The Smark Avengers - Did Zack Snyder Miss the Point of Watchmen?

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

After diving deep into the original Watchmen comic, Corey, Dylan, and Jon turn their attention to one of the most controversial comic book adaptations ever made: Zack Snyder's Watchmen. Widely praised for its visual faithfulness and criticized for its interpretation of the source material, Watchmen remains a movie that comic fans continue to debate more than a decade after its release. In this episode, the Smark Avengers break down what Snyder got right, what he got wrong, and whether the film truly understands the themes that made Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' comic a classic. 🎬 Topics discussed include: The film's controversial changes to the ending Characterization differences between the movie and comic The impact of Snyder's costume redesigns The use of music and soundtrack choices throughout the film Important scenes, themes, and subplots omitted from the adaptation Whether visual accuracy translates into thematic accuracy The challenges of adapting one of the most influential comics ever written The crew also dives into one of the strangest discussions of the episode: the unexpected similarities between Watchmen and the 1997 film Batman & Robin. It's a comparison that sounds ridiculous at first—but the more they talk about it, the harder it becomes to ignore. Is Watchmen a misunderstood masterpiece? A visually stunning but fundamentally flawed adaptation? Or something in between? Join Corey, Dylan, and Jon as they revisit one of the most debated comic book movies ever released and ask the question comic fans have been arguing about for years: Did Zack Snyder miss the point of Watchmen? 💬 Join the discussion: Do you think Watchmen is a faithful adaptation of the comic, or does it fundamentally change the story's message? 👍 Like the video if you enjoy comic book movie retrospectives 🔔 Subscribe for more comic deep dives, reviews, rankings, and debates Click the link for Dylan's radio show!: http://www.bouncedigitalradio.co.uk Click the link for Dylan's Twitch stream: http://Twitch.tv/spookylaroux Click the link for Jon's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/bigjonbowski/ Click the link for Corey's show "Large Old Cup": https://open.spotify.com/show/2YHMppnl9inQevwLIxR64f

So, Dylan, we'll get into it when we start talking about the movie. But we got, I feel like one of the things I want to address right out the gate about the Watchman movie, how, how very Zach Snyder was it to have, um, that, a particular rendition of Hallelujah playing while Night Owls fucking Silk Specter in the, the Al ship? right have we started the show i we might i think this is how we're starting it is i just want to get that out of the way i have never in my entire life seen something like so one dimensional of like oh this song that's very famously pretty much about fucking put it in the sex scene and so i think we talked about that and i imagine we're going to talk about that's a lot more

later on no just get it out of the way now Not, not specifically that. More specifically, Zach Snyder and his inability to understand, like, tone. Yes, subtlety, like nuance. With a capital B, that's how he spells it. Yeah, it's very, like, just hit you with a hammer. Like, that's it.

What do you think? You're like, hmm, I don't. And again, with a story, this kind of complex, and with characters this complex, maybe Zach Schneider wasn't the right guy I mean is this the start of the show

because I have some stuff It's the start of the show Hi everybody Welcome to Spark Avengers, name is Corey with me is Dylan and John Guys how's it going? We're both very warm

Yeah It's a bit toasty I think this is like the first time that the temperature is almost the exact same Where you guys are and where I am And we talked about this off camera But the big difference is that

they have built homes in America to account for temperature because this is kind of normal for this time of year. Yeah. It's not so much for you guys. Big houses, like big brick houses to keep the heat in. And now there's too much heat in. Oh, you got it all. It's as in as it can be. Oh, but then you open the window, more heat gets in.

Yeah, it's not helping. It's heat outside as well. Yeah. It's just heat everywhere. How do you win? would you have uh water fans have you ever seen those no so you put

cold they have a basin where you put cold water in it and it like turns the water into like mist and it's like a cool air that just gets blown on you okay well more electronically consciously or electrically conscientible

than just an air conditioner sure just make up stuff right off of that yeah yeah yeah Speaking of making up stuff, who watches the Watchman? We did. Well, I recently did. You recently did. Which is appropriate because the day that we were recording this is the day before the Watchman comic episode comes out.

Oh. Yeah, I was thinking, are these two close together or is it okay? A little bit of kismet. There's like a two episode gap between the two. Yeah, where we talk about fighting Alfred Hitchcock. Yeah, we talked about fighting Alfred Hitchcock. and we talked about Mary Jane's kind of weird

venom costume and John watching Despicable Me four times about four times I've just all four of them I've since watched the minions as well Oh shit Isn't there like a new minions film coming out?

There was one from a couple years ago and I think there's another one this year as well So three minions movies I know Jesus Christ So many minion films We've got seven seven of the movies in this world. Yeah.

Didn't they come up with a reason for them? Like, they were, like, locked up in, like, some sort of a cave or something during the time of World War II, so they didn't have to suggest that the minions worked for Adolf Hitler. I was talking to somebody but this, like, two days ago.

I think that was part of the first movie. I want to say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They were like, right? So they didn't have to fucking work. They worked for Napoleon, I think.

Yeah, yeah, because they always worked for everyone. Yeah. the worst one of all because the last thing you want to do is being like in fucking Auschwitz and just see a little yellow guy going banana as a bunch of innocent people are led to their deaths

you know this is starting to show off what a Schindler's list had been much more fucked up if there was a little minion right by Liam Neeson the whole time he's like I could have had more banana I think it was still pretty fucked up I'm going to say that You know.

Yeah. What are you going to do? Hey, speaking of fucked up movies, Zach Snyder's watchman. Yeah, that's actually a really good segue. Thank you.

You guys thought we were talking shit with minions? No, we made it work. It makes sense. Minions are yellow, the comedian's smiley face button, yellow.

Uh-huh. Connection. Don't do that on the camera. Don't do that on camera. A lot of people do this. It's cutesy from what I understand. Or am I not cutesy? So.

No? No. Corey, you're adorable. Thank you. Yeah, so that's what you wanted? That's what I wanted. Thank you for validating me. He got, so.

I appreciate that. Anyway, yes. So this movie was considered unfilmable for decades. Like about 20 years exactly, I think, because if memory is certain, The first time they even explored the idea of making a film adaptation about this was in 1986 when they were selling, they sold the rights or presented the rights to create a movie. Let's see real quick.

Yeah, 1986 producers Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver acquired film rights to watchmen for 20th Century Fox. Author Alan Moore declined to write a screenplay because he said basically that you couldn't make a movie out of this because you would lose what he was doing. Let's just remember that bit for later. Yeah. So they Foxenlisted screenwriter Sam Hame, who rewrote Watchman's ending to make a more manageable conclusion

involving assassination and a time paradox. That project got shelved in 1991. It moved over to Warner Brothers, where Terry Gilliam, of all people, was attached to direct in Charles McCowan to rewrite the script. Gilliam and Silver were able to raise $25 million for the film, a quarter of the necessary budget,

because the previous film had gone over budget. Gilliam eventually left Watchman describing the comic as unfilmable, and Warner Brothers dropped the project entirely. In 2001, they partnered with Lloyd Levin and Universal Pictures, hiring David Hater to write and direct. Hater and producers left Universal due to creative differences, and Gordon and Levin expressed interest in setting up Watchmen at Revolution Studios. The project did not hold together at Revolution's,

studios and fell apart. In 2004, it was announced that Paramount Pictures would produce watchmen, and Michael Bay was considered to direct. Eventually, they attached Darren Aronofsky to direct haters' script. Producers Gordon and Levin remained attached, collaborating with Arnevsky's producing partner Eric Watson, Paul Greengrass replaced Aronovsky when he left to focus on the fountain, and ultimately Paramount placed Watchmen in turnaround. In October of 2005, Gordon-11 met with Warner Brothers once again to develop the project.

