When they finally turned the classic comic book series Watchmen into a movie, they had to leave a lot of stuff out. You may find that surprising if you've only seen the film, given how long, detailed and dense it was already. But as one of the most complex stories every written in comic book history, there was a lot they had to skip. Instead of simply forgetting about that stuff, they've taken most of it and turned it into two short films. They're both must-sees if you were a fan of the movie or the comic. Taken on their own merits, however, one of them is must better than the other.
Tales of the Black Freighter was a comic-within-the-comic that told the story of the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the infamous Black Freighter and the horrible, mad lengths he goes to in order to save himself and protect his family. They've turned the comic story into roughly a half-hour long cartoon with some decent animation and good voice work by Gerard Butler as the sole survivor. In making it into a cartoon, unfortunately, the writers and directors leave out most of the powerful and creepy narration that make the original work so striking. The comic-within-the-comic was also thematically connected extensively and intimately with the main story of Watchmen and severing that union robs Tales of the Black Freighter of a lot of its purpose and force.
Under the Hood is based on text pieces that ran in the original comic concerning the autobiography of Nite Owl I, Hollis Mason (Stephen McHattie). That was the old guy talking with Dan Dreiberg at the start of the movie. He was one of the original masked adventurers of the 1940s who eventually hung up his mask and tights and wrote a book about what he did and why he did it. In the comic, excerpts from the book were used to flesh out and reinforce many of the themes Alan Moore was driving at in the series. It's been adapted for the screen as an episode of a TV news show about Hollis Mason and his book. Host Larry Culpepper (Ted Friend) talks with Mason, the former Silk Spectre, Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino), former super-villain Moloch (Matt Frewer) and others about the book and the nature of super-heroes in the real world.
Under the Hood is much better than Tales of the Black Freighter. It deals more directly and explicitly with much of Alan Moore's deconstructive take on super-heroes and heroism in general, and is therefore hampered less by being detached from the main story. There are also some very good performances by Stephen McHattie, Carla Gugino, Matt Frewer and Rob LaBelle as Doctor Manhattan's former sidekick. They show the twin sides of the super-hero as presented in Watchmen; the human dimension concerned with celebrity and personal drive and desire, and the sociological perspective of how the existence of such entities would interact with and change the larger world.
I imagine the idea is that both these films will eventually be re-integrated into the main Watchmen movie in a special edition DVD. Hollywood loves to sell people the same thing over and over again. I'm not sure it'll be worth getting that DVD because adding this stuff into the movie would make it 4 hours long or more. These works, especially Tales of the Black Freighter, would also not fit alongside some of the changes made in adapting the comic to the screen.
If you liked Watchmen, the comic or the movie, I suggest you give this thing a rent and enjoy this stuff on its own.
Tales of the Black Freighter was a comic-within-the-comic that told the story of the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the infamous Black Freighter and the horrible, mad lengths he goes to in order to save himself and protect his family. They've turned the comic story into roughly a half-hour long cartoon with some decent animation and good voice work by Gerard Butler as the sole survivor. In making it into a cartoon, unfortunately, the writers and directors leave out most of the powerful and creepy narration that make the original work so striking. The comic-within-the-comic was also thematically connected extensively and intimately with the main story of Watchmen and severing that union robs Tales of the Black Freighter of a lot of its purpose and force.
Under the Hood is based on text pieces that ran in the original comic concerning the autobiography of Nite Owl I, Hollis Mason (Stephen McHattie). That was the old guy talking with Dan Dreiberg at the start of the movie. He was one of the original masked adventurers of the 1940s who eventually hung up his mask and tights and wrote a book about what he did and why he did it. In the comic, excerpts from the book were used to flesh out and reinforce many of the themes Alan Moore was driving at in the series. It's been adapted for the screen as an episode of a TV news show about Hollis Mason and his book. Host Larry Culpepper (Ted Friend) talks with Mason, the former Silk Spectre, Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino), former super-villain Moloch (Matt Frewer) and others about the book and the nature of super-heroes in the real world.
Under the Hood is much better than Tales of the Black Freighter. It deals more directly and explicitly with much of Alan Moore's deconstructive take on super-heroes and heroism in general, and is therefore hampered less by being detached from the main story. There are also some very good performances by Stephen McHattie, Carla Gugino, Matt Frewer and Rob LaBelle as Doctor Manhattan's former sidekick. They show the twin sides of the super-hero as presented in Watchmen; the human dimension concerned with celebrity and personal drive and desire, and the sociological perspective of how the existence of such entities would interact with and change the larger world.
I imagine the idea is that both these films will eventually be re-integrated into the main Watchmen movie in a special edition DVD. Hollywood loves to sell people the same thing over and over again. I'm not sure it'll be worth getting that DVD because adding this stuff into the movie would make it 4 hours long or more. These works, especially Tales of the Black Freighter, would also not fit alongside some of the changes made in adapting the comic to the screen.
If you liked Watchmen, the comic or the movie, I suggest you give this thing a rent and enjoy this stuff on its own.