Monday, November 10, 2008

so where's the big goddamn alien squid thing?

Good Lord. Someone has made a fan mashup of The Watchmen trailer, using Superfriends footage, to produce a trailer for 'The Watchfriends'.

What? What are you talking about Palinode? Huh what? Okay, stop talking all at once and I'll explain.

I probably don't need to go into detail about the Superfriends cartoon (Superman Wonder Woman Batman Robin Aquaman Wonder Twins all fighting baddies in lively Saturday morning cartoon format the end), but Alan Moore's Watchmen may warrant a word or two. Between 1986 and 1987 Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons released Watchmen for DC Comics, a gorgeous, elaborate, over-the-top, sometimes risible but always riveting meta-take on the superhero phenomenon. The story takes place in an alternate 1985, where Nixon is still president and superheroes have been outlawed since the late '70s. Some superheroes sit around and gain weight, some live lives of psychotic desperation, others end up doing dirty work for the government. Some still want to save the world. And someone is killing them off.

The story of the film adaptation of The Watchmen is long and painful, full of false starts and disappointing turns. Long story short: it's coming out early next year, some twenty-three years after it first appeared. If you've read the book, then the trailer will give you instant feeling of familiarity, as if you've suddenly seen an old friend walking through a crowd. If not, then you probably woln't have the foggiest idea of what's going on.

Here's a split-screen comparison of the Watchmen trailer and the Superfriends mashup. Some of the choices are pretty imaginative.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That was pretty awesome. Between Billy Corgan's singing something in the background and the sightings of Apache Chief and Gleek from the Super Friends, my evening is now complete.

Apache motherfuckin' Chief. Wasn't his super power basically to just grow?

Chris Wilson said...

Not sure who some of these characters are since they weren't on baseball cards back in the 70s, but I'm pretty sure that had I known about that chick in the black and yellow rubber suit, I would have drop kicked my signed Topps Willie Mays and picked up a few more comic books.

I particularly liked the line, "The world will wake up and shout "Save Us!" and in a whisper you will here, "no"".