Tim Burton had once at one point expressed interest in directing the film, but turned it down. And Warner Brothers was so impressed with a little movie called 300. They decided to approach him, Zach Snyder, to make the movie. And that's how this movie ended up in Zach Snyder's lap. Screenwriter Alex C. I'm going to say his pronunciation at last name, TSE, was hired to rewrite Hater's script. He drew from his favorite elements of Hater's script and returned the story to the original Cold War setting of the comic. In contrast, a hater script, which was going to have it take place in modern times.

Similar to the approach in 300, Snyder used the comic book as a storyboard, which we'll most likely get into. And following negotiations, Paramount, which had already spent $7 million in their failed project, earned the rights for international distribution of Watchmen and 25% of the ownership. The fight scenes were extended, a subplot about energy resources were added to make the film more topical. Although he intended to stay faithful to the look of the characters in the comic, Snyder intended Night Owl to look scarier and made Ozzy Mandeas' armor look into a parody of the rubber muscle suits

from Batman and Robin from 1997. So that's sort of our pre-production. Dave Gibbons became an advisor on it. Alan Moore once again refused to have his name attached to this or any film adaptations of his work. And Snyder said in a 2008 interview with Entertainment Weekly, quote, There are things that we did with Watchmen that could only work in a comic

and were indeed designed to show off things the other media can't. So he knew this. We'll keep that in mind. He was aware that there are certain things he was not going to be able to do. While Alan Moore believes that David Hader's screenplay was as close as I could imagine anyone getting to watchman, he asserted he did not intend to see the film if it were made, though. Sorry, Snyder did not say that. Alan Moore said that. My apologies. Alan Moore intentionally wrote it knowing that it was not ever going to be made to a film. I love the idea of Zach Snyder not wanted to watch his own film that he made. Watch that shit

So the reason, by the way, should we get into it now because there's already a reason being for why the ending was changed. Yeah, that's a big sticking point for me. Okay, cool. So let's just hop right into it. We'll start, we'll tack up from the end

and go to the beginning. We'll reverse order. I'm going to have to turn my notes over. So obviously, the big difference in the movie that everybody has pointed out and many people say the reason why this movie was not very good. We kind of hinted at it when we talked about the Watchman comic was that the giant extraterrestrial

squid that killed and that appeared and killed a bunch of people in New York, giving the impression that there was an alien invasion about to attack Earth and thus ending this Cold War. That was completely removed and replaced with this sort of energy bomb that was suggesting that Dr. Manhattan had gone rogue and decided to lash out against humanity, thus in the Cold War. So that is the, that is the main. a big difference between it.

We talked a little bit about it when we were talking about the comic, because it was always a weird sticking point for me that Zach Snyder still felt the need to put in Babastus. And Babastus was there to foreshadow that Ozzymandius was already fucking with genetic manipulation to create creatures. Yeah. So it made no sense for him to still have Babastas, except that it was in the comic. And yeah, so Dylan, John, thoughts on the ending. I fucking hated it. I'm gonna tell you that I want to say this like

I'm about halfway through that film I was like which was a fucking long film the one I watched was like three hour and a half hour long it was so with adverts because I had to watch on the ITB player which did not work on my internet so it took me like

five hours to watch this fucking film and I did it for the show so you know but like the first like I would say the first half I'm like all right like a lot of it's fairly faithful to the comic and how I remember going there's a couple of like little odd

differences but for the most which I'll probably talk with there but for the most part it's pretty like story is going where it needs to go and then at some point in the second half like a lot of that disappears you learn more about the big plan at the end you learn more about um this weird like Dr. Manhattan helping Ozymandius with like some sort of like

machinery or like some sort of like revolutionary energy source and then it turns out big plan is to like blow one of them up to make it look like Ozymandius did that or to make it look like like Manhattan did that to end the Cold War you're like well

what? What? How does how? How do you connect those dots? I don't I would Russia see that thing explode and go, well, that's fair enough. The only thing. If I could say something, I would say that Dr. Manhattan was sort of like the Cuban Missile Crisis situation, where he was there as the, if we strike at America, we will succeed in hitting it, but he will attack, you know, like he will likely retaliate. if he turns against his own country what's to say he won't turn against our country you know like what's to say that we're safe now

you know right because he obviously has no loyalties now so that's the only thing I could think but that's surely that proves that it's a stupid idea then I have to reach that conclusion on my fucking own yes no because if he already because if if the implication is that uh... Dr. Manhattan did turn on his own country and you're like well then we're all fucked because he will just turn on anybody

therefore why would the war end America still has this fucking deadly creature yeah but it just I thought in the movie it wasn't it just it wasn't just New York no it was a couple different places yeah like other countries as well

was it in different countries it seemed like they were all in America I assumed it was all in different countries like I could have sworn there was they said it was a London or something but I don't think that they ever made it clear

that it was in anywhere other than North America. I guess that was the most important one for the audiences' sake, like, oh, it's going to hit harder if they see, like, they're familiar as that you get blown up. Yeah. World countries have put aside their rivals to focus on

common enemy, Dr. Manhattan. It just mentions rigging his reactors to explode killing 15 million people. So it says, yeah, it says reactors in New York City and other locations across the planet. So it is, it is multiple places. but even then you're like well then how does that end like a war does not escalate some sort of war

not if everybody gets hit at the same time i guess and it's like well we have to unite against we have this common enemy that individually we're outgunned but maybe we all work together i don't know i i just don't i just as an ending i'm like the the one in the comic was so satisfying so satisfied so much fun to read you know you know get to the end, whereas this one was just kind of like, kind of hacky and like, oh, you didn't have to, like, the ending's the best bit to me. Like, it's the most interesting bit. You read all the way up to just to get to this bit and see how it works and how it impacts everything and see how all of the mechanisms worked and came together to get the ending to work. And then it just ends.

Because then Dr. Manhattan is like, well, I guess you're right. The only way for this to end is for me to be a fucking prick and then he just like he just accepts that and disappears comic it totally makes sense where he would logically go well I had no choice but to agree with you on this it makes so

little sense for Osumani used to go hey Dr. Manhattan it's all your fault what do you think Manhattan goes got you got you got the only thing I think of is because at that point he was maybe so detached from humanity that he was like he could look at it

objectively and go like yeah, I guess you're right that if I'm the common enemy, then everybody can unite against me. I don't know. John, do you have any thoughts before I can give into Zach Snyder's explanation for why he did what he did? I mean, I think the more you look at it, the more holes you can poke into the movie's ending. Like, in theory, on the surface, which, you know, this is a very surface-level movie anyway. it's like, you know, okay, maybe they didn't want the big goofy squid monsters and stuff, and so they went for something which was still impactful and, like, had the same sort of idea around the endings.

