Ending Vs. Ending.

SPOILER WARNING. So a lot of the discussion prior to the Watchmen movie coming out was regarding the change to the ending. Since seeing it, most people agree it was not a major loss to switch up the ending (although, a lot of the little details that *did* get changed/lost bugged me), and I can see where they are coming from and somewhat agree. However, it did make me think a little bit about whether or not either plan was that good of an idea after all.

I'll briefly recap:
In the Comics:
Ozymandias, the worlds smartest man, realises that he'll never truly make a difference fighting petty crime, gives up adventuring and begins a massive commercial empire. Using his vast wealth, he 'kidnaps' a slew of the worlds greatest scientific and creative minds, takes them to an island to work on a 'movie', all as a front for creating a terrifying alien organism with psychic powers. To truly make his plan work, he has to find a way to get rid of Doc Manhatten, the only being powerful enough to stop him.

The Comedian finds out about this plot, and breaks down. Ozy kills him to protect his plan, and exiles Manhatten. As the world is on the very verge of nuclear war, Ozy teleports the 'Alien' to New York, where it dies, taking most of the city with it. People die but it leads to world peace as everyone bands together to fight the implied threat of alien invasion.

In the Movie:
Ozymandias realises that he'll never truly make a difference fighting petty crime, gives up adventuring and begins a massive commercial empire. Using his vast wealth and his connections to Doc Manhatten, he starts project S.Q.U.I.D., which is a front to hide his true intentions of building a machine that can cause massive explosions similar to Manhatten's power. To truly make his plan work, he has to find a way to get rid of Manhatten, the only being powerful enough to stop him.

The Comedian finds out about this plot, and breaks down. Ozy kills him to protect his plan, and exiles Manhatten. While the world is on the very verge of nuclear war, Ozy uses the machine to blow up cities around the world, ending with New York. People die but it leads to world peace as everyone bands together to fight the implied threat of Doc Manhatten.

In the final analysis:
So, its a happy ending all round (almost). Both versions end up roundabout the same way, although the world banding together to fight a god character is either retarded or a heavy handed metaphor. However, I find it odd that a story so very very bleak it can turn so positive so quickly. In the comic it happens in about one page, and we're not talking about a ray of hope, we are talking the full rainbow of hope. In both versions, Russia is busy throwing it's weight around and America has it's finger resting on the button, ready to launch a counter attack, should it come to it. Suddenly, everyone's slapping each other's backs and running off to fight the version-specific-scapegoat.

To me, Ozy's attack is more likely to start WW3 than prevent it. In the comics, everyone in the surrounding area dies as soon as the Alien is teleported, people in the area around that suffer crippling mental distress. Surely the initial report would indicate there's been some kind of superweapon deployed. The immediate analysis would be that it's most probably an attack by the Russians, and that American retaliation must be swift before they get a chance to deploy again.

In the movie, it's even more insane. Many cities across the world are hit by what appears to be America's superweapon... With the very last city being New York, at least 30 minutes after the first attack if I'm remembering correctly. Surely the mirror opposite of the comic book ending would happen here, Russia would assume America has attacked and fire their nukes in retaliation. Alternatively, America could assume Russia's push into Afganistan was just the beginning of a world wide push, with these latest explosions being the next stage.

Let's also not forget that the movie is set in the 80's... Sure, it's a world that's been enhanced by Manhatten, but Ozy's still only got a crappy 2 color screen computer, and he's the richest (or at least, one of them) man in the world. Their communication network is hardly comparable to the the wonderous world wide coverage we've grown accustomed to these days. Surely this whole ordeal would create an immediate nationwide/worldwide panic and confusion as fingers are pointed in every direction (mostly Russia/America), and thats not even taking into account the religous end-of-days style fear (Manhatten is considered to be a god after all).

So I dunno... I mean, far be it for me to try and second guess the smartest man in the world (or a writer as insanely talented as Moore for that matter), but there had to be a better way to go about 'Saving the world'. It's important to remember that Ozy is always trying to do the right thing. There's certainly nothing in the story that suggests he's been corrupted by his power, aside from possibly his self doubt at the end. The point was always to scare the world into unification by providing a greater threat to worry about. Not all great leaders have to rely upon intimadation to get things done though. I have a couple of ideas that don't involve indescriminate killing:

- Saving the world through capitalism:
Ozy already has a massive empire, so rather than funneling money to his doomsday plan, he instead uses his money to branch out into all nations. Slowly and surely expanding his entire corporation, he ends up with a monopoly over most of the major industries of the world, particularly those involved in weapons production. Self-sabotaging research and developent to slow the technological growth, and moderating construction costs to slow the supply, Ozy is able to effectively control the government through logistics eventually bending them to a shared view of peace.

