Watchmen *spoilers* - Spoiler thread

[GORDON]

Ok... so they changed the ending, but I feel they kept the point they were making in the book.

I could have done with less glowing blue dong.

And the 5 year old boys in the seats right next to me seemed to like the prolonged sex scene.

[thibodeaux]

I could have done with less glowing blue dong.

OMFG I thought I was gonna claw my eyes out.

[Vince]

Ok... so they changed the ending, but I feel they kept the point they were making in the book.

The ending really didn't bother me as much as I thought it would (I assume you mean the lack of calamari?). Two things that bothered me about that were much smaller than I'd have thought. The "massive destruction" seemed a big sterile when compared to the squid. The bodies laying everywhere gave it more impact in the book. The second thing about it was that it seemed a bit "blame America" to have our "superman" go nuts and attack everyone, but then again that might be in perfect keeping for a cocky little puke like Adrian.

Oddly, the handling of Laurie's discovering her father's identity bothered me more than changing the ending. For me, that was the most powerfully written part of the book was the way in which the pieces finally came together for her. How her subconscience eventually gave way to all the clues she'd picked up on all along. They really kind of cheapened the whole thing with the "Do that voodoo you do so I can see all time at once so we can reduce 8% of the story line into a 60 second flashback in which the audience feels nothing."

I think it was the way John's blue dong hung that made it uncomfortable. It wasn't quite hanging right, which made me keep staring at it. But I got over that eventually. I mean, which of us hasn't had a hairless penis dangling in front of our faces for 162 minutes at some point in our lives, right?

Right?

I think the special DVD that comes out should feature Dr. Manahatten on the cover with a sticker right over his unit that says "Director's Cut"



Edited By Vince on 1236518595

[GORDON]

Vince, I'm positive you were staring at it, but not for the reasons you describe.

[thibodeaux]

Exactly how I feel:

'Watchmen' is a book that begs you to take its ideas seriously. And when you do, what you find is quite ugly.

"Moore hates heroes. Why he got into this line of work is something of a mystery. It's like someone who hates nature getting a gig with National Geographic. This hatred comes across on every page of Watchmen. He hates the heroes who gave up on heroism, painting them as impotent losers. He hates the heroes who kept fighting, making them into psychopaths and worse. But most of all, he hates the superhero, who he insists must be a vaguely-doltish uber-mensch. And more than anything else, in Moore's mind, heroes mean fascism.

"(Moore hates heroes so much that when he wrote Batman, he made the Joker out to be an innocent who was created by the Dark Knight.)

"So 'Watchmen' has all the Moore-hero themes: Governments are fascist; governments which are run by Republicans are really fascist; heroes who try to save the world are fascistic villains; heroes who try to stop the heroes trying to save the world are fascist thugs; etc. etc. etc. Orwell wrote that the term 'fascist' had become so overused that it had simply come to mean 'some one or thing I don't like.' But with Moore it's even worse: When he uses it, it doesn't really mean anything.

"I would argue that Moore's brand of dystopian misanthropy is wrong-headed and sophomoric and belied by 5,000 years of messy, imperfect, but ultimately glorious human history. But let's leave that aside for the moment: Watchmen's brand of dystopian misanthropy has been specifically refuted by events. It's one thing to worry about the evil U.S. policies of containment and mutually-assured destruction in 1986. It's one thing to paint a particular political party as being unconstitutionally obsessed with the possession of power and recklessly in pursuit of nuclear confrontation with an enemy who probably wasn't so bad.

"But as it turns out, that entire worldview was vitiated by events. In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War ended. Reagan's strategic policy decisions vis-a-vis the Soviet Union were completely vindicated. MAD proved to be an effective deterrent. The conflict between the East and West was settled without a shot being fired. And, perhaps most importantly, the Truman/Kennedy/Reagan view of communism as an insidious ideology which led to violent, repressive authoritarianism was borne out.

"So Moore was wrong. His fears were wrong. His warnings were wrong. His fundamental view of the world was wrong. And 'Watchmen,' in particular, is left as a bizarre cultural artifact. A pretentious piece of commentary masquerading as philosophy."

Liberalism means never having to say you're sorry.

[Vince]

Eh... I thought he had a view that pretty much everyone had the potential to suck and often did. And even the evil and vile ones had the potential for redemption (THAT'S the thing that Laurie's abridged flashback sequence lost... the little bit of redemption for Blake). In a lot of ways he's the Unibomber with comics instead of bombs.

I don't find him nearly as repulsive as I did Carl Seagan's tripe in Contact. I'm sure it was hard to type that novel up while felating the former Soviet Union.

[TPRJones]

I still haven't seen the movie yet. But I did just read the graphic novel.

I didn't like it.

My take away from it was that some completely worthless douche of a human being that the world would have been better off without for a very long time is unexpectedly killed. A whiny emo asshole with anger management issues decides to investigate. Lots of people moan and complain about how shitty life is. Some guy that's supposed to be super-intelligent hatches a stupidly naive plot that makes no damn sense but works anyway because the author seems to be not too bright. Everyone dies, except those that don't, and Suddenly Utopia.

There's one good thing about it, and that's Dr. Manhattan. He's an interesting character, and actually pretty well-written up until the end when he also becomes suddenly silly.



Edited By TPRJones on 1240952452

[GORDON]

But you've gotta admit, even your sarcastically abridged description of the movie was more interesting and complex than most movies, these days.

[TPRJones]

Indeed, but I haven't seen the movie yet. That's just the graphic novel version.

Oddly I'm still looking forward to seeing the movie. I suspect I'll enjoy it more, if only because it'll be shorter.

EDIT: Oh, and of course blue glowing schlong, that's always a plus.



Edited By TPRJones on 1240953757

[thibodeaux]

Alan Moore is a commie dickhead. End of story.

[GORDON]

Then there's that.