Hurm. I feel as though I’m stepping on SEK’s subject here. But I saw Watchmen last night, and.. it left me rather unaffected. This came as something of a surprise to me, as I am usually fairly easy to satisfy when it comes to action films. Flip a truck, jump Galactica into atmosphere, fight Agent Smith and say “there is no spoon”, double-bladed lightsaber, fly around in a cheesy red suit, and I’m usually on board with thinking it was an enjoyable popcorn flick. Watchmen didn’t grab me, and after the jump I will explain why with spoilers.
Watchmen doesn’t have a great plot. Neither does the book, and that’s both a fair and unfair criticism. Fair because it’s true, and unfair because it’s not the point of the book. What the book studied was the idea of a superhero, and how it would affect the world if they existed, and what sort of people they would have to be. (One meta-problem with the film is that almost every superhero film takes these questions as something that just have to be answered in the course of the movie, e.g., The Dark Knight. You mean that superheroes are messed up? Do tell!)
And so my problems with the film can be reduced to two major differences it has with the book: the characterization of Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias, and the ending, because between the two of those, it meant that not only did the film have no plot, it didn’t understand the question it was meant to investigate.
Ozymandias. In the book, Adrian Veidt is an all-American golden boy. He is a retired hero, a wealthy businessman and philanthropist, a polymath who has interests in both physical and mental excellence. He’s a pacifist and a vegetarian, and the sort of man who admires Alexander the Great for uniting the world and ruling it without barbarism and for creatively solving the problem of the Gordian knot.
The knot of his time is the threat of global thermonuclear war, and he figures that he is the only one who can solve it, by creating a threat greater than thermonuclear war to get the world to unite. This is the fall of the superman, the tragic arc of one who began to believe his own mythos such that he believed that he was justified in taking millions of lives. In the book, it’s a shock precisely because Veidt was the antithesis of Rorschach.
In the movie, Adrian is sinister from the very beginning. White-blond, not golden. Thin and sleek, not a lion. Ominous, not joyful. A very creepy ruthless business executive. The sort of guy who would have his company underbid on the rebuilding contracts after destroying the city. But the real problem with Adrian is revealed in…
the ending. Not the decision to change the means of the mass explosion, because that was smart on two grounds: a) the giant squid was exceedingly stupid and b) there is no way you want to give Zach Snyder a multi-ton monster whose purpose is to be exploded viscera.
What makes the ending of the book great is two things. The first is Adrian’s ambivalence. When he sees the destruction has gone successfully, he throws his arms in the air and shouts “I did it!” in relief and joy and sorrow, with tears streaming down his face. After everyone leaves, he worriedly asks Dr. Manhattan,
Jon, wait, before you leave… I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end.
Alone, he wonders whether he was right after all; what a terrible burden. What a terrible crime.
The second thing that makes the ending great is how it flips the moral universe established so far on its head. Rorschach is a sociopath and violence barely controlled, and earlier he praised the Comedian, who he saw as uncompromising, a man who really understood “man’s capacity for horrors and never quit.” And yet it’s Adrian who murders millions to save the world, and Rorschach who is horrified and can’t go along with the cover-up. And, crucially, it’s Nite Owl, soft, impotent Nite Owl, who was repulsed by Rorschach’s brutal methods, who agrees the most quickly to preserve the lie. And the reader is left in sympathy with Rorschach, who, let’s be clear, is completely despicable.
In the film, Adrian is cold and calculating, Nite Owl capitulates only after watching Manhattan destroy Rorschach and venting his spleen on Adrian’s face and shouting ‘nooooo’ like Anakin Skywalker, and Rorschach alone is unchanged. This is a far greater violation to the spirit of the ending than replacing the giant squid with an energy weapon, because it means that the point of the story just isn’t there. And, like I said, there’s not exactly an plot here.
Beyond that: worst use of Hallelujah in a film. Ever.
46 comments
March 8, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Hemlock
Rorschach as an absolute rather than a representation of moral economy? Perhaps the producers felt that audiences couldn’t comprehend the significance of Moore’s tale. And, given many viewers’ responses, perhaps they were correct. Makes me question the utility of transforming “academy” historical monographs into “public” history.
