The Long Journey of Film Making

So I'm sitting in the bedroom of my editor for my latest film typing away as he fiddles with the credits. It's been quite some time coming. It was a lengthy process... See in 2009 Darkstone Entertainment released a teaser trailer for their upcoming film Plan 9: a remake of the classic Z-grade cult film Plan 9 From Outer Space. Well I loved the film, as do a lot of people, thanks to its super-low budget special effects and terrible acting/plot/everything. It is very aptly called "the worst film ever made." I got interested in it because of the involvement of Caitlin Hill, a popular youtuber back in the day who decided to drop out of the production but oh well.

Fast forward a bit: It's 2010 and I'm in my first year of film school. I've just finished my first assignment film. An OK piece of work for a first year film student. Nicely shot but unfortunately opened with a shot of an alarm clock with the main character getting out of bed (to be fair it had a nice pull focus and isn't followed by a montage of them getting ready so I only am cursed with half of a film student cliché). I show to the director of Plan 9 and he tells me it looks good then tells me that he's going to be holding a competition sometime soon would I be interested in taking part of it? Heck yeah I would!

2011: first semester of Uni and I have a film to make for this competition. It's a 2-3 minute re-imagining of the original Plan 9 From Outer Space and I decided, foolishly, to do the majority of it by myself. Armed with a cast that outnumbers the crew and only my mother helping me with the costume I decided that I would make a short film that would require more effort on my part than my major film assignment for that semester... in less time. I constructed the sets (deliberately poorly made cardboard to mimic the super low budget cheesiness of 50s B-grade), composed the music, filmed, directed, produced, and edited it. It wouldn't be a David Cox film if I didn't do at least 4 different things.

Spoilers: I won that competition near the end of 2011. What was the prize? I get to make a new film! This film is a prequel (or "sister film") to the feature film and gets to be on the special features of the DVD release. Pretty sweet. Everyone gets to see my work. Well now it's 2012 and I've written the script. Time to make it. After a bit of getting distracted with the final major project of my film degree I start production at the start of 2013 and we shoot it in January. Only now, September, have we finished it. It was stressful as all hell.

The schedule was ridiculously tight. The two lead actors as well as the crew were both intensely busy so we had two shoot days to get everything with them done and then that was it. We managed this, thank goodness. Then we had to edit it. Unfortunately there was a specific thing that needed to be made (outside of the actors) to be filmed and it took forever. There was an issue at every step of the process which I won't go into but it could've been done a lot better. Delays delays delays.

I'm no longer sitting in that room with my editor. We exported it and I sent it off to Darkstone. Good times.

Months later we had to do ADR because issues forced me to rewrite a piece of dialogue we'd already shot. Can't reshoot anything so have to talk over it. This was incredibly difficult as I had to find a sound person who was available at the same time as the actress who was going off to Europe for 2 months and thus had a few random days of availability. Sound people are in high demand all the time and literally every time anything sound related needed to be done it'd be a different sound person. Sound recordist was different each day on set, we did two ADR sessions with two different sound people, and I went through a list of 20ish people before I got directed to someone in Canada who directed me to someone in Sydney to do the sound editing. This stressed me out so much that I became an insomniac for a week as this horrific deadline loomed. I managed it. Yay.

Insomnia isn't fun. You have so much more time to do things but everything becomes so difficult that you can't function properly and so all that extra time is a waste... a waste you're conscious for.

After a long and stressful search for a sound editor and many hour long drives to my editor's house to overlook things we made progress... At times I wanted to bang my head against a wall. Everything felt like it was taking longer than it should've. Our deadline was extended twice. But we managed... we did it...

It got done.

Then I got really drunk.

I finished a thing. I made a film and it's pretty alright I guess. I finished it and just in time for me to finish my last semester of my 4 year long stay at University. I can sigh in relief now... that this horribly lengthy production is over...

...and pick back up where I left off on Birdman nearly a year ago... Birdman that I wrote back in... 2011. Oh for...

Why does everything take forever to make? THEY'RE ONLY SHORT FILMS!

