WATCHMEN Movie Discussion (SPOILERS allowed)!

[Entropy]

Both of these answers skirt the problem though. He's capable of anything based on the great lengths in which they go to describing his intellect. I agree fear is a very powerful tool, but why is it that the smartest human on the planet can't come up with a better solution than actually killing millions of people? It's absurd and accepted because it's what Moore gave us. Surely a man that can create life and manipulate a god could come up with a way to control the situation without destroying so many lives. The movie just makes this problem I have even worse because anyway you slice it there is no way blame on Dr. M would solve the problem. You can join forces to fight an alien or squid invasion. No matter how hard you try you can't join forces to fight a god, even when your planets smartest man can't come up with a way to defeat him, not to mention he's an American which blame would eventually fall back on. Hell he could sit on Mars and destroy existence, what is world unity going to do to stop that?

Like what? Have the squid show up but not kill anyone? Not sure if that would have shocked enough or provided enough of a legitimate threat to stop the doomsday clock.

But from a storytelling point of view, the death of millions at the hand of one of its heroes and protectors is quite necessary and very much at the heart of the story. The very difficult question of how much evil and harm are you willing to do or how much of a monster are you willing to become (Ozy, Comedian, Rorschach) in order to do good? The novel keeps upping the anty on that question from the personal destruction of self to the destruction of millions of lives.

 

[barbelith]

Well, when compared to mainstream superhero movies such as spiderman and xmen, it is much more violent and gorey (the cleaver and jail scene), has nudity in it, both male and female, has a pretty long sex scene,clear depictions of prostitution, same gender relationsips, and a rape scene. need anyting else or is that good?

None of that qualifies, actually. All standard for a mainstream R movie. Nothing new or unusual there.

And is it 150 million or 200 million??? you keep stating different figures.

$150 million for production and $50 million for marketing.

Both of these answers skirt the problem though. He's capable of anything based on the great lengths in which they go to describing his intellect. I agree fear is a very powerful tool, but why is it that the smartest human on the planet can't come up with a better solution than actually killing millions of people?

I think we find our answer by considering the entire point of Watchmen as a book. Alan Moore wanted to eviscerate every last atom of superhero comics. When you get the smartest guy in the world saving the world by killing millions of people ... when that's literally the best anyone can think of ... you pretty much see right there the idiocy of superhero adventuring summed up and flushed down the toilet. Remember, Alan Moore hates your comics and he hates you for reading them. It's all in there. The biggest joke of all is that the geeks keep going to the movie and buying the dolls. He's making fun of all of it.

 

[The Mike]

Both of these answers skirt the problem though. He's capable of anything based on the great lengths in which they go to describing his intellect. I agree fear is a very powerful tool, but why is it that the smartest human on the planet can't come up with a better solution than actually killing millions of people? It's absurd and accepted because it's what Moore gave us. Surely a man that can create life and manipulate a god could come up with a way to control the situation without destroying so many lives. The movie just makes this problem I have even worse because anyway you slice it there is no way blame on Dr. M would solve the problem. You can join forces to fight an alien or squid invasion. No matter how hard you try you can't join forces to fight a god, even when your planets smartest man can't come up with a way to defeat him, not to mention he's an American which blame would eventually fall back on. Hell he could sit on Mars and destroy existence, what is world unity going to do to stop that?

Okay a lot of things here. Yes Ozy is capable of more, but he doesn't do that. Why? Its the irony surrounding his decisions, he is willing to sacrifice hundreds of lives in the grand scheme of things instead of looking for a safe, neutral outlook. For someone so refined and so dignified, he comes up with a plan that barbarians used, kill a few to scare a larger group. To me it was always the idea that he was so smart and so "above" us all but resorts to the most simple of plans. Its the kink in his system to look at history to live his life, at the ancient who were undergoing a different way of life.

As for the film, his plan was perfect in the sense that it'd exile Manhattan for good. The world can plan to fight him. The world can stock pile weapons together in case of the attack. The thing is, it'd never come. He would leave our world for good because they are planning for an attack that never comes. If he is seen again then they have to exercise their plans and obviously fail and Manhattan vaporizes a ton of people. If he is seen again he'd have to allow himself to be killed or even the perception of it and then there would be no need to ban together and the world reverts to the status quo. So the obvious answer is he disappears, never to return so the world continues planning for a looming threat that isn't actually there. The plan is brilliant in the sense that it tricks the world into this idea.

