Watchmen Trailer Online

[Bad Bishop]

I think it's a cool thing they made the characters look more bad ass, think about it! They are supposed to look like bad ass super heroes, not insecure guys/girls. Even though they might be insecure and doubtful their appearance should always be that of the bad ass super hero. It's a great move by the director.

No... they're not. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE STORY... what if "real people" in the "real world" did this stuff.

I'm guessing, from your comment, that you've never read the original story... or if you have, it was recent.

... No, these people are NOT supposed to be "bad ass superheroes." And if you really think that, you have NO IDEA who these people are supposed to be. And YOU are the sort of person who Alan Moore has been afraid would get ahold of his work and turn it into something totally different than what it is SUPPOSED to be.

Well, since Alan Moore is clearly a weirdo on the edge of mental illness, his opinion isn't worth all that much.

Go read "Watchmen." Seriously... read it. And don't rush through it... take your time, read everything (including all of the prose stuff). Read each chapter, then go back and read that chapter at least once more (including all the prose), before you go on to the next chapter.

I'm not "flaming" you... I'm telling you that your statement shows that you either know nothing about the story of "Watchmen" or you know just almost nothing about it. But if you're really interested... there's an easy way to fix that!

Implying that someone doesn't know how to read might well be considered flaming. But your understated approach probably won't invite any action from the moderators.

 

[JoeZhang]

Well, since Alan Moore is clearly a weirdo on the edge of mental illness, his opinion isn't worth all that much.

Yeah what would the author know?

If this is a stand-up act,you need to get better gags.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I was wondering exactly what point Bad Bishop was trying to make. The author's opinion is irrelevant? So, why would you bother with his work at all? Doesn't seem to make much sense...

 

[Bad Bishop]

Well, since Alan Moore is clearly a weirdo on the edge of mental illness, his opinion isn't worth all that much.

Yeah what would the author know?

If this is a stand-up act, you need to get better gags.

JoeZhang, if that's supposed to refute my comment, I would suggest that you didn't bring your A-game today.

I was wondering exactly what point Bad Bishop was trying to make. The author's opinion is irrelevant? So, why would you bother with his work at all? Doesn't seem to make much sense...

Alan Moore is a creative genius in his field. But his paranoid positions vis-a-vis publishers or the film industry are extreme and unreasonable. Still, this doesn't mean we should not enjoy his past work.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Well, since Alan Moore is clearly a weirdo on the edge of mental illness, his opinion isn't worth all that much.

You can tell a lot about someone by how they express themself. I know all the garbage I keep reading about Alan Moore, but having read his interviews, I'm not entirely sure that half of that stuff isn't entirely "tongue-in-cheek."

Remember the "cargo cult" myth from the asian island chains? Supposedly, airplanes were "gods" to the stupid locals? It turns out that this wasn't true at all... it was the locals (who, while not being technology superior, were every bit as intellectually capable as the western "Gods" and who had more exposure to the world than the arrogant bozos visiting thought they had!) who were playing a JOKE on the would-be "saviors" of those "poor savages." Despite the fact that this whole "cargo cult" thing has been pretty much totally discredited today, there are still folks who cling to it as though it's somehow "fact" anyway.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Moore isn't playing the same sort of game. If people expect you to be a nutcase, by all means, encourage their idiocy! It's fun and painless... and lets you laugh at the morons around you! A win-win situation.

Moore might really be a total nutcase... but having read a LOT of his written work, I'm less inclined to accept that than many others seem to be.

And, of course, that's not even counting the fact that Moore is the AUTHOR OF THE WORK WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. So how you can conclude that his opinion on HIS OWN FUCKING WORK is "worthless" is... stunningly stupid, frankly.

Implying that someone doesn't know how to read might well be considered flaming. But your understated approach probably won't invite any action from the moderators.

Except, of course, that I DID NO SUCH THING, and you know it. In your case, however, I think that exactly such a statement IS appropriate... since you clearly gleaned a meaning from my post which was in no way whatsoever either PRESENT or IMPLIED.

Show me, please, just where you somehow "inferred" that I was saying that the poster I was replying to was incapable of reading.

I said that I thought that she (gender IS inferred here, but not unreasonably so) hadn't yet read, or had only recently (and partially?) read the book.

I then further suggested that she (?) should go read it... and read it in a specific fashion no less. Hardly something I'd suggest to someone I thought had problems with reading, is it?

No... the only person in this exchange who has shown any indication of a lack of reading comprehension would be you. The alternative to that would be to assume that you have an agenda which you're trying to serve by INTENTIONAL MISREPRESENTATION. While neither is complementary, the first is inadvertent while the second is willful and malicious, so I'm inclined towards the former, much more so than the latter. Of course, you're welcome to correct my misapprehension on the matter if you feel that's the case.

 

[Bad Bishop]

Implying that someone doesn't know how to read might well be considered flaming. But your understated approach probably won't invite any action from the moderators.