But like you say, I don't know if, like, Dr. Manhattan being the, you know, the, yeah, like this sort of focus for everyone to kind of throw aside their differences and, like, you know, end the Cold War. I don't think it pays off the way it should do. So, yeah, it's not great. All right. I fucking love the Squidbit because the way that they, again, the whole dialogue, the monologue that Osirondias does,

we talked about the experiment that he's done and how it doesn't work. They tried to teleport stuff, and technically they could teleport. stuff but they die. And so then they get to the conclusion where they're like, oh, well, then you can teleport a squid monster in New York, but it doesn't matter because he's

already dead. And those imani's was like, well, I figured that out too. Instead of fixing that, I just came up with a different solution. Like, all of that is so much fun to read. But for them to just go, ah, we just blew up a nuclear reactor, what are you do about it? It's a blue guy's fault. Like, it's so cheap. I get the idea. I get the idea of like,

hey, let's, like, we're going to appeal to everyone's shared humanity. This thing, which is, oh boy, in today's political climate, don't you love when we point out an other and say, that thing's bad. That's essentially what this was, was like, hey, that blue guy with the powers, bad. We as normal people need to unite against the thing that's different.

That's a little fun. Let's put that out there real quick. But anyway, Zach Snyder's explanation for why he made the controversy decision to change the ending, quote, Snyder figured it would take about 15 minutes to explain the squid's appearance correctly. Otherwise, it's pretty crazy. Correctly. Correctly.

By omitting the squid, Snyder felt that he could give more time to explore and develop the existing characters. Did you feel any characters were explored or developed better? No, not at the end. Like, in that end section, I'm like, that, that is such a lead time from what it was in the comics, which was such fun to watch, like, unfold. And no characters got developed at all in the end of Watchmen. And this shit happened, and then it ended. I feel like the opposite things happened.

I didn't walk away from Watchman feeling like Night Owl was going to give up being Night Owl. If anything, he seemed like he was, like, alive again by being Night Owl. That, like, by not being Night Owl, he was, like, bored and, like, impotent. But now that he's Night Owl, he's like back in the saddle. And I feel like that didn't... I feel like what happened wasn't a big enough deterrent for him to be like, I'm going to hang up a suit forever and just be a guy with his hot girlfriend now.

He watched fucking Rorschach die. Yeah, he did the no scream. Yeah, he watched that happen. And even then, you're like, uh, whatever. Should be frank, they were partners. They had a falling out and they were still somewhat close, but Rorschach did make him a comfortable. He's like, thank God. I don't have to worry about this guy just creeping through my house again. Well, the thing, what works actually, everybody uncomfortable, but like, the fact is, like, like, no, he saw his buddy die in front of him and he was like, fuck. Nothing I could do about it. That's a god. I'm just a fat guy in a suit.

Well, not even. He was just like, oh, no, but I'll still be superheroes. Fine. Well, then he went and he started punching the shadow of Ozimandias as like, that's, oh, that pissed me off too. Because they didn't even bother to like, if I'm remembering correctly, did they, even hit Ozzymandius? Because I know he caught the bullet when So Specter took a gun and shot at him. But did, like, Nightowl tried to beat the shit out of him in the comics? I don't remember that happening. No. No, because that Sex Snyder is like weird testosterone-fuel bullshit.

Yeah. Where it's like, again, Dan's got to get his dick hard in a superhero costume and beat the shit out of somebody. Because he did the same thing when, like, Hollis, when he found out of Halis Mason died. You know, he had to beat up the guy and like break bones and stuff. Because that was another thing about the, like, the, like, the, movie was the violence was really up where you were like seeing people's arms

and shit snap and their bones pop through their skin and whatnot. Yes. It felt so juvenile like everything Zach Snyder does. Yep. It felt like it was designed to appeal to that 12 year old boy who got his first

fucking erection, you know, like, fuck yeah this is the best. I'm a man now, you know? I mean, to that end, I can understand because I also got my first direction whenever I I was dressed up as night oil. I didn't even know what he was. No.

But I was just dressed up like an oil and I thought this is hot, man. This is good. This is cool. Leonard Cohen playing in the background. Hell yeah, brother. If I could just see a big naked blue guy kill

one of my associates, I would be jerking off so bad. Maybe cut that bit. What's funny you mentioned about how like Zach Snyder justified not using the squid monster because he didn't want to spend 15 minutes

setting it up or whatever but then we have what's the cat's name Bobastus? Yeah it just shows up and it's like what the fuck is that weird cat thing there's no explanation for that that's the point

because in the panel you see it get eviscerated when Ozzymandius tries to destroy Dr. Manhattan basically just inconvenience him because that's what it was. Ozimanias knew it wasn't getting kill him. He's like, this is going to inconvenience him long enough for me to do what I need to do. But like,

that has kind of emotion to it as well, because you see Azamani is caring for this cat of his all the way through the comic. For that panel to happen, it shows his kind of cold-hearted nature for him to go wild. Yeah, he was willingly killing this creation that he cared about.

But to go along with that, do you have the explanation of, now you know why a cat exists to begin with? If you lose that part of film, you just see this guy killing a cat pet thing? Yeah. Which you've never seen before. Yes. Exactly.

It doesn't have any impact. No, he just saw it in the comic and he's like, oh, that was on panel. Let me put it in there. Again, we talked about it. He's like, I'm going to use panels as the storyboard, but not have any fucking context for it. Anyway, real quick, real quick, when it comes to when it comes to

that whole bit with Babastus, being like, oh, it would take 15 minutes to explain the squid. No, it fucking doesn't. I was showing old movies to a friend of mine very recently. We watched The Witches of Eastwick. That movie is an hour 35. At no point, do any of the characters sit and go, oh, we're witches. We can cast spells.

They don't. They have a scene where they're all playing tennis and they witness each other being able to manipulate the ball without touching it. And the audience goes, okay, they're now aware that their actions, that these things that have been happening by fluke and accident are actually being caused by their intentions. You trust the audience to connect the fucking dots.

You don't have to explain shit to them. Well, you trust your audience. Yes, to that point, I feel like, and to the point we've been making for a long time, which is, Zach Schneider is a fucking idiot, a terrible director. It's funny that you would look at something like that,

the nuances of telling the story through a visual medium, And for a director to not understand that whenever he's directing a film, which I would argue is 80% visual medium, doesn't really like understand that. Like that says so much about that director where he just doesn't understand. And we're not even talking about like nuance or whatever. We're just talking about like visual clues and how to get something over to an audience saying it out loud. Any scene that they put Adrian in, he could have had like some jars, like jars of specimens behind him, maybe obscured by like blurring on the camera.

