming from Snyder is better than almost everything I heard about this movie when other people were in charge.

 

[Penismightier]

Frank Miller.

Miller is the complete antithesis of Alan Moore. The man doesn't have a subtle bone in his body, and Watchmen is a very subtle story full of complexity and nuances.

 

[Penismightier]

Robert Altman

We have a winner.

 

[Captain Carnage]

Miller is the complete antithesis of Alan Moore. The man doesn't have a subtle bone in his body, and Watchmen is a very subtle story full of complexity and nuances.

...which pretty much sums up the argument over Znyder's credentials to film WATCHMEN. He was, by and large ('cept for the cliched dreck he added himself to pad it out to feature length) faithful to Miller's braindead subtle-as-a-kick-in-the-balls one trick pony of a story 300, which in no way grants him the unquestionable capability to tackle WATCHMEN in my book. Unfashionable, I know, and not what most would seem to subscribe to; you know the kinda thing - Look how faithful His Geek Worshipfulness Zack was to 300 so of course WATCHMEN will be EXACTLY like the book he's using it for the storyboards and everything so why don't you just f uck off and die you hater.

Usual stuff.



The Frank Miller thing was a joke incidentally, hence the little winky smiley face.

 

[david icke]

I'm glad Snyder got the gig, I loved both DofTD and 300 and he always sounds to me like he knows what he's talking about regarding WM, but if I had to choose someone else I'd have chosen M Night Shyamalan, that is if his head was extracted from his ass where it seemed to go for the last one he made... for the simple fact that Unbreakable is one of my fav movies and the only movie ive seen where i could imagine walking into my kitchen, being confronted by a superhero and it not seeming out of place. BW came across as a total superhero by way of a mere poncho.
But... only if he were allowed to do it over the course of two movies as he takes his time, a dream version of Watchmen would be like this but as it is we have to have it squeezed into one shebang.

 

[Noir]

M Night :


"Rorschach was dead all along!" "What a twist!"

 

[david icke]

M Night :


"Rorschach was dead all along!" "What a twist!"

Congratulations , you're the 300billionth critic of M Night's to bring up the Sixth Sense and twists in general... how about next time arguing the the pros and cons of his actual attempt at the superhero genre or would that be a little too much like thinking? Not the biggest fan of 6th sense but it's well shot, paced and there's nothing wrong with the acting, which, even if you only use that as an example, gives me the impression he couldve done not a bad job of Watchmen. A better example of M Night's potential as a good Watchmen director though is the final act of Unbreakable where we have the low key but effective action sequences shot inside the very normal setting of an average home, not unlike the Rorshach vs the cops scene we'll undoubtably be getting as well as many scenes with superheroes standing around a lot chatting in very everyday surroundings, Rorschach and Dan in his apartment( they better have Heinz beans in that scene btw), or even Doc Manhattan sitting reading a magazine on the couch, they've got to carry the weight and mystery of a superhero while not coming across as ridiculous in such familiar settings, something M Night pulled off in Unbreakable imo.

 

[Rust]

Taylor Hackford
David Fincher
Curtis Hanson
Sam Raimi
Guy Ritchie
Alan Moore himself

 

[Artos]

Did you see Greengrass's designs for Doc Manhattan?

No, but I'd like to..

 

[Captain Carnage]

D'ya mean these by conceptual artiste Tristan Schane in 2004?:

I wasn't aware that these had categorically been chosen as the designs to appear on film in the aborted Paramount Studios version; I think they were just examples of the concept art that was being thrown around at the time before that project self-destructed. Weird for weird's sake, if you ask me. Biggest issue I had with these: the Doc is able to bed bootylicious babes in the shape of both Janey and Laurie in the story. What chick is gonna wanna go horizontal jogging with summat looking like those, guts pokin' out an' all? Freaky.