But, then again, I haven’t actually seen the film.
March 8, 2009 at 1:32 pm
G C
I had a lot of the same thoughts here, with some additional elaboration on where the film goes wrong. I’m a little surprised to see so many people responding to the film positively — it seemed to me to be clearly a failure that dramatically and painfully misunderstands Moore’s original story.
If Watchmen the comic deconstructs the superhero, does Watchmen the film? Not at all. The characters’ rough edges have all been sanded away, leaving little more than generic action movie badasses that (in our theater at least) were getting cheers in all the wrong places. Both Rorschach and Nite Owl, in different ways, remain uncomplicatedly and conventionally “heroic” in word, deed, and presentation—with plot and dialogue changes shoehorned in whenever necessary to keep it that way—and if you were going to make a Watchmen in which such a thing were possible, you really shouldn’t have made the film at all.
March 8, 2009 at 1:39 pm
dana
I agree, except that Rorschach always gets cheers in all the wrong places. He’s supposed to, and then you’re supposed to wonder why you’re cheering for the sociopath.
March 8, 2009 at 1:58 pm
rmb
I agree with your take on the ending.
On a technical level, the monologues and voiceovers just didn’t work, even though they were lifted from the comic.
More than that, cutting the newsstand scenes meant that the only characters were the masks and the people they fight. There was no world there that was in danger of being destroyed. The movie was effectively about Dan and Laurie’s relationship.
I thought it was incredibly disturbing that the audience cheered and laughed at the Rohrschach-in-prison scenes. Those scenes weren’t supposed to be funny. Unintentional meta-commentary on movie audiences and our expectations?
March 8, 2009 at 2:28 pm
SEK
No stepping on any toes at all. Drum and I are seeing it on Tuesday, so I’ll weigh in then.
March 8, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Tom
In defense of the Squid: the book takes this very cheesy, very “comic book-y” device and follows it through to its horrific end. It sounds ridiculous when Veidt describes it, but the opening pages of the final chapter, starkly showing the devastation and death wrought by Veidt, reveals this most comic book of creations as a terrifying and destructive force, like the heroes themselves.
I’m not surprised Snyder changed it, though it does seem indicative of an overall “missing the point” on the film’s behalf.
March 8, 2009 at 3:25 pm
dana
The problem with the squid isn’t its cheesiness, it’s that as near as I can tell, the fact that there are psychics in the book isn’t made very clear until after the plan is well under way in the last chapter. (Though it’s possible I missed a detail somewhere.) I thought the decision to change that made sense, in terms of how long the movie would have to be to develop that angle.
March 8, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Tom
In a story where a blue man can manipulate atoms and see the future, the presence of psychics does not seem very far-fetched.
March 8, 2009 at 3:39 pm
dana
Sure, it’s not that it’s far-fetched, it’s that it comes out of nowhere. Oh — look over there, a giraffe — it was a psychic shockwave that killed all of the people!
March 8, 2009 at 3:46 pm
kid bitzer
i’ve never read the book before–it was clearly a zeitgeist thing, and it wasn’t mine–and i’m certainly never going to see the movie.
but i’ve gotta say, leaving out a giant squid seems like a total screw-up.
giant squids improve everything! no movie that has ever been made would not have been improved by having a giant squid in it!
i mean–“an affair to remember”, right, where deborah kerr is struck by a car? *so* much better if she’d been attacked by a giant squid.
or take that old plot device in citizen kane, the sled named “rosebud”? totally lame.
but a giant squid named “rosebud”? cinematic greatness.
look this new watchman movie is clearly crap. but i gotta say, i could have predicted that the director was a loser, just from hearing that he had a clear mandate for a giant squid, and left it out.
March 8, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Tom
I think Kid Bitzer pretty much has it right.
March 8, 2009 at 4:09 pm
kid bitzer
thank, you, tom, that’s very gratifying. your comment could not be improved upon.
except, perhaps, by the addition of a giant squid!
March 8, 2009 at 4:13 pm
dana
I shall propose the addition of a giant squid to my dissertation.
