Zack Snyder is the Stupid Wes Anderson

[sgt.null]

Wanted changed quite a bit between graphic novel and movie.

it lost the entire costumed supervillains ve costumed super heroes plot line.

and the protaganist was softened waaay much.

i qould love to see someone film the actual graphic novel.

[Rigel]

How sad is it that I had to look up Wes Anderson on Wikipedia in order to compare him to Snyder?

Anyway, I hated The Royal Tenenbaums. It was one of the worst comedies I've seen this decade - I don't think I laughed once in the whole movie. But then, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson too often embody the phrase "dumb and dumber" for my tastes.

The only other movie he's made that I've seen a part of is The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. While I'm normally a Murray fan, I just couldn't get into it. I would have been willing to give the whole thing a chance, but my ex wasn't enjoying it either and she insisted we turn it off halfway through.

As for Zack Snyder's work...

While I thought 300 was only a decent movie, visually and stylistically it was extremely impressive. Watchmen shows his brain, and his ability to put some substance behind the visuals, and remains one of my favorite movies of the decade.

I don't side with fanboys who complain about every single detail that gets changed - they'll never be happy. For me, an adaptation must express and explore the themes present in the original work (sometimes making allowances for current events, ie, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of War of the Worlds was very appropriate at the time it came out). Snyder's version of Watchmen did this perfectly... It was an exploration of the desire to be a hero and save the world, and the sacrifices (both on a personal scale, as well as global) that might be necessary to do so.

[Worm of Despite]

How sad is it that I had to look up Wes Anderson on Wikipedia in order to compare him to Snyder?

Anyway, I hated The Royal Tenenbaums. It was one of the worst comedies I've seen this decade - I don't think I laughed once in the whole movie. But then, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson too often embody the phrase "dumb and dumber" for my tastes.

The only other movie he's made that I've seen a part of is The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. While I'm normally a Murray fan, I just couldn't get into it. I would have been willing to give the whole thing a chance, but my ex wasn't enjoying it either and she insisted we turn it off halfway through.

Not sure your reaction to the comedy qualifies the film as bad. Some people like Without A Paddle for humor. Some folks like Larry David (raises hand). Anderson is an acquired taste, but so are the best things in life. Try Rushmore, as well! Murray's in it.

I don't side with fanboys who complain about every single detail that gets changed - they'll never be happy.

Surely there is an extreme of fanboys, but there's the bracket I belong in: people who, for instance, read and loved Lord of the Rings but felt that the movies can deviate as long as they capture the original work's spirit. When Watchmen was at its best it was in segments (the Comedian's bits; Dr. Manhattan's back-story) but the rest didn't seem as together.

Which is why I've got the graphic novel.

Sin City was a rare case where it was frame-for-frame and kept the comic's spirit, so it worked. Never mind the fact it was snappily paced and edited.

I could go over a thousand things I thought Watchmen could've done differently--and not because of the graphic novel. Just because of what makes a movie good.

But we've been there before (or I have ad nauseum) in the Watchmen thread.

[Orlion]

Couldn't get into the movie. It bored me. In my opinion, Wanted was a terrible movie (bored me)... haven't seen The Spirit.

My main problem with adaptations of any kind is that whoever is in charge doesn't 'get it' usually. This happened with Watchmen, Beowulf (not a graphic novel, but proves my point) and Dawn of the Dead. Whoever makes these movies miss the point and focus on something that doesn't matter. Zack Synder does this continually. For example in Watchmen, he focused on how when it came out, its grittiness was 'shocking' to the populace at the time, so he was going to one up it so that modern audiences would feel that same shock. As a result, he botched the movie with unnecessary gore and an awkward (and ultimately lame, cliched) sex scene. Hell, how is it that in the book

Spoiler

only one city is destroyed

and I was more creeped out by that than I was when in the movie

Spoiler

every major city is blown up

? Seriously, in the movie my reaction was 'huh, will that's interesting.'

The destruction of only one city in the graphic novel creeped you out more because of the detailed drawings of all the people killed, piled up in heaps on top of each other. Also, even though you--the reader--knew that it was only a story and the punchline was explained to you in detail before it actually happened you, yourself, still couldn't believe it. How could he be certain that it would actually work without ever testing a prototype?