 

[Antonello Blueberry]

I wasn't aware that these had categorically been chosen as the designs to appear on film in the aborted Paramount Studios version; I think they were just examples of the concept art that was being thrown around at the time before that project self-destructed. Weird for weird's sake, if you ask me. Biggest issue I had with these: the Doc is able to bed bootylicious babes in the shape of both Janey and Laurie in the story. What chick is gonna wanna go horizontal jogging with summat looking like those, guts pokin' out an' all? Freaky.

I think this concept art was done before Greengrass got involved in the project (under Aronofsky maybe?). Remember that he was signed for the movie in November 2004 and was aiming to a realistic approach to the material.

 

[Mr. Socko]

Snyder.

 

[Mack]

Fincher.

 

[Closerframe]

David Fincher or Darren Aronofsky

 

[Noir]

Congratulations , you're the 300billionth critic of M Night's to bring up the Sixth Sense and twists in general... how about next time arguing the the pros and cons of his actual attempt at the superhero genre or would that be a little too much like thinking? Not the biggest fan of 6th sense but it's well shot, paced and there's nothing wrong with the acting, which, even if you only use that as an example, gives me the impression he couldve done not a bad job of Watchmen. A better example of M Night's potential as a good Watchmen director though is the final act of Unbreakable where we have the low key but effective action sequences shot inside the very normal setting of an average home, not unlike the Rorshach vs the cops scene we'll undoubtably be getting as well as many scenes with superheroes standing around a lot chatting in very everyday surroundings, Rorschach and Dan in his apartment( they better have Heinz beans in that scene btw), or even Doc Manhattan sitting reading a magazine on the couch, they've got to carry the weight and mystery of a superhero while not coming across as ridiculous in such familiar settings, something M Night pulled off in Unbreakable imo.

Your right he could make a decent movie but he wouldn't. His head is so far up his own ass now that all he cares about are his lame ass Twist features, Plus the only good thing this man has ever done was Unbreakable, everything else sucked.

 

[Jack_Sparrow789]

Stanley Kubrick or Robert Altman, but they're both gone. The only living one I can think of is PT Anderson. Someone that can deal with an ensemble cast and with complex and layered stories.

Peter Jackson is great with ensemble casts. I mean, look at LOTR, the greatest trilogy in film history. I think Snyder will be very faithful and just from seeing his work on 300, he's probably the one we all put our faith in right now.

 

[Luchastyle]

some people do say "look how faithful snyder was to 300," but look how faithful he was to dawn of the dead. not faithful at all. there's a mall and a black guy. the similarities end there. i wouldn't even call his monsters zombies. sure the bites look cool and the movie was shot pretty well, but it wasn't dawn of the dead. it was an undead abortion. it was an action movie with the undead. it was OKAY for what it was. but it wasn't good for what it was supposed to be. 300 was cool. i actually like it a lot. except for all the things he added, tusk hand guy, goat head guy, the so-called "uber-immortal." if he adds lame sh-t like that to watchmen, then we are going to have a big problem.

we will be getting a good looking movie. he knows how to do that. but i don't know. we'll see. i'm not totally against him. he seems to get it in his interviews. but i'll hold back my judgement until there is a trailer or something. i'm expecting a very early trailer. i think he's the kind of guy who likes to show off footage way too early. which is cool.

 

[david icke]

Your right he could make a decent movie but he wouldn't. His head is so far up his own ass now that all he cares about are his lame ass Twist features, Plus the only good thing this man has ever done was Unbreakable, everything else sucked.

Yeah, I said as much in my first post, as in , if he got his head out of his ass (where it seems to be these days) and get back to the Unbreakable days he would've pulled off a good one. I liked Signs as well altho it doesnt touch Unbreakable, the Village was well made but the script was pants, less said about 'Woman who dances out of puddles' the better, this new one 'The Happening' sounds promising tho, no twists i hear, Water-Woman didnt have have any twists but it didnt have anything to twist around in the first place.
Anyway, I'm glad ZS is on the job, and even tho old Alan doesn't want it , I've been waiting patiently on this hitting the screen as much as the next fan. I'm hoping ZS can do the mix of everyday and outlandish, he did well with this in the opening scene of DofTD, altho superheroes are harder to pull off than zombies.
Good thread man.

