Fox says it will try to stop 'Watchmen'

AP ^ | 29 Dec 2008 | AP

[BGHater]

An attorney for 20th Century Fox says the studio will continue to seek an order delaying the release of 'Watchmen.'

U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess last week agreed with Fox that Warner Bros. had infringed its copyright by developing and shooting the superhero flick, scheduled for release March 6.

Feess said Monday he plans to hold a trial Jan. 20 to decide remaining issues.

Fox claims it never fully relinquished story rights from its deal made in the late 1980s, and sued Warner Bros. in February. Warner Bros. contended Fox isn't entitled to distribution. Fox is owned by News Corp.

Warner Bros.' attorney said Monday he didn't know if an appeal was coming, but thinks a trial is necessary and a settlement unlikely.

[Callahan]

Nobody spends $200 mil on a movie to have it sit on the shelf. This stinks for fans. I appreciated the graphic novel even though Alan Moore is a pinko loon.

[brwnsuga]

I am so looking forward to this movie, I hope they get everything worked out before the scheduled release date.

[Mojave]

[ClearCase_guy]

I disagree with Moore’s politics, and the message in the series is questionable, but as a piece of art, Watchmen is really quite an achievement. The trailers look good and I’m looking forward to seeing it — I hope the lawyers don’t cause a delay.

[Salgak]

Translation:

Fox dropped the ball, the lawyers didn’t close a tiny loophole, and they know this is going to be a BIG movie. . .so they want their piece of pie to shut up and go away quietly...

[Philo-Junius]

The moral of the Watchmen is appalling, but carefully concealed until the very end. Up until then, the story is a fine piece of work, but the last three pages completely vitiate it, plunging the whole thing into an “ends justifies the means” utilitarianism.

I get the sense that Moore would gladly countenance the deaths of everyone in Asia if it made his life noticeably better.

[ClearCase_guy]

His story-telling style (here, at least) is similar to Pullman's in the Golden Compass series. Start off strong, get people involved in the characters and the plot, and at some point on the journey, turn the whole thing in a surprising, and unpleasant direction.

I tolerate that with Watchmen because, although its a graphic novel, I never saw it as a product pitched to kids. But I read half of the Golden Compass series before I realized that it was intended to be a hate-filled anti-Christian diatribe. And that series WAS pitched to kids.

The Left sells its message dishonestly.

[UncleDick]

I get the sense that Moore would gladly countenance the deaths of everyone in Asia if it made his life noticeably better.

CAUTION: Mild spoilers here for anyone who hasn't read the book.

I'm not sure what's Moore's intentions were, but having just finished reading Watchmen for the first time, I think that the ending is fairly ambiguous as to the morality of the "peace plan," neither endorsing nor dismissing its cold utilitarianism.

If anything, the most disturbing aspect of the ending was not the mass murder plot, but the bitter acquiescence of Nite Owl and Silk Spectre to the forces of evil, and their apparent indifference to Rorschach's fate. The two most sympathetic characters in the story suddenly became collaborators in one of the most insidious plots ever hatched by socialist intellectuals. That is the real moral tragedy of the story.

[Philo-Junius]

The lack of pity for Rohrschach was indeed chilling, but, if they couldn’t work up any outrage for the deaths of a few hundred thousand Manhattanites, why would they blink at Rohrschach’s deletion?

Just one more egg for the omelet, that’s all.

[Mojave]

the last three pages completely vitiate it, plunging the whole thing into an “ends justifies the means” utilitarianism.

Even in death, Rorschach may have prevailed.

[Philo-Junius]

How so?

[Philo-Junius]

Insofar as the lunatic-fringe tabloid ran his story?

Tell that to the JBS editors of The New American, or the LaRouche paper editors.

[Mojave]

Or Matt Drudge.

[weegee]

I wonder how much the 9/11 truther movement will seize upon this film as the Left also appropriated the V for Vendetta mask for rallies and considered an anti-government screed against Reagan/Thatcher to be “contemporary” in message.

[weegee]

One of the DC editors (I don’t remember what level, he wrote/writes for Arthur, a free monthly paper/magazine) is actively pro-atheism/anti-Christian. And there was a gay editor at DC pushing that agenda as well.

But then, it is Time-Lies-Warner-Turner that owns DC these days, so what else would you expect?

[Philo-Junius]

Some may try, since Moore is one of their own, but Ozymandias triumphed in the end, which is incoherent with their own proposed deconstruction of events.

[Tublecane]

“as a piece of art, Watchmen is really quite an achievement”

I don’t read many comic books, so I’ll have to take everyone’s word for its greatness in that genre. As such, calling it an artistic achievement is proper, so long as we don’t go overboard and call it high art. But for me, it was rather pedestrian, with the possible exception of the pirate comic subplot, which I think was the best nuclear war metaphor for people who really don’t understand deterrence I have ever read.

Oh, and the way they made the socialist insanely brutal (after flipping through so many sketches of facist conservatives) was a nice treat.

[Tublecane]

“Ozymandias triumphed in the end”

I seem to remember Rorshach’s letter winding up at the fringe conservative newsletter office, which meant that at least some part of the world would know. It also meant that there was going to be nuclear war, I think. I can’t remember exactly. For such a famous ending, I found it a bit confused.

[Dead Corpse]

Last page of the graphic novel. Rorschach’s journal.