Also, "shocking" has changed meaning over the years. Go back and look at movies that were considered "shocking" back in the 1950s or 1960s; to us, now, they seem extremely tame and sometimes even boring. Robocop was released in 1987 and Paul Verhoeven had to fight to get an R rating (the MPAA was going to give it an X) because of the violence. Go watch it again--movies that have come out since then are sometimes more violent and get an R or NC-17 rating.

On a similar note, have you ever wondered why so many movies show scenes where the main characters go to a club for some reason and the club is always underground, the people are wearing a lot of leather and have extreme body modifications while dancing to hyper house music? It is because the average audiencegoer never goes to a club like that so it makes the viewer feel just as lost and confused as the characters.

Face it--we are jaded movie viewers. If zombies attack, we all know what to do. The serial killers are never dead, even if you shot them four times in the chest and they fell out a third-story window. We think all cars explode when they impact and flip over. So on and so forth.

I'm digressing, aren't I?

It was mostly Ozzy's "I DID IT!" That creeped me out (though your explanation may explain why the setup seemed perfect for when this happened). Out of the entire graphic novel, this is what I remember the most, it's very unsettling.

Psycho is still unsettling in the Norman Bates character... even more so than most things I've seen in movies today.

Hell, even HAL 9000 is more unsettling.

I think that you did catch a point, though, with your side tracking: Our movie culture is a bunch of reused memes. Zombies get shot in the head, serial killers don't die, anything different is usually deemed stupid. In other words, the audience, I think, wants to be able to scoff at the characters and think they could do better in the same situation. They don't want to be thinking, "crap, I can't think of anyway to do better than the movie characters."

[Hashi Lebwohl]

You have to recall just how dissociated Ozymandias was from what we might consider a normal existence. He was fantastically wealthy and extremely intelligent, two things which would already set him apart, but he also had--as far as we can tell from the graphic novel--absolutely no private life whatsoever in the sense that we never see any indication of him going out to dinner or the theater, having no personal relationships, etc. He kept himself completely separate from the rest of humanity as much as possible--outside of board meetings at work, his only interactions were random interviews by reporters and rare visits with Jon and Laurie. Intelligent or not, this kind of extreme isolation leads to dissociation from humanity, which could be classified as a mental disorder. His ability to rationalize murder also classifies him as a sociopath--he knows right from wrong but doesn't care because he views it as serving some higher purpose. Creepy, indeed.

Anyway...it would be nice to make a movie where the zombies don't die after being shot in the head for once. You might slow them down, but they keep coming so the only option is to outrun them then outlive them (they will probably still die of "starvation" in about three months or you have to wait until sufficient muscle tissue decomposition has set in and they can no longer move).

[Fist and Faith]

The sex scene was in the comic, and I've always thought it was very good. Not for the "OH BABY!!" factor (Although, OH BABY!!), but because it showed Dan's psychological state. He couldn't make it happen earlier, when out of uniform. He probably hadn't had sex since back when he used to be Night Owl. Too much of himself was lost when they were outlawed.

And I was disappointed that Oxy didn't yell and throw his hands up in the air in the movie like he did in the comic. Yes, the smartest and richest person in the world. And, apparently, the best physical specimen as well. He literally tossed around people who literally tossed around a dozen people at a time. So what did he do with all his extraordinary abilities? He decided to save the world. But the only way to do it was to kill millions. And success was by no means a certainty. So when it worked? When he realized that the millions of deaths he would have on his conscience for the rest of his life did encourage world peace? Yeah, a big "I DID IT!!" seems likely. Heh.

[Worm of Despite]

I just didn't care for the actor who played Ozymandias. Not bulky enough. The film had Rorschach, Nite Owl and Comedian cast perfectly though.

[Fist and Faith]

Yeah, I agree with all that. Ozy (I called him Oxy above! That's funny! ) was good as far as character goes, though.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

In all honesty, whether you like him or not I would have cast Brad Pitt as Adrian.

[Worm of Despite]

In all honesty, whether you like him or not I would have cast Brad Pitt as Adrian.