When Rorschach is going through his computer, he could have had a file that said something about like organisms. They could have done enough visual cues just in the scenes with him that you wouldn't have to explain it over the top. But also, also, for example, if we just rewind a little bit and took away the whole gimmick of the, the, the, the, film was the end of it is is the nuclear explosions whatever that appears Dr. Manhattan caused. So if we go back and just assume that the film uses like the proper ending, the squid monster ending, but we still keep the trick where Osamandius and Dr. Manhattan are working together, then it's super easy to do that because Dr. Manhattan would be able to like understand

genetics and manipulate things like that and will be able to explain to. Osamandias, how to develop chimerias and hybrids and stuff like this. If anything, that's almost way easier to explain your fucking generate or shit. Because Dr. Manhattan would understand that on a molecular

level and then if some, even if you, even if at the end of you still wanted to blame Dr. Manhattan for that, you could just go, well, he knows all the molecular shit. He did that. He created this monster. You could easily do that. I mean, I get it to a degree because I think he was trying to tie in the subplot where Adrian was like creating the smear campaign

against Dr. Manhattan, which is what alienated him and drove him to Mars. If you get Dr. Manhattan off of planet, then he won't fuck around with me right now. I get like, oh, I will, I'll already introduce it into the public conscious that he's not good to be around. His very presence causes cancer. Like, I get what he was attempting to do. It's just like in every other fucking thing. Zach Snyder has ever done in his fucking career.

He goes, point A, point B, let's go to point H. Like, you skipped so much shit. Well, I think it's, I think it's the opposite. I think he goes point A to point B, and he's was like, that's the film. Like, there you go, it's as easy as that you just get, you go, what do you mean? You just go here to here. That's the story. You know, he misses a lot of the stops in between.

He misses the nuances. He misses, like, the appropriate dialogue. Like, then we said, like, set in the scene. and foreshadowing. One thing you can say about the Watchman comic is that it's fantastic at foreshadowing. Yes. It's fantastic at just putting stuff in there

where you go, Oh, best use of literary devices ever. It's fantastic for that. There's no foreshadowing in this fucking room. So, okay, we could make the whole fucking episode just talking about the ending, I think, because I feel like we've been on it for a hot minute. Yeah.

I feel like we've reached a conclusion. where we're like the ending didn't make sense. He did not accomplish what he was out to do, which is like usually when you try to judge art, that is kind of the way I look at it. What was trying to be accomplished and did it succeed in that goal? I don't think it did. No.

So you want to, if we're going to cut off like really quick, stop talking about the ending. Yes. I'm going to say that I have two pages of notes and one whole page is just the ending. Can I read the notes? Yeah, what else on the ending were you wanted to hit on real quick? Well, I'm just going to read you what I've written down while he watched the film. Okay.

So the first thing... Is this like stream of consciousness? Yeah. Beautiful. Go up. So the second... The first thing on the second page that says, the second half falls down more than the first half. I agree with that.

Ozzy Mandea seems to have some sort of powers. He seems to have some sort of agility powers. It's not an American thing. He seems to, like, have actual agility powers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and super strength as well. Yeah, which if the gimmick of this film is Dr. Manhattan is the only one with powers, once again, you're like, well, you fucking miss that completely. If you're giving this guy super parties too.

Like, that's stupid. Asimani's his fantastic speech at the end of the comic is just cut short for no reasons. I mean, now we know what the reason is. It takes too long. It takes too long. That would have been taking 15 minutes. Don't have the time for it. Don't have the time.

Go to see Patrick Wilson's ass about, you know, swinging back and forth. It's not bad. Let's be honest with ourselves. I've seen worse. Yeah, I've seen better. Good middle of the road, but... I'm bad. Five out of ten.

Oh, I feel like five out of ten's low, though. You got to... Five to ten is average. I would put a seven. I'd go seven. Don't? I'll split the difference in say six. That's fair enough.

Maybe not the right word to use, but okay. Continue. I don't like the Osamanius Manhattan working together only for Osumanius to fuck Manhattan overangle. I feel the original was better. Making Dr. Manhattan the villain is a really odd choice. The end seems really rushed

even after three hours of film. Which I think is correct. Like, it just happened. You took so much time with the rest of it, and then that's the way it ends. The way Dr. Manhattan comes the conclusion that he must accept he is the bad guy, uh, sucks. I think by the end of the film, we can say that Rorschach is the strongest and most

comic accurate character in the film. We can talk about that if you want to. Um, the conversation, yeah, I figured me to get into casting. Yeah. Well, not even casting. I mean, just like character-wise, like, as, as comic equivalent to film equivalent, the Rorschach character is pretty one-to-one.

Oh, well, you know, we'll get into that. We'll get into that. Yeah. The conversation with Manhattan Rorschach is good. Ah, yeah, this is a bit. Osamandias just lets oil boy beat him up. Okay. So that just happens.

Which is weird to me as well, because we've discussed that Ozimandias has, like, super strength. But we've also seen Dan, like, break people's bones. Like, he should have fucked his face up way more. But I did have that very standard, like, cool guy action, only bleeding from the coolest spots on the face, despite his face should have. being swollen up.

Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, like a... I can shot in the air, so you have a little bit of blood in your fears, but not really on your actual fears, you know? That's comic book shit. Yep.

The bit where they say, as long as people think that Dr. Manhattan is still watching them will all be all right. Like, what does that mean? They frame them as the bad guy that can destroy whole city, so like, what do you mean that if he's just still watching us will be all right? It's such a weird ending. And then the last game wrote is,

at no point during the film, do they actually show like the new frontiership like off until the very very end right which in the comic is great because you do see the new frontier ship kind of mentioned and you see them doing their

um uh... uh... addadine and stuff like that you see them you hear about them you understand that they have a purpose it's never mentioned in the film except right at the end and so therefore the actual end of the film the comic has no impact what's

because you don't have the context of having seen or heard or understanding any of it previously. But it's very disappointed. It just makes the ending feel really flat. Those are my notes on the end. So, real quick, I do want to talk on casting a bit. I think the casting is a bit of a grab bag. I think that the people who really stand out the most in this movie were... Jeffrey Dean Morgan is comedian.

I think he did a fantastic job. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is usually good in roles like that. It's a bit of a type cast he has these days. If you were to look at how he was cast in Walking Dead or in Supernatural or things like that, it's sort of like playing an asshole is kind of his deal. Jackie Earl Haley is the only person that could play Roershack, in my opinion. He did a great job. He did a great job.

That's what I was going to where you said, I feel like he's the most comic accurate. I think it's because Jackie Hierler-Haley was like such a big fan of wanting to play the character. Yeah. I mean, he was the right height for it, the right size for it, he's ugly as fucking sin. Get the right look for it. Yeah, fucking weasel.

