So dooming him to a slow painful death is ok, but instant liquefaction is just too mean? He dealt with Rorschach in a way that Rorschach would understand. No compromise, no ambiguity. Either don't kill him, or kill him. He did the latter.
^I read the graphic novel kinda quickly and I didn't pick up on all the visual stuff. (It's a side effect of me mostly being used to reading prose.)
That's why I've suggested not reading through it quickly. I got a few "flames" a few posts back on this topic for suggesting that the way to read the story is to read each chapter... in depth... then go back, a couple of days later, and read it over again, in depth... and then to read the "supplemental" stuff... and only then go on to the next chapter. The little things like Veidt's perfumes and colognes being in virtually every scene, for instance... you have to wonder if there was anything fishy about that. I mean, if the guy is selling, for all practical purposes, all the perfume being used in the city... what happens if he starts putting a hallucinogenic into it at some point, just to help with the whole illusion bit for the "big show" he's got planned? Notice the changes after the "event" versus before the event. There's a LOT of stuff that's different. Notice the omnipresent geodesic domes throughout New York City. That's not just tossed in, it's addressed, but in very subtle ways. Note the stuff in the background shots when you see the kid and the magazine vendor. They're sitting right outside the "Institute for Transdimensional Studies." So the background shots are at least as interesting as the foreground... especially when compared to some of the shots on the island. The thing is, this is a remarkably rich, well-thought-through story on all levels. I know that huge amounts of that will inevitably be lost, just by virtue of the story being pared down to 2 hours. But it's all still in the book... so TAKE YOUR TIME, and read it slowly and carefully... and be prepared to go back later and catch things you'd never noticed the first time (or two, or three).
^I will when & if I have the inclination to thrust myself into the story more thoroughly. I have no doubt that there is a lot of depth there to be explored. Personally, I was more interested in getting the story itself than in soaking up all of the visual details.
Trouble is, the story is IN the visual details. The dialogue only tells part of it. If you don't take in the whole thing, you're missing a lot of what's really happening.
Which was the point I was trying to make, exactly. Part of what makes Watchmen unusual is not that there's a lot of detail there, but that ALL of the detail is there for a purpose. Some books will put in friends of the artist in background scenes... "Easter eggs" or whatever... but there's nothing like that in Watchmen as far as I can determine. Everything... every single line, every color choice, every "camera perspective" ... ALL OF IT... its there due to a well-thought-through process. It all has meaning. That's why some of us... and mainly those who are really big fans of the story... are "bugged" by what might seem to other folks to be "trivial changes." And why the suggestions of things like "Well, these folks are heroes so they need to be bad-asses" just rubs SOOOOOO wrongly. The fact that Dan Dreiberg isn't "classically heroic" is CENTRAL to who this guy is. Making him fit and "bad-ass" totally changes the character. The's a 50-ish guy with a spare timre and a receding hairline dreaming of his "glory days." In "real world" terms, he's the guy who was the star quarterback in high school but runs the corner grocery today... Not to say that this movie isn't gonna be good... just that it's, at best, a "Cliff's Notes" version of the story and you'll be missing a LOT. It's still better to get the whole story... which means looking at all the little details.
We're not saying that he should be fit (which he is in the comic because he was QUITE the fighter) we're just saying that if a guy or a girl would be a real life super hero they wouldn't dress like cosplayers, they'd dress so they look bad ass
[SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY] Dr. Manhattan kills Rorscach, rather than what you suggest, because That Is What Is Supposed To Happen. Osterman, despite all of his awesome powers, is a prisoner of predestination. (In fact, actually, because of them.)
Well it doesn't give much to the debate if every single event is explained with "Because that's what is supposed to happen"
Actually, he was suffering from Veidt's tachyons at that point, so he didn't know what was "supposed" to happen.
I'm not sure what you mean about "every event"--we're just talking about Dr. Manhattan here--but I think there's plenty to debate, not the least of which is predestination vs. free will. In fact, though Osterman has virtually removed himself from humankind, it's his underlying humanity--which he could never fully get rid of, that's why he's still staring at old photographs in the desert--that leads him to surrender to predestination. Otherwise, if an individual that powerful actually exercised free will, what kind of sheer and utter catastrophe could result? (And I think that tachyon thing was over and done with by the time he blows Rorschach to atoms; that's why he's no longer saying dialog out of order, etc.)
There's no indication that Veidt had turned them off, just that Doc had managed to pull himself together (literally and figuratively) by then. Of course, he might have destroyed the source before making his dramatic reappearance. There's no indication of predestination at work. He just approved of the results of Veidt's plan, as they gave him the opportunity to part ways with the human race without the guilt of having started a nuclear war by doing so. Quite simple, and pretty much spelled out in the story.
^^^Yep, that's it pretty much. When you stop to think, a guy dumping his high mileage girl friend for an underage chick doesn't violate free will either---the guy did what he wanted. I suppose getting to blame predestination is a good trick. The issues of free will and predestination are confused by conflating the desire to conceive onself as self-determined pure intellect and the desire for a world amenable to the will.
Exactly correct. Either Jon Osterman is a "god" and so far beyond mere mortal conception that he doesn't belong here anymore (which is his own idea, it seems), or he's a flawed mortal human being who's been given power greater than what any mere human should ever have, and his excuse for his own "all too human" misdeeds tends to be "well, I'm better than you, you wouldn't understand." Honestly, I see it as being the latter, more than the former. And that's why, when push comes to shove, I tend to think of him as the "real" villain of the story... and despite the obvious fact that Veidt does some "very bad things (tm)" I find myself pretty much in agreement regarding his position regarding Osterman. I just think that his solution is, at best, a "patch" and (like all lies) is likely to cause even more trouble down the road. The only way for the whole situation to be redeemed would be for Veidt to eventually reveal his own complicity in things, and to take the heat for it, once Osterman is long gone. But that's not his way, is it?
I tend to think that Doc is so far above us that we can't understand his perspective, hence I don't try to read too much into the predestination stuff. When he doesn't stop Kennedy from being killed, it's because the only reason he might have is because he foresaw it, and therefore it's supposed to happen without his interference. But when it comes to his own actions, just because he knows what he's destined to do at one point in time doesn't mean that he isn't actually making a decision later on when it comes to pass. He's just operating on a different level that hurts our heads. And Doc was also only a patch...an argument made both by Glass's book and by Ozy's projections that, even had Doc not left, nuclear war was in the forecast for the '90s.
And article here about Alan Moore's views on the movie and movies in general http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/09/alan-moore-on-w.html I love some of his works, but Christ this guy needs to lighten up a bit