Except, of course, that I DID NO SUCH THING, and you know it. In your case, however, I think that exactly such a statement IS appropriate... since you clearly gleaned a meaning from my post which was in no way whatsoever either PRESENT or IMPLIED.

Show me, please, just where you somehow "inferred" that I was saying that the poster I was replying to was incapable of reading.

I said that I thought that she (gender IS inferred here, but not unreasonably so) hadn't yet read, or had only recently (and partially?) read the book.

I then further suggested that she (?) should go read it... and read it in a specific fashion no less. Hardly something I'd suggest to someone I thought had problems with reading, is it?

No... the only person in this exchange who has shown any indication of a lack of reading comprehension would be you. The alternative to that would be to assume that you have an agenda which you're trying to serve by INTENTIONAL MISREPRESENTATION. While neither is complementary, the first is inadvertent while the second is willful and malicious, so I'm inclined towards the former, much more so than the latter. Of course, you're welcome to correct my misapprehension on the matter if you feel that's the case.

Spare me the false outrage (and the denunciations in upper-case). Show some integrity and admit that you were subtly assailing another poster's reading skill (and by implication, his or her intelligence), all because that poster expressed a view of Watchmen (or its adaptation) that is not in line with yours.

Oh, you didn't say that the poster was "incapable of reading," only that he/she failed to read Watchmen "correctly." To the poster in question, that would feel sooooo much better, so we'll let you weasel out of this faux pas on technical grounds.

 

[Bishbot]

Implying that someone doesn't know how to read might well be considered flaming. But your understated approach probably won't invite any action from the moderators.

Except, of course, that I DID NO SUCH THING, and you know it. In your case, however, I think that exactly such a statement IS appropriate... since you clearly gleaned a meaning from my post which was in no way whatsoever either PRESENT or IMPLIED.

Show me, please, just where you somehow "inferred" that I was saying that the poster I was replying to was incapable of reading.

I said that I thought that she (gender IS inferred here, but not unreasonably so) hadn't yet read, or had only recently (and partially?) read the book.

I then further suggested that she (?) should go read it... and read it in a specific fashion no less. Hardly something I'd suggest to someone I thought had problems with reading, is it?

No... the only person in this exchange who has shown any indication of a lack of reading comprehension would be you. The alternative to that would be to assume that you have an agenda which you're trying to serve by INTENTIONAL MISREPRESENTATION. While neither is complementary, the first is inadvertent while the second is willful and malicious, so I'm inclined towards the former, much more so than the latter. Of course, you're welcome to correct my misapprehension on the matter if you feel that's the case.

Spare me the false outrage (and the denunciations in upper-case). Show some integrity and admit that you were subtly assailing another poster's reading skill (and by implication, his or her intelligence), all because that poster expressed a view of Watchmen (or its adaptation) that is not in line with yours.

Oh, you didn't say that the poster was "incapable of reading," only that he/she failed to read Watchmen "correctly." To the poster in question, that would feel sooooo much better, so we'll let you weasel out of this faux pas on technical grounds.

You've read the book, right, Bad Bishop? If you have, you should know that Kim's assessment really was way off-base. Everyone's been quite polite about it.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I don't really want to get in the middle of the Moore-related crossfire except to say that I've only very recently seen two interview clips with him, and while his appearance marks him as a bit of an eccentric, he struck me both times as being very thoughtful and soft-spoken...hardly the raving lunatic that he's popularly painted as. Are people just overreacting to his justifiable belief that his work doesn't translate well into other media? Or is he really a raving lunatic and I just haven't seen the right clips? If the latter, somebody please post a YouTube link for my benefit.

Dan Dreiberg...lives alone in a slightly decrepit apartment.

Actually, he owned the brownstone, IIRC...and with it the very nifty workshop underneath.

The Comedian became a government-sponsored assassin.

Had been since WWII, really. It took me multiple readings over several years to really "get" what the "joke" was with the Comedian...that he was basically a villain--a brutal, sadistic murderer--who worked entirely within the system...and was therefore treated as one of the "good guys".

Silk Spectre (II) becomes the "kept woman" for Dr. Manhattan. She's never given a choice in the matter.

Not quite true. Nobody stops her from leaving. But when she does, she's given up the meal ticket that she's lived on for nearly 20 years.

Ernie Kovaks (his "real" identity)

Walter.

Night Owl (II) is devastated and becomes a sad, pathetic figure dwelling on dreams of yesterday. He's a technical genius but instead of using that to his benefit, becoming a businessman or inventor or whatever, he just withdraws completely.

Didn't he say in issue 7 that he did sell some patents, hence having the money for his house and equipment without having any apparent day job? I know he wrote ornithological articles, but that wasn't his sole means of support, was it?

The scary part is, the sad pathetic withdrawn loser is the most sane of the bunch.

