Angel Dust on 29/5/2008 at 03:24
Considering the amount of material in the Watchmen , I think so but then I guess not everyone likes long films. Personally I have no problem sitting there for 3 hours as long as the film calls for it and I think a Watchmen film definitely does. I am still worried whether or not Synder is up to the task of making an engrossing 3+ hour film though.
Stitch on 29/5/2008 at 05:04
The problem with a three hour length is it indicates that Snyder isn't really whipping the source material into lean movie shape. This is mostly guesswork on my part, of course, but the three hour running time could be due to an attempt to squeeze in everything from the source.
Good movie adaptations don't do this.
Neb on 29/5/2008 at 05:35
Quote Posted by Stitch
Good movie adaptations don't do this.
So at eight hours long I'm guessing that you'd say War & Peace wasn't a good adaptation? :p
Thirith on 29/5/2008 at 08:50
Some stories can and should produce lean movies. Some shouldn't. There are a number of great long films that wouldn't be improved by being shorter and vice versa. And, let's face it, even a three-hour cut will reduce the source material considerably in this case.
Neb on 29/5/2008 at 10:57
Well, of course. It just sounded like it was meant to mean that three hours was too long by default.
Stitch on 29/5/2008 at 17:28
It is. Three hour movies are almost impossible to pull off.
Thirith on 29/5/2008 at 18:22
Good movies are difficult to pull of, period. It's just that a bad film feels worse if it's three hours long.
Pyrian on 30/5/2008 at 00:00
A 1.5 hour Watchmen movie would just be silly. In fact, I'm not even convinced Watchmen should be just one movie; I'm not sure where I'd cut it, but it should probably be two movies at least.
...I think three hours could work. Much less, would not. I would actually take the exact opposite position: three hours is cutting it down to movie leanness. Sticking to the source would give you something much, much longer...
Stitch on 30/5/2008 at 00:58
Of course it would, but that's not the point. This is supposed to be a movie. The very qualities that make Watchmen such an excellent comic don't inherently translate into a watchable movie.
Here's hoping they're merciless in their adaptation so we wind up with a great movie, as opposed to a film that manages to pack everything in but loses any sense of narrative flow in the process.
Fafhrd on 30/5/2008 at 07:12
I'd expect the final cut to come in between 2:30 and 2:45, it's the first cut that's coming in at three hours, more WILL be trimmed.
The Black Freighter/Under the Hood DVD will probably be two hours in total length (80 minutes being the standard length for a DTV animated feature (though Tales could probably be done in 45, there's not that much that happens), and under the Hood is supposed to be a news magazine style TV doc, so 40-45 minutes for that), so the idea of the super-mega everything edited together into one feature edition coming in at four hours or more seems likely.
