Watchmen: Midnight

O U T S T A N D I N G ! ! ! !

I could stop there......but I won't

If you have seen Watchmen (any version namely, Theatrical, Directors or Ultimate Cut
THIS EDIT IS FOR YOU !
If you only read the graphic novel, buy a legit version coz
THIS EDIT IS FOR YOU !!
If you ain't seen Watchmen coz you think its another superher namby pampy flick - WRONG - Buy it coz
THIS EDIT IS FOR YOU !!!
So lets dig in
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I have had the extreme pleasure of watching version 1 and 2 of this back to back this week and I'm knocked out. All comments refer to either edit unless noted.
AV Quality -
Yes its DVD (and an HD revision is coming), but its flawless
Visual Editing -
Flawless. I will expand however. I have not seen any version for a few years. I have no clue where any changes were made since I do not read cutlists until after my viewing, and I can attest that this is as good as any professional job (in fact better than many pros) as you will see. aesthetically version one has the chapter captions over black, version 2 over the movie. I preferred version 1's approach here...but that is my preference only. Importing them from the DVD comic is genius and allows and frames the restructure. The removal of nearly an hour from the ultimate cut is just un-noticeable. I did not miss a thing, and I have recently read the graphic novel twice. Truly bravura work!. The gratuitous material that was excised just does not need to be there...and its an improvement...I'll come to that. I have nothing more to add.
Audio Editing -
Flawless; however, and this is now personal comment and not criticism, I would have carried over some of the ambient sound or music over some of the chapter captions for a more natural flow, but that is no biggie. The music replacement was breathing taking in timing, choice of music and in re-setting the tone of the piece PERFECTLY. It just grounds the whole darn thing where it needs to sit. This is a dark world, flawed characters on the brink of annihilation. The music in the official versions is often out of place, at best a distraction or cute, at worst appallingly misguided (Vietnam) and Flix C nailed it - BRAVO
Narrative -
Get the F**K outta here!!!
This could not follow the source material more closely unless you reunited the cast and shot additional material. The intermingling of Under the Hood and Matting into Holis Mason's TV is again, GENIUS. This is pur bonus and I'm STUNNED that it was not done for the official versions. It frames the plot, fleshes out character and further grounds the tome and mood of this tragi-hero epic marvellously. I'm jealous that I did not see the potential and that's coz in theatres I enjoyed the film, but was not knocked out. NO I AM. Personal choice; I was ont a fan of the Black Freighter in the Novel, and I'm not here either. FlixC does redeem it with its structure, but for my taste version is superior (and would be even better if some of the other tweaks in V2 were in V1 sans Black freighter)...So I'm doing that for myself since its an nice puzzle to unpick (I won't be releasing it since I do not tread on other Faneditors toes). Also I prefer the opening to V1 from a music and narrative perspective. I understand FlixC reasoning in V2 to move the opening credits to the end, but film is a different medium, and framing the backstory for the new viewer must be in a filmmakers mind..but that's my POV - Nothing to add. 10 here too.
Enjoyment -
TOTAL, ABSOLUTE and Complete.

Final Word
I literally would have stopped above the line but I'm so impressed and so enjoyed this I wanted to share the joy and some personal preferences for viewers and FlixC.

If you only see one fanedit in 2014,
WATCH THIS ONE....TWICE.
W
(now, where's my BluRay Ultimate cut and butchers knife) ?
PS
Thank you for the detailed cutlist

i am a huge fan of watchmen.
i first read the graphic novel at school and then did a 2000 word essay on it.
when i saw that they had finally made a movie after years of problems.
i had to go see it, i saw the directors cut and loved it, it was not a perfect scene for page of the graphic novel, but was a lot closer than a lot of other movies based on a graphic novels.
i had been looking at this edit for a long time, when i saw a version 2 and what had been changed from version 1 i had to see it.
im glad i did i love this edit it was perfect, the songs i hated are all changed and replaced perfectly, i love the changes to bring it closer to the graphic novel and they all worked in seamlessly.
its amazing just how close Zack was from making a perfect movie.
i will still watch my directors cut and this fanedit as they are just so good.
thank you so much Flixcapacitor for this awesome edit and i 100% recommend this edit to any one who liked the original cut.

Wow. This is a great edit. Removing a lot of the songs and adding score helped by adding to the tone of the edit. The Under the Hood segments also add another layer as well. Plus it's nice to see more of Hollis.

I'd have to say that this and Watchmen Legacy, both, are my definitive go to of Watchmen. Highly recommend this.

When I saw the theatrical trailer for Watchmen I thought to myself, “oh no not another superhero movie, doesn’t people ever get tired of these.” Needles to say I had no idea what Watchmen was all about, never read the graphic novel.
But people raved about this movie like it was the second coming of Christ so I took a chance and watched it (the director’s cut) and it turned out to be a masterpiece. It definitely in my top 100…or maybe even top 50…

I never bothered with the ultimate cut. It looked like they only added the Black Freighter footage, so it didn’t look intruding to me. Better leave that version to the hardcore ner...fans.

