It's the apex of the form, the so-called "Citizen Kane" of comic-books, the only graphic novel to appear on Time magazine's list of the 100 greatest English-language novels.
Leave it to director Zack Snyder to make a film that, by all indications, is actually going to live up to it.
MTV News was among a handful of outlets invited to view about 20 minutes of occasionally incomplete footage from the upcoming "Watchmen," including its cold open and astonishing credit montage. (Footage was also screened at Comic-Con in July; watch Snyder talk about the trailer here.)
(For more news from the event check out Splash Page.)
Because the movie departs (in some minor ways) from Alan Moore's graphic novel, consider this your one spoiler alert if you'd like to remain completely fresh.
Cold open: "It's a joke. It's all a joke."
The film opens with a yellow screen, against which the familiar logos for Warner Bros. and DC Comics are superimposed. Imperceptibly at first, the camera zooms out, revealing bit by bit something larger — a smiley-face button — and still more, until the button's wearer, the Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), is seen in full view. He's in his apartment making a cup of tea, watching a "McLaughlin Group"-esque group of talking heads (including Eleanor Clift and Pat Buchanan!) discuss the rising Russian aggression.
For several moments, their voices are all that's heard. One asks if Russia will attack. Another responds that they might, not knowing that the U.S. has a walking nuclear arsenal, Dr. Manhattan. And yet, Russia continues to stockpile weapons, the third chimes in. The Doomsday Clock moves three minutes to midnight as the Comedian looks bemused. He flips the channel and sees President Nixon giving a speech, flips it again and watches snippets of a Veidt perfume commercial, which blares Nat King Cole's "Unforgettable" through his speakers.
Suddenly, a hooded figure appears outside his door, smashing it in. "Just a matter of time, I suppose," the Comedian says matter-of-factly to the intruder. He throws a coffee cup, the intruder sways, reaches for a gun, the intruder bobs, throws several knifes (which he literally grabs out of the air). "It's a joke," the Comedian laughs through blood. "It's all a joke."
The fight is all but over. As "Unforgettable" continues to play, the burly Comedian is thrown around his apartment, smashed into tables and walls (one of which has the Sally Jupiter pinup poster leaked online last month), and, finally, mercifully, thrown out the window to his death. His smiley-face pin hits the ground seconds after, blood staining its clear, yellow surface.
The camera zooms into the button as Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin' " plays; the credit montage then begins.
In a brief introduction before the footage, Snyder explained that the credit montage was a way to showcase a lot of the film's backstory, which stretches from the late 1930s to the mid-'80s. It's the type of sequence you wish you could watch 50 times. As Dylan twangs, the following shots are shown in slow-motion:
» The original Nite Owl punching a criminal outside of a theater
» Sally Jupiter at the head of a press conference, holding a newspaper that reads "World Goes Ga-Ga Over Silk Spectre"
» A photo opportunity for the original Minutemen
» Americans celebrating V-J Day in Times Square in 1945, when Silhouette, a lesbian, kisses a nurse, replacing the sailor in the famous photograph
» Dollar Bill shot dead, his cape stuck in a door
» Mothman being dragged to a mental hospital against his will
» A shot of young Rorschach alone in a hallway, a seemingly revolving door of men entering his mother's room
» Dr. Manhattan shaking hands with John F. Kennedy ... soon seen being shot in Dallas, with Jacqueline Kennedy falling over the trunk. A pan reveals none other than the Comedian on the grassy knoll.
» Young Laurie Juspeczyk (Silk Spectre II) running into her parents' bedroom amidst an argument
» Silhouette dead, gutted on her bed beside her lover
» Two criminals tied to a fire hydrant, the only clue a Rorschach puzzle beside their limp bodies
» Andy Warhol exhibiting a gallery piece of Nite Owl in the style of his Marilyn Monroe portraits
» Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, saying the apocryphal "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky." The videographer is none other than Dr. Manhattan, naked, beside him.
» A hippy student placing a flower into the muzzle of a gun — seconds before getting shot
» A retirement party for Sally, framed like DaVinci's "Last Supper"
» Ozymandias outside Studio 54 in NYC, where he shakes hands with David Bowie
» The new Crimebusters gather for an updated portrait
» President Nixon on TV, the bottom crawl reading "Term Limits Repealed." The camera zooms out to showcase the TV in a windowed showroom. A graffiti artist is painting the words "Who Watches the Watchmen" when a Molotov cocktail is thrown through the glass, exploding the screen.
» Dr. Manhattan's Origin: "I feel fear for the last time."
If some of the earlier material was tonally faithful rather than literally so, Dr. Manhattan's origin sequence is where the true brilliance of Alan Moore is allowed to shine through, unabridged. Just like in the novel, the action jumps from one seemingly random point in time to another, as Manhattan is heard in voiceover explaining his transformation: A young Jon Osterman fixes a watch as his father looks on; he attends a carnival with his new girlfriend; he finds himself trapped in a field chamber; he transforms, then re-appears, first as a circulatory system, then in full glory. "My God!" people scream. He trains with the government, "They are shaping me into something gaudy, something lethal," he says. Armed thugs are eviscerated, their innards exploding against the ceiling. A friend dies of cancer. He escapes to Mars.
A photograph of happier times is dropped on the dusty, red, Martian surface. A glass palace emerges, ticking clockwork, from the sand as the sun rises.
"It's too late," Manhattan says, mournfully. "Always has been. Always will be. Too late."
"Watchmen" opens March 6, 2009.
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