I've long felt that Laurie came out looking the most "normal" of the more modern heroes. I think that it's harder for us comic geeks to identify what's "wrong" with Dan because he's closer to us, a sort of reader identification character. But he's basically a sort of super-hero/fantasy/adventure geek who, in his world, had the option of growing up to become a super-hero. What we see in him are some of the classic characteristics of the socially-maladjusted geek. He essentially only functions well through his fantasy persona. We only see him socializing with other former heroes. (When I first read his article, in which he describes himself visiting a hospitalized friend of a friend, I thought, "A-ha, he does have a social life"...but I eventually read between the lines and realized that the friend of a friend was Byron (Mothman) Lewis, and the friend was Hollis Mason.) He's a fortyish virgin (Was he a virgin? I vaguely recall some dialogue during his scene with Laurie implying that. Damn, I need to reread this sooner rather than later!) who keeps a picture of sexually-provocative villainess who used to flirt with him in his costumed persona. (Was it just flirting...?) And we find that he's impotent until he resumes his costumed identity.

Likewise, Hollis Mason comes off as very down-to-earth and normal...until you realize that he's basically the story's personification of the classic superheroic ideal...an ideal that was created to appeal to the morality of 12-year-old boys. Not only is he treated as an "obsolete model", but he's essentially an overgrown preadolscent...an old man who's never married and seems particularly uncomfortable holding a conversation with a worldly woman of his own generation.

I always loved the section where Rorschach and Night Owl are looking for information in the bar - Night Owl, in his costume, with his "faded hero" persona, looks so out of place in contrast to Rorschach.

Well...until he's got a hood by the throat and is threatening to level the neighborhood....I love Rorschach having to reign him in.

Damn, I hope the actors playing Dan and Rorschach have some good chemistry. So many of the richest scenes in the book are between those two characters.

I'm not saying that this movie is gonna be a disaster, guys, don't misread. A great actor and a great director may be able to get this out of the scene anyway. But SOME of that is lost, there's no question about it.

Absolutely. That's pretty much my current attitude towards the costume issues. The original story is just so well-crafted...you can go into it very deeply and everything holds together so well, every detail seems to serve a purpose. Any adaptation of a work into another medium is bound to lose some of that...especially when you're going from a comic, where you have the tight work of one writer and one artist pretty much dictating every detail, to film, where you have writers, a director, producers, studio executives, actors, and even various technical personnel, each putting their own flavors into the stew. I think I'll be happy if the basic story and characters hold up, if the movie is functional. The ultimate Watchmen experience will still be reading the book.

 

[ITL]

I always loved the section where Rorschach and Night Owl are looking for information in the bar - Night Owl, in his costume, with his "faded hero" persona, looks so out of place in contrast to Rorschach.

Well...until he's got a hood by the throat and is threatening to level the neighborhood....I love Rorschach having to reign him in.

Oh, absolutely.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Spare me the false outrage (and the denunciations in upper-case). Show some integrity and admit that you were subtly assailing another poster's reading skill (and by implication, his or her intelligence), all because that poster expressed a view of Watchmen (or its adaptation) that is not in line with yours.

Oh, you didn't say that the poster was "incapable of reading," only that he/she failed to read Watchmen "correctly." To the poster in question, that would feel sooooo much better, so we'll let you weasel out of this faux pas on technical grounds.

No "false outrage" here at all. You are trying to start a flame-war with me.

This happened on here once before, also when I'd been involved in a couple of political discussions where a few of the folks on here seemed to view my posts as somehow "threatening." So instead of trying to argue... a handful of folks decided to start trying to pick flamewars with me and then hit "report to mod" en-mass if I responded in-kind.

Whether it's coincidental or not (I've been in a couple of similar threads recently), there is no question whatsoever about what you're doing in this thread. You're trying to pick a fight. And now that I've recognized what you're doing... you've already failed. Too bad...

Now... let's summarize the number of personal attacks in your post:

1) Spare me the false outrage

No false outrage... just real annoyance at your lame, ham-handed attempt to turn what's an interesting and worthwhile thread into a flame-war because you have PERSONAL ISSUES with one (or more?) of the people taking part in the conversation.

2) (and the denunciations in upper-case).

The only thing getting "denunciations" in this thread is your attempt to derail it and turn it into something personal... again because you don't like me, personally. (Which matters to me not one bit)

3) Show some integrity

I have been. You might want to try it yourself.

I don't care about your views towards issues relating to God, or towards politics. I know where you stand... and I know that you hate me, personally, because of where I stand. I'm just fine with that. But "showing integrity" would involve you admitting WHY you're doing this, and not attempting to derail conversations other folks are having in an attempt to silence opinions which differ from your own.

4) and admit that you were subtly assailing another poster's reading skill

No, I was not.

I asked you to support this claim and you haven't... because you can't. Instead, you're trying to stir up an EMOTIONAL response to your (now obvious) lie.

I have no knowledge, positive OR negative, regarding the reading comprehension skills of the poster to whom I was referring. She could be a "book a day with full memorization" type or could be stuck on "See Spot Run" as far as I know.