Two Old Men Discuss 3D

I was on the bus when I overheard a conversation happening directly behind me, which I try to avoid as it distracts from whatever book I am reading, but these two old men were discussing film (which I am studying after all) and how little they liked 3D film.

"The technology isn't new..." one said, "I remember seeing a 3D film when I was young." Which was possible as the first 3D films came out nearly 60 years ago with the Man in The Dark being the first 3D film by a major motion picture and the original House of Wax film being the first 3D film by a major American studio 2 days later, both in 1953. Unlike it's remake in 2005 starring Paris Hilton, it had actually talented actors in it such as Vincent Price. Fun fact: the director, Andre de Toth, only had one working eye and thus was unable to see the 3D aspect of the film.

They were in agreement that 3D wasn't that interesting of a thing. It hadn't even made any advancements in technology, which I initially thought was wrong because we'd changed from red-blue glasses (anaglyph 3D) to ones with polarised lenses but turns out that this is merely my limited experience. I remember things like Spy Kids 3 in Anaglyph 3D and it seemed normal for that technology until recently with things like Coraline and Avatar to have polarised glasses that had completely replaced blue-red. Turns out that polarised lenses were actually far more popular and widespread even in the 50s 3D craze (which suddenly makes me realise just how hipster-ish it is to wear red-blue 3D glasses in the 50s).

Remarkably the old man is up to date with his information about 3D films. I listened on, no longer pretending to read my book but simply looking forward and smiling as I wondered whether or not I should join in on his derision of 3D films. Next he mentioned 3D TVs, which didn't seem popular. "There just aren't that many 3D films" he said. Well the amount increases yearly, thanks to the re-invigorated 3D craze jump started by Polar Express and more recently commonly attributed to James Cameron's 2009 record breaking blockbuster Avatar.

But 3D isn't this quick and easy way to making a billion dollars at the box office despite past examples to the contrary. The 2004 film Polar Express might have had 3D sales outweigh 2D sales by 14 to 1, but this trend has decreased over the years. 2D tickets for Kung-fu Panda 2 were greater than 3D. RealD, a 3D technology company, had an %11 drop of shares in May 2011. But 3D isn't dead or dying, it just isn't the most amazing big thing any more. But it seems to be growing according to this article. Before 2008, US 3D films accounted for %3 of film revenue, then in 2009 it was %16.3 (I might remind you that Avatar was released in 2009) and %31.4 in 2010. So there appears to be some conflicting evidence around the popularity and success of 3D. It is reserved only for big-budget films though, which are pretty much guaranteed box office success. Think about it, more and more action films are in 3D, and why wouldn't they be? Big explosions in 3D would be so much more awesome than a deep period-drama in 3D - though I am glad this means we will probably never see the works of Jane Austen in 3D, for that would be a horrific fate for her works. So 3D can't help but rake in the big bucks while less popular films are left to the conventional grace of 2D. This means we won't be plagued with 3D films wherever you go and there will still be lots of 2D entertainment for those of us who don't care for 3D, or get headaches from the glasses. Don't worry though, if the future of film is that all films are forced onto us as 3D then you can always just buy some of Hank Green's (of vlogbrothers fame) 2D glasses that allow you to see 3D films in 2D!

But I believe that people choose 3D because they're enthusiastic about the film not the 3D. Avatar was a cinematic "event" in a way and seeing it in 3D was just part of enhancing that experience, to pull you further into that world. Other 3D films don't get to market themselves like that.

