Feb 17th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
10 Years of Dr. Manhattan
Watchmen is hardly the first movie to try to employ web-based spinoffs as part of its marketing campaign, but it may be the first one to have actually done it well. Here, for example, is a YouTube video of a 1970 NBS broadcast taking a look back at 10 years of Dr. Manhattan:
For many of the same reasons that Watchmen was long deemed unfilmable, it seems uniquely well-suited to this sort of thing. It’s not a literal adaptation of the interstitial material in the book, but it’s true to its spirit.
34 Responses to “10 Years of Dr. Manhattan”
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February 17th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
What I want to know is, if they offer a line of action figures, will it be ironically or unironically?
February 17th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
What I want to know is, if they offer a line of action figures, will it be ironically or unironically?
Both. Ironic statuettes will sell for $100+, unironic action figures for $19.95.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
There is also a mock public service announcement up on youtube explaing the Super Hero Registration Act as well as a 1980’s throw back 8 bit arcade game featuring the original Nighowl and Silk Spectre. I must say whoever is in charge of this marketing initiatives deserves judos for thinking outside the box as well as pulling these ideas off so well.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
For many of the same reasons that Watchmen was long deemed unfilmable
The fact that a movie has been produced does not necessarily imply that the people who so deemed were wrong.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I have my doubts about the movie, but this stuff is cool. “The Keene Act & YOU” is also good and they had a contest for people to make fake ads for Veidt products.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I’m not sure if that was a typo in #4, but without quite realizing the exact phrase, I have often felt that certain people deserved judos as well. Thank you.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
I’m also worried that the movie will be bad. 300 was a desecration. We’ll see.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I thought the 300 movie was pretty true to its source material. The original was beautiful and fascistic, too.
I’m not seeing Watchmen unless it gets at least a 70 on Metacritic, but I agree this is a cool video, and it gives me some hope.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
shoot, I’ll add my own irony to the figurines. As I get older it gets cheaper and cheaper.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
“Better blue than red!”
That’s a hell of a slogan for the Democrats. It’s simple and it works.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Progressive democrats, of course…
February 17th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Dr. Manhattan has a sweet Borat speedo.
February 17th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
This movie is going to suck.
February 17th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Count me in, the movie is going to blow. They’re not even including the “pirate comic book” subplot, which is understandable because I don’t know how you’d film it.
I’m still going to watch it.
February 17th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
55:
I read on Wikipedia that the pirate comic book subplot will be animated and released seperately on DVD in March. And then potentially weaved back into an extended DVD-only edition of the movie in May.
For or better or for worse…
February 17th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
We are being told that we have to hope the Watchmen movie is good, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because it’s being filmed, and this is the first filmed comic book epic, we’ve got to accept this.
Well not me! Snyder specializes in taking smart material and making it dumb (see Dawn of the Dead). It’s going to have pretty pictures. But it will be dumb.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
You know what? Since I already know the movie’s going to suck, I’ve decided not to watch it. I just saved ten bucks!
February 17th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
TFB:
What do you mean “first filmed comic book epic”?
300 and V definitely qualify, even if we ignore more heavily adapted stories like Dark Knight or some of the X-men films.
Now, I don’t expect it to avoid suckitude, but it’s hardly groundbreaking.
—-
Expectations are SO low. I’m not sure it could receive a positive reception at this point, even if it were brilliant.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
If the intertextuality were included in the film, it would work. I feel like it won’t, so it won’t.
Watchmen is about periodicals, or perhaps about pulp literature in its various forms. If the movie can be about pulp video, then it will work. However, if it’s just a filming of the main plot of Watchmen then it’ll have missed the point entirely.
February 17th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Well, the trailer indicates that the film closely follows the graphic novel, and the special effects are clearly cool.
So the motivation for not watching it “because it will suck” eludes me.
The director screws up some film somebody liked so now you never watch another film by him again? Well, I did that with David Lynch (although I did watch “Dune”, which also sucked, after I walked out on “Blue Velvet”), so I can’t complain.
I suggest all this “the movie will suck” is coming from the same morons one hears in every theater as you leave the auditorium saying – loudly so everyone will hear their oh-so-important opinion – “Well, THAT sucked!”
Yeah, and so do you.
February 18th, 2009 at 10:17 am
wait a minute. Dune was great!
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