IMO the director’s cut was perfect. At least I thought so…
I stumbled over the thread for Watchmen: Midnight and I don’t know why but I started reading what changes Flixcapacitor had done to perfection...and strangely enough it sounded really awesome. He sounded like a huge fan of the original material and sometimes these kind of people can do things that the filmmakers can’t, they don’t have to worry about what anyone might think, what will be attached to their “reel” etc.

Turned out the story was pretty much intact, just a couple of things that were over the top (yes I admit) were cut. And no Black Freighter. Instead he added Under the Hood, the “documentary” about Hollis Mason’s glory days. This footage first felt off when it cut back to the “movie” but it really fleshed out the story and the attack on Mason later on now has more depth to it and I cared on a whole other level than before.

I love the original soundtrack but the changes made are really for the better. Less is more and I’m now more involved in what happens on screen, this worked especially well for the opening.

I guess I owe it to myself to one day check out the original work that everyone praise so much. But for the movie version, this one is the best version so far. And I was a HUGE fan of the director’s cut.

Hands down one of the most thoughtful and most enjoyable edits I've seen. I do have to say that this is still not the perfect version for me, but before I get to those quibbles, let's talk about what it does very well.

The first and most obvious point to me is the changing of the music. The Watchmen story is incredibly deep and has a lot of subtlety and layers to it. What Zack Snyder's theatrical cut did was a pretty good representation of the story, but often stripped away the subtlety . This was particularly notable in the use of soundtrack music which 9x out of 10, was incredibly on-the-nose. "Hey, everyone's quiet at a funeral, let's play Sounds of Silence!", etc. Flixcapacitor has replaced these choices with equally-fitting yet more subtle songs, or with score that fits the scene perfectly.

There are a lot of additional narrative edits which limit the "in your face" approach of Snyder as well. While I think Flixcapacitor went a little heavy on the edits of sex and violence, I am thankful he took out most of the egregious "superheroics" that leave you wondering how all these characters came to have superhuman strength (while none of the comic characters have powers except for Dr. Manhattan). Sadly, there's no way to edit out Ozymandias' superhuman feats, but at least they're more limited here.

Now, on to some elements I was more mixed about. Firstly, the Black Freighter animated scenes: I'm not convinced it's a better film with them included. Always the most contentious part of the original story, it seemed rather an indulgence of writer Alan Moore's, but at least you could read through them quickly on the page. In the movie, we're forced to spend those minutes on a tale that looks totally different than the rest of the film, and really only serves to double-down on Ozymandias' theme. It's unnecessary, takes away any subtlety that was there, and adds a lot of time to a film that is already lengthy. Worse yet, despite the placement of the scenes being artful, it really does suck the momentum out of a story which is already slower in this edit for the more limited use of sex and violence. I would prefer a version without these scenes... they just work better in a comic than in a film.

The other big narrative addition is the Under the Hood 'documentary' scenes. These aren't the most scintillating, and Stephen McHattie's performance as Hollis can drag a bit in these, but I do think the added background about the Minutemen is welcome. They're also good in paying off Holis and Janet, who would be minor characters, and giving more motivation for Nite Owl's decisions at the end of the film. On the other hand, I don't really see the need to edit out all the mentions of "The Watchmen" and associated scenes. However, the movie is already struggling with length and I can't say I missed a specific scene. So overall the narrative is much improved and enriched in this edit.

Finally, as others have noted, the credit sequence at the end ultimately didn't work for me. While I appreciate it as a kind of "nostalgic review" of the story, I think it's much better served by its original intentions. It piques our interest in this group of long-ago heroes, tells us that they weren't the cheesy "gosh golly" 4-color heroes of comic strips, and transitions from the downfall of that era into our "modern" era of the 1980s. While the original Dylan song is totally guilty of being on the nose for the scene, it's also pretty perfect. I think the Smashing Pumpkins song also works incredibly well, and fits the look and tone of the film better, though. So I could deal with either song, but I'd prefer the credit sequence to be an actual opening credit sequence.... probably best placed just less than 5 minutes in, after Rorscach's opening investigation scene that ends with him saying "Somebody knows..." and looking at the picture of the Minutemen...then cut to the black and white credits of said Minutemen.

Technically, this edit is nearly flawless, with incredible audio and video quality. The edits are extremely well done, with subtle fades and transitions, both audio and visual, and I think the title cards fit well. There was only one jarring edit for me, which was in the conversation Dr. Manhattan has with Silk Spectre on Mars. When editing that scene together, it was apparent that some time was supposed to have passed in the middle, but they're standing in the same place and there was just a fade to black and a fade back up. It's very odd, and I think needed an insert scene, maybe just a few seconds of people moving around NYC and Ozymandias watching monitors or something like that. The edit was clearly made to bring their conversation together, like the comic, which is in the end, better. Overall, this would probably best be labelled "the comic book loyalist version", as it is the closest we'll ever get to that. Personally, I'm okay with small changes to even that phenomenal story, in acknowledgement that film is a different medium. But this is definitely a better version than what Snyder put together, and it replaces the original on my virtual Blu-Ray shelf.