 

[Noir]

some people do say "look how faithful snyder was to 300," but look how faithful he was to dawn of the dead. not faithful at all. there's a mall and a black guy. the similarities end there. i wouldn't even call his monsters zombies. sure the bites look cool and the movie was shot pretty well, but it wasn't dawn of the dead. it was an undead abortion. it was an action movie with the undead. it was OKAY for what it was. but it wasn't good for what it was supposed to be.

Thas because his Dawn of the Dead wasn't supposed to be an exact remake it was a brand new movie that wasn't supposed to follow the other one. Can you wrap your head around that or shall I have a child with down syndrome explain it?

 

[david icke]

some people do say "look how faithful snyder was to 300," but look how faithful he was to dawn of the dead. not faithful at all.
.

Big diff between adapting something from an entirely different medium and a movie re-make/imagining(whatever they're calling it these days). Elements designed for the original medium be it book ,comic or frisbee are going to have trouble making the transition to film for the obvious reason that the original creator didnt intend them for the screen. The adaptor has a responsibility to keep the core ideas and soul of the original piece though or else they should just do their own story from scratch. DoftD was basically about folk trapped and bonding together against unknown forces(the anti-consumerism thing is totally overexagerated by critics imo).
ZS was offered a take on DofTD for his debut feature, and as he said in an interview somewhere, who's going to knock that back?, and in saying that, what creative person is going to do the exact same template except with this year's clothes and movie stars, they wouldnt be much of a filmaker if they didnt bring something different to it. I can imagine a fair few folk wondering what a zombie movie would be like if they got up off their arse and started running, and dont remind me of 28days later, that was alright up till a point, they were embarassed to even call them zombies, but imo ZS made the right call in speeding those lazy mothers up for a change, we've always got the original for the slow guys, last thing we need are re-makes like the Texas chainsaw massacre(only good for Biel's t-shirt) or Psycho(havent bothered to watch it but, exact same shots? Feel like i have, all i need are photos of the actors and a sense of what their voices sound like), we need more like The Thing or DoftD imo, same location and situation but totally different ballgame.

 

[Compi716]

D'ya mean these by conceptual artiste Tristan Schane in 2004?:

I wasn't aware that these had categorically been chosen as the designs to appear on film in the aborted Paramount Studios version; I think they were just examples of the concept art that was being thrown around at the time before that project self-destructed. Weird for weird's sake, if you ask me. Biggest issue I had with these: the Doc is able to bed bootylicious babes in the shape of both Janey and Laurie in the story. What chick is gonna wanna go horizontal jogging with summat looking like those, guts pokin' out an' all? Freaky.

...Ew.

 

[Luchastyle]

Thas because his Dawn of the Dead wasn't supposed to be an exact remake it was a brand new movie that wasn't supposed to follow the other one. Can you wrap your head around that or shall I have a child with down syndrome explain it?

no i get it, i understand that he was just trying to make money off of a cult classic movie by stealing it's title and general concept and making a piece of trash. i get it. but you didn't address his goat headed guy or mongoloid immortal from 300. that still is a show of his inane sense of creation. if he just adapts watchmen he could probably handle it. but if he adds anything from his own mind, it will be something awful.

 

[Johnichi Chiba]

Peter Jackson is great with ensemble casts. I mean, look at LOTR, the greatest trilogy in film history.

Well, I personally wouldn't call the Lord of the Rings trilogy the greatest trilogy in film history. I think Peter Jackson is a good director, but I don't think he seems like he'd be the right director for Watchmen. His movies (at least his more recent ones) tend to focus more on the special effects and "wowing" his audiences. Which isn't to say Watchmen doesn't have those scenes. Its just that the more important factor (at least for me) of a Watchmen movie is that the director brings realism to this comic book world and it's characters. In other words, a director that won't treat this film as "just another comic book movie".