March 8, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Tom
I should add, however, that I don’t think the squid is the most important thing in the ending, and that dana’s more comprehensive comments about the altered ending seem right-on. Question (I haven’t seen the movie yet): from what I’ve heard, Dr. Manhattan “takes the blame,” Dark Knight style, for the destruction at the end. Is this true, and how does it play out? It seems like this would fundamentally alter the finale’s impact, allowing the “heroes” to remain heroic (sacrificial heroes, in fact), instead of morally compromised and ambivalent.
March 8, 2009 at 4:25 pm
kid bitzer
your dissertation–leibniz-studien of some sort, right?
oh, god–that needs a giant squid so bad.
“because if you ask for a sufficient reason why the principle of sufficient reason should hold, a giant squid will come out of its lair and eat you, capisce?”
though you may have to posit that all intellectual substances are at base octads.
March 8, 2009 at 4:26 pm
dana
The plot basically blames it on Dr. Manhattan “punishing” humanity and the implied threat is that we better work out our own problems or this may happen again. Manhattan doesn’t oppose that as the official story, but he doesn’t do anything to encourage it, either. (They detect his energy in the signature of the blast, which Veidt bases upon his powers.)
March 8, 2009 at 5:13 pm
SEK
I shall propose the addition of a giant squid to my dissertation.
I never thought about it this way, but I beat you to it. That’s even where I got the name for my blog! (Scroll down to the third paragraph.)
My dissertation contained a giant squid! My blog was named after one! (Sort of!) No wonder bitzer loves me!
March 8, 2009 at 5:13 pm
grackle
Where else but in a dissertation could one use the term ‘squiditity’ so perfectly?
March 8, 2009 at 5:21 pm
kid bitzer
that’s only one of the many reasons i love you, scott.
and, yes, a discussion of “squiddity” is an absolute must. properly distinguished from squality and squantity, of course.
March 8, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Ahistoricality
The plot basically blames it on Dr. Manhattan “punishing” humanity and the implied threat is that we better work out our own problems or this may happen again.
Well, at least it’s true to the omnipotent nature of Dr. Manhattan — who goes off to “create life” in the end — that he becomes a punishing god at the end … In fact, I think it might well be a better ending, in the sense that it draws the inhumanity and impotence of the superhero into even starker relief.
Impotence? They cannot save us: we have to save ourselves. They cannot inspire us: they can give us only fear and jealousy.
March 8, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Walt
I don’t think you people are taking the concept of giant squid with the appropriate seriousness.
March 8, 2009 at 5:39 pm
dana
primitive squiddity and the identity of indiscernibles….
March 8, 2009 at 5:53 pm
kid bitzer
you’re not confusing squiddity with squaecceity, are you?
totally different things. squaeccs have, like, thirty goddamn arms.
March 8, 2009 at 6:24 pm
andrew
I don’t think you people are taking the concept of giant squid with the appropriate seriousness.
Is this better?:
March 8, 2009 at 6:39 pm
kid bitzer
also: scylla. homer knew that every epic needs a squid. (oh, alright: identification not entirely clear. but something tentacular!)
i wonder what the appellation “live” is doing in this phrase:
‘The great live Squid…’
as opposed to the great dead squid? or does this mean, ‘the great squid, which few ever sea alive…’?
March 8, 2009 at 6:40 pm
jazzbumpa
I still think “squid” sounds like a past participle.
March 8, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Jason B.
I seem to have squodden.
March 8, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Hortense
“the giant squid was exceedingly stupid”
feh. I say the substitution of a thermonuclear explosion for Cthulhu was no squid pro quo.
“Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men.”
March 9, 2009 at 2:31 am
John
With the failure of the movie to find an audience, along with the failure of the comic attempt version over the last 20 years, for you historically-challenged viral trolls, it would be a nice idea if they could get that squid back in for any future releases, theatrical or directors cut DVD. That would be the first real major improvement on the road to healing and peace. That squid means a lot. :D
March 9, 2009 at 5:52 am
Chris
Well, at least it’s true to the omnipotent nature of Dr. Manhattan — who goes off to “create life” in the end — that he becomes a punishing god at the end
Oh no, he doesn’t do anything of the sort. The ending is still a lie, it’s just a *different* (and much more believable) lie. Instead of uniting against an unmistakably Earth lifeform that they somehow manage to mistake for an alien, humanity unites *against Dr. M.* – fortunately at the same time that he’s left for another galaxy, but since they don’t know that, it might work.