Would work brilliantly because the world plans for things that never happen many times over. In fact in California we have been preparing for another "Big Earthquake" since 1989, not to mention before that it was 1908. Same principle here.

Then again....Ozy the smartest person in the world didn't account for Rorschach's journal. The real question is whether Manhattan couldn't see it due to the interference or if in allowing it to exist his killing of Rorschach was to give his journal a martyr quality which society usually pays more attention to.

 

[Entropy]

The real question is whether Manhattan couldn't see it due to the interference or if in allowing it to exist his killing of Rorschach was to give his journal a martyr quality which society usually pays more attention to.

Or because he only sees his own future and and has no further contact with humanity he doesn't see the Journal surfacing. Even if published, it's a nice fantasy about "the truth" but it's not likely the world would pay much attention to some crackpot article.

 

[barbelith]

As for the film, his plan was perfect in the sense that it'd exile Manhattan for good. The world can plan to fight him. The world can stock pile weapons together in case of the attack. The thing is, it'd never come. He would leave our world for good because they are planning for an attack that never comes. If he is seen again then they have to exercise their plans and obviously fail and Manhattan vaporizes a ton of people. If he is seen again he'd have to allow himself to be killed or even the perception of it and then there would be no need to ban together and the world reverts to the status quo. So the obvious answer is he disappears, never to return so the world continues planning for a looming threat that isn't actually there. The plan is brilliant in the sense that it tricks the world into this idea.

For me this is the second reason the movie plan is even more absurd than the squid. Leaving aside for a moment the astronomical likelihood the attacks wouldn't be blamed on us despite New York since Dr Manhattan was our weapon, the entire plan hinges on Adrian being able to convince Jon to stay away after the detonations. But it's only Laurie who convinces him to worry about humanity's fate - in the original plan, there's no mechanism to prevent Jon from waltzing back from Mars in a couple of weeks and blowing the conspiracy wide open!

 

[YoNoSe]

in the original plan, there's no mechanism to prevent Jon from waltzing back from Mars in a couple of weeks and blowing the conspiracy wide open!

Isn't the idea that the cancer hoax will be the final push towards breaking Jon's connection with humanity? Therefore he wouldn't care about the death, the conspiracy, or anything else on Earth.

 

[The Mike]

That was the original plan. In the aftermath, Jon still leaves because its the only logical move...whether you chalk it up to caring about humanity again so he has to leave or you chalk it up to him seeing this deciding "screw humanity" he still leaves to allow the world to deal with Veidt's plan no matter the outcome.

 

[barbelith]

Isn't the idea that the cancer hoax will be the final push towards breaking Jon's connection with humanity? Therefore he wouldn't care about the death, the conspiracy, or anything else on Earth.

I find it difficult to believe Adrian doesn't anticipate Laurie being able to convince Jon to return - and indeed she does. All he has to do is ensure Jon stays away long enough to pull off his plan. This works in the book because it doesn't matter if Jon returns. In the movie it becomes a significant plot hole. Ultimately Jon leaves because it's in the best interest of humanity ... something only Laurie was able to convince him mattered. So it's something of a Catch 22 there.

Not exactly an airtight plot from the world's smartest man.

 

[YoNoSe]

I just mean, from the movie logic, Adrienne is positive about Jon's state of mind and fully believes that his plan will work. It's pretty consistent with his character that he wouldn't see the need for a backup plan in case Jon has second thoughts.
He's obviously beyond the point of second guessing his own logic if he's willing to sacrifice millions of lives for his scheme.

 

[barbelith]

I just mean, from the movie logic, Adrienne is positive about Jon's state of mind and fully believes that his plan will work. It's pretty consistent with his character that he wouldn't see the need for a backup plan in case Jon has second thoughts.