-Saving the world through adverstising:
Having already cracked the secret of business by monitoring global sentiment via advertising, Ozy realises the process can work in reverse too. Using his wealth, Ozy takes control of the worlds media, steering global sentiment away from war by changing the way the world sees itself. Creating guidelines, he eliminates stereotyped images, which has the knock on affect of lessoning racism, bigotry and other hatred and promoting a united world view.

-Saving the world by manipulating Doc Manhatten.
After reading his psyche report, Ozy realises Manhatten is growing less and less connected to the world. Rather than accelerating that as he did in the book, he attempts to slow it down as much as possible by maintianing as many strands to Jon Osterman as possible. Then, taking advantage of Manhatten's willingness to 'Do as he's told', Ozy can pretty much do anything. Get Manhatten to steal every nuclear warhead at once in the world and deposit them in the sun? No problem. Turn vast sections of barren land into fertile farming land and end world hunger? Easy. It might sound a little riduculous, but Manhatten is pretty much capable of anything as far as the story goes. In the movie he's even helping out Ozy. It might not be the end all, but it would definitely halt an immediate nuclear war.

-Super power up Rorschach.
Give him a giant robot or something. And then unleash him on the world. Would scare the crap out of me...

Note: None of these plans would support Rorschach's mask killer theory.

So there you go. Note that none of those will truly save the world from itself, but neither did Ozy's plan in the comic/movie. Both scenes end in the office of the New Frontiersman, and even though America and Russia are all chummy chummy, we still get a glimspe that racism and hatred haven't died with the squid. Still, it's got to be better to do what you can rather than do nothing at all.

(As a side note: I did the image last night in a tiny amount of time. It turned out being strangely prophetic.

Seriously though... I can see how being Manhatten would get dull.. but there must've been times it was great. You wouldn't have to ride the bus anymore and you could teleport girl's clothes right off of them, which would be great at parties.)

Toot.

Sooooooo... Fuck it. I'm working on this on my own time. On my own equipment. They haven't said I can't put what I'm working on on here, but I guess if they do... I can just replace it later.

I think it's probably best I don't reveal what it is exactly... so feel free to guess at what this is for. I'll give you a hint: It's a train.

What else is new? Not much. I'm still trying to work out how I'm going to divide up my time. Supernova is on on the weekend, so no doubt in going to be inspired do something comic related. Only time will tell.

So much for Watchmen week...

Sooooooo- about that... and about those regular posts I was making... It appeared to have just stopped.

But!- Not all is what it seems... The reason I haven't done anything on here is because I was asked to do a bunch of concept art for a potential new game, but It had to be done ASAP. I pretty much only had 2 and a half days to get it done. Naturally, I put everything else on hold.

So the good news... MASSIVE BREAK. It's like the first time I've done something at work that I can actually show as more than just experience. Plus, apparently my stuff is a hit, so they've asked me to design more of the characters and specific track highlights. Naturally this is also awesome, but It means I wont be doing any side stuff for the moment. Furthermore... the legalities of the situation are a little cloudy at the moment, so I don't know if I allowed to post the stuff I've done here, or if it has to stay hush hush.

I don't wanna stop posting here though... and I'm not really cool with posting without any pictures or anything. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do in the meantime.

For the moment though, please enjoy this logo my sister asked me to photoshop for her boss... I had to photoshop out the gray gradient background or something. Mission accomplished?

(Oh... and I've been re-reading Watchmen the past couple of nights. I totally forgot about the mention of Ride of the Valkyries in the Under The Hood excerpt. In the comic, Hollis Mason refers to it when recounting the saddest thing ever. It's there as a contrastring soundtrack to a ridiculous and heartbraking moment in his childhood. It's basically a super serious piece of music that's playing while a bunch of people are laughing.