In my opinion 3D used to be gimmicky, with things reaching out of the screen for a cool use of the 3D, but now it is just a thing used to enhance mise en scene. It serves to add a new level of artistic control to the perceivable depth to a film and varies dramatically throughout a film. So when people watch it, still expecting things to reach out to them like in films like Spy Kids 3, they are disappointed, and inevitably notice the lack of depth during a scene that was specifically not designed to have depth. People become disappointed, thinking that the 3D was terrible. I don't think people really realise the purpose of 3D over the past few years as opposed to 3D films in the days where something would alert to "put your glasses on now" for the specially prepared 3D section ("Whoa! Reaching out of the screen wow!" moments). People just don't care about 3D any more because it has lost its novelty and audiences don't understand the artistic point of it, just as the average audience doesn't appreciate how stylistic the lighting is. Perhaps a lot of directors misusing it and putting it in because of it's current trendiness is adding to this problem. People who deconstruct the elements of films as they watch them will appreciate the subtlety if they look for it, but I doubt lots of people will care for any 3D sequence that doesn't involve action. Go to any movie premier where both 3D and 2D are shown at the same time and you will see which one is most popular by far and I don't think it's just because of the slight price increase for tickets.

As a general rule I have decided upon I won't see any film that was turned 3D in post-production as it just isn't worth it. The process is less effective at getting depth the same way as filming in 3D. I learned this the hard way from watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in 3D. It was like watching cardboard cut-outs with light-sabers move around the screen... which was what it was like beforehand, but now it costs even more to be disappointed by. So because of this rule I am allowed to get excited about The Hobbit in 3D. It was filmed with special rigs that allowed Peter Jackson to adjust the depth of 3D as he was filming it which means if anyone is going to get the 3D right, it'll be this film... I hope.

Although, as you can tell, I have a somewhat negative view of 3D in general, I will say that I think it really suits stop-motion styled films like Coraline. It looked amazing in 3D and I really think the models that fight for the illusion of depth in sets that are effectively a few feet long can really benefit by the additional help of 3D technology.

"So Matt Newton is spending a lot of time in Miami jail..." said one as the two men had finished agreeing with each other over how little they cared for 3D. And just like that the conversation continued on, with the mention of 3D quickly forgotten as it was some fad they'd seen come and go before and would live to see go again...

Even if it isn't the most interesting of innovations in film technology I definitely believe it is here to stay. And it will churn out some amazing examples that will be heralded for decades to come... but it certainly will have a ton of bad and cheap examples before then.

3:42pm

It's that time again! That time where I tell you about my most recent and most worked on film of that semester/year. Well for this semester, my film is 3:42pm. A deep and depressing film about the horrors of abuse and the painful extremes of suicides to escape said abuse. It hasn't actually been marked yet as it was handed in on Sunday, but when I do get my results back I'll be sure to tell you. But yes, for my Screen Production unit I was tasked with the task (thesaurus? Nah, that's been extinct for 65 million years!) of making a one minute short film without dialogue and I did that. It took a lot of editing down to make it fit into that one minute, with many cuts but perhaps that's for the better. It worked out exactly how I wanted it to the end.

So here it is:

Embed? NO! This blog post isn't wide enough to fit a proper youtube videos widescreen into it! I tried resizing it but it just got warped and tiny and still didn't like me. So click the link up above.

Pretty darn interesting is it not? Yes, that is some Grade A acting from Daniel Buckle there. He's doing screen acting at FTI or so I'm told. He actually was very willing to do a lot of things, including slam down onto the floor again and again and again. I thank him quite a lot. He was also willing to get chest deep in a bath full of ice. It was as cold as he makes it look, if not colder. That bit isn't acting, he is seriously very very cold. I should know, I had to stand in the bath and film it. My legs were numb afterwards and didn't want to move much.

No actors were harmed (permanently) in the making of this film. We monitored his temperature before and after shooting. Funny story, his temperature was actually below normal before we put him in the tub... that bit I'm not kidding about. We quickly got him towels and ran a hot shower for him, gave him a change of clothes and spin dried his clothes so they were nice and warm and not wet at all. We did this while we played pool to celebrate a filming session well done. He was all very happy about it. See?



An entire film filmed all in one day... Ah, I may never see that again as it just gets more complicated and harder from here. YEAH! Here's to making a career out of this.