Well, just like, even in the, like, the comic, like, very similar, like, fee structure, like, it really looked like, it was, like, that was pretty impressive, all of that, you know? I think Patrick Wilson was fine. I didn't have any of the issues

with him in the role. I think he did a great job. He was he? He was night owl. But he could have, I think he could have been a bit more sort, of overweight and yeah well he put on he mentioned that he had put on

weight for the role but then they put him in the costume and the costume was like slimming yeah yeah he heard that the purpose of like he put on he's like yeah I can put on like 20 30 pounds for this I heard that too he was like oh I put wait on for this I'm like I don't think you did sir that's just Hollywood shit

yeah I think the costume had a corset in it I think it's the problem that is not don't wait my friend I don't know what the fuck you're talking about I remember at the time there was a criticism of Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan saying that he sounded too sad to be Dr. Manhattan. The Dr. Manhattan should sound emotionless, like Medova-Durone, and that he sounded kind of depressed. I don't remember enough to know if that's how I felt about it, but I feel like it's

criticism worth pointing out if you think about it yourself. I didn't think he's talking too sad, but I can also understand why he would sound sad. this is a man that's losing all his humanity. If he sounded too much like a robot, it wouldn't really carry over well onto the screen. Like, it would be, it would make the character just a bit too bland and boring. Like, at least he's got some sort of humanity left

to make him feel sad about stuff. So, yeah. That's more relatable. Okay. Like I said, that was just, I remember criticism at the time pointing out that, oh, he doesn't sound emotionally enough. He sounds too sad to be Dr.

Manhattan. So, was it Malin Ackerman as Sub-Spector 2? She got nothing to work with. She was just there to be naked, I feel. Yeah, her character just disappeared.

She was there to be hot, which I feel like is something that happens with Zach Snyder movies. That was one of the things I wrote down in my notes was that in the comics, they do a bit where she puts her costume on. She's like, oh, this fucking old costume, it's all frumpy and I hate it.

you know what you mean and in the film it's just her and fucking leather like straight away outfit yeah like straight away like all right forget the whole thing

the only other casting I want to mention is just he's my boy and I shout him out anytime I see him in a movie and that's Matt Fruer as a Moloch the magician I just like Matt Fruher he's Max headroom he's one of the favorite character actors

he was good. I liked him. I didn't like Ozzy Mandias. No, Matthew good. No. Let me actually, what was his what was the actor? I didn't like him at all. I didn't like his look.

Like, I didn't like it. I didn't like this. I just, that didn't seem to fit for like what he wasn't charismatic enough for the character. Oh no. He's supposed to be this guy who's like a big genius, businessman,

superhero. and yeah, he just came across as quite boring. That was something that really annoyed me too, was that they got rid of a lot of the side plot of Osmanius being a kind of like business businessman. Yeah, because he was like selling toys and like, they were like white perfume and stuff. Like, he was a capitalist.

None of that was there. He was just a guy that knew some business people. And I'm like, this, this, again, you're losing part of that. character that I think is kind of important and you can see where somebody would read that comic go I don't get that at all we can cut that but I

and I can see why other people us would read that I go well this is important for this guy's character yeah because it's little things like this and make a character work it's not just like I'm Osirmanian deus and I can catch bullets which some people might think is

gimmick you know there's more to it than that so I was annoyed that they cut that, but I'd say. Maybe, maybe part of it was I didn't like the way they handle Ozzymandias in the film. But I just didn't really feel like the actor itself was like Well, and reading the whole thing

of like, oh, we designed his costume to look like a Joel Schumacher Batman movie. It's like All right, let's not, you know, those in glass houses, not throwing stones there, Zach, you know, like, and just as a thing, before we get into the reception of this, I believe financially,

this movie only beat Batman and Robin for like lowest DC movie like earning DC movie. It did not do well in theaters. No. But also like... And then dropped off a fucking cliff for week too. But also, if you're going to have your major antagonist in this film,

you as a director is like, I'm just going to make him look like one of those fucking joke characters. When a film I hit, you're not off. It's not off to a good start. Can't take him seriously. If you are, like right off the bat, he looks like a joke. You're like, well... He gives the shit.

Well, and remember he, like, took the place up. So remember, was it Captain Metropolis in the comic when the new Minutemen were going to meet up? And it was going to be like Rorschach and Night Owl to joining like, it was still expected to. And Professor, you know, Dr. Manhattan, they were all joining up and he was like, I'm Captain Metropolis. I was one of the original Minutemen. We're going to set up perimeters and we're going to go on searches. And the comedian's like, this is fucking stupid. He lights it on fire.

They replaced Captain Metropolis with Ozzy Man. in that scene. And I feel like that, I don't know what that accomplished. Because like the whole point of that scene was to show that like the old fashioned way of viewing things, those days were gone and over with. It was the passing of the silver age to the bronze age where people,

the heroes were gritty and were dealing with a lot more issues. Because like the next segue into that was, you know, like the civil rights riots and night owl and comedian like having a talk about like morality as like they're shooting. tear gas of protesters who were protesting police brutality. Yes. And again, I think

that that's probably one of those things that Sachsnoty didn't realize. No. One of those like, the old way of doing things versus a new way of doing things. He didn't see that. He just saw the comedian, like, nothing on fire. Like, that's cool. Yeah, let me do it to

let me do it to Ossie Bandyas to, like, make the character look like a pussy. Well, also, like, well, we'll cut this other old shit art because the film will, you know, it's going to be 15 minutes to explaining these people are. So, okay, let's jump into something else real quick. This movie was interesting because at the time, its choice in soundtrack was kind of bizarre, say the least, at times. We already mentioned the Litterd-Cohen version of Holyoia being used in the sex scene, which is so on the nose, it's driving it into the guy's skull.

but you also have that but you also have like times are changing being used in the opening credits which I thought was actually really good opening credit sequence I thought it was

it was very stylistic it looked cool it like covered a broad time period so I thought that was kind of cool you know along the watch tower being used as like Night Allen Roershock or like flying to Antarctica to go after your vite that was kind of cool

but I don't know what is your opinion on like kind of bigger songs being used in movies like this I don't know in some places it feels out of place like for as much as the Zach Snyder people

hate James Gunn that's like a James Gunn staple as well is to have this really kind of eclectic soundtrack used to throughout the film yeah but James Gunn at least tries to pick music that's sort of out of left field a bit

whereas I feel like Zach Snyder always goes for the most obvious songs. Like in this playing, like, Ride of the Valky's in a like Vietnam scene. It's like, oh, geez, it's been done. Even all along the Watchtower felt like

it didn't really fit the scene for me at all. It just felt like, hey, let's stick in a cool song here. But then again, it's actually not have been very on the nose with something as opposed to like, because you can get really cool songs that work in the context of the film that when you sit and listen to them, you're like, oh, okay, I get why this is played here.

Whereas, Zach Snyder once again is a show in his own ignorance by like, I don't know, like seven songs. This will be cool. Yeah. I remember what was really interesting. The first teaser trailer for this featured a smashing pumpkin song that wasn't in the actual soundtrack for the Watchman movie. But it was like

interesting because it was a song that was used also for Batman and Robin. It was actually on the Batman and Robin soundtrack, which I thought was also really fucking bizarre. For some reason, those two movies cannot separate each other. They're the same film. Batman and Robin and Watchmen are just

living in this hub together. Yeah. You know, like the Ben at Diem, whenever Poisson Ivy, it turns out that she framed Dr. Freese. He's like, well, it's the only way to see him.

