Me and Troy watched this earlier tonight. My quick review is I want to see this several more times. I also appreciate that this movie is not designed for stupid people, its a movie where you have to actually pay attention and if you were alive in the 80's its really amazing. The fact that the movie starts with Eddie Blake watching The Maclachlin Group and there are actors playing Pat Buchanon and John McLaughlin, not to mention people like Lee Iaccoca, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger just blows my mind.
My other 2 cents, Comedian Nite Owl 2 and Rorscach are fully realized in this film. I think Matthew Goose got shorted with his material for Ozymandias cuz his character needed to be fully fleshed out so he didnt seem like a Bond villain which he isnt in the book and that I think they did a great job making Laurie Jupiter seem like a million times less bitchy than she is in the book as well.
Anyhow, I will say that one of the most amazing things about the film is the tuly remarkable way it handles plunging you into an alternate history, which is a dense concept anyway. Alternate history is a butterfly effect like hobby many historians that tries to postulate how things would be in a certain region if a certain event had or had not occurred and what the possibilitie sof that would be. This is especially apy given how much of the film deals with time and quantum mechanics. Here, Watchmen begins with the proposition that masked adventurers and the arrival of a superhero in U.S. Soil have the doomsday clock at 4 minutes to midnight with the USSR and USA still deep in the Cold War in 1985. The credits show us changed events in this alternate history and assumes you know them, so if you pay attention you are rewarded with a lot. Here are 3 of my favorites scenes from the montage:
1. NITE-OWL SAVES THE WAYNE FAMILY
This is the first shot in Watchmen. If you pay attention you can see the cover of Batman #1 behind Nite Owl. Nite Owl is standing in front of the GOTHAM OPERA HOUSE as you can make out a bit and there are theater bills advertising DIE FLEDERMAUS aka THE BAT. To the left we see an elderly butler and a gentleman and lady coming out an alley entrance as Nite Owl stops a mugger. Clearly, there is no Batman when Nite Owl steps in Crime Alley :) So in Watchmen, Batman was never made because the Wayne's were never killed. This is a nice homage to DC Comics geeks I think:
2.) THE ENOLA GAY IS NOW THE SALLY JUPITER
During the opening credits, we see this B-29 Super Fortress drop a bomb over an Island nation, the next shot being Japan surrenders. If you see the cockpit there is an 82. This is the Victory number 82 of the Enola Gay the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb Little Boy on Hiroshima in 1945. Clearly, Sally Jupiter has enough popularity that she claimed her name on it over Enola Gay Tibetts
3). THE V-J DAY KISS BY ALFRED EISENSTADT ...ONLY DIFFERENT
One of the most meorable sites in Americana is the photo by Alfred Eisenstadt of a sailor in black kissing a nurse in Times Square. In Watchmen, we see Silhouette the openly lesbian member of the Minutemen take that spot. Here's the real photo for comparison:
honorable mention to the shot of Ozymandias standing in front of Studio 54 with David Bowie, Mick Jagger and the Village People