Concept(less) Test

Oh no! EXAMS! EXAMS!? Nah, my degree doesn't seem to have real exams, just a little bit of a concept test instead! (Note: I still have exams just ones not relevant to my major...) Well that's OK I guess. So I open up the book that I was meant to have read over the past 14 weeks every week as reccomended and saw that I didn't even need to read all the chapters, or even all of a single chapter. Yes well that's good. First chapter only read a half, second chapter only need to read a half... and so on... Until it gets to World Cinema and history of the development of New Waves around the world, the head figures in different countries, the cultural influence on the content of the cinema, the rise of Hollywood ect. It was about 100 pages to read and the test was... tomorrow. OK! And after that there was even more to read!

Screw that!

Actually, in my bed ridden ill state I found it very interesting. I enjoyed reading about the different cultural influences on the different aspects of French New Wave and Japanese New Wave (As waves generally should never be old, though technically all the "New Wave" stuff happened over 40 years ago at the least.) but I just didn't have the energy to force myself to read all 100 pages nor could I stay awake through it all. With only half the book read through and massive gaps in my memory as to what I had actually read or any ability to recall what "Heurmenuetics" was (or even if that was how you spell it) I braved the major concept test! I wasn't stressed at all even though I hadn't actually managed to review everything that had been told to me in the unit...

Which was good because the test didn't actually have any relation to the unit! You know, just when you were like "Oh, I should've studied more." Martin (the awesomely funny lecturer) decides that it doesn't matter, as he's not entirely sure what he had taught us either so pops in random nonsense! YAY!

Now, in one lecture he mentioned Freudian psychology and his theories in relation to analysing audiences reactions or interactions with films, which makes a bit of sense though most of Freud has limited application to film theory at least that one tidbit of psychology was relevant. Now, in the concept test the whole idea of what was relevant and what wasn't... was completely ignored. Not only did he include many things about Freud but he then included other psychology questions that not only weren't part of Structuralism or Psychodynamics or anything Freud related, but had absolutely 0 relevance to film in it's entirety. Now seeing as I actually do psychological science as a general elective I could answer this bizarre inane question about psychological development of cognitive processes and the identification of the self in infants... Yeah. Exactly. What the hell? I doubt anyone else in the entire lecture theatre understood the question (which was an abismally worded one! The fact that I loath it's structure and explanation of the psychological concept it described fills me with confidence in my ability to do well in my psychology exam) but you know that's not important because at least I look good when people fail.

Then there were questions on films that we hadn't studied so only those who just so happened to have watched Citizen Kane a few times and researched the textual analysis (LIKE ME!) would've been confident/able to knowingly get the question right (it was True/False this one so at least it's not a massive fail for everyone involved.)

Oh and though many people afterwards (and during) were complaining to themselves about how incredibly ridiculous said questions were, or the other questions for that matter. They were ridiculous! I on the other hand was busy thinking to myself how terribly formatted the test was... Seriously, some questions lacked proper spacing on the page! There lacked appropriate designated areas to write responses to the T/F questions! FORMATTING PEOPLE! STRUCTURE! STRUCTURE!

But yes, I did afterwards also agree that the content was the major flaw (because quite frankly, after having to define Romantic Comedies 3 times in bizarre ways, some of which gave you a definition that sounded more like random nonsense than a definition of a film genre, no one really wanted to focus on me complaining about structure... just constant b***ing about ROMANTIC COMEDIES! AGGHHH!).

I do pride myself though on my ability to have answered such nonsensical questions in as intelligent sounding manner as I possibly could! Yes, I came up with very smart responses that had nice big words, were properly structured and really got to the core of the question (whatever the hell the core was).Ah, the elegance of defining the genre of films I've never seen... Like the Road Trip where I talked about the journey towards a place of pyschological or spiritual significance to the party, the events that change the antagonists perception of the importance of the destination and various aspects of their lives and the buddy or friend who is the motivation for the journey or the catalyst for dramatic/comedic action later in the film when they encounter strange people and situations. Yes. So much more intelligent sounding than "A movie where people go on a road trip. They do stuff, generally funny... They make it to their destination a changed person."

So I'm looking forward to seeing just how well I do compared to how warped the test was! Yay!