My wife, so I'll just accept that. Move on. Two movies with a big blue guy in it. Yeah, I'm Batman and Robin. I'm just like, what the fuck do we do here? Why are we even here? Well, I will say, though, I do depreciate Mr.

Freeze making all of his henchmen singing the Ice Meiser song in that scene. That was always fun. Well, I'm glad you... Sing boys! as a bald man as a bald man that's a dream Halloween costume Mr. Freeze and that in that that polar bear slippers and the

pajama pants and stuff fucking paint me Oh yeah that's the look That's the look This could be your ear And I could strip it all off and be completely new to be Dr. Manhattan Two costumes and one Same film Same film

Yeah separate them Breaking shit wide open here man same film Crack it open and maybe not for being naked. I thought he was making fun of that old Batman film by like baking the suit look like that. Whenever really he was just adding more strength to the fact that

simple. Oh, goodness gracious. Well, was there any other I mean, I guess one of the things I wanted to talk about was sort of like the marketing to this. I was working at a bookstore at the time this movie came out. And as you know, DC Comics,

sold so many more copies of Watchmen because of this movie. Like, that was really the big revenue driver is they sold a lot of copies of that graphic novel. They even re-released issue one for the original cover price of $1.50. Not bad. No, and like, people bought it, you know? But, um, $1. A fucking dollar? Yeah, $1.50 for a comic these days?

You're kidding. Fuck yeah. Most are like $4.99 these days. That's the cheap thing. Oh, God. Ridiculous. So, um, I remember. We sold t-shirts.

We sold buttons. We sold action figures. We sold puzzles and stationary. And I talked to you guys last time about the Watchman video game. The End is Nye where you're playing Roarshock and Night Owl in the 1970s before the movie takes place. And you're like going through the streets and beating up, you know, members of the, was it the top knots? Was that the name of the gang?

I think so. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, they really kind of, like, the marketing for this movie, I think they were trying to pitch it as another superhero movie. And it's, it's obviously not, despite the fact that Zach Snyder, you know, did things like increase all of the fight sequences. Because the very first, like, night owl Silk Specter fight sequence when they're not in costume and like the gang corners them in an alley, it's only like two, three panels. Like, you see them get surrounded and you see them walk. away kind of like dusting themselves off.

I think it's like a pH. Yeah, it's not very long. But in this there's like super stylized close-ups of like people's arms breaking and stuff. You know? Yeah. And then you're like, well, maybe if you cut that shit out, you would be able to have 15 minutes at the end to explain the fucking film. Do you mean? I will argue with this at one point.

You said they were marketing Watchman like a regular superhero film when it's not. And I'm like, well, I disagree with it. Because I feel like Watchman the comic is not a regular superhero film. Whereas Watchman in the film ended up being like, while they tried the twist and turns, lost a lot of the twists and turns and made it good, and just ended up just kind of being a superhero film. There's a bad guy. He gets beat up at the end. Barely, though.

Well, he doesn't get beat up in the comic. There's some sort of conclusion, you know, and then there's some comic book violence. everybody goes so happy. If you think about it, Watchman would, ironically, just turned out to be another superhero film.

So, yeah. So DC, by the way, DC had to print more than 900,000 copies of the Watchman trade to keep up with demand.

So that was the real winner there. So again, we talked about how there was multiple versions of this movie. The movie that I watched was 162 minutes long, so close to three hours.

That was the original theatrical cut. Dylan, you watched by the sound of it, did you watch the director's cut? Or did you watch the ultimate cut? It was a, but... I would say but three and a half hours long.

I mean you watched the ultimate cut, didn't you? Because it had the... The impreader. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I would like to talk about those at some point. Okay. There was also the director's cut, which was 186 minutes.

Okay. That's the one that I watched, A couple weeks ago. So that was the, that one I think had expanded scenes of like Hollis Mason and stuff, you know, just. You don't watch different versions of Watchmen? Yeah, sounds like it. And Dylan, you came away with the hardest assignment. Yeah.

I fucking nailed it, though. Yeah. Held it. All right, so what do you want to talk about the Tales of the Black Frater? I know that it was a Gerard Butler was the voice of the captain in Tales from Black Crater. Yeah, he does the narration. So I'm going to get into some animation here because, you know, you guys know me. I like my animation.

I'm very interested in how this all worked because obviously the film when it came out didn't have the animations in it. Corey, I don't know if you could tell me this or not. Were the animations originally supposed to be part of the film and then just got cut? No, it was supplemental. It was meant to be supplemental. So they released it out on DVD after the fact. They made it after the fact. You get the feeling when you watch those animations

and it was after the fact. Yes. Because it's a little choppy. Did it include the 38-minute fictional in-universe documentary under the hood? No, I haven't seen that. Okay. John, did you see that?

no all right cool we've all avoided that one like the plague then so yeah apparently that's supposed to take bits from hollis mason's autobiography and shoot like a documentary with like the old characters so like original suck specter and stuff um john have you seen the animations yeah yeah i've seen it uh because i had the DVD of it so i've seen it as a whole rather than spliced into the movie yeah so you'll you're gonna know what i'm talking about the animation is kind of choppy. There's also like very strange this is why I thought it was done after the fact because there's a lot of occasions where the lip syncing is not correct.

No, it's close but it's not correct. And I don't know why that is. I assume it's because the animation was done first. And Gerard Butler is not an anime voiceover artist who can watch it and record it back. there's it just something about it doesn't match up the animation itself is i'm going to say

there's a couple of techniques in animation that you can do to make something look good when it's not good if that makes any sense to you guys without pulling the curtain back too much there's a couple of things you can do where people will go that's great whenever really you're like like if you hear a guitar solo and you go that's great but a guitarist would go, come on, man. Yeah. Someone who knows what they're doing, you're going to play, it's going to look bad. Also, for the fact, I don't want to make it seem like, I do know what I'm doing with my

animations because you've seen some of them. They're not great. But, like, you know what to look out for. And a lot of the time in that animation, you're like, this also seems rushed. Yeah. This also seems like it was an afterthought and they had to do it in order to get something done. And parts of it looked very good. but in that kind of again in that kind of anime style

where like if they've you know if you watch anime you'll know that they'll spend a lot of their budget on like one two minute scene and then there's a lot of close-ups of somebody face talking and that close-up of their face is just the mouth moving yeah yeah yeah there's there's there's bits like that where you're like some of this looks good

some of this looks bad and sounds bad and some of this sounds bad and some of this sounds and looks good but it isn't. Does that make sense? I agree. Okay. I'm interested to know

like in the context of the movie, did it feel like it fit in or did it feel like a jarring like interlude to have these random snippets of the animation kick in? They would do the bits where the guy was at the newsstand

and I don't know if this was in like the original cut of the film, but they had the guy at the new stand and the wee kid reading the comic book. They just showed him interspersely. They wasn't, there wasn't any, I don't even think they got dialogue. No, no. Well, there is a bit in this version of the film I watched were those, the gang. And you're going to love this.