Except that Adrian knows about Laurie. The cancer scenario is designed to drive Jon away but there's no reason to believe he isn't going to cool down and return because of her. In the book it doesn't matter, because the plan doesn't rely on Jon in any way. In the film, Adrian has to keep Jon away from Earth forever. But he has no real plan for this, and ironically the thing that unexpectedly brings Jon back is the same thing that finally makes him leave forever. It doesn't quite add up, but I can see why some viewers would suspend their disbelief to make it work for them.

 

[HdoubleD]

None of that qualifies, actually. All standard for a mainstream R movie. Nothing new or unusual there.



$150 million for production and $50 million for marketing.



I think we find our answer by considering the entire point of Watchmen as a book. Alan Moore wanted to eviscerate every last atom of superhero comics. When you get the smartest guy in the world saving the world by killing millions of people ... when that's literally the best anyone can think of ... you pretty much see right there the idiocy of superhero adventuring summed up and flushed down the toilet. Remember, Alan Moore hates your comics and he hates you for reading them. It's all in there. The biggest joke of all is that the geeks keep going to the movie and buying the dolls. He's making fun of all of it.

But i said that they are not standard for for a "mainstream superhero movie" which it definetly isnt, not a general rated r movie did i?? your replying to something and negating someting i didnt even state. honestly im done with this discourse because talking to mike tyson would make more sense then continuing with you, no disrespect...

 

[HdoubleD]

I'd like to hear a Watchmen lovers take on this please. It's something that's always bothered me about the story when originally reading the graphic novel, and really bothered me with the way they ended the film even more so (which by the way, no matter what anyone says the ending just doesn't work). Why and how is that the smartest man on the planet (Ozy) a man capable of creating life, building an empire around himself, capable of decieving a god, able to create perhaps what in real life would be the most ridiculously complicated scheme of all time and pull it off couldn't come up with a better idea of uniting the world than by killing millions of people. That's just for the books ending. It makes it even worse when looked at along with the movies misfire of an ending.

I think that he chose such a barbaric plot because he was a man deeply rooted in antiquity. He based his training, his philosophy, hell his whole life on his idol, alexander. Back then it ment nothing to just slaughter a whole country on his way to the conquest of the entire known world, aslong as that ment that land would be claimed for Alexandre of macedonia (the greater good in his eyes.) This includes the death of children, rape of women and so on. When you think about it, slaugtering millions of people is justified because its for a greater good, which to alexanders was the prosperity of his empire, but to ozy was peace bewteen the superpowers.

 

[BadMoon]

Alex Jones Watchmen review

New World Order Propaganda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNR3tm1ynEE

part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxjeJvOiQeg

part 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcelc3Txd1g&feature=related

Why can't you think for yourself? You always come in with these bold statements then post a youtube video of an idiot. His initial argument doesn't even make sense because that wasn't even the original cover. Sorry but this is just nuts. I wish everyone in this thread would take their time and listen to this crap.

 

[BadMoon]

Why can't you think for yourself? You always come in with these bold statements then post a youtube video of an idiot. His initial argument doesn't even make sense because that wasn't even the original cover. Sorry but this is just nuts. I wish everyone in this thread would take their time and listen to this crap.

I also like the comments on youtube.

 

[BadMoon]

I am actually now laughing at this guy. At first I was disgusted at his stupidity now I just find it flat out funny! OMG! Guys please watch this. Open your minds.

 

[IrishJedi]

Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.

 

[BadMoon]

Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.

Irish are you sure that that was not a hoax?

 

[BadMoon]

Honestly Teemu rather than get mad at you stupidity I will just feel bad for you.

 

[Darklord Dave]

Remember, Alan Moore hates your comics and he hates you for reading them. It's all in there. The biggest joke of all is that the geeks keep going to the movie and buying the dolls. He's making fun of all of it.

Ever read Tom Strong? - not an ounce of irony unless it's so ironic it comes around full circle to being sincere. He took apart the superhero with Watchmen and Miracle Man - but he does seem to have a certain enjoyment and respect for the genre.

 

[wofford29]

So maybe if Al Gore manufactures the worlds largest storm and kills millions in the name of global warming we can blame it all on GW and the US, Iran, and N. Korea will all unite for world peace.