Movie: Watchmen

[commonsense]

*************************************************
SPOILER ALERT :
*************************************************

***************************************************
DO NOT READ UNLESS ALREADY SEEN
OR HAVE NO INTENTION OF SEEING
***************************************************


I'm not particularly a fan of the "comic book", super hero, or even the science fiction genres, unless they are intended to convey some kind of moralistic or philosophical message.

The trailers to this film intrigued me with their recurring emphasis on the slogans

"Who's watching the watchers?" and
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely"


The film is about superheroes who are banned from vigilantism by the goverment because of their past excesses and their personal lives as they cope with their retirements, their personal reflections on their lives or their new exploits.

Dr. Manhattan was altered by an atomic experiment gone wrong and becomes supernaturally powerful and no longer is limited (as humans are) to perceiving time as linear. He has a absolutist view for the evolution of humanity, actually, the universe itself, and becomes increasingly distant and absorbed into figuring it out.

The rest of the characters are human with awesome fighting skills, intelligence and cunning.

Adrian Veidt, known as the worlds smartest man, becomes a media and corporate darling and spends his retirement expanding his commercial empire.

The Night Owl is a crime fighter who is into high tech gadgets.
He is good, decent, a bit nerdy but also tough and smart. He seems like he "would go along to get along" because he never questions his forced retirement by the government even though he was not corrupted by the possibilities of his own capabilities, and does not question the Keene Act court ruling forcing him into retirement even though he could have done a lot of good continuing to fight crime.

The Comedian is a cold-blooded killer who commits atrocities and goes off the deep end after the U.S. govt employs him to "win" the Vietnam conflict (The story is not historically accurate but that does not detract from it). He is in conflict over his use of his personal power and his morality, which leaves him troubled and depressed and he claims "life is a joke".

Silk Spectre is a hot female who represents human emotion and social nature. She is easily duped because she views life emotionally, not logically.

Rorschach is an interesting character because he has been downtrodden all his life and subjected to the worst in human nature. His response is to be equally brutal in response to those who provoke him. His rough life make him extremely tough and unflinching, but he is fair and just and does strive to further humanity as well as his own self-interest at the same time by pursuing honesty and truth.

Why I liked the movie:

The movie was long, but not drudgery to watch. There were a few inspirational moments when the movie could have ended on a positive note but went on to an even more satisfying ending.

I liked the characters and the plot because it seemed a parallel for human societal evolution and even current events.

Adrian Veidt was a kind of Al Gore character who duped the masses into thinking he was humanitarian, became a super celebrity on the world stage and in media, and his self-interested commercial exploits were overlooked by they media because he had an obstensibly humanitarian message, but behind the scenes, was completely narcissistic conspiring with technological and corporate efforts to destroy half the world "for its own good" but could never see the fact that he was really self-motivated and no totalitarian plan could ever not be selfish by its very nature, since he was the one pulling the strings....

Rorschach represented the Libertarian spirit and logic among men because, true, while he was human, and capable of both good and evil, his enlightened self-interest led him to humanitarian acts and justice against evil because he had a deep sense of fairness and did not tolerate "power corrupting" those with the power. It is he who investigates the danger that the retired superheroes are in as they turn up assassinated (as it turns out) by Veidt because he doesnt want any competion or interference as he enacts his powermad totalitarian schemes.

The Night Owl and Silky fall in love and kind of represent clueless libtards who don't really think too deeply about the consequences of letting guys like Veidt run things "for their own good" and basically see the world with naive emotion instead of common sense and a historical perspective of what power does.

I think this movie was well timed to today's occurrences with no oversight or transparency of not just what the Obama administration is doing to facilitate the WorldBank looting the United States, but how power and wealth are becoming super concentrated in a tiny number of global interests.





Oh! The conclusion: The evil totalitarians win out and subjugate the world under their phony one-world government, and take all the wealth and power among a few, waaay more concentrated than it ever was under the old system with no hope of social mobility... but the movie does leave a spark that the human spirit to be free, although it may be strongly suppressed for millennia under the New World Order, and humanity may evolve (devolve) into something far more complacent and different, even though the evil world-dominance socialists do win, there is still a sliver of hope that the human libertarian spirit may emerge somewhere in the universe once again.

Anyone else see similar parallels?

[thebuescherman]

Nite Owl (I think how it appears in the comic), was clueless and a pawn. He is willing to accept millions of deaths because someone tells him too. He goes from hatred of Veidt to tolerance in a matter of seconds. Silk Spectre was much the same, and she is equally weak.

I also found Rorschach to be the most intriguing character. He never backs down from his ideals, and stays true to them to the very end. While brutal at times, he is the most heroic of them all. Incorruptible.

[commonsense]

Cool. So I guess I hadn't read into it more than what was really there.
I had never heard of this story before, I liked the trailer played before a previous movie and had to see it.