My post (which I've clarified and which you still seem to be dedicated to attempting to misrepresent in order to stir up a "popular action" flame-fest against me) stated that I believed that she had either not read the book or had not read it in any level of depth and detail.

I know enough about your writing style to know you can grasp things at that level. You know perfectly well what I actually said.

That you still persist in trying to perpetuate bald-faced LIES about it says a lot...about the you, though, not me.

5) (and by implication, his or her intelligence),

I have no knowledge, positive or negative, about the intelligence of the poster I responded to. Nor did I make any comment, veiled or overt, about that.

No matter how hard you squeeze your eyes shut and stamp and scream and insist that's the case.

I stated, QUITE CLEARLY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY, that I believe that the poster had her facts wrong, and that as a result I doubted that she'd read the book, or at most had barely skimmed it without getting into detail. I then suggested that she take the time to do exactly that.

If I thought that the poster was an idiot, why would I suggest that? Quite the contrary, I suggest that her only error is in ignorance... which means "LACKING information," not "incapable of comprehending information."

Again, no matter how much you want to portray me as a villain (because you hate my political and social views), your argument doesn't have a leg to stand on. But thanks for playing.

6) all because that poster expressed a view of Watchmen (or its adaptation) that is not in line with yours.

Well, first off, I did NONE of the things that you attribute to me. (Gotta keep repeating that in case someone is gullible enough to start believing your intentional misrepresentations.)

But I did disagree... not because I, PERSONALLY, think that things "should be" one way or another. Rather, because of the clear and unambiguous intent of the AUTHOR.

I know how you feel about "original intent." You're one of those folks who thinks that, whether in the political realm or the entertainment realm, we all get to redefine things however we want them to be at the time. What the author had in mind is meaningless, if you (or anyone else) wants to imbue some totally different, contradictory meaning to it. That about cover it? You're a strong believer in the "living document" perspective towards the Constitution... I'm an "original intent" guy. You're also inclined towards applying the same reasoning to art.

But whether you like it or not, Moore was very clear about who and what HE intended his characters to be. If you don't like those characters... if you don't personally like who, and what, they are supposed to be according to the man who created them... then you can always create your own characters. And then publish your own book. And see which one audiences (both readers and viewers) prefer.

You don't have the RIGHT to "redefine" what Moore wanted his characters to be. Neither do I. Neither does anyone else. If they become redefined, they're no longer the same characters at all. And it's no longer the same work.

Is Moore's work "perfect?" Of course not. But 20+ years of it being in the situation it's in... venerated and treated as an almost "holy" book... implies that he did SOMETHING right, huh?

7) Oh, you didn't say that the poster was "incapable of reading," only that he/she failed to read Watchmen "correctly."

Keep trying to tell her, and everyone else, that I "really said" things that I never said. Yeah, keep trying... maybe there are a few people silly enough to buy into it... and if you repeat it often enough, maybe people will only see what you're CLAIMING I said and won't bother to go back to what I really said.

Cute...

Once again, since you clearly want to misrepresent what I said...

Go read "Watchmen." Seriously... read it. And don't rush through it... take your time, read everything (including all of the prose stuff). Read each chapter, then go back and read that chapter at least once more (including all the prose), before you go on to the next chapter.

Let's see... am I saying:

a) The poster is stupid and can't read?
b) The poster should read the book?

For someone with even marginal reading comprehension skills, that's not hard to answer... is it?

8) To the poster in question, that would feel sooooo much better, so we'll let you weasel out of this faux pas on technical grounds.

"Weasel" ... let's look up the definition of that term:

a person who is regarded as treacherous or sneaky

So, by ANY reasonable reading of the board rules, you've just flamed me.

You, on the other hand, by your willful and malicious attempt to misrepresent my statements... and your obvious ignoring of specific requests to support your claims... well, you do the math.

Now, I'm done responding to you. You can have the "last word" in this exchange if you wish... or you can walk away (which would be the smarter decision I think).

I'm going back to discussing "Watchmen." If you want to participate in the conversation, in a reasonable fashion, I'll be perfectly happy with that. But if you continue to play the "attack Cary" game... I'll just "ignore" you.

 

[ancient]

Alan Moore has the power beard.

People fear the beard.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Dan Dreiberg...lives alone in a slightly decrepit apartment.

Actually, he owned the brownstone, IIRC...and with it the very nifty workshop underneath.

True enough... not an "apartment," but in every meaningful way with the "feel" of an older city apartment... but instead of the brownstone being subdivided into three or four "flats" he has 'em all.

The Comedian became a government-sponsored assassin.

Had been since WWII, really. It took me multiple readings over several years to really "get" what the "joke" was with the Comedian...that he was basically a villain--a brutal, sadistic murderer--who worked entirely within the system...and was therefore treated as one of the "good guys".

