Naw, they went with “it’s inappropriate to replicate a recent attack on the United States in a fictitious movie during a time of war” – that’s pretty different from not caring about grossing people out if an otherwise vulgar scene has a narrative point. It’d be like throwing in the capsizing of an Arizona-type battleship into the Invisible Man’s Revenge in 1944.
People were bothered about some of Cloverfield’s imagery for the same reason. I personally wasn’t offended by that, and wouldn’t have been offended by something similar in Watchmen, but I certainly believe that Hayter and Synder felt differently, and didn’t accede to some external pressure. Everything they did in the picture evidences their willingness to ignore conventional commercial wisdom or external influences.
While you’re pondering that one, could you perhaps try and answer what was an honest question? I mean, it’s especially obvious on the artists sketch from one of the earlier chapters.
I think movie kinda ruined comics for me. (comics moved too slow) I am sure when I read this again down the line and don’t have the story fresh in my mind I won’t have that complaint. I liked a lot of stuff in the comics that was left out of the movie. (Especially the end part with Jon and Adrian) But, I think that Rorschach character was better portrayed in the movie. I guess, because it takes actually seeing his character and hearing him talk to empathize with him better. FYI, The blood stain is never shown as an ink blot in the comics. I thought it was a nice touch in the movie to add that. I also really liked Dan’s No! scream. It reinforced how shitty what just happened was, and I think it is important for Dan’s character to see that. This was his friend, that he just recently got back together with. They had spent years crime fighting together. To completely skip his reaction to Rorschach death does a dis-service to both Rorschach and Dan alike. Dan’s scream in the movie mirrored the thought in my mind. I couldn’t believe it just happened like that… and so fast. I also really liked how Dan lost his shit in the movie and began to beat up Adrian… who didn’t fight back. The movie had a lot more emotion in the ending scenes than in the comic.
Not to say that the comic is bad or anything, it is probably in the top 5 for comics I have ever read. Excellent story, great dialogue, and some pretty cool art. I look forward to reading it again in the future.
Your impression of this exactly mirrored mine. Having read the comic first, my reaction was quite frustrated by this. It felt lacking in closure, and compounded a feeling that the conclusion was wrapped up too quickly.
That they managed to make the event not merely palatable, but actually satisfying, was an impressive handling of a delicate problem - not changing it to a phony, ideal ending, but not leaving it hollow, either.
I’m surprised that nobody’s brought up Threat Construction (that’s the most encapsulated link I can find - my version was, you know, better) in reference to this discussion. That’s basically what Veidt was aiming for, and it was an analytical idea with some hold at the time, as evidenced the the tons of evidence I had for the kritik when I tried to run it in high school. You set up an external other as a threat to the safety of a domestic populace and then you use that threat to motivate the behavior of your people in a specific fashion. Veidt was simply trying to build a threat significant enough to motivate peaceful unity, which is one of the neat side effects of the process. The fact that we’re not the rooskies gives us a national identity, for example, so the fact that we’re not the giant death squid gives us all a global identity and an overwhelming threat to face together. In that regard, the Manhattan ending really doesn’t work as well, since it’s a decidedly concrete threat that we cannot possibly hope to oppose, while the squid showed up already dead, which implies that the whole teleportation-explosion event was a failed attack by an as-yet-unidentified extradimensional source that may or may not be superintelligent murder mollusks.
Maybe I spent too much time dealing with this crap and am overthinking things.
I look at it and come to the opposite conclusion: that the threat of alien squid leads to a dreadful, militaristic, and fascist earth, whereas the Dr. “resistance is futile” Manhattan leads to a peaceful existence.
Though I really think that neither would really lead to a permanent change in behaviour, and that we’d be back at each others’ throats in no time :)
Saw this last night. Overall I don’t know how much closer you could make a film to the comic and not have it be 5 hours long and slow. Though by speeding it up you lose the impact of a lot of scenes in the comic … in particular The Rape, Comedian killing the Vietnamese woman, and the scenes in between Jupiter and her daughter were presented too fast.
As for the ending, I liked it better. I bet Alan Moore is mad, but it’s better. Having the threat being a known force that people consider a God and to have him sacrifice himself and disappear is much tighter. Sure, the whole psychic blast alien thing is more shocking, but it would come off a bit weird on the big screen. In this ending you get the sacrifice of Dr. M and the silence of the conspirators, plus the death of uncompromising Rorschach.
As to the long term effect, I think Veidt’s plan was always to avert nuclear holocaust. It was to buy time. His plan was never to make a world peace that lasted forever, just to sacrifice a few millions for the lives of billions and bring a halt to nuclear armageddon . . . which is a huge feat in of itself.
Man, is Rorschach’s costume the best superhero costume ever? I love his outfit. I don’t remember his mask changing like that in the book (maybe I wasn’t paying attention) but the effect on screen was great.
My favorite part of the movie is now when somebody asks me what time it is… I can say something that makes me laugh everytime.
Them: What time is it?
Me: (In my best crudup impersonation) Time is relative. A symbolic clock is as nourishing to the intellect as a photograph of oxygen to a drowning man. There is no future. There is no past. Do you see? Time is simultaneous… if only you could see time the way I do…