The Veidt character fits this quote exactly:



Barry Goldwater:

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth.

And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies.

Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.

[Morality Games]

Nite Owl (I think how it appears in the comic), was clueless and a pawn. He is willing to accept millions of deaths because someone tells him too. He goes from hatred of Veidt to tolerance in a matter of seconds. Silk Spectre was much the same, and she is equally weak.

They are also quite typical of most people. Preventing millions of deaths was their original goal. Once that became impossible, they opted for the next best thing, which was exploiting the tragedy to allow for a world where nuclear war and the annihilation of humanity was no longer a possibility.

I also found Rorschach to be the most intriguing character. He never backs down from his ideals, and stays true to them to the very end. While brutal at times, he is the most heroic of them all. Incorruptible.

Rorschach is the most intriguing character, but his "heroism", like everybody else's, was for his own satisfaction more than any general welfare. The main point of Watchmen is that no one is heroic. The people who accomplish good things do so through deplorable methods, the people who do heroic things are ineffective and self-serving. For all his dedication and principles, what could Rorschach have ever done to save the human race from nuclear war? Silk Specte wore a costume to make her Mom happy, the Comedian did it for the laughs and the money, Nite Owl did it because it made him feel important, and Rorschach did it to empower himself.

Indeed, the one with the least selfishness was Veidit, who distanced himself from the same human traits everybody else is able to indulge in in order to save them.

[Disinformant]

total new world order propaganda

[Tycoon]

But in the movie Adrien was right. He save many more lives than were lost by his scheme.

[Disinformant]

no he didnt, there was never a real nuclear threat in the first place. you realize this movie is about 9/11 right?

[Morality Games]

no he didnt, there was never a real nuclear threat in the first place. you realize this movie is about 9/11 right?

While I'm willing to believe The Dark Knight is about the war on terrorism, I don't see how a straightforward adaption of a comic book from the 80s relates to 9/11.

But in the movie Adrien was right. He save many more lives than were lost by his scheme

Which in the comic book was actually sort of the point -- the Watchmen world is intended to be an approximation of the real world. The driving question behind the story's creation was, "What would people who dressed up in costumes and fought crime be like in the real world?" In the 80s, a typical theme involved heroes like Batman and Superman uniting to save the world from nuclear holocaust or some other doomsday event -- it is no coincidence that in Watchmen, which is supposed to be an inversion of the Western superhero genre, Ozymandias is the one who fulfills the role of Batman and Superman. Ozymandias is meant to be taken as a hero, the only kind of hero who can exist in the real world -- someone who sacrifices much to save much more.

[commonsense]

Quote by: Disinformant
no he didnt, there was never a real nuclear threat in the first place. you realize this movie is about 9/11 right?

Maybe it was about 9/11 only in the general idea of revealing through its plot what the govt/media/corporate collusion does behind the scenes, like how Bush and company had the "Patriot" Act all 1,000's of pages of it written up in advance of the attacks in order to create a new armed angency, "Homeland Security" in order to "respond" to it...
OR
How the Obama Cabal follows Rahm Emanuel's policy of "Never letting a crisis go to waste... in order to exploit it to "make big changes" like print money in the trillions for his banking and corporate masters.

Does Art imitate Life or does Fiction follow form?

...I know one thing:

What the Obama Cabal is up to already makes Dr. Manhattan, Adrien Veidt, Bushes I&II, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, the Pope, and the Marquis DeSade all look like pikers!

[Morality Games]

It wasn't about 9/11 at all -- at all. Aside from the fact they reduced the content and tweaked the ending very slightly to make it more appreciable to non-comic book readers, it was almost a point for point an adaption of the comic book. The director's cut version will include some of the lost content, making it even more like the comic book. In fact, those critics who did not like the movie, did not like it because it did not creatively re-interpret Watchmen to reflect contemporary events the same way V for Vendetta did. It was a straightforward adaption. Therefore the movie was about the the writer's perceived 'corruption' of society and politics in the 80s, upsetting the norms of the superhero genre, the existentialism/nihilism of the human condition, and the history and dangers of the Cold War -- with Rorschach's existentialism/nihilism getting de-emphasized in favor of action, but the Comedian's nihilism being almost fully preserved.

Changes to the ending:

In the movie, Ozymandias frames Dr. Manhattan for destroying a large section of New York. In the book, he has his scientists genetically engineer a weird creature, then causes it to self-destruct -- making everybody think the world is under attack by aliens and forcing the world's superpowers to unite. Snyder probably changed this because he thought it was a little too awkward for a movie script.

In the movie, Nite Owl sees Dr. Manhattan kill Rorschach, is devastated, and beats up Ozymandias. In the book, Nite Owl doesn't know what happens to Rorschach and doesn't beat up Ozymandias. This was changed to better demonstrate the friendship between Nite Owl and Rorschach.