I never quite picked up that he was a "government assassin" during his youthful days with the Minutemen (putting matters into perspective, he must've been what, 18 or 19, at the time?)

I saw the hints of what he'd become, back then, but no indication that he'd "found his niche" just yet. What makes you think this?

Not quite true. Nobody stops her from leaving. But when she does, she's given up the meal ticket that she's lived on for nearly 20 years.

I picked up on some clues that she was effectively coerced into the situation. Yes, she could walk out and visit friends or whatever... but that doesn't mean you're "free"...

My point was that the choice was made for her, and I think it's fairly implicit that by the "present" in the book, she's feeling very confined. And there's no doubt that someone with her level of "access" isn't going to be able to just walk out and go anyplace she wants without an entourage of security following along. In fact, if memory serves, there's more than one indication that this is the case when she's seen away from the facility.

The reason that she and Dan change their names at the end is, I suspect, much more about escaping from that level of supervision than anything else. It's never stated or implied that Veidt doesn't know who they are... and the fact that they willingly leave, having agreed to keep silent, tell me that Veidt probably wouldn't see any reason to act against them. I wouldn't be surprised if he assisted them in "going underground" in fact... it'd give him a level of leverage over them, wouldn't it?

Walter.

Right... my error. From chapter VI, page 2, panel 2: "His full name is Walter Joseph Kovacs, born 1940. Mother's name, Sylvia Joanna Kovacs, formerly Sylvia Glick. His father's name is unknown."

So where's "Ernie Kovacs" coming from? Well, probably from here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie_Kovacs

Didn't he say in issue 7 that he did sell some patents, hence having the money for his house and equipment without having any apparent day job? I know he wrote ornithological articles, but that wasn't his sole means of support, was it?

My impression was that he sold off some of the stuff he'd invented earlier in his life (supporting his "heroic" persona) which was sufficient to keep him housed, but not "in style."

It's worth noting that his home is run-down... his food supplies aren't exactly "high-end" (lots of canned beans!)... the guy isn't exactly living the live of luxury. Which a man with his intellect and abilities SHOULD be able to do. The point I was making is that he's CHOSEN the life he has... he had other options.

I've long felt that Laurie came out looking the most "normal" of the more modern heroes.

Well, she and Dan are the two who are the most "normal." This is by intent, I think... Moore really intends for us to see most of the story through their eyes. You and I both probably know people who are much like (if not identical to!) these two folks. If any of us knows anyone like Veidt, Kovacs, or Blake... much less Osterman... well, that would be pretty unusual, wouldn't it?

I think that it's harder for us comic geeks to identify what's "wrong" with Dan because he's closer to us, a sort of reader identification character. But he's basically a sort of super-hero/fantasy/adventure geek who, in his world, had the option of growing up to become a super-hero. What we see in him are some of the classic characteristics of the socially-maladjusted geek.

Absolutely true... though I don't really relate to any of these guys particularly well, I can at least see the perspective of him the best. Of course, we are all intended to see the perspective of EVERY character, at least to a small extent... none of them are (forgive the term) "cartoonish" characters.

He essentially only functions well through his fantasy persona. We only see him socializing with other former heroes. (When I first read his article, in which he describes himself visiting a hospitalized friend of a friend, I thought, "A-ha, he does have a social life"...but I eventually read between the lines and realized that the friend of a friend was Byron (Mothman) Lewis, and the friend was Hollis Mason.)

Yeah, the guy is pretty much isolated... though at least he's not in an asylum like Byron.

He's a fortyish virgin (Was he a virgin? I vaguely recall some dialogue during his scene with Laurie implying that. Damn, I need to reread this sooner rather than later!)

There is absolutely no implication of that fact. What there is, is a clear scene that he's in dire need of Viagra! Call it performance anxiety or whatever... but it's clear he wasn't able to perform to his own satisfaction (no indication that Laurie feels similarly!) when she finally "slips out" on Jon.

Being roughly the same age that Dan Dreiberg is in that scene NOW... I can imagine being in that same situation (never happened yet, but ... without being too graphic, suffice it to say that things don't work quite the same today as they did when I was 17!)

But there's no reason to conclude that just because he's embarassed by his "underperformance" in bed, he's never done anything before. Actually, I'd think that he'd never realize he was "underperforming" unless he had some yardstick to compare to... don't you think?

who keeps a picture of sexually-provocative villainess who used to flirt with him in his costumed persona. (Was it just flirting...?) And we find that he's impotent until he resumes his costumed identity.

The picture is something that I don't quite remember... I'll have to look more closely for that.

As for the impotence thing being tied to "costumed persona," I think that's an oversimplification. I think that his clearly-inferred sexual impotence is related to his feeling of impotence in every other area of his life. It's not him getting back into costume that "fixes" things... it's him getting back into being involved in life that does it. When he stops "retreating" from life... the fact that (briefly) that involves him putting the costume on is ancillary... at the end, the costume is probably gone forever, but there's no reason to think that he's going to go back to where he was before "the event."

