And I really enjoyed it, all except for the bit where the director completely and catastrophically missed the point of the source material.

Yeah.

I haven't yet seen it, but it's been known for a while that the point would be missed. I'll enjoy seeing the comic move around on a big screen and that'll be that.

Yeah, let me clarify: I wasn't just being snarky, I actually did enjoy it. Except for that bit. In other words (as you so deftly put it), I enjoyed seeing the comic move around on the big screen, I just had to pretend that the story in the book was being told instead of the weird quasi-parody of it that seemed to be happening instead.

The visualisations really are spot on, and all those iconic scenes look just how I imagined. Seeing the Comedian torch Vietcong, Veidt whomp a guy with a gold pillar, Dr. Manhattan being created...it was all great. They just botched the fuck out of the ending and fell into the trap Moore so carefully set: they failed the Rorschach test. They didn't realise who was supposed to be the antagonist. Happens to a lot of people who read Watchmen, I just wish it didn't happen to the guy making the big-budget screen adaptation!

Can you explain the whole antagonist thing? I've never read the book...

Okay, well there's a really key part near the end that's, like, the iconic Watchmen line. Rorschach says: "No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise." This is kind of the fulcrum around which the whole story pivots. You see, there are two ways of reading Watchmen - you either agree with Rorschach then or you don't.

So, hypothesis 1: Rorschach is right. From this you get the following corallaries:

- The world is divided into moral absolutes. There are those who seek justice and there are criminals.
- Criminals, of any stripe, should be punished with the maximum force available. Violence is cool.
- The ends do not justify the means. Veidt's utopia is not worth the deaths of millions required to achieve it.
- Masked vigilantism is a prefectly sensible and valid way to maintain order.

Hypothestis 2: Rorschach is wrong. From this you get the following corallaries:

- Real life is a grey area. It's not as simple as good vs. evil.
- Sometimes, the heroes are as bad as the criminals. Violence is wrong, no matter who does it.
- The ends justify the means. Veidt's utopia is genuinelly a better world that brings an end to the Cold War and the seemingly-endless Presidency of Richard Nixon.
- The masked vigilantes are dangerous sociopaths, who sublimate their sexual desires into violence. Rorschach is merely the worst of them.

The film overwhelmingly favours the first hypothesis. Observe how the violence is glamourised and, indeed, ratcheted up. It's frequently more graphic than in the book. The sex scene is also extended and, bizarrely, the message is completely reversed. In the book, it's pathetic - Dan can't sustain an erection without dressing as a giant owl. That doesn't mean he should dress up as an owl and fight crime, it means he has some seriously psychosexual issues to deal with. What should be a quite disturbing scene that tells us this character (and the lifestyle he leads) are flawed and perhaps dangerous, is instead presented as triumphant.

In the book, Rorschach's death is a necessary evil. Dr. Manhatten blasts him because him revealing the truth would destroy the utopia that millions have already died for. It's not a bad thing - it's a good thing. Rorscharch has to die. Dan and Laurie don't get to comment on it because they're busy having sex (and, in the new world, don't need their costumes any more...). In the film, Nite Owl sees Rorschach being killed and then uses it as an impetus to go and attack Veidt again and then accuses his utopia of being a mutilation of human values! That makes the whole story pointless. If Veidt is just plain wrong, and Rorschach is just plain right, then it's just a battle between good and evil. There's no grey area. It isn't a deconstruction, it's just a dumb story about people in silly outfits.

The worst bit though was the implication at the end that Dan and Laurie continue to fight crime as Nite Owl and Silk Spectre. The whole idea is that Veidt does create a better world, and everyone is happy at the end. When Rorschach's diary might be found, it won't reveal the truth because it's found by the editor of a crazy right-wing conspiracy journal - it will be dismissed as nonsense.

You're not supposed to agree with Rorschach.

The movie misses this. Because, everywhere else in Hollywood, superheroes and excessive violence is cool, they had to pander to that expectation. Nite Owl isn't a goofy guy with a gut - he looks like fucking Batman. Silk Spectre isn't a pretty girl pressured by her mother into dressing like a prostitute and putting herself in danger - she's a competent, sexy crimefighter. Rorschach isn't a disturbed sociopath - he's a cool antihero. Veidt isn't a man so smart he's able to suspend his own moral sensibilities to make an impossible choice and save the world from nuclear war - he's just a crazy villain who kills a lot of people for no good reason.

Now, let me finish this by saying that I really, honestly, did enjoy the movie. It was great. It just wasn't great as an adaptation. It did the reverse of what most adaptations do: it stuck rigidly to the source material, but ignored the overall message. Usually, you get the same basic idea as the source material, but different details (see the Lord of the Rings movies). I view the movie as a visual companion piece to the book - as a retelling of the same story though, it's a failure.

At the very least, we can say it was better than the Dragon Ball adaptation with complete certainty.

I have no frame of reference for judging that.

You don't need one.

Even outside of the context of Dragon Ball, it's awful.

Not much to add to your post, Thommy. Not that I'm surprised things like these are your forte after all. The only thing I could add is that the story also touches on voluntary and forced sacrifice. Rorschach and the Comedian die in this story for a reason. Rorschach dies as he cannot change to fit a world that was already created, a world in which he has no place as Rorschach without the mask is just a frustrated psychopath with no values and a horrible habit of enforcing his will through violence. Once the world of the pre-monster incident dies, Rorschach is left without a place. Guess why he cries...he cries for himself not for the dead in New York, he cries as he thinks his death changes anything, that he pointless stand against the inevitable had any merit other then to salvage his own ego. Throughout the entire story Rorschach's face (as an adult) is motionless and devoid of emotion, when he reaches the end and his death he cries, he shows the range of emotions he has previously denied himself. Maybe he sees that in death he can be free from his problems, maybe his mad mind thinks he is actually right to turn the deaths of half New York pointless. Who knows?

Comedian is almost the same, he is killed because he can't change and in Viedt's new world there is no place for him. The Comedian appears to know that he will not fit in and as much as he welcomes the new world, he dreads it. Take the scene at Moloch's bedside, Comedian doesn't know what to do. As I see it he wants to live in a peacefull world but at the same time knows that he can't change to be happy in that world.

The more you look at it and the more you nitpick it, Alan Moore turns into more and more of a genius.

So they did a 12 part video journal posted on youtube. The Rorschach's mask journal was pretty ok. So above you've speculated the director's interpretation, here you go from his own mouth.



Also this might be slightly old, but very funny.

And if you thought the film was lacking for missing the Black Freighter comic, you can be dissapointed no more.