'Watchmen' Trailer's Spielberg-Homaging Easter Egg
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Warner Brothers, Steven Spielberg, Movie Marketing, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Images, Trailers and Clips
Earlier today, you saw the trailer for one of the most anticipated adaptations of all time (no, not that one, this one). And it was amazing. Well, I thought so, anyway, and I'm one of the few people who said "ehh" after reading the graphic novel. Anyway, some of you bigger fans probably watched the new Watchmen trailer over and over and over again, forward and backward, in slow-motion and sped-up to compare the film with the panels in the book. But did you notice the odd lack of continuity in the sequence shown above? Unless you read MTV Movies Blog, or unless you were looking really hard for something like last year's 300 trailer surprise, there's a good chance you missed it. Fortunately, for you, I've done my best to highlight the anomaly after the jump.
Now do you see what's strange? The guy is holding a walkie talkie instead of the gun he's seen holding in the subsequent shots of the scene (for the whole thing, head to around the 1:30 mark of the trailer). According to Watchmen director Zack Snyder, the MPAA wouldn't allow the gun to feature in this shot because there's a rule against guns pointed out at the audience (in ads only). So, Snyder claims to be referencing Steven Spielberg -- I see it as a jovial attack of the filmmaker's disappointing self-censorship -- because of the 2002 re-release version of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, which substituted all guns in the movie with walkies.
I think it would be funny if Snyder just kept the joke in for the theatrical release, but unfortunately the walkie talkie will disappear when Watchmen opens March 6, 2009.
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Reader Comments
(Page 1)2. He's not making an issue out of it, he's pointing it out for those people like me who may have missed it, or those people who caught it and wondered why the dude is holding up a walkie-talkie.
Jeez.
Posted at 11:30PM on Jul 17th 2008 by Sam
3. Actually this is PRECISELY the sort of geek-tastic obsessiveness that we love in our writers.
Fun stuff, Chris. I never woulda caught that.
Posted at 4:55AM on Jul 18th 2008 by Scott Weinberg
4. Ugh - that was unnecessary and ugly.
Posted at 8:11AM on Jul 18th 2008 by Matthew
5. Well, I rather enjoy these news. I would've never known Speilberg replaced a gun with a walkie talkie. Or actually noticing A walkie talkie.
Let my kind of news be.
Posted at 5:39AM on Jul 19th 2008 by cough
7. Thanks Chris! I read that story on MTV but was way too lazy to look for it in the trailer for whatever reasons. Random moment, but a pretty funny one.
Posted at 11:30PM on Jul 17th 2008 by Erik Davis
8. no problem. i actually just like using the print screen tool. all the time. more people need to put easter eggs in their trailers. makes blogging more fun!
Posted at 11:34PM on Jul 17th 2008 by Christopher Campbell
9. I don't know Chris. Do you guys really want to be looking at every trailer in 1/4 speed? I imagine it would get onerous after a while.
Posted at 11:40PM on Jul 17th 2008 by Sam
10. Of course not. I want the filmmakers to ruin the secret before we even have a chance to look at the trailers. Then, I'll just go to the specified place and then do my magic with the print screen function. Zack Snyder's the greatest for telling us about this in advance.
Posted at 11:44PM on Jul 17th 2008 by Christopher Campbell
11. XDDDD Snyder is a genius!
Posted at 3:44AM on Jul 18th 2008 by V.M.L.
12. saw the trailer while watching the dark knight.
movie looks absolutely gorgeous and i know nothing about watchmen
Posted at 7:53AM on Jul 18th 2008 by Riley Freeman
13. I don't know if that was better or the inspired use of the Smashing Pumpkins' "The Beginning is the End is the Beginning"...making that sideways connection to Batman and Robin (which I think shows all that went wrong with comic book movies) is so sneaky and yet perfect.
Posted at 11:58AM on Jul 18th 2008 by Robert
14. OK, so what does it mean? didn't he say it referred to an easter egg? I don't really see how that's a clue to anything.
Posted at 4:11PM on Jul 28th 2008 by shannon
15. OK, so I think I found a different easteregg. Not sure if it's a good one - but whatever. The same song by the Smashing Pumpkins was used for the Batman and Robin movie (only a different version). Both are DC Comics! Could Snyder be doing a Batman& Robin movie or something?
Posted at 2:36AM on Jul 30th 2008 by shannon
16. I think that's been discussed as ironic use of music. Because Watchmen is a satire of "real" superheroes.
Posted at 9:11AM on Jul 30th 2008 by Christopher Campbell
1. Christopher are you really that desperate for material. Stop friggin masturbating the heck out of a-non issue. It's just one thing and nobody cares. Stop makign a fake issue out of it. I'm sure that if Spielberg thinks walkie-talies work better than they do. It's his right and you are a nobody.
Posted at 11:07PM on Jul 17th 2008 by Proman