Likewise, Hollis Mason comes off as very down-to-earth and normal...until you realize that he's basically the story's personification of the classic superheroic ideal...an ideal that was created to appeal to the morality of 12-year-old boys. Not only is he treated as an "obsolete model", but he's essentially an overgrown preadolscent...an old man who's never married and seems particularly uncomfortable holding a conversation with a worldly woman of his own generation.

I didn't pick up on the "uncomfortable with holding a conversation with a worldly woman of his own generation." Rather, he's embarrassed by what seems to ME to be rather juvenile behavior on the part of Sally Jupiter.

There's a lot of "questionable sexuality" among the various characters in this book, and some that's just right out there in the open. I get the impression that Hollis Mason may have had a very good reason for "never marrying." He could be gay... or he could just be the sort who would rather be alone than be with the wrong person. All we really know is that he seems like a nice guy... the most "normal" of all the characters.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Damn you, Cary, you've made me dig out my back issues! (And something filed under "W" isn't in one of the top boxes!) So it looks like the rereading will be sooner rather than later, and in the meantime I can flip through to try to pick out relevant passages.

This thread has already become rather spoilerish in some areas, but definite SPOILER WARNING here for unrestrained story details, up to and including the epilogue of the last issue.

I never quite picked up that he was a "government assassin" during his youthful days with the Minutemen (putting matters into perspective, he must've been what, 18 or 19, at the time?)

Not when he was with the Minutemen and in the clown outfit, but after he left the Minutemen following the rape attempt on Sally Jupiter, and after he started wearing the leather armor. In Hollis Mason's book (page 10 of Under the Hood, in the back of Watchmen #2), he relates how the Comedian went on to become a war hero in the Pacific during WWII (accompanied by a photo of the Comedian in his more familiar look with leather outfit and gun, dated 1942). I'd have to reread the series to provide exact details, but after that everything he's established to have done seems to come down to his working for the government. One can see where that would have begun with him having served in the military in his costumed persona during the war.

Watchmen does have its weak areas as far as the overall theme of exploring what super-heroes would be like in a more realistic setting. One of these is that Moore, primarily through the chapters in Mason's book, completely glosses over what any of the Minutemen did in WWII other than this brief reference to the Comedian's activities.

I picked up on some clues that she was effectively coerced into the situation. Yes, she could walk out and visit friends or whatever... but that doesn't mean you're "free"...

I was under the strict impression that she went into the situation of her own free will...though she was an impressionable young woman when she entered her relationship with Doc Manhattan (which would have been illegal in some states). The government saw anything that kept him happy and grounded in reality as a good thing and was willing to support her to keep her around. Nobody stopped her from walking out on him after a fight, and they only came down on her after she came back to find that he'd left...and then their attitude towards her was colored not only by his having left at least partially because of her, and the radiation scare. Once she was tested, they let her go again. She was old news to them.

My point was that the choice was made for her, and I think it's fairly implicit that by the "present" in the book, she's feeling very confined.

It was her own choice, but yes, nearly 20 years on she was feeling very confined by that choice. She had no life and no means of supporting herself outside of that relationship, which she'd entered as a 16-year-old kid.

The reason that she and Dan change their names at the end is, I suspect, much more about escaping from that level of supervision than anything else. It's never stated or implied that Veidt doesn't know who they are... and the fact that they willingly leave, having agreed to keep silent, tell me that Veidt probably wouldn't see any reason to act against them. I wouldn't be surprised if he assisted them in "going underground" in fact... it'd give him a level of leverage over them, wouldn't it?

I never, ever got the impression that their assumed identities had anything to do with her old government keepers. And like you, I also got the impression that Veidt actually helped to establish them...I'd have to reread to see if there were any specific clues to that effect. I do remember that Dan told Laurie after his visit from the detective that he had aliases set up, so it wouldn't have all been Veidt. Maybe I'm reading way too much into things, but when Sally asks Laurie who did her hair, I always pictured Veidt having done it himself--another potential clue in the matter of his ambiguous sexuality...?

Anyway, I thought it was clear that the main reason for them assuming aliases was that the police knew damned well who both of them were, and they'd sprung Rorschach from jail! There was no going back to their old identities after that.

My impression was that he sold off some of the stuff he'd invented earlier in his life (supporting his "heroic" persona) which was sufficient to keep him housed, but not "in style."

It's worth noting that his home is run-down... his food supplies aren't exactly "high-end" (lots of canned beans!)... the guy isn't exactly living the live of luxury. Which a man with his intellect and abilities SHOULD be able to do. The point I was making is that he's CHOSEN the life he has... he had other options.