Now to study for EXAMS! REAL EXAMS! That go for many hours instead of just one and have many questions and essays to write instead of just a few T/F questions and short answers. I should probably study for them between classes instead of blogging while at Uni. Yeah, I'm at Uni now just chilling on some computers, updating my pet rabbits Facebook page I made for her (Panda Moustache Bunny is so cute! Yay! She now has 25 friends!)

University

Well I was going to blog about the first week of University, but then it kinda came and went so now I'm blogging about the first two weeks of university instead! Aren't you happy now? I bet you are! You're smiling ear to ear now that you've got two-for-one! (Though technically just one, but longer. Yay!) Let's begin.

I had this awesome idea that I would gather all my non-murdoch stuff and then parade around campus showing it off. The idea was to wear my Oxford uni shirt, drink from a Curtin drink bottle, wear a Curtin cap, carry my stuff in my ECU bag and use pens from UWA or ECU (depending on what I had). The reality of what happened was... I had an Oxford shirt and felt too stupid to constantly wear my slightly too small Curtin cap all the time so only showed it off occasionally. But yeah! I couldn't find the lid to my Curtin drink bottle so couldn't bring it :( I brought a batman one instead.

Well first day of Uni was a Tuesday. The awesome thing about that is when people when something will occur and I don't know or can't be bothered answering seriously I just say "Tuesday" as a joke because quite frankly, Tuesday's rock right? Much better than Monday (I want to shoot the whole day down) so for once I said Tuesday and it really was Tuesday! (Exciting so far isn't it?) OK well I had an awesome lecture about movies then went to the library and got out Charlie Chaplin in City Lights (which is awesome) and then I had a 3 hour lecture in the afternoon. It was so awesome. I have the best lecturer ever. He's incredibly funny but very informative. He's from Africa so has an accent but it's not hard to understand. Last lecture I had he started by opening up a youtube video of a foreign music video and singing along to it then proceding to dance. It got recorded for lectopia :P Martin (his name) is just plain awesome. You don't want to miss a lecture with him. We get to watch films! It's brilliant, we watched this eery Korean short film in the first week and the 2nd week involved watching Pretty Woman (which is apparently his favourite movie. We all thought he was joking, but no. He's serious he loves that film) and then soon we'll be watching District 9!

SUCK THAT ECONOMICS STUDENTS! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha lol.

The same goes to any sociology, history, business, engineering students or anyone whose course involves labs/maths/science in any way.

Wednesday. I do believe that was the day that I had a Foundation lecture in the morning and sat next to someone who was tired. We connected on this tiredness and then afterwards decided to talk under the shade of a tree about things such as highschool and such. I had a 4 and a half hour gap between classes so I could've just gone home and then come back a few hours later but no, I socialised under this tree, unaware that the sun was moving through the sky. Hours later I think I should probably move slightly to the right to avoid burning. It didn't work. I got home and realised that my legs were unbelievably red. My arms were burnt aswell but not as badly. (They didn't start to peel a week later) It hurt to go into sunlight the next few days. I'd never been burnt that much before in my life because I generally avoid being in the sun for too long (I burn easy) as I am afraid of skin cancer later in life.

The next day was Thursday (Wow thanks for telling me!) and I had only a 4 hour break between classes so that was good. I went to the City and saw Lorna instead of doing work :) Sweet right? I came back with time to spare for my next class which was a workshop for screen production. Basically sat there as the guy went over the basics of using Adobe Premier CS4. I'd used a different version of Premier previously so I didn't learn much and it wasn't that interesting. I did however, spend half the lesson searching for the "cut" button. Seriously they got rid of it for CS4! It's just not there! I kept clicking absolutely everything and eventually I had accidentally shifted everything around so much that the timeline was squished somewhere, there were no more viewing screen for the footage and other things like toolbars had been stretched way out of proportion. I was too proud to ask for help... he didn't tell us where the cut button was.

I now know it's shrotcut is ctrl+K.

