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Once the movie is out on dvd i guess all of us will give it a shot and do some editing,so post your plans here!
Any kind of editing you want!

Mine:
-I'll do my editing on the long version without the Black Freighter,but i think i will change my mind about thet.
-The movie will start with with "Saturday Morning Watchmen"
-After thet i will splice some parts from Under The Hood,and then i will cut out to the NewFrontiersman viral video thet shows a part from Under The Hood and let the video run to the end.
-After thet there will be a really annoying distortion(jonergy like effect) and then the movie will begin.
-I will use my cuts with a tv snow like effect.
-I will cut Under The Hood to 30 minutse(i really need Viedt's commercials)
-Diffrent end credit sequence(shots from the film running in super slow motion,like in the opening credit,with the original Desolation Row.Ex:Bille's name appeare over a super slow motion shot of giant Jon in vietnam)

I know it will feel half baked but ill give it a shot

I would be very happy to read your plans.

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•ЯR•

That sounds cool, I'd like to see that edit. I'm not sure if I will do any messing around with the movie, though.

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My unofficial and offical work-> http://www.youtube.com/movieboyandco

But if you had the ability to change something within the area of your abilitys,then what would you change?

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•ЯR•

I'd possibly find a way to smoothen out the flashbacks during The Comedian's funeral and maybe the transition from Jon on Earth to Jon on Mars.

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My unofficial and offical work-> http://www.youtube.com/movieboyandco

New rule: You can only work with existing footage. The movie, the Black Freighter DVD, the trailers and TV spots are all fair game, but that's it until the DC is actually released.

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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.

Anyone can think of a good software thet will allow this kind of high quality editing?

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•ЯR•

That's no fun

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@RealSlimCAvery

I beg to differ. And anyway, it makes this thread different from the other "what scenes did you miss?" threads.

Anyone can fantasize about what scenes we would have/could have/should have seen, given the time and money. The matter of how one would re-edit the existing footage into a more preferable movie strikes me as a greater challenge and a more intriguing question.

Remember, the title refers to "editors." Not screenwriters, directors, cinematographers, VFX programmers or studio execs. This thread is about the art of taking existing footage and splicing it into the final product, which is far more important to the quality of a film than most give credit for.

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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.

Challenging indeed. But I'm game. Here's what I would edit, change around.

- I'd start out like the book with the slow zoom up the apartment building into Blakes apartment, with Rorschach's narration over it. In the movie it zooms much quicker so I'd slow it down. I'd then splice the dialogue of the detectives with footage of the fight, only the fight would be much shorter, with a red filter, and I'd take much greater care of not showing Veidt (The shot of him standing in the doorway would be cut). I know this would mean cutting all of the television portions, but I hated those anyway.

- No opening credits. Yeah, I know everyone loved it, but I'd much rather devote that time to actual story. So, it's out.

- I'd make a big change to the story's chronology by showing the flashbacks after each of Rorschach's encounters with the others, Citizen Cane style. So just after he meets with Dan, and Dan is alone with his glasses off, I'd cut to the Keane riots, for example.

- I'd trim the Veidt interview with Doug Roth. I'd get rid of it altogether but I think we kind of need it to establish Veidt as a character, the whole alternate energy angle, etc.

- No 99 Luftballons, I'm Your Boogeyman, All Along the Watchtower, etc.

- Rorschach's narration of the fates of the Minutemen would be cut with the footage that would have been used in the credits montage. So "Dollar Bill got his cape stuck" would be cut with the shot of him with his cape stuck. You get the idea.

- I'd throw in a scene of the two Bernies when possible.

- I probably wouldn't use "The Sound of Silence". Just an original song from the score. Since no flashbacks, this would just be the guys at the funeral. I'd cut the "it rains on the just and unjust alike" over the first shot of the funeral.

- Any of Nixon's scenes would be cut significantly. If I could tell the cold war story through newspaper clippings and television clips, I would if possible.

- Veidt's assassination wouldn't be in slow motion. I'd only slow it down when he actually hits the assassin. Actually, pretty much any slow motion with the exception of the Comedians death wouldn't be in this movie.