If you love Zach Schneider and his on the nose work, and if you haven't seen this, but you're going to love it. There is literally a bit where the gang come over to like, like, you know, ruffle off the kid reading the comic book. for no reason. And then they're like, hey, while we're here, do you know we should go and kill? Paulus Mason?

He lives over there. Right over there. We should kill him. Yeah, Night owl beat up some of our boys. Let's go kill Night Owl. Yeah. I don't know if that's in the actual film, but yeah, that's attached.

If memory serves, if memory serves, they are at a bar, Rorschach and Nightauer are at a bar, and then the news comes on and the news bulletin of like, Hollis Mason dead. and

Mikel freaks out and beats a shout out of some like top-knit guy at the bar okay that happens in the

when I watch but before that there's literally an exposition bit where they say we're going to go do this right now

but the reason for it is they're messing with the kid he's reading the book the comic book yeah so then they're like well

now that we're done messing with this kid why do we kill an old guy and like this is this is great stop sack

Christ but like that to me felt like the only parts of that like you would see the guy you know oh I

I own a comic book I want a newspaper stand hey there's this kid what do you do a kid and the kid's like hello and then it would just like over the shoulder like

go in the comic and that happened like three times and you're like I can see why they cut this but I because they can obviously see what's actually

I don't fuck I don't get it I don't get it loose gadoo and we did too, you know, jump right in. Whatever the fuck, you know. So, okay, all right. So, would you like to get into the financials of this film?

It made $78 billion. Well, it's opening weekend. It grossed $55 million. At that point, it held the biggest number of screenings for an R-rated film breaking the previous record held by The Matrix Reloaded. It was also the highest of any Allen Moore adaptation to date. and the income was also greater than the entire box office run of From Hell, which made $31 million in total.

So the opening weekend, it did better than the entire time from Hell was in the theater. Now, here's the thing. I don't know of anyone that was, like, lining up to go see from Hell. It's a great story, but, like, that doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would drive a big crowd.

However, that was significantly less than 300, which did $70 million in its opening weekend. So a bit of a step down And Watchman runtime was 45 minutes longer Than than 300 was Long film, dude

So the second weekend They made $17 million Which was a 67.7% decrease Between the previous week And then every week after It continued to drop about 60%. So in total This thing brought a box office

of about $187 million. Not much to sneeze at, but if you look at every DC comics movie ever made, it's in the lower half just narrowly beating Batman and Robin. Again, attached at the hip. Same film. Back to the same film. So critical response,

Watchman currently has a 65% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and the average rating is about 6.4 out of 10. The film is cited for gritty and visually striking. Many consider it a faithful adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel, but its complex narrative structure may make it difficult to appeal to viewers not already familiar with the source material. That is the most common excuse I saw when people were arguing that the movie was better

than people want to give it credit for. It's like, oh, it's just too faithful to the comic. No. It's got a very big different ending. But yes. Well, that's my point is that I find the first half to be very faithful. For the most part, there's a couple of differences, but for the most part, it's pretty one-to-one with how the film goes, or how the comic goes.

And then it all just falls apart at the end. There is a bit in the film that really fucking bugged me, but they didn't put in the film. Okay. It really annoyed me. There's a bit where Rorschach gets like a... message to go to Mollock's house. Yeah. They talk to him. Reset up. And then you see the cops

get a tip that he's going to be there. Yes. So then you're like, we got to go there. Yes. Then you're like, well, that makes that make sense. Yes. But in the film, Rorschach just on a whim, besides... Let's see Mollock. Right. On his own time.

Mm-hmm. He just goes there whenever he wants to. Which he's already talked to Mollock, though, if memory serves. That doesn't matter. What matters? matter because it's like why would he go and talk to him again unless he thought that there was additional information and he only know if there was additional information if somebody said hey go talk to mollick even if you just i just think that he might want to go and brush him for more information okay he just because there is a bit where he's like i need to go talk to mollock right

but he comes to this conclusion on his own time so then he goes to the house and finds mollick is dead and then the police are like we're outside how did the police know he was going to be there how was he there at the right time? None of that's explained. Like, that's such a coincidence. That's really... I mean, I think they're leaning to... That's one of the situations where I said

you don't have to explain everything to the audience, but I feel like you need to explain the fact that Rorschach got set up. Yes, none of that is... None of that's explained. The only thing you could think of is that he shows up and he finds Mollock has a bullet in his head. And...

But even then, like, okay, you find that Mollock has a bullet in it. his head. He could have had that bullet in his head for days at that point. Right. Exactly. Yeah. There's no setup. He could have been sat there forever.

He could have done it himself. We don't know. Nobody knows. So that's a situation where it would have benefited to have a C where it showed the police. Because that was in the, that was in the comic. Was the police getting the scene, the thing? Like, we got a tip. We have to go now because that's where he's going to be.

He's going to be there right now. Yeah. Because that's the thing. Worshack gets the thing. he was like, oh, go meet Mollock at like 9 o'clock. That's how he knows to be there at the right time for the cops to be there. Yeah. That's like fucking simple storytelling, right?

Which is interesting. They did a, so I was at the laundromat a couple of weeks ago. It was right around when we were getting ready to film the episode where he talked about, the Watchman. And one of the Esther who works there was picking what was going to be on the TV. And when I got there, it was the Watchman motion comic, which is like. three times as long as the movie because it's just the comic book somewhat animated with voice actors

and like I saw that scene I was there for that scene of the police officer getting the tip we gotta go Roarshocks gonna be at mollocks you know but like if you cut that out of the film you're just like this is a mighty coincidence exactly it's it's a leap

that didn't need to be there I feel like that might be if we're that might be someone could say that we're nitpicking by pointing at that but I feel like there's so many obvious large holes that we've already been diving into let us have some fun I don't think that that's a small hope of it's like half an hour talking about the ending I feel like we can we could poke fun at that one I think that like that's legitimate criticism like that's too I just feel like some people could see that that's just being nitpicky going oh well you don't have to show that I think you do because that's that's how

you tell the story like if you don't give us again You could have told that story without the dialogue. You can give us visual clues or cut. You don't have to say it online. They could have just cut to the police station and a phone ringing and someone picks it up. And they go, oh, we'll be right there. And, you know, like, that's all they had to do. They didn't have to specifically say, like, Rorschach's going to be at this place.

They could have just said, nope, we're on our way. And then you could have had the cut. What's that? 10, 15 seconds? Like, easy. Yeah. Fucking easy. Why are we better at this in Snick Snyder?

Ah, well, we're not visionaries. That, well, I think we are. The Snyder first, Dylan. Fuck the Snyderverse. See, I feel like this is why we didn't do a really big deep dive on like Batman versus Superman. Because if we did, I would be the worst fucking person on this episode. I'd be pretty upset about it. Because that to me is like, Zach Snyder's fundamental lack of understanding of Superman and Batman as fucking characters.

drives me insane. They're almost 100 years old. Like, how the fuck do you not know them? How do you get them so wrong? Isn't insane? It is bizarre. It is absolutely bizarre. So is there anything else that you want to touch on?