It's not that I don't like him. He did great in Inglourious Basterds, but he would be such a typical choice that I couldn't see past that to his performance. A good unknown would've done the trick.

[Fist and Faith]

I'd never thought about it, but Pitt probably would have been good. I still think he was excellent as Achilles.

[Cagliostro]

I used to like Wes Anderson, but he has been leaving me cold lately. I wonder if my sensibilities have changed. I still love Rushmore, and Royal Tenenbaums has its moments, but The Life Aquatic was the first movie I felt like I didn't get the joke. I saw Bottle Rocket back when I really liked and got Wes Anderson and loved it. I watched it again recently and can't understand what I saw it in it originally anymore. With that said, I did like The Darjeeling Limited, but doubt it will retain a spot in my heart like Rushmore. I still haven't seen The Fantastic Mr. Fox.
I think Wes' primary talent is cobbling together a soundtrack. I also like his style and presentation, from the opening curtains for each act in Rushmore, to the placeholders for Royal Tenenbaums, etc. It is little touches like this that I like in his work, even if none have really knocked me over since Rushmore.

I really liked The Watchmen movie, but I had only read the graphic novel a few months before watching the movie, so I wasn't a massive fan with history. I didn't get what the big deal with 300 was. Even though this wasn't Snyder, I also really liked the movie version of V For Vendetta, and read the graphic novel after seeing the movie, which I suppose is why I figured I should read The Watchmen. The movies and the books are both different, and I think for both of these movies do justice to the material while dealing in the medium that they are in.

And since LOTR was mentioned, I think Jackson and company did a superb job of bringing out things from the book that were not perfectly clear in reading them, such as the stakes of Helm's Deep that I never quite got. But I have to admit that the depiction of Faramir was probably the biggest failure in keeping the spirit of the books. Other than him, they brought a lot alive, despite a few cringe-worthy moments here and there.

[Worm of Despite]

I used to like Wes Anderson, but he has been leaving me cold lately. I wonder if my sensibilities have changed. I still love Rushmore, and Royal Tenenbaums has its moments, but The Life Aquatic was the first movie I felt like I didn't get the joke. I saw Bottle Rocket back when I really liked and got Wes Anderson and loved it. I watched it again recently and can't understand what I saw it in it originally anymore. With that said, I did like The Darjeeling Limited, but doubt it will retain a spot in my heart like Rushmore. I still haven't seen The Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Anderson actually recently admitted he thinks his films are just about all the same, and he's made a vow of sorts to make the next one different.

Would love to see Snyder do that. Pff.

That said, you should see Mr. Fox. Fantastic film!

But yeah. I too felt the way you did about Darjeeling. Good but not up there with his best. Aquatic I thoroughly enjoyed though. The humor's definitely different, and I accepted he was going for the dry, deadpan comedy to an even further degree than Tenenbaums.

I'm just saying--whether one gets it or not, the films are quality stuff, while with Snyder it's pretty clear you're looking at cheese and nachos instead of homemade food. Visuals are great, but the rest is so brain-dead (or reliant on using someone else's story, i.e. Alan Moore's) that it drags the rest down. And with Sucker Punch bombing commercially and critically--a story that he wrote--I think this vindicates my point all the more. It's like the guy is stuck in an endless Frank Miller shtick.

"I'm gonna make the most awesome movie in the world! It'll have... uh... guns... and, TITS! And explosions! Ooh and samurai! And MORE guns... and GIANT ROBOTS. Shit yeah, this movie is gonna be awesome!"

[Rigel]

"I'm gonna make the most awesome movie in the world! It'll have... uh... guns... and, TITS!"

It worked for Machete

[Worm of Despite]

"I'm gonna make the most awesome movie in the world! It'll have... uh... guns... and, TITS!"

It worked for Machete

I liked Planet Terror better, plus there's other avenues for tits.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

"I'm gonna make the most awesome movie in the world! It'll have... uh... guns... and, TITS!"

It worked for Machete

I second this. I also recommend this movie.

Both Planet Terror and Machete were homages to the 1970s, the decade of really awful and overly-bloody movies. RR and Danny Trejo created the basic character of Machete way back in...2001 (?) in the first Spy Kids movie.