You know what sucks? Shopping. But other than that, getting up at 6:30am also sucks. Which is what Fridays are for! First week I didn't have a psychology tutorial (I don't know why) so I had to get up at 6:30 to get there by 8:30 (Over an hour of that is travel time there) just for one hour Foundation tutorial then an hour back. These things are compulsary unlike lectures and so I need to attend or I fail. Yay! Though it was good, tutorials so far have involved the tutor going "get to know people!" No really, our first instruction was "turn to the person next to you and get to know them." then our next instruction was "turn to the other person next to you and get to know them." It worked well what with the person next to you was right next to you, perhaps even half on your desk. You see there were two classes going on at once, but everyone went to one and so the other one was very small and joined us anyway. Over the course of 10-15 minutes it just got bigger and bigger due to latecomers and other class. We were in a circle and the circle was so big it was just a bunch of desks against the walls with enough space for people to be. Ridiculous I know, which is why they split us again the next week. I wanted to be in the original class because they old guy was funny but no... No I got stuck with the old lady who reminds me of my year 10 S&E teacher whom I wrote a nasty poem about, she found, she got me suspended for 2 days over... I thought it wouldn't be fair or possible to change back because the class was quite small. Oh well.

Week two. What happened week two of interest? I don't know... I met people. I'm always meeting new people. I've got a nickname already. I can't remember which day it is but one of them involved a screen production tutorial where I just sat down outside the doorway on the floor and waited for it to start. People arrived and they were like "Hey." and I was like "Hi. I'm floor man." so then they were like "awesome" and now I'm called Floor Man by some of them. Yay!

Well I'm sure there's an interesting story in week two besides the one on Friday but I can't remember them. Oh well. Well basically Uni so far has been awesome. I need to start doing more work for it than I have been so far but it's pretty cool. The amount of freedom and how fun it is to just show up and learn exactly what you want instead of having to deal with yet another boring math lesson is just incredibly great! Though sometimes I get tired or bored during foundation lectures or classes in the late afternoon, but that's OK. For activity sign up I shouldn't wait next semester. I waited until the day after they were open and then just saw that so many were full already. It was terrible! You're a day late and suddenly your timetable has got huge gaps in it like mine does... Terrible!

Well anyway, Psyche tutorial on week two, Friday. Well no one knows each other and we're all just sitting there in this room not doing anything. I see whiteboard markers... Of course I'm going to walk up and take one! Duh! (Who doesn't?) So my ingenious idea to stop everyone being awkwardly silent while waiting for the tutor (who won't show up for quite some time) is to play hangman! Yay! I put up 5 lines and go "Who wants to play hangman? Come on!" it starts slowly with people guessing a letter occasionally, but soon escalates and then everyone's happy and people are joining in and talking etc. See? I rock. People wondered how old I was and someone even thought I was the tutor just messing with them all but no, I was 17. They liked my beard.

When the tutor came she told us about her previous employment in the states only private prison. (Which she pointed out you can buy shares in, which means you rely upon the state to breed criminals for your shares to show profit. I suggested going around abusing as many children as possible to breed criminals so you can be rich!) Then she told us to interact with each other and get to know each other (Wow uni is so awesome! I love being told to talk in class!) and someone said that we pretty much all had been talking when she wasn't there (because of the awesome social power of hangman) so she's like "Well... talk to someone you've interacted the least with." I met some guy who grew up in Ireland in a 7 story house. Damn you! You make my 3 story house with two balconeys and an ocean view seem so insignificant... Oh well.

Then we had to talk about the bystander effect because, you know, university involves learning apparently? So I can't be bothered telling you about it, just google it! Google everything!

So yes, I have to go and read seriously huge amounts of my psychology text book because I didn't previously. Work! Work! Why must I waste half my weekends with parties and social outings? I have things to do!

I'm a university student now :D

Watchmen!

I've decided that my blog needs to become more openly friendly towards outside viewers (One day Brooke you won't be ashamed to show your friends my blog :P) so it can appeal to larger audience and therefore people will actually read what I write. So I'm going to be writing more broad-spectrum reader friendly blogs from now on, and what else to talk about that everyone will enjoy and love but a horribly violent comic book movie adaption!? WATCHMEN!!!!