I agree that he's become an underachiever in the years since giving up his costumed persona. But he describes himself as having been "rich" and "bored" when he took it up as a young man in '63, and he says that his father had been a banker and left him a lot of money. When you think about it, he probably spent a lot of it equipping himself and maintaining that equipment over the years. I mean, he built Archie as well as all sorts of other stuff like experimental exoskeletons...and he had a tunnel constructed to a warehouse that he owns. All of that must have cost him a pretty penny back when he first built it and for the years that he was using it regularly. And years later, he's still independently wealthy enough to still own and maintain all of this with no day job apart from writing occasional ornithological articles. It's clear that he's kept things at the ready as part of a closet desire to resume his costumed persona...for example, he still buys sugar cubes in catering packs to keep Archie stocked up. I wouldn't take Rorschach's dietary preferences as indicative of Dan's entire food supply!

So during the heydey of his youth, he probably spent most of his time and money on his superheroic persona. In the less than a decade after being forced to give that up, he absolutely did withdraw, rather than find new ways to apply his genius and increase his wealth. But he was well-off enough to keep the roof over his head and all of his old gear tuned up and ready....

There is absolutely no implication of that fact. What there is, is a clear scene that he's in dire need of Viagra! Call it performance anxiety or whatever... but it's clear he wasn't able to perform to his own satisfaction (no indication that Laurie feels similarly!) when she finally "slips out" on Jon.

Being roughly the same age that Dan Dreiberg is in that scene NOW... I can imagine being in that same situation (never happened yet, but ... without being too graphic, suffice it to say that things don't work quite the same today as they did when I was 17!)

But there's no reason to conclude that just because he's embarassed by his "underperformance" in bed, he's never done anything before. Actually, I'd think that he'd never realize he was "underperforming" unless he had some yardstick to compare to... don't you think?

OK, having skimmed the pages in question, there is no "smoking gun" that would point to his having been a virgin. But he definitely comes off as somebody who has had relatively limited experience, and then probably not for some time (like, since at least '77). That leads to Working Theory #2...that his only previous experience was in his costumed persona, probably involving this Twilight Lady character....

who keeps a picture of sexually-provocative villainess who used to flirt with him in his costumed persona. (Was it just flirting...?) And we find that he's impotent until he resumes his costumed identity.

The picture is something that I don't quite remember... I'll have to look more closely for that.

Issue 7, page 5.

Laurie [going through a souvenir display down in Dan's secret basement--his literal super-hero "closet"]: "Hmm. What's this?"
Dan: "That? Oh, that isn't anybody. It's just this vice queen I put away back in '68. Called herself Dusk Woman or something."
L: "'The Twilight Lady'. She sent you her picture?"
[We see from Laurie's perspective a photograph of a woman posing on a bed with a leathery outfit and riding crop, signed, "From one 'Night Bird' to Another. Love from The Twilight Lady. X."]
D: "Yeah, well, I guess she had sort of a fixation. She was a very sick woman. I keep meaning to throw that picture away, but you know how it is..."
L: "Mmm."

Now you seem well-versed enough in this book to know that these characters aren't always reliable narrators...there are often discrepencies between what they say and what they do or what they really mean. Taken in context with Dan's body language, it's clear that he's uncomfortable and embarassed about the fact that Laurie, digging through his private domain, found this little souvenir. Something that Dan held onto for all those years, even though he's embarassed that anyone else (particularly another woman that he's interested in) should see it. I think that he's projecting when he accuses her of being fixated and sick...he's chastising himself for his continued fixation with the relationship that he had with this old adversary, however deep it may have gone. That this may have been his last and only sexual experience plays perfectly into the idea that of him being impotent out of costume....

As for the impotence thing being tied to "costumed persona," I think that's an oversimplification. I think that his clearly-inferred sexual impotence is related to his feeling of impotence in every other area of his life. It's not him getting back into costume that "fixes" things... it's him getting back into being involved in life that does it. When he stops "retreating" from life...

Well, I think that the costume and his getting involved in life again are intertwined. Again, he only functions well in relation to his costumed persona. Deprived of that, he was impotent.

From page 28 of issue 7....

L: "Dan, was tonight good? Did you like it?"
D: "Uh-huh."
L: "Did the costumes make it good?
"Dan...?"
D: "Yeah. Yeah, I guess the costumes had something to do with it. It just feels strange, you know? To come out and admit that to somebody. To come out of the closet."

None of this is throwaway. It all adds up. Dan's sexuality was tied into his costumed persona. It was a fetish. Fetishes are rather common in the real world...and usually kept just as "in the closet".

at the end, the costume is probably gone forever, but there's no reason to think that he's going to go back to where he was before "the event."

Well, Dan and Laurie were talking about continuing in their costumed personas at the end of issue 12. Although it was light banter, I never thought they were kidding. Whether he was in or out of costume, Nite Owl was there to stay in Dan's life. He had the very fact that he and Laurie were "on the run" to attest to that.

I didn't pick up on the "uncomfortable with holding a conversation with a worldly woman of his own generation." Rather, he's embarrassed by what seems to ME to be rather juvenile behavior on the part of Sally Jupiter.

