Watchmen:What scenes that you want to see in the movie? (unboxed spoilers)

The Watchmen thread the other day got me actually more excited about the film due out next year.

So, given how vast the GN is (as was the point of the series itself), a lot is going to have to be cut.

If you could make sure Snyder includes three of your favorite scenes, what would they be?

And don’t bother going with the big scenes everyone knows are going to be in the movie (I would bet my “longbox” that Rohrshach and NightOwl have a lengthy conversation in Nightowl’s kitchen while eating cold beans from a can.) Focus on smaller scenes more likely to be cut.

My choices:

  1. The dinner party where the doctor tells the German Shepherd story.
  2. Morloch’s tearful confession to Rohrshach where he asks “You know the kinda cancer that you recover from? I ain’t got that kind.”
  3. Dr. Manhatten creating multiple versions of himself to pleasure Laurie, while his other self worked in his lab.

The prison scenes are my favorites, but I am HOPING that they are too significant to NOT include! I pray that the line, “You think I’m trapped in here with all of you? You are all trapped in here with ME!” makes the cut.

What about you? I need to re-read that book. So much quality.

I think about the critical events in the main narrative structure -

  • Dreiberg/Nite Owl and SS saving the folks from the building - that’s when he gets back in touch with his hero side - leads to the Rorschach breakout

  • Ozy stopping the assasin / catching the bullet - gives us a sense of what he is capable of

  • Dr. M and Laurie, as mentioned above - not just 'cuz it would be hot (but hopefully it would be very hot! :wink: ), but it shows Dr. M’s detachment and foreshadows his actions down the road

There are plenty of others that are far *cooler *in terms of set up or dialogue, but if you have to strip things down to fit into a movie, scenes like these feel very important…

And it also leads to, uh, something else. And if the casting for SS stays as it is, I certainly wouldn’t mind an R-rated version. :wink:

  1. “No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.” (I hope they don’t change the ending. I loved the ending. I know that’s not a small scene, but I heard that in one version they did change the ending.)

  2. “The light is taking me to pieces!” (The scene with Jon Osterman in the chamber with his horrified coworkers looking on as he explodes. I hope they wouldn’t make it too graphic, but I’d like it to be there, complete with that line.)

The first time Rorschach surprises Moloch, by coming out of his refrigerator. I already knew Rorschach was a loose cannon with a loose hinge. That was when I realized that on top of that, he had a sense of dramatic flair. (The whole bit with chaining the child murderer up, setting his house on fire and then giving him a hacksaw was also a good example, but comes later.)

Second favorite Rorschach moment would be when he’s enduring all the taunts and threats from his cellmates, finally responding to one overt death threat by throwing hot cooking oil into some guy’s face and saying quietly but earnestly: I’m not stuck in here with you. You’re all stuck in here with me.

I can imagine they’d probably do it like they did Phoenix taking apart people in X-Men 3 - just sort of pixilate him away.

The aftermath of the attack on NYC should be really gruesome with bodies everywhere, like in the comic.

I kind of hope that the climax of the movie is done in a kind of real time. Show Ozy watching our heroes reach his facility so he pushes a button and goes to greet them. They do the walk and talk while Ozy explains the movie and then ends on that killer line. Instead of thirty-five minutes, make it ten or whatever is appropriate to fit inside the movie so the audience is just as twisted up by it.

Yeah, baby! I wholeheartedly agree with everything everyone’s already mentioned (although I could do without the psychologist and his wife at the dinner party - in fact, I suspect that character is gonna get cut). Rorschach’s chilling line to his fellow inmates is definitely a keeper, as noted by both middleman and robardin.

I hope they also keep:

  1. Dr. Manhattan meeting JFK and later shrugging (so to speak) over his assassination
  2. Nixon, Ford and Kissinger at NORAD
  3. Dr. Manhattan and Laurie on the crystalline ship high above Mars

Oh, OK, one more:

  1. Dr. Manhattan clearing the street in front of the White House in the wink of an eye

I think the most obvious subplot to cut is the one of the artists who design the monster that ate New York. That’s several long scenes that can be gone straightaway. Cut that and cut the Pirate’s Tale (which I’ve heard is gone but will appear on the DVD) and that’s a lot of freed up space.

I think he will be cut as well. I just LOVE that scene as it completely captures Moore’s take on celebrity or maniac view of capes.

The doctor’s friends want gossip about the celeb client only to discover that these depraved heroes have drawn their buddy down into their darkness. Great stuff.

The opening shot where it pulls back from the Comedian’s badge in the gutter to the rooftop while Rorschach delivers his monologue.

Laurie telling Dan about the pervert she busted who used to get caught by masked vigilantes because it made him cum - and then how he tried it on Rorschach, who dropped him down an elevator shaft. I love that scene.

The giant Dr. Manhattan laying waste to the Viet Cong.

C’mon…classy, artistically neccesary scenes that really add to the plot are all fine and good, but I want to have at least a little violent, explosive, flag-wavin’ action in a superhero movie. And I think you do, too. :smiley:

This film will be an utter charade if it does not include the scene of Vice President Gerald Ford stumbling as he exits Air Force One. The Cold War-era political structure of Watchmen is decades out of date, but Ford tripping over things will remain quality entertaininment forever. They could probably even get Chevy Chase to do the cameo.

Technically, that shouldn’t make it to the film because it wasn’t actually in the comic, at least not how you and robardin are describing it. The line’s only appearance is during a moment when Malcolm Long is compiling his psychology notes and mentions something witnesses reported Rorschach had said after tossing a steamer tray of hot fat into another prisoner’s face. Long even notes right afterward that he’s slipping a little, because he’d just written “Rorschach” instead of “Kovacs.” Rorschach is not seen delivering the line at any time.

As for Gerald Grice and Rorschach giving him a choice of hacksawing off his hand or burning, I seriously doubt that’ll make it. While it may have been a relatively novel dilemma to American audiences in 1985 (the Australian film Mad Max had done it a few years earlier), these days, post-Saw, the shock value of the scene has evaporated.

Now, Rorschach bursting out of Moloch’s refrigerator… that’s still magic!

Wonder if we’ll get to see Ozymandias cancelling the line of action figures?

There are plenty of scenes I’d love to see, but I have to say that I strongly suspect that the film will be VASTLY reduced (it has to be, to fit in a real time space) and INCREDIBLY altered. I just can’t see filmmakers and their backers-- a generally conservative bunch – actually putting Moore’s iconoclastic and frequently freaky story and images on film. I fear another League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and for many of the same reasons. (Although, in nfairnes, I do like much of the film version of LoEG. It was, at leazst, the work of someone with creativity and a liking for the basic ideas.)

“We don’t want to go rushing into things head-first!”
“Hurn. Good advice. Sure there are many who’d agree with you.”

Oh come on… don’t be coy. It wasn’t “the film version of LoEG.” There was a different initialism for the movie, wasn’t there? Snappier, more eXciting. There’s no eXcuse not to use it. What was it, eXactly?