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I think that while a Director of Photography's opinion on the tinkering of the film he shot may be unwelcome, I don't see how anyone could say it's irrelevant.

Well, if you accept the auteur theory -- it's Friedkin's movie, so he can do any damn thing he wants with it. Just like George Lucas.

"so his opinion now is unwelcome and irrelevant."

That's a little harsh and not entirely true.

I like it when Friedkin put the cartoon ghosts in the new version of The Exorcist. It added a lot and showed a man of great taste.

Who's Gene Hackan?

Perfect example of Friedkin's colossal ego. The great preservationists (such as Grover Crisp at Sony) always keep the DP in the loop (assuming he's alive and available, of course) to make sure the restoration looks as it should.

To be fair, I think it was Blatty who was more responsible for the changes made to the new version of The Exorcist than Friedkin - thus making it more of a Writer/Producer's Cut...right?

I don't have anywhere else to talk about this, so I'm gonna do it here:

I saw Watchmen tonight and I thought it was mediocre, but the geeks HATED it. I predict that by next week, Watchmen will be the new Episode I/Indy 4/ Matrix 2/ etc.

But I should mention that it wasn't in a very good theatre (Bloor Cinema in Toronto in case you're wondering). The screen was small(ish) and the sound wasn't great. That said, Warner Bros. should have never done a screening there in the first place.

"I don't have anywhere else to talk about this, so I'm gonna do it here"

Seriously? You didn't really scroll down when you got here, did you?

Why did the "geeks" in your showing hate the movie? I'm going to go ahead and presume it had more to do with the film than the conditions of the experience. So what didn't work for them?

Well, I could have scrolled down, but I don't check posts from that far back and I assume others don't either.

The biggest complaint I heard was that it was boring and way too long, with too much slow-mo. Other than that: Matthew Goode is just as retarded as he looks in the trailers. Wilson and Akerman were weak and the jury is out on Crudup (I think Haley and Morgan were liked, though.

My personal opinion: Although the movie was extremely faithful to the book visually, it basically proved that it was unfilmable. The film did little to explain why these people became superheroes in the first place. This means that the film fails in taking the concept of superheroes to its natural conclusion. Newcomers might not even realize that (with the exception of Doc Manhattan) the characters don't have superpowers, because they all seem to have superhuman strength. I hate to say that the film is not as good as the book, but when you ask the film to stand by itself, it fails because it asks the audience to assume the nuances of the story and characters that are from the graphic novel. I also feel that, as with Snyder's other two films, Snyder goes for the cool visuals at the expense of storytelling.

Honestly, I feel that a faithful adaptation of Watchmen is probably impossible, and, given that the Cold War is over and 9/11, etc., it's probably not a good idea, even if it is possible. I would much rather have seen Greengrass's version than this.

I will reserve my thoughts on the new ending til DP puts up a spoiler thread, but I can say I was pretty indifferent to the changes and I probably would have preferred the original, if only because it would have been more entertaining.

NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN
NO OTHER THREAD TO TALK ABOUT WATCHMEN

My review hasn't gone up yet, so you'll have to wait for that to see what I thought of the film, but I will say that I saw it at a promo screening packed with geeks (interestingly, I'd say at least 1/3 of the audience was women), and I'd gauge their temperature after the film as overwhelmingly positive. I hovered outside the theater as folks were leaving, and the crowd coming out was generally pumped and excited after seeing the film.

The changes to The Exorcist were indeed suggested by Blatty and Friedkin publicly questioned some of them at the time -- but if you listen to the podcast Friedkin says he's now come around to Blatty's POV, and that the Blu-ray may not include both versions of the film because of the "economy" (which would presumably mean no 1973 edit).

The most surprising thing is that he seems to know very little about what was actually done to the French Connection BD -- for example, he claims the "Blu-ray process" (whatever that is) minimizes grain (which he apparently hates) even though the BD is actually loaded with it. It's also bizarre for him to slam Roziman (for over- and under-exposing certain shots) when Friedkin's changes have produced crushed blacks and blown-out whites all over the damn place, with inevitable loss of detail (I am not exaggerating when I say the old 2005 DVD has more detail in some places than the BD).

Blatty's changes to The Exorcist resulted in (IMHO) a blatantly inferior version of the movie.