You've probably heard about the latest Watchmen footage screened for Los Angeles critics last week by director Zack Snyder. Well, last night us East Coasters were treated to that very same footage at a special presentation in New York at the Time-Warner Building, with both Snyder and Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons in attendence for intros and a post-screening Q&A. And though video cameras were obviously not allowed, we did our darnedest to take copious notes for you good people... 

Warners is clearly doing its best to woo journos of all persuasions, for though some of the usual genre press were onhand, there was also a sea of unfamiliar, presumably mainstream, faces, a sure sign the studio is looking to not only minimize the latest public dissing of the film by Watchmen creator, and fanboy God, Alan Moore, but keen on making sure the highly publicized legal dispute between Warners and original rights-holders Fox won't overshadow the latter's super-powered spring tent pole.

And what a tent pole! The evening began when DC President Paul Levitz took the stage to recount briefly the journey Watchmen has taken from script to screen. Snyder followed him, to provide a little context for what we were about to see--the first twelve minutes of the film--and to remind us that the visual effects weren't quite complete. But you could have fooled me. With one or two brief exceptions the footage looked more than complete to this journo--it looked positively stunning.    

That's not to say I don't have some issues with Snyder's approach, or in fact the very enterprise of adapting something that was intended from the onset to be a self-reflexive commentary on the medium of comics. And my doubts first crept into play when, in the opening scene, as in the graphic novel, the Comedian is attacked by an unseen assailant in his apartment, who sends him hurtling through a glass window, his blood-smeared smiley-face pin button sailing above him. Truth be told, the fight scene drags on a bit longer than I remember it in the comics, and the sped-up/slowed-down punches were a little too reminscent of the Matrix style that Snyder aped in 300. Still, my concerns were alleviated when I saw the opening credits sequence, a stunning encapsulation of decades of the Watchmen's--and their progenitors the Minutemen's--backstory, shown in a slow-mo montage punctuated with camera flashes as various shots are frozen for the alternate-history books, and all of it set to the tune of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a Changin'". The shots seen in this montage include:

--The Minutemen assembling for a group shot in their meeting room.

--Japan surrendering in World War II.

--Ursula Zandt (a.k.a The Silhouette), the Minutemen's lesbian member, grabbing a young woman celebrating Japan's surrender in New York, for an alt-universe version of that famous Life magazine shot.      

--Zandt found murdered in bed with her lover.       

--A pregant Silk Spectre I retiring from the Minutemen. 

--Kennedy being killed by The Comedian.

--Doctor Manhattan shaking Kennedy's hand on the White House lawn.

--Flower children getting shot by American G.I.'s

--Man first walking on the moon -- and discovering Doctor Manhattan there.

--Warhol and Capote speaking in front of the latter's rendering of Night Owl.

--Pretty boy Watchman Adrian Veidt (a.k.a. Ozymandias) hanging out with the Village People and David Bowie outside of New York's famed Studio 54.

--The Watchmen posing for a group shot.

--Term limits being eliminated on the U.S. presidency, insuring Nixon's remaining in office through 1985.

After the credits sequence, Snyder again took the stage to introduce the next segment, which showed Doctor Manhattan, the director's favorite character, seeking solace on the moon, as he recalls his origin as a young physicist in 1959, who becomes accidentally trapped in his lab experiment, resulting in his death and rebirth as an immortal, near-omnipotent bright blue superman. This segment,with its constant jumps in time and its narration by Manhattan himself, came the closest to capturing the spirt of Moore's comic, and the heartache Manhattan's lovelorn fiance feels upon first losing him (before his rebirth), and then upon seeing him, as Doctor Manhattan, drift away from her as he becomes attracted to the young Silk Spectre II, resonated strongly. Gorehounds will also relish this entire segment for the graphic depiction of Manhattan's death and rebirth, and the, er, bloody efficent ways in which he dispatches his enemies.  

The next segment we were treated to depicted Night Owl and Silk Spectre II's afterplay in the Owl Ship, and their subsequent rescue of Rorshach from prison. This segment was the most conventional of the night. For though the sight of the gorgeous Malin Ackerman in Silk Spectre's skin-tight yellow super suit jumping out of the Owl Ship and kicking ass as she struts down a prison corridor isn't without its virtues, the emphasis on fistplay and, once again, the speed-up/slow-down seemed a little at odds with Moore's original thoughtful, deliberate page layouts, the pace of which was much more measured, even in his book's fight scenes.

After this third sequence, we watched a montage of footage, an expanded trailer of sorts, that may or may not have been the same as that which was shown at Comic-Con San Diego (I honestly couldn't get into the con's filled-to-capacity Hall H in order to view it), with shots of Manhattan in Vietnam and Night Owl and Silk Spectre II embracing in front of a mushroom cloud.     

Snyder was then joined by Gibbons on stage, and the two fielded questions from the press in attendence. Both insisted the film's ending would not "puss out" but follow the book's, and explained ways in which the film combined various supporting characters into a smaller number. They also commented on the fortuitous timing of the film, as it seems to be hitting the right political climate, as did the original graphic novel in the mid-'80s. 

One thing was certain about the footage--despite its few flaws (which in the end may simply render it the Godfather of superhero films, as opposed to, say, the Citizen Kane), it was far from dull and it left us more anxious than ever for the film's March release. Hopefully, by that time, Fox and Warners will have resolved their dispute. If not, they'll know better than anybody who watches the Watchmen!