Co-incidentally (since I totally don't believe this was on purpose) it was also playing in the cinema while a bunch of people were laugh at its self referential status in pop culture. I guess this, coupled with trivialising the Vietnam war with a Giant-Blue-man-exploding god and a sadistic american hero was the movies attempt at placing the song in a similar context to the book. I would almost give Snyder some points for this, if I wasn't a bitter husk of a man who is hoarding all his points for himself).

Wednesday Morning Watchmen

Hrm... More like Wednesday Night Watchmen... There may be spoilers.

So Watchmen (the movie) finally comes out and it's time to test my geek loyalties in the toughest of ways. Who am I supposed to back: Comic-God Alan Moore (writer of the comic) or the voice of Solid Snake, David Hayter (adapter of the screenplay)?

There was always a feeling in the air that this would be a terrible movie, it showed all the right signs. It'd been in development hell for 20 years. It was a comic book movie coming out in a market where every second movie is a comic book movie. The comic is way to long, complicated and layered to translate onto the screen. Plus, adaptions were being raped left and right by Hollywood (hello Wolverine!). What chance did it have?

Well, there's two ways to look at it: Was it a good movie in its own right, and was it as good as the comic. Lets take the fairer, first option to begin with.

Straight up, it was a good movie... I was entertained through out, there was no point I felt bored and it never felt like it was dragging on (hello Dark Knight!). The story played out fairly coherently and there were some stand out performances. The best thing though was the look feel of the whole thing. I'm trying to distance myself from comparing to the comic, but some shots astounded me by having even more impact then the book. And let's not forget some excellent use of soundtrack. 'Unforgettable' during the comedian fight scene was perfect!

It's not all great though... Some performances were awfully flat. And for a movie that had some excellent special effects, the ageing make-up was terrible... And then there was the delicious layer of cheese, some of which attributed by some odd sound track choices (seriously... flight of the valkyries?) some by bad dialogue (NOOOOOOOooooooo!!!...). But to be honest, I've put up with a lot worse in other movies I've thought were excellent. Looking at this strictly as something seperate to the book, It's still a solid movie in my opinion.

But there's the problem... the movie has to be compared to the book. Several hundred thousand fanboys demand it (Note: fanboys are always problems themselves) Try and imagine what you'd feel about the movie had you not read the book and you wouldn't even know there was changes... Surely, you'd just be swept away by the technical brilliance of it all? But, continuing on with the 'problem' theme of this paragraph, most people who saw this movie and hadn't read the book didn't like it/understand it.

So, and this is where we begin to compare it to the comic, why not? Well... the reason is, as you may have heard before, because Watchmen isn't filmable. However, despite what some might say because of the sheer fanboy love that gets heaped on Watchmen and Alan Moore, and even what Alan Moore might say now that he hates Hollywood, the only true reason Watchmen isn't filmable is it's length. There are plenty of complicated and deep movies out there, it's just that they don't always rake in the money. A movie like this needs money to pull off. It needs to be accessable to a broad audience. In that sense, Watchmen can't really be turned into a motion picture, or 'film' if you'd like.

And that, for someone who hasn't seen the book, is what kills this movie. The book is full of complex characters. By that, I dont just mean the heroes, I'm refering to the supporting cast too. By the end of the story, you care about most of them, The fact that some of them are sacrificed by the time the climax is over adds gravity to the situation. In the movie, we don't even have time to flesh out all of the main characters. Sure, Manhatten and Rorshach get a little backstory and development. Ozymandias got to tell his own backstory in about a minute. Most other characters were lucky to get that. And then they felt the need to cut out a bunch of my favourite scenes as well, although I'm not that bitter, since I'm sure they'll be making the extended DVD version. And even then I'm not fussed, since I've still got the memories of the scenes in the book. Let's face it: the only reason us fans don't need a lot of what was in the movie is because we already have that in the book.

So does the movie do justice to the book? Short answer: No. Longer answer: There is no possible way you can condense Watchmen into 3 hours.

But it's not just that. Watchmen is considered literature for a reason, not just because it can't be compressed into a 3hr movie. The comic has layers upon layers of themes and symbolism, not just character development and (for its time) thought provoking plot. Furthermore, it used as much of the comic book medium as it could, playing with the time and composition and repetition and such. It broke away from what comic books were and expanded the experience by using book excerpts and other text between chapters. Although it's unfair to call it after only seeing it once, the movie didn't even touch the creativity of the book in this respect.