[Disinformant]

yes, it went from aliens to nuclear explosions. its a metaphor for false-flag terrorism: which is what 9/11 was. thats all i'm saying, think about operation northwoods and other attempts to attack America the government/military had designed by this time. Not to mention all the false-flag terror ops going on. I didn't mean to say this was written about 9/11 as a metaphor, I meant its the same concept, false flag terror

[asteroid777]

*************************************************
SPOILER ALERT :
*************************************************

***************************************************
DO NOT READ UNLESS ALREADY SEEN
OR HAVE NO INTENTION OF SEEING
***************************************************


I'm not particularly a fan of the "comic book", super hero, or even the science fiction genres, unless they are intended to convey some kind of moralistic or philosophical message.

The trailers to this film intrigued me with their recurring emphasis on the slogans

"Who's watching the watchers?" and
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely"


The film is about superheroes who are banned from vigilantism by the goverment because of their past excesses and their personal lives as they cope with their retirements, their personal reflections on their lives or their new exploits.

Dr. Manhattan was altered by an atomic experiment gone wrong and becomes supernaturally powerful and no longer is limited (as humans are) to perceiving time as linear. He has a absolutist view for the evolution of humanity, actually, the universe itself, and becomes increasingly distant and absorbed into figuring it out.

The rest of the characters are human with awesome fighting skills, intelligence and cunning.

Adrian Veidt, known as the worlds smartest man, becomes a media and corporate darling and spends his retirement expanding his commercial empire.

The Night Owl is a crime fighter who is into high tech gadgets.
He is good, decent, a bit nerdy but also tough and smart. He seems like he "would go along to get along" because he never questions his forced retirement by the government even though he was not corrupted by the possibilities of his own capabilities, and does not question the Keene Act court ruling forcing him into retirement even though he could have done a lot of good continuing to fight crime.

The Comedian is a cold-blooded killer who commits atrocities and goes off the deep end after the U.S. govt employs him to "win" the Vietnam conflict (The story is not historically accurate but that does not detract from it). He is in conflict over his use of his personal power and his morality, which leaves him troubled and depressed and he claims "life is a joke".

Silk Spectre is a hot female who represents human emotion and social nature. She is easily duped because she views life emotionally, not logically.

Rorschach is an interesting character because he has been downtrodden all his life and subjected to the worst in human nature. His response is to be equally brutal in response to those who provoke him. His rough life make him extremely tough and unflinching, but he is fair and just and does strive to further humanity as well as his own self-interest at the same time by pursuing honesty and truth.

Why I liked the movie:

The movie was long, but not drudgery to watch. There were a few inspirational moments when the movie could have ended on a positive note but went on to an even more satisfying ending.

I liked the characters and the plot because it seemed a parallel for human societal evolution and even current events.

Adrian Veidt was a kind of Al Gore character who duped the masses into thinking he was humanitarian, became a super celebrity on the world stage and in media, and his self-interested commercial exploits were overlooked by they media because he had an obstensibly humanitarian message, but behind the scenes, was completely narcissistic conspiring with technological and corporate efforts to destroy half the world "for its own good" but could never see the fact that he was really self-motivated and no totalitarian plan could ever not be selfish by its very nature, since he was the one pulling the strings....

Rorschach represented the Libertarian spirit and logic among men because, true, while he was human, and capable of both good and evil, his enlightened self-interest led him to humanitarian acts and justice against evil because he had a deep sense of fairness and did not tolerate "power corrupting" those with the power. It is he who investigates the danger that the retired superheroes are in as they turn up assassinated (as it turns out) by Veidt because he doesnt want any competion or interference as he enacts his powermad totalitarian schemes.

The Night Owl and Silky fall in love and kind of represent clueless libtards who don't really think too deeply about the consequences of letting guys like Veidt run things "for their own good" and basically see the world with naive emotion instead of common sense and a historical perspective of what power does.

I think this movie was well timed to today's occurrences with no oversight or transparency of not just what the Obama administration is doing to facilitate the WorldBank looting the United States, but how power and wealth are becoming super concentrated in a tiny number of global interests.





Oh! The conclusion: The evil totalitarians win out and subjugate the world under their phony one-world government, and take all the wealth and power among a few, waaay more concentrated than it ever was under the old system with no hope of social mobility... but the movie does leave a spark that the human spirit to be free, although it may be strongly suppressed for millennia under the New World Order, and humanity may evolve (devolve) into something far more complacent and different, even though the evil world-dominance socialists do win, there is still a sliver of hope that the human libertarian spirit may emerge somewhere in the universe once again.

Anyone else see similar parallels?

yeah, it is a thinly veiled version of modern day reality coming to a town near you - wait! it IS in a town near you - you are in it.