And I have to disagree in the strongest possible terms with the person quoted by GC, above. Anyone who flies backup for the Comedian, considers Rorschach a friend and breaks him out of prison is not remotely a heroic figure – Dan is in some ways sympathetic, but ultimately, can’t be trusted with the kind of power or deference that characterize the traditional superhero. Which was the whole point, and was, IMO, preserved.
March 9, 2009 at 8:21 am
Vance
I would like to put in a word for the squid. It’s no sillier than caped crusaders, and the squid-pocalypse is a good deal more spectacular than most of their exploits. It’s the one point in the comic (IMHO obviously) where the art, lackluster on the whole, really carries the book forward — it rises to the absurd occasion.
March 9, 2009 at 8:26 am
green apron monkey
Re: Hallelujah
Amen.
March 9, 2009 at 8:29 am
Vance
I see my point was made way back up there by Tom.
In any case, kb, you write as though you weren’t familiar with the original. The book does contain an ordinary giant squid of the type Melville refers to, but then at the end comes a truly giant one. The Silk Specter weeps.
March 9, 2009 at 8:58 am
kid bitzer
“In any case, kb, you write as though you weren’t familiar with the original.”
especially when i write @ 3:46p:
“i’ve never read the book before….”
but clearly the bigger the squid, the greater the contribution it makes to the work of art.
this is why the dilatory genius has always been told to get kraken.
March 9, 2009 at 9:21 am
Vance
Oops, my second reminder in this thread alone to read the thread before chiming in. But consider the book recommended (with that caveat about the drawing).
March 9, 2009 at 9:28 am
kid bitzer
you get to an age, vance, where you are resigned to the fact that certain fads have passed you by, forever.
there was a time when i could twist the night away. later, i even learned how to pony, somewhat like tony maroni. but i tried the watusi, and i just couldn’t do it like my little lucy. (i put my hands on my hips right enough, but then my backbone slipped in entirely the wrong way.)
that was my first intimation that youth was staying young, and i was getting old. i don’t mind; there are some consolations for old farts. like not having to keep up any longer.
March 9, 2009 at 9:30 am
Vance
I’m living proof that one can enjoy this book without succumbing to any more general fad. That said, I understand one must draw the proverbial line somewhere.
March 9, 2009 at 10:32 am
URK
but you might like it KB, it’s not too long and it has lots of pictures! And if you get all the way to the end, some of those pictures are pictures of…a giant squid!
March 9, 2009 at 10:44 am
kid bitzer
well, that is a good point, urk. pretty much unanswerable, really.
March 9, 2009 at 11:03 am
fullbodytransplant
You can see the real ending with the squid here:
Good times.
March 9, 2009 at 6:45 pm
TF Smith
Will mentioning any cephalopod get me the “squidiness” points in my dissertation, or does it have to be Architeuthis?
March 9, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Hemlock
So, I saw the film, and I liked the Dark Knight better. I dunno–the Joker would probably balk at moral economy and also massacre thousands of people in order to supposedly save the world–but then, at the end, he would burst out giggling “Just Kidding,” and blow the world up for some random reason that changes every few minutes. Now that would have been more interesting, in addition to Batman and his people thinking they outsmarted him but realizing that he manipulated them to outsmart him, so that he could outsmart them just because it’s funny and he’s bored…but not more interesting than Lincoln adopting the paradoxical free soil, free labor, free men ideology in order to gain support of potential constituents among northern white laborers…back to studying…
March 11, 2009 at 9:38 am
fullbodytransplant
We found the squid in the movie!
Easter Egg:
Word.
March 11, 2009 at 9:50 am
mds
“…but i gotta say, i could have predicted that the director was a loser, just from hearing that he had a clear mandate for a giant squid, and left it out.”
Yeah, something is seriously wrong when Zack Snyder passes up a legitimate chance to use a gigantic exploding squid. It’s as if he were suddenly trying too hard to be not-Zack Snyder.
March 12, 2009 at 1:29 pm
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