The movie should've explored all the abilities of the film as a medium. There should've been bits where the audience was floored by the sheer genius of what was happening on the screen. Not just for presenting something deemed 'unfilmable' but for adding something to the experience and making people think differently about what a movie was. I will admit there was moments that almost approach it; case in point being the title sequence. It seems though that the only three tricks in Snyders bags were: Slow motion action, hidden references and music.

I've gone on way too long in this post. Theres more to say (there always is about Watchmen) but I think I might call it a night. Who knows, I might turn the rest of the week into Watchmen week. Don't get me wrong though, I definitely enjoyed the movie and will be watching the extended version DVD over and over again...

That's about enough of that.

Web browsers are weird. After I put up the picture last night I noticed that it didn't quite look right. The colours were a little off and the shadows looked a little patchy.

When I uploaded this one tonight, I was worried the same thing was going to happen. Surely enough, it did... For some reason these images look a lot less vibrant when looking at them through a browser. Downloading them and viewing them in say, Windows picture viewer shows the correct colours as they appeared in photoshop.

I dunno what the deal is... It'll just have to do for now.

I think this will do for this picture. I've added the lighter colors and details, and I think it looks alright. There's a couple of things I wish I knew before (I wouldn't have outlined so much of the lips for instance), but I guess knowing is half the battle after all. I might try banging out something Watchmen related with the next tutorial I do... Or I'll do a sketch or something... Just so I can write a hefty post about it.

So, to end Nora Zehetner week here on the Stompy blog; One last spoiler.

Of the 12 movies Nora has been in so far, 4 have started with the letter B, meaning there is a 33% chance her next movie will start with the letter B also.

I'm wearing my digital smock.

I only managed to do the dark colour pass tonight... Mainly due to the hair, but also because that tutorial's part for doing the shadows was basically: "Add the dark colours to the mid colours". Very helpful.

It took me a while to work out a way to get the skin shadows looking right. I started out just assuming I'd do something similar to the mid tones; block colours\no passing over sections. I couldn't get that to work so I ended up going back to my old ways. But that looked like ass too. Eventually I figured I should be using the eraser to soften/tidy murky colours and everything kind of fell into place.

The hair was still murder though... I also now regret lining soo much of the hair- big black lines look good in line art, but not when they are in the middle of colour. Lesson learned.

Also, to all you haters out there... Watchmen was pretty good after all. Don't get me wrong, it's not for everyone (Alan Moore for example) and there was a few changes and omissions that made me a little sad inside (and totally changed some of the themes in the comic), but there was no way anyone could fit all of Watchmen into 3 hours. I'll probably write a post about it some time in the immediate future, If I ever get past the Noras...

In keeping in the spirit of Nora Zehetner spoiler week, in movie "Beneath" Nora plays 'Claire' a girl haunted by an accident that left her older sister horribly disfigured. The sister eventually dies of a heart attack, but it turns out shes not really dead after all. She's just been living in some cellar. Then the sister's daughter stabs her and kills her.

(also... Something weird happened when I exported as a JPEG... some of the shadows look a little dusty :S)

Damn you hands...

I didn't get as much done tonight as I was hoping... So I'm putting up this half done paint for the moment.

This time I'm using Studioqube's 3d paint tutorial, but it wasn't as helpful as the other couple I've done. It didn't really teach me anything specific that I didn't know... It pretty much just shows what he's done at each step. It would've been nice if it explained what brush he used/how he used it- but I guess figuring it out is half the fun.

I'll get around to finishing this later in the week... Tomorrow night I'm seeing Watchmen, so I don't think I'll have much of a chance to do anything. If I can muster the energy, I might write a small post ranting about or praising Zach Synder.

Continuing on with Nora Zehetner spoilers, Nora was also on the TV train wreck that is Heroes. She played a villian (I assume) who had the power to control people using suggestion. In some strange twist of fate, she also did one of the only heroic deeds on the show so far: Shooting herself in the head to stop Sylar from geting her power. Despite the shows willingness to resurrect other characters over and over (I'm assuming its Nathan's secondary power), she's yet to make a reappearance. Same with Kristen Bell. Make it happen Tim Kring!

Also... I think Nathan's tertiary power is to completely change characterization every couple of episodes.