Watchmen : Directors Cut

[FuryoftheFilmFan]

 This is going to be my next Blu Ray purchase. This is a movie I can see over and over and just has to be seen on Blu Ray. Also the Directors Cut fixes a lot of problems some people might have had with certain scenes.
dvd release Date: July 21, 2009
    * Disc 1:
    * Director's cut of the film (186 minutes)
    * Disc 2:
    * The Phenomenon: The Comic that Changed Comics (30 min.)
    * Webisodes (38 min.)
    * Music Video: My Chemical Romance Desolation Row (3 min.)
    * Digital Copy - Theatrical version

I found out some of the scenes that have been added are the following. 25 min. worth of deleted footage!

(1) Rorschach gets additional dialogue, some straight from the comics.

(2) When Rorschach searches the Comedian's apartment shortly after the opening scene, he encounters two cops still stationed there. He fights briefly with them before jumping back out the window.

(3) Conversation between Dan and Rorschach (beans scene) is extended.

(4) All flashbacks extended, with the exception of Sally's.

(5) Dr. Manhatten discussing the symbol on his forehead. Additional questions in the face to face with Dr. Manhatten. Dan and Hollis watch Dr. Manhatten go crazy on their TV set.

(6) Laurie getting interrogated by the military as they try to determine Dr. M's whereabouts (on Mars). Alessandro Juliani's (Lt. Gaeta from Battlestar Galactica) scene has been reinserted. He plays one of the scientists who bursts in during the interrogation of Laurie to tell the military that they've located Dr. M on Mars.

(7) Probably the biggest addition is the depiction of Hollis Mason's death at the hands of the knot heads. Interestingly, the death is done from poor Hollis' POV, where he imagines himself fighting the gangsters of the 1940s. He delivers left and right hooks to Captain Evil, before being done in by "Moloch". The score for the death scene is very fitting.

( Dan taking revenge on an isolated knot head at a bar, post Hollis' death. It's a brutal revenge.

(9) The shootout by hired hitman Roy Chess is much more brutal- e.g. more blood and gore, fingers blown off.

(10) Conversation between Dr. Long and Rorschach is extended.

(11) Longer jail-break scene with arguments between Rorschach and Laurie. Prison guards open fire on Dan's ship.

(12) Longer conversation between Dr. M and L on Mars.

(13) Riot scene is longer with more conversation between the Comedian and the rioters.

(14) Agent Forbes (Fulvio Cecere) has a larger role as the government agent in charge of handling all the Watchmen.

[DistantJ]

I seriously hope we get this outside of America someday. There's stupid rights ownership crap preventing it, again. It sounds brilliant. I loved the Watchmen movie but there were indeed sections missing which I felt would add to the power of it all.

For example, the character of the news vendor and the young chap who sits reading the comic - whether the comic story is included or not, I thought those scenes were integral to the comic book - they gave a better sense of the impending nuclear war, brought New York city to life by making you care about it's citizens, however mundane their dialogue, which, as a result, gave the explosion some heavier emotional impact.

Being that the movie replaces the scattered corpses and blood-splattered streets and walls with a huge crater of rubble, I felt it could have used at least these scenes to give the feeling of how much was lost. Also, the news vendor is seen trying to shield the kid from the blast, which seems to be just random people at this point, but with their scenes in the comic it's a very emotional moment in my opinion, due to their dialogue scenes being so 'casual'.

but i'm not the type to complain about stuff missing in movies from comic books, novels, etc. I loved the movie however much was missing, but it'd be a real pleasure to see this version.

[FuryoftheFilmFan]

I completely agree, the movie needed that emotional impact driven home. We got a sense that what happened was terrible but it felt like it happened off screen. The whole point of the series was to drive the point really home...show how terrible that ending really was and what price people paid for peace.

[DistantJ]

I actually liked the "fear Doctor Manhattan, for he is now God!" thing way more than the "fear the dead squid-brain, for it is an alien!" thing (though I would have loved to have seen that creature in a movie), but yeah, the comic did devastation better.

[ZimMan2]

Well, the one thing I'm surprised at is that they didn't integrate Tails of the Black Freighter with this one.  I was certain they were going to do that. 

Still, I will be getting this, it sounds awesome anyway. 

[DistantJ]

Supposedly they're doing that in yet another cut to be released later.

[FuryoftheFilmFan]

If Aliens did invade planet Earth, we would win the war Independence Day style, send a guy to their mother ship with a virus and all but in 6 months this world would keep bitching and fighting with each other despite the threat of another Alien attack. But..the threat of a vengeful God? Now that's some stuff that will keep people in check!

[DistantJ]

I totally agree with you. I was in two minds about the ending - the movie ending made a lot more sense, worked a lot better, made Dr. Manhattan and other story elements more significant and tied everything up perfectly, but the comic book ending was more shocking and would have been incredible to see on the big screen.

At it's core, it's the same ending though; World War iii is prevented with a hoax which kills millions.

[Lycosyncer]

I just got the Director's Cut on dvd and I have to say after watching it, I never want to see the theatrical version ever again.

With the exception of that odd scene where that cop shoots Rorschach at the beginning, all of the extended scenes are very welcome and made the movie all the more better for me.

Yeah, I also wish that there were more scenes with the Bernies but I heard that that they did that for the Ultimate Cut which will be released later this Christmas. So, I'll check that out later to see if that's true.

If Aliens did invade planet Earth, we would win the war Independence Day style, send a guy to their mother ship with a virus and all but in 6 months this world would keep bitching and fighting with each other despite the threat of another Alien attack. But..the threat of a vengeful God? Now that's some stuff that will keep people in check!

I agree and I feel that the movie's ending makes much more sense to me than the squid ending in the comics but I do agree that the devastation is a lot more powerful in the comics. I wonder the reason why they didn't show dead bodies, is it because of budget concerns? I mean, Zack Snyder didn't have a problem showing all of the hardcore violence and gore that happened before but how come everyone got disintegrated with no trace of flesh and blood remaining during that sequence? I wonder...

[DistantJ]

I think it's just that it makes more sense that in a blast caused by Dr. Manhattan's energy signature everything would be disintegrated and reduced to a crater, unlike the comic's ending which was just one big shockwave given off by a device in the squid monster's brain.

[Sam]

I never got round to watching the is movie. Is it worth £10 on Blueray? cause I can't decide

[DistantJ]

Dude this movie is worth all the money you've got.

[masterguy]

Getting it once i get the money!!!

[Ben_Hayden]

I think the creepiest part about the Novels ending was the whole phycological effects the squid had on people. I think it talked about pregnant women feeling as if their babie's were eating their way out of the womb, or something messed up like that. I also missed the part from the comic with Ozy and Dr. M talking alone- Ozy is like "Shit man, I did the right thing in the end right?" and Manhattan was all like, "Nothing ever ends," and by that time, I was so confused, yet enticed by his response, that panel alone made me want to reread the whole book!

[DistantJ]

The squid was indeed awesome, but I think they'd have needed another 2 hours of footage in the movie for it to have been understandable.

The only thing I really missed from the ending was the shots of the blood-paved streets. Understandably for the new ending, New York was reduced to a crater in this case, but there was a certain trauma about the corpses anywhere and everywhere, shattered windows and blood literally running down the walls.