All Along the Watchmen

Come on, Alan Moore, give the people what they want!

SuperheroHype liveblogged the Watchmen panel at Comic-Con and did a pretty nice job. As you would expect, no one on these panels ever says anything like, “Yeah, So and So was a real jerk, that’s why he’s not here today,” or “We filmed that scene 8000 times and I still don’t know if I got it right,” or “I really came up with that idea, that was me,” “No you didn’t,” “Yes, I did!” “You are so arrogant, you think you invented film,” “Well, maybe I did,” “Maybe bad film,” “You’re so jealous it makes me laugh,” “You make me want to vomit, you little–” “Shut up! Shut up! I can’t stand it when you two fight!”, etc. But nevertheless, you get a little info from Zack Snyder and the actors.

Here’s the description of the footage shown:

“…it starts with Manhattan blowing up guys in Vietnam as promised, really blowing them up into atoms. That’s followed by an image of the Comedian’s smiley face with a drop of blood splattered on it like the classic image from the comics. We see Rorschach walking into a room, which is the Comedian’s lair and we get to see the first images of the ink on his mask changing shapes. Next image is of Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg (aka Night Owl but out of costume) sitting down with a lot of angst on his face (probably after finding out about the first deaths?) There is a scene with the Minutemen from the ’50s with the Comedian and Sally Jupiter in their early guises.

We see the formation of the palace on Mars which looks pretty amazing since it’s extended from the trailer, as well as an image of a watch as we see the early stages of Dr. Manhattan’s transformation. Another shot of the modern Silk Spectre unveiling the Owl Ship, pulling the covering from it. Lots more images of clocks and watches and more of Dr. Manhattan’s transformation, again from the trailer.

The next image was really cool, showing Nite Owl and Silk Spectre kissing from the dream sequence with the nuclear mushroom in the background… very cool, as well as a shot of President Nixon, The Comedian being slashed by his Vietnamese girlfriend/wife. A little bit of Matthew Goode’s Ozymandias, and some of Silk Spectre and Night Owl fighting crime. At this point, there are a lot of images that went by very fast, but essentially, it’s all stuff that’s in the comics with little bits of each of the characters. Rorshach looks very cool, though we never see him unmasked. There was no actual dialogue or narration in the clip reel as well as no titles, just some great scoring presumably by Tyler Bates and it all ends with the sequence of the Comedian being thrown out the window with the blood-splattered smiley face button following him, which looks amazing, just like the graphic novel.”

So go ahead and please read the whole write-up. I should note, my favorite part of it is actually in the reader comments. One of the commenters thought Patrick Wilson was Patrick Warburton (”Hey…isn’t that the guy who played The Tick?”). I just like the image of Patrick Warburton on this panel taking questions from people dressed like Rorschach. He’d slay ‘em with the deadpan.

Okay, more reports as interesting news comes along…from some other website rep who’s actually in San Diego.