WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

What is everyone's opinion here on Watchmen movie "spoilers." If I write an article on the ending and discuss Veidt living or dying, is that a "spoiler?" How can I spoil a graphic novel that's been out for 20 years?

And if the movie is so far off from the graphic novel, does mentioning that difference mean its a "spoiler?"

Help me out here. I want folks interested in the Watchmen movie to enjoy my site, but I need to speak candidly about elements in the film.

Or should I say, screw it, this site caters to "advanced" fans of the graphic novel who are interested in the movie and not worry about passersby that are like "Hey, what's this Watchmen I've been hearing so much about? Oh, look a Watchmen Web site. This is...huh, Veidt dies? Oh fuck they ruined the ending for me!"

Help me out because I don't want to shit in everyone's soup...

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Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music - George Carlin

It is a puzzlement...

But...isn't my entire site one gigantic spoiler?

When I set out to do this site, it was like you said Vynson, for us - the folks who have read the thing at least 2 or 3 times and really love it.

It might be hard to sanitize the entire site to be spoiler free. But maybe I have to.

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Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music - George Carlin

I think you can expect a lot more traffic the closer the movie gets to coming out, and a lot of those people probably won't want to be spoiled on the ending or probably even other events.

I think you could keep the main portion of the site pretty much as is. Make it spoiler free, or clearly label articles with spoilers.

But the forum should be completely open. Maybe just indicate on the link to it that it WILL be discussing things that could be considered spoilers without warning and enter at your own risk.

My favourite method of hiding a spoiler in an article is to make it so you have to highlight a section to read it. That way you can never even accidently see it, but everyone that wants to can read it with ease.

Anybody on this site should have read the book at least once. There is no point reading two chapters of a book and jumping in a forum to discuss it. It would be like watching the opening credits of a movie and then telling all your friends how bad ass it is and how they need to check it out. If they want some background info, go check out Wikipedia.

I agree that this site will be getting a hell of a lot more traffic once a trailer hits but until then we should feel free to discuss the fact that a GIANT SQUID ALIEN...ha...you get my point.

Good point. As a "whodunnit" I don't think the film will work that well. Unless they decide to spice it up and mess with the ending for the sake of "drama"- Probably why the earlier scripts had this element. I am under the impression that Hollywood loves to jiggle with storylines in vain attempts at bumping up the wow-factor.

But the book isn't really a whodunnit, is it.

Most of why we read and re-read the story is the enormous amount of visual/verbal material in there. The amount of narrative – if transcribed in the form of text – would be staggering. All those visually linked, threaded plotlines, all those small hints giving extra depth and info make for a gread read, over and over.

I understand that some directors would balk at the idea of encompassing its volume. The average audience would be coming out of the cinema with a migrane and a bursting bladder. Maybe Snyder is floundering way over his head. Maybe he feels that if he goes for key dialogue and nicely shot set-peices he's home and dry. If I were him I'd be going hell for leather to use the cinematic toolbox to the max to get the film working hard enough. Maybe he's doing just that. Cool job the guy has!

As for visitors unaware of the basic plot-line. Well, I guess a warning or two on the main page should be enough. Though I would be very interested to read the source material before going any further in on this kind of web-site. I wonder what I would have made of it today after a first read?

A lot of big-budget films are based on events of which the outcome is already known: Apollo 13, Titanic, Lord of the Rings all worked reasonably well despite the threat of the audience "knowing" how they ended.

Watchmen will be more of an exercise in how the filmmakers translate the guts of the story to film. I will not be very upset if they fiddle with the details, as long as the film demands further viewing. Just like classic movies should.

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I like what TimmoWarner had to say on the topic. The main version of the site should be relatively spoiler-free. A place where newbies can come to learn about the graphic novel without being spoiled and where Watchmen fans can come to learn something new.

But this board should be no-holds-barred in terms of spoilers. Watchmen was built from the ground up as a story to be discussed and this is where the discussion takes place. Besides, I can't imagine someone coming here to talk about a novel they haven't even read.

The main site is for everyone, but the board is for people who've read the graphic novel or seen the movie at least once. Everyone wins that way.

Oh, and remember: When in doubt, *use spoilertext.*

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

You mean for the news items? Obviously this can't be the case for the plot summary and my future sections on characters and comic timeline?

I agree on the news. I changed the Veidt article to be spoiler free. The article still mentions that the Tse script had a different ending than the comic, but I didn't mention anything else about it. This way die-hard fans will know what I mean without having me to spell it out and ruin it for the rest.

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Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music - George Carlin

My 2 cents, though it's probably already been covered. People are hoping this place will be flooded around the time of the trailer release. If it's going to be flooded, it's probably going to be flooded by newbs attracted by the film before the source novel. I'm not saying you need to censor everything, but if you want to attract a wider audience you might want to be careful.

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This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face.

I don't think something like this should be spoiled. Most people wont have read this. I know I probably never would have read this had it not been on the Times best reading list. I am not a rabid comic book fan by an stretch of the imagination. I mean movie reviews shouldn't recount the plot of the film, neither should articles or trailers. If you see it all in those then why should you go see the movie.

Well, let me ask you this: If the ending and the plot twists are all that matters, why do we watch movies again? Why do we read the same book twice? Why do we replay video games?

It's not the destination, as far as I'm concerned. It's the journey. It's getting to know the characters and the world created within a work of fiction.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

Yo, Dr. Manhattan is the off da hook, g.