Yes. What would you like to touch on? There are two more things I want to touch on. But after looking through my notes, I've talked about most of this stuff I wanted to talk about. Okay. Two more things I want to talk about. Number one, fucking Richard Nixon looks terrible. Oh, my gosh is horror.

He sounds a little like Vince McMahon as well. It's like the worst Nixon impersonator ever. Like they went to the Hall of Presidents at Disney and just grabbed the animatronic. It's so bad. It looks like his face. He didn't put his fias on properly. No, they just grabbed the mask they used in fucking point break. It's so bad.

So I was like, I don't like that. I thought that was really bad. Also, I'm going to say this. So this, this film is set in the mid-Eaties. Yes. Mm-hmm. They, in this. film used the word retarded at least three times.

I didn't know if that was a popular word. It really was. It really was. It really was. Yeah, you can't. Because I love to watch old commercials. And there was a period of time where there were like medications and programs that were advertised to people that were like, is your child that word? I don't want to. I'll be frank.

I'm not a fan of the word. I know a lot of folks who have developmentally disabled children, and they have very strongly conveyed to me their hatred of that word. I have friends who use it all the time. It's totally fine. It's more of a personal thing for me. But yeah, it was used very, because I mean, what it meant was it was sort of a catch-all term for any sort of mental disability. Yeah.

So, yeah, no, that is pretty apt. But also in 2003, 2006, when they were filming this movie. But in the film, in the film, it's not used as a catch-all term for... No, it's an insult, was it? Correct. Yeah. Yeah. All three times, I would say at least three times.

All times it was used was always as an insult. I'm like, that seems more of a, more modern thing than an Edie Singh, to me. I wasn't there. Like I said, I don't know if it was, it might have been used as an insult. I'll have to, like, think back to a bunch of 80s movies. Like, usually if I think about, like, slasher films from the 80s, there's always a character calling somebody some offensive name. but uh i wouldn't be surprised if it was still used as an insult but it definitely was an insult

when i was in that period that period of my life it was definitely being used as an insult it was used as an insult whenever i was a kid but we're talking like late 90s early 2,000s which is 15 years away from when watchman was sat yeah that's my point yeah yeah yeah it was yeah that's sticky wickets you know that that's nitpicket yeah yeah um um But other than that, I think that was my notes. So, so, do we like to end the discussion of Watchman on the discussion of a slur or? Yeah. Well, I mean, that's the film, isn't it?

The film's a slur. Some sort of slur. Yeah, I feel like it's offensive to a degree. I remember I said, I watched this twice. The first time I watched it, I wasn't really sure how I felt about it. And then I saw it again. And I actually saw it with a professor for who I had a class with. And we talked about the movie after class one day.

And he was the one that brought it to my attention. He was like, it made no sense that Babastus was in that fucking movie. And like, this is a very, this man looked like a portly Shakespeare. And that's what he taught was like, he taught Shakespeare. And he was like, uh, Mr. Flanagan. Yeah, yes, it was very strange to see Babastus in this movie. If he was not going to be used as a foreshadowing to the conclusion. I'm wrong.

Shout out to Dr. Gabe Rieger. you're a real one man what's up Gabe what's up Gabe Dylan and I had a theory is there I don't know anything else John wants to say about this stupid watchman film

John talks about me all the time yeah I kind of said a lot of what I wanted to say during our previous watchman discussion like you know it's a movie

which I enjoy on a surface level but at the same time, yeah, there's no nuance there. There's no subtlety. There's no, none of the, like, detail that made the graphic novel or, like, the comic book series, like, stand out and pop. And, yeah, and I've never been a fan of Zach Snyder. So all of the slow-mo shots and the most obvious music cues and it's just... Yeah, it's, ah, man, it's not my thing.

Dylan and I were discussing, thank you, Dylan and I were discussing where we thought you were going to be on your movie review so far. I think Dylan, you were in, did you say 570? I think it's a 700 at some point. You said 700, yeah. And I was like, I don't think so. I think John's going to probably be like 570. So John, where are you in your movie watching for the year so far? Well, way to make me feel like a disappointment, guys.

geez. I am currently on 552. Oh, that's not that far off. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, prices right rules I lost, but, you know. I was pretty far off. So what was the most recent movie you watched, John? It was... It was a movie called Ouija Origin of Evil.

Oh, boy. I was like I remember this one. Well, I thought I'd seen it before, but I definitely have not. And apparently it's a prequel to another movie called Ouija, which I thought I'd seen that as well. But now this is making me doubt that I've seen it. Have you seen anything involving a Ouija board? I mean, I must have done at some point. This one was directed by Mike Flanagan, who's done a lot of, like,

cousin. Yeah, he's done some good stuff over the years. This is not really one of them. He might be. No, I think his best stuff is his Netflix stuff. That's why I always hear like midnight mass and stuff. That's his, that's his own strength. Oh yeah, definitely. Absolutely. So John, what did you give Weija, was it dark origin? Origin of evil. Origin of evil. Yes. I gave it two and a half stars, which was probably a little generous. Yeah, I would say it seems like a kindness with a plot like that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess, like, Mike Flanagan knows what he's doing with sort of horror movies, so it kind of elevated a little bit, but yeah, not great. So, John, where can they go if they want to see your reviews of that movie, as well as your reviews of the various minions and Spicklemaid movies that you've watched? They can head to Letterbox and find me at Big John Bowsky, all one word. And Dylan, what have you been up to you this week? Well, I do a radio show every Monday nights on Bounceidigilurado.com. UK, you can do like a link in the description.

9 o'clock to 11 o'clock UK time. Also, it's a fun music. Really good time for everybody. We talk about stuff. You love it. I stream sometimes on Twitch at Spooky LaRue. I draw pictures and I animate those pictures and sell them as a zes. Zach Schneider for a shit ton of money, apparently.

Ha, you fuck a prick. Also, I put them on YouTube, Team Crows, and I, and then TikTok at Team Crow Studios. So if you like really shitty videos about the Toy Story characters, here is one for you. There you go. All right, and the links to those are in the description, I believe, right? I hope so.

You hope so. All right. I also have the sister. show to this one, which is new number ones. At the time of recording, we have not had another episode of it, so it doesn't matter anyway because it's three or four weeks in the future. So there's going to be a new number one for you to check out regardless of what it is. Very simple premise.

We just look at is it, does it do a good job of establishing your main character, establishing your world, and if there is a desire or if there's meat on the bone that makes you want to continue reading it, whether or not it's worth picking up as a series. So that's here on the channel itself. I also have my other show, Large Old Cup, which is a spoken word stream of consciousness podcast, where I kind of just go off the dome for about 28 minutes. It's always a good time.

But that will do us for this week, guys. We'll see you guys later. Goodbye. Take it easy. Bye-bye.