Watchmen: Midnight

i am a huge fan of watchmen.
i first read the graphic novel at school and then did a 2000 word essay on it.
when i saw that they had finally made a movie after years of problems.
i had to go see it, i saw the directors cut and loved it, it was not a perfect scene for page of the graphic novel, but was a lot closer than a lot of other movies based on a graphic novels.
i had been looking at this edit for a long time, when i saw a version 2 and what had been changed from version 1 i had to see it.
im glad i did i love this edit it was perfect, the songs i hated are all changed and replaced perfectly, i love the changes to bring it closer to the graphic novel and they all worked in seamlessly.
its amazing just how close Zack was from making a perfect movie.
i will still watch my directors cut and this fanedit as they are just so good.
thank you so much Flixcapacitor for this awesome edit and i 100% recommend this edit to any one who liked the original cut.

Wow. This is a great edit. Removing a lot of the songs and adding score helped by adding to the tone of the edit. The Under the Hood segments also add another layer as well. Plus it's nice to see more of Hollis.

I'd have to say that this and Watchmen Legacy, both, are my definitive go to of Watchmen. Highly recommend this.

When I saw the theatrical trailer for Watchmen I thought to myself, “oh no not another superhero movie, doesn’t people ever get tired of these.” Needles to say I had no idea what Watchmen was all about, never read the graphic novel.
But people raved about this movie like it was the second coming of Christ so I took a chance and watched it (the director’s cut) and it turned out to be a masterpiece. It definitely in my top 100…or maybe even top 50…

I never bothered with the ultimate cut. It looked like they only added the Black Freighter footage, so it didn’t look intruding to me. Better leave that version to the hardcore ner...fans.

IMO the director’s cut was perfect. At least I thought so…
I stumbled over the thread for Watchmen: Midnight and I don’t know why but I started reading what changes Flixcapacitor had done to perfection...and strangely enough it sounded really awesome. He sounded like a huge fan of the original material and sometimes these kind of people can do things that the filmmakers can’t, they don’t have to worry about what anyone might think, what will be attached to their “reel” etc.

Turned out the story was pretty much intact, just a couple of things that were over the top (yes I admit) were cut. And no Black Freighter. Instead he added Under the Hood, the “documentary” about Hollis Mason’s glory days. This footage first felt off when it cut back to the “movie” but it really fleshed out the story and the attack on Mason later on now has more depth to it and I cared on a whole other level than before.

I love the original soundtrack but the changes made are really for the better. Less is more and I’m now more involved in what happens on screen, this worked especially well for the opening.

I guess I owe it to myself to one day check out the original work that everyone praise so much. But for the movie version, this one is the best version so far. And I was a HUGE fan of the director’s cut.

August 1, 2012 @ 1:27 pm

The original Watchmen movie didn’t really wow me. It was a movie that made many things wrong but then again it did so much different than mainstream superhero movies – how could I be so antagonistic to a movie that at least tried something different?

To me Snyder’s direction was the problem. He felt like a kid who really loved the comic but didn’t really understand that movies are a different medium. His focus on the over the top gore looked like a child shouting “LOOK! That’s totally gory, totally not like a standard comic book!” instead of focusing on the story which is very mature the over the top nature of some scenes plus some bad musical choices really pulled me out of the movie.

Gekko has already done a pretty dang good restructuring of Watchmen and I doubt that I will ever find a version that completely suits me – ultimately this movie is really not possible to adapt.

Structurally the original movie just goes along, starts strongly and then descends into awkward muddled something. with the episodic nature flixcapacitor has restored some focus but I hink this is due to the fact that I can watch this at home and not in the cinema. I bet that this version would have resonated even worse with movie audiences due to the fragmented nature

but the under the hood parts are just fantastic for exlaining the world. You get a much better sense of the watchmen world. In snyder’s original version the vigilantes moved with an overstylized speed, leaving some people who had never read the comic with the question if those people were super human.

now with all the antics gone and the under the hood parts as backstory there is no question about who those people are. Even better much like the comic you are feeling lost in the story in a positive way. There is so much going on that the mask-killer is just one of the things happening.
Much like in the comics the backstories offer other possible candidates for the mask-killer. Could Hooded justice have returned? Or maybe it is Hollis Mason! At least now there are more faces in this world and not just the skinny guy dressed in dark clothes.

Most of the intertitles worked pretty cool except for some that were a tad too abrupt. the doomsday clock at the end of the chapters was also a nice touch.
only thing I missed was dylan’s “the times are a-changing” song. The new version is pretty moody and nice, but it feels abit redundant because of the length of the credit scenes.

overall the editing choices are all well made, the quality is very good

9/10

May 6, 2012 @ 8:10 pm

*This rating was given before reviews were required*