Well let me start off by saying, yes, there will be blood (Wait no, that's already been used before) and you will be wondering just how violent this movie could get. The answer: pretty violent. Not horrifically (although all words are subjective to over/under use and are in no way quantifiable even on an individual scale and so by "Not horrifically" I mean it wasn't horrific to the point of disturbing to me but I am more desensitised than other people.) but quite violent indeed. There was more blood than there was in the comic book. The comic book wasn't really as graphic when Dr Manhattan decided to make someone go splat. This movie had bones (ribs and bits of spine) flying outwards with unidentifiable vital organs splattered in blood clearly visible when Dr Manhattan zapped someone. (At one point you see intestines dripping blood from the ceiling. The person looking up at them in shock has just had someone explode on them and is covered in blood.) I don't remember anyone in the comicbook having the bone in their arm broken at such force it protrudes from their skin but oh well. But when you think about it (well, if you have read Watchmen and then seen the movie) then you'll notice that the end is actually less violent than in the comic. You don't get to see the bodies... (SPOILERS!?) yeah that's hopefully not explanatory enough for anyone who hasn't seen the movie and wishes to.

I absolutely loved this movie but for some reason afterwards couldn't remember the names of the characters other than their "superhero" names. (They technically aren't superheroes except for Dr Manhattan. They are vigilantes, like Batman.) Which is odd because I don't remember them actually referring to them that much in the movie besides The Comedian, Rorscach and Dr Manhattan (Although Nite Owl is mentioned along with Ozymandias at least once or twice, and of course we all only know Hooded Justice and Mothman as just plain Hooded Justice Mothman.) so I was going "Ozymandias did this- wait. What's his name?" "Who?" "Ozymandias... Uh... the guy in purple..." (His costume changed! It was a lot less dark in the comic) "... the guy in Antartica." So that was an odd thing that happened. I kept calling The Silk Spectre II "Sally".

This movie is approxiamately 2 hours and 40 minutes.... and it has been chopped in half! Seriously for fans of the comic book you will watch this movie and be going "They've missed that, that, that, that, that guy had so much to him that's no longer there, they don't explain that, they don't explain that, that's not even mentioned!" ect ect but after you come out you'll be going "Wow! That was an awesome movie!" and you will definitely agree (I have already decided your opinions! You cannot fight me!) that they did an excellent job at telling the story of Watchmen while still cutting away all that they did. When you think about it, you didn't really need to know about the lesbian couple fighting in the streets, or the opinions of the newsstand guy or the relationship troubles of the prison psychologist... They might've bothered to have explained what the hell that weird looking pet that Ozymandias has but then again, where would you have put a piece of dialogue that explained that it was genetically engineered? But yeah there was quite a lot that wasn't needed (Tales of the Black Freighter was completely cut and is for sale on a seperate DVD.) so they got rid of it. That unfortunately gets rid of part of the social commentary but oh well. I liked it regardless! I'm not going to give any real ratings of this movie other than I thought it was awesome! Who needs to rate a movie or rank it? I enjoyed it even if it had the most liposuction I've seen in a movie adapation since Lord of the Rings (Half of the third book IS GONE! And they never explain the eagles and Tom Bombabil is completely ignored.) There's also a few changes so it's not going to be an exact replica with bits taken out. The ways a few of the people die are different (and have MORE BLOOD) so enjoy that!

Oh! Also, if you've read the book (including those random pages of text instead of images that make up extracts of the original Nite Owls book and other assorted things like a letter to Adrian Veidt from someone in marketing ect) you'll see at the very end a billboard with the word "Millionaire" in big pink letters on it. Well it's better than Nostalgia! (......get it?.... OK no, no one gets that. Adrian Veidt sells perfume! And one of the fragrances is Millionaire. It replaces Nostalgia... or the other way round. I'm pretty sure it's the former not the latter.)

Read the book. See the movie. Learn free will (In that order. If you do it in reverse then... you don't do the other two...)