I don't think she was being juvenile. She was just being herself, the persona that she'd cultivated all those years. And he was clearly not very comfortable with it. Again, such scenes weren't put in randomly. It says something about Hollis's character that the only relationship we see him in with a woman is this one. She's a rather extroverted woman, but there's not even a smidgen of mild flirtation on his part, "for old time's sake" or whatever. He's very uptight talking with her, having nothing in common with her, which was probably always the case.

There's a lot of "questionable sexuality" among the various characters in this book, and some that's just right out there in the open. I get the impression that Hollis Mason may have had a very good reason for "never marrying." He could be gay...

That's another working theory, that I didn't bring into the last post because it's definitely reaching...that he was a closet homosexual, who wouldn't even admit it to himself because of the strict puritanical influence of his grandfather. Hence his development in some areas having been arrested at a preadolescent level.

DISCLAIMER: The Old Mixer is not a licensed psychologist or practicing therapist, nor is he a recognized expert in any field of behavioral science.

 

[misskim86]

No... they're not. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE STORY... what if "real people" in the "real world" did this stuff.

I'm guessing, from your comment, that you've never read the original story... or if you have, it was recent.

..............blablablablablabla............

No, these people are NOT supposed to be "bad ass superheroes." And if you really think that, you have NO IDEA who these people are supposed to be. And YOU are the sort of person who Alan Moore has been afraid would get ahold of his work and turn it into something totally different than what it is SUPPOSED to be.

Go read "Watchmen." Seriously... read it. And don't rush through it... take your time, read everything (including all of the prose stuff). Read each chapter, then go back and read that chapter at least once more (including all the prose), before you go on to the next chapter.

I'm not "flaming" you... I'm telling you that your statement shows that you either know nothing about the story of "Watchmen" or you know just almost nothing about it. But if you're really interested... there's an easy way to fix that!

Ok first off. I have read The Watchmen, thank you very much and I am indeed capable of reading and forming my own mind about things.

But I also thought about it, and if you had a costume, would you have a shitty costume, or a really cool one? Yes I know that Night Owl was insecure, fat and double chin, but if he has a cool costume you shouldn't notice it. If a fat out of shape guy was put in Batman's costume from TDK would you notice he was fat and double chin? no you wouldn't and that's my point.

It's rediculous to think that the super heroes would dress in anything but bad ass costumes, even though they are insecure and scared and can hardly fight. Their costumes HAD to look good or they wouldn't be taken serious.

 

[The Old Mixer]

As a strictly practical detail, the costumes are supposed to have been worn by heroes who established their identities between the late '50s and mid-'60s...they're not supposed to look cool and ultramodern by 1985 standards, never mind 2009. That Nite Owl's look is distinctly "Sixties Batman" is no accident.

 

[misskim86]

It's a good point but the costumes in the 60s were still made to look good, not bad.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^Some were, but most of the costumes on that generation's heroes had dated elements. Nite Owl's costume, which goes back to 1963, should definitely have much more in common with 1960s Batman than 1989 Batman.

 

[misskim86]

Well why should they have dated elements? Why not just change it so they didn't have dated elements? Watchmen is supposed to be realistic and superheroes in campy, silly outfits isn't realistic.

Seriously could you imagine 1960s batman breaking into the prison to rescue Roscharch? I sure can't

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Well why should they have dated elements? Why not just change it so they didn't have dated elements? Watchmen is supposed to be realistic and superheroes in campy, silly outfits isn't realistic.

Seriously could you imagine 1960s batman breaking into the prison to rescue Roscharch? I sure can't

Ummm... while the costumes in these films may LOOK impressive... as far as them being remotely practical... not so much.

Just as an example... something that you can do yourself, especially if you live near water. Maybe you SCUBA dive, or maybe you've never tried it... but put on a 7mm wetsuit, then see how easy it is to move around. It DRAMATICALLY reduces your ability to move. Put on body armor and see how that affects you.

Or, for that matter, read the comments of the stars in any of the recent superhero movies (since they started going with heavy rubber muscle-suits).

They may look cool on-screen, but as far as being PRACTICAL... nah, not so much.

It's no coincidence that what I still consider to be the best looking "Batman" seen so far is literally a guy in tights. THIS guy... Clark Bartram.

Granted, you've gotta be in serious shape to make that "work"... and if the actor isn't in that sort of shape, well... you use heavy layers of rubber to compensate!

 

[The Old Mixer]

Well why should they have dated elements? Why not just change it so they didn't have dated elements? Watchmen is supposed to be realistic and superheroes in campy, silly outfits isn't realistic.

They have dated elements because they are dated. That's realistic. The movie outfit looks 26 years ahead of the time that it was supposed to have been designed. That's not realistic.

These are super-heroes who haven't been active in nearly a decade, and were already a decade or two into their careers at that point. Dated outfits attest to that fact. Outfits that would have been futuristic even in the story's 1985 present make it look like these are cutting-edge heroes in their prime, when that's not what they're supposed to be.