Watchmen: Midnight

I have never seen the original but I LOVE this edit!

Really excellent ! I love all the work done on this fan edit, only "default" for me is to have modified almost the entire soundtrack otherwise everything is perfect.

December 31, 2011 @ 10:12 pm

Just finished watching this last night, and I wanted to put in a few words about what I liked and didn’t like. Please don’t expect a review per se, I can only speak to my response to the fanedited movie.

First off, I did watch the original movie first, then the fanedit, so I think I got a good before and after look. I thought the original movie, while the most interesting and different superhero story I’ve ever seen, was about a B+ as a movie. Maybe a straight B. After watching the fanedit, I wobbled a bit, but eventually settled on B+ as well. It’s different, and much is improved, but some things don’t play as well too, so in the end, it kind of evened out.

Here’s the things I really liked about the fanedit:
1. The recut of the opening and further exposition during the movie. Brilliantly done, it was much better than the original.
2. The cuts to the sex scene and some of the violence. I couldn’t watch the original with my friend, as he has teenage kids who are too young for that kind of graphic sex scene, so removing that put the movie right back into their range. The exclusion of the extremely graphic arm scene in the prison was a great choice too, and the way you did it was perfect.
3. The added non-backstory footage about the original Night Owl. Why did they cut that? It was amazingly well done and one of the most powerful scenes in the entire movie. Kudos for putting that back in!
4. The additional dialogue and footage throughout the movie. I didn’t see anything that didn’t work perfectly well. I’m assuming it was all cut for reasons of viewing time and theater scheduling.

Now, here’s the things I didn’t like so much:
1. Not sure what you call them, but the black screen and white-letter messages that were shown fairly often seemed to me like “editorial comments”. They broke up the flow of the movie and (no offense) seemed very heavy handed, like planting a sign saying “BTW THIS IS WHAT THINGS MEAN RIGHT NOW, JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN”T CATCH IT”, when in reality, I think most people would have the sense of what was happening. Those dropped the movie one full grade for me :(
2. Not your fault on this, but the additional backstory provided by the TV set, while a great addition to the movie, had no means of connection to the movie. I didn’t realize it at first, but I found myself wishing those were in the context of a scene where a character were watching them, so the flow of the movie wouldn’t be interrupted. No points off though, it was a wash.
3. The removal of some of the action, in particular the all-out SS+NO vs everyone in their way scene in the prison, really stood out to me as a loss. Except for that, we never really see SS or NO as “real” superheroes, costume and all, going all out kicking bad guy butt, and I think that was an important scene. It just seemed to clinch the deal for those two as partners, as well as setting the bar for the future fight with the big O and being pretty exciting in its own right. Also, it seemed like some of the Big O fight was missing. Maybe just me since I only watched the first movie once, but I didn’t really get the same tension and suspense from the fight as I did the first time.
4. Back to the sex scene, while much improved as I said above, I did think that it came off as very rushed. The beginning of the scene, where the characters meet eyes and connect through the charge of the experience they just had, was a good moment and a defining one for their relationship. A more paced beginning would have been good, before the cutaway that brought the show into PG territory.

Those are my thoughts. I’d like to thank you for making this fanedit, it must have been an incredible amount of work, and I did enjoy it very much. Re the rest of the review ratings, here they are:

VIDEO PRESENTATION: Beautiful, couldn’t tell it from the original. (5/5)

AUDIO PRESENTATION: Perfect to me. I know music was replaced, but I noticed no distracting cuts and the music worked fine for me. (5/5)

EDITING: Technical perfection. Couldn’t tell a bit where things were added/removed. (5/5)

STORY PRESENTATION: Plus six of one, minus a half dozen of the other, plus .5 bonus points for the additional footage of the (major) story point about the original Night Owl. (4.5/5)

OVERALL RATING: WATCHMEN: Better than the original for storytelling and character development, but lack of context for the backstory footage and some directorial editing choices that didn’t work for me take it down two notches. (8/10)

Keep on editing and I’ll keep on watching!

W

I always thought that the "Under the Hood" bonus featurette was the best part of the whole Zack Snyder Watchmen project (along with the opening/now-closing-credits). This cut's choice to integrate that featurette alongside the chapters of the story bring the whole movie closer in line to the comic, which can only be a good thing, adding emotional depth and pathos to a movie that needed them, given how many moving parts there are to the plot. The music, colour grading and sequence of events all add to the film, and the only thing I can hope is that somehow someone manages to integrate the alien invader footage from the TV show into this cut, and then we'll just about have a perfect Watchmen movie. Until then, this one is damn close.

The first time I hear about Watchmen I was handed the graphic novel and asked if I was interested in reading it. I said 'yes' and borrowed it with the intention of making it all the way through. Unfortunately, for me, I was bored and only made it about halfway through. When the movie was being released I went with a group of friends and still felt underwhelmed by what I saw. There just seems to be something missing from the story to really get me excited.

With that said, I gave it one more shot by watching this edit of the movie with the interviews with Hollis and the Black Freighter sequences inter-cut with the Ultimate Edition of the movie. While this cut doesn't always flow perfectly it is a far superior version than any of the previous cuts released to the public. By taking out a lot of the superhuman abilities (slow-mo) and focusing it more on the personal stories between characters I connected with it better than anytime I tried watching it before. I believe that this is the best version that can be constructed for the fans of Watchmen.

Thank you Flixcapacitor for taking the time to put this together. You have changed my mind on how I feel about the material presented. This is a more grounded version of the material and it really makes it so much stronger.