By now, every one of us has seen the teaser trailer for Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, and I think it’s safe to say, we’re lovin’ it, yes? I’ve watched it over and over again, and I’m so amazed at just how awesome it looks. You can tell Snyder really took care with this one, and in an interview with MTV, the director said, “I take this heart-attack serious, I really do.” We can tell!
Snyder revealed that the trailer has one whopping Easter egg in it that’s a nod to Steven Spielberg. At around 1:33 minutes into the trailer, Adrian Veidt (aka Ozymandias) fights off an assassin who’s pointing a … walkie talkie at him? The assassin actually has a gun and you can see it in subsequent frames, but in that particular shot, the gun was pointing at the audience, and the MPAA told Snyder that’s a no-no. So for the trailer, Snyder had his people erase the gun and replace it with a walkie talkie, just like Spielberg famously did in the re-release for E.T.
“It was a total Spielberg reference,” laughed Snyder. “Because I was like, ‘Well, it worked for Spielberg, so we should do that. Just put a walkie-talkie in his hand!’ … [The editors] were like, ‘But then you cut to a real gun!’ but I’m like, ‘No one will ever see that; they’ll think he had a gun in the other shot, so it’s fine.’”
Considering the gun was “pointing at the audience” for less than one second and it took the director to reveal this information to the thousands of online viewers, I’m amazed the MPAA even spotted it. But, I guess that’s there job, but still, it seems quite nitpicky (again, their job I suppose).
Check out the screenshot below. You can see the antennae on the walkie talkie! Also below is a video of Snyder’s interview with MTV.
Video
i WISH i had noticed that. Instead I noticed another spoiler. But it was mentioned on the blog here that not everyone is finished with the book so I’ll wait.