- Rorschach's arrest/imprisonment. After his "face" is taken off, I'd immediately cut to him sitting across from Long. If I'm allowed, I'd have Long narrate most of the interview, with Kovacs walking back to his cell and Long thinking he could help him. The hot cooking fat scene would be cut shorter, or at least the inmates scream wouldn't be as long.

- I'd take the scene where Dan and Laurie are on the couch, but with the television visible in the background. So I'd have all the current events stuff visible while the scene took place.

- No Leonard Cohen. No long sex scene. It's cut pretty much like it is in the book. That saves us like another minute or two right there.

That's all I can think of working with the material we already have.

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"Heard them Walthers like to jump some" "As will you, with one in your elbow."

As much as I love the film, these are changes I'd definitely welcome. My biggest problem with the film was the pacing of the funeral scene and I think that what you are proposing here would be a welcome change. I kinda wish Zack was taking notes for the DC from these points

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My unofficial and offical work-> http://www.youtube.com/movieboyandco

what was wrong with pacing of flashbacks maybe i loved that part of the film that i didn't even notice a pacing problem LOL

Why, thank you!



Well, I don't really have a problem with the pacing. I just like the idea of introducing the audience to the Comedian a little earlier.

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"Heard them Walthers like to jump some" "As will you, with one in your elbow."

what slows down the movie is Dan and Laurie arc imo

Let's see...

The sex scene is now cut down to "oh,they are having sex... oh they've had sex."

I would change the Sound of Silence for something else, maybe Feel it now by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club because I think it's more personal to the character and not just "random funeral song no.5."

I would cut most of the slow motion, especially the bits where Laurie was auditioning for a shampoo commercial. Leave it for the initial fight and the fight in the alley, ditch the rest.

All along the Watchtower is gone, epic though it is. At that moment in the film, sweeping off to Antarctica to that song, I felt the cheese metre hit the red zone. Still, at least it wasn't Paint it black.

I'd play down the love triangle bit. It slows down the story too much and when you are basically in a race against the Doomsday clock you don't want to be stopping for pouting and tottie. I got very frustrated once the romance picked up and mosty of the characters seemed to forget what they were up against, or that they were up against anything at all.

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This is serious

i dont get it.
that song has only ever been used in one other movie.


that song is referenced at that exact moment in the source material also.

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Say, Doc, did I ever tell you I'm the only metal that's liquid at room temperature?

And it's a nice song but what does it say? How does it relate to the Comedian?
Now Rorschach, yes. It works very well for him. But it's wasn't his funeral.
I just think they could have found a better, and perhaps less obvious, choice. It wasn't awful but it felt a bit twee to me. It's such a well known song and maybe, because of that, it has lost some of it's impact for me. It hardly ruins the scene but I feel another choice may have been able to say more.



But we are talking about a visual and audio experience. Just because it's in the source material doesn't mean it's going to work in a film. As the point is pretending to have editing rights I may just use them to pull the song because my feelings the moment it came on where not complimentary. I didn't feel it worked. I thought it was mawkish. It was just too much. I suddenly felt like, for a moment, I had wandered into Transformers. Allen Moore was not making a film so he can reference any song he likes and doesn't have to worry of it's effect is jarring or whatever other negative effect it may have.

Anyway, I'm only one of many fictional editors and that is merely my opinion based on what I felt while watching the film. Clearly not everyone is going to agree and just as bloody well too.

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This is serious

okay, i have no technical experience with movie editing, but what i would try - if i had to do this as a project - would be the following:

just for the heck of it, i´d try to make a more mainstream-audience version.
i´d simplify it.
i´d streamline it.
for example, i´d cut all of the flashbacks, especially at eddie´s funeral. i´d kill most or all of jon´s backstory, too. shorten the archie love scene.
see if that works.

before the hate fest begins, let me stress that i loved how close the movie was to the original GN, which i´ma long-time fan of. i´m positive that "my version" would sacrifice a lot, if not the heart, of what "watchmen" is all about. i´m aware of this. i´d like to try it anyway, this "watchmen light" version, because i´d be interested if a less complex way of telling the story would have convinced more of the non-fan public.

A fascinating experiment, though I'm grateful that this isn't how WB and Snyder approached the movie.

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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.

I took "The Sounds of Silence" to be a reference to The Comedian's laughter being silenced.

i also thought it worked really well for that scene