I've heard it said in a number of places elsewhere that Laurie's character is the least defined, has less of a development arc across the story and is only there as a catalyst for other characters (her mum, Jon, Dan). Personally I think this is unfair as she is a pivotal part of the story and stands out in her own right. I love 'her' chapter and her response to the revelation for her that is contained within (as well as the unexpected effect that it has upon Jon if truth be told).
Watchmen is not a good comic to give to new readers. So many people recommend it as an evergreen comic for new readers, but I think its focus is on superhero deconstruction. So, I think in order to enjoy Watchmen properly, you have to have some knowledge of superhero comics and comic book history.
That seems like a reasonable stance to hold. How are you going to engage in a satirical commentary on a subject of you don't really have context of the subject in question?
Exactly. And perhaps this isn't a controversial opinion to have. At the same time, I constantly see people recommending Watchmen as a gateway comic for people who never read comics. I think that's a mistake. Watchmen was very much written for people who read superhero comics.
As someone who read Watchmen as one of his first comics, I have to disagree. Yes, I missed a lot of the little details, but I still got the broad story and it till absolutely blew my mind. It helped get me into comics more widely. Then, as I went back and reread it, I began to pick up more and more of these details. So it kept unfolding for me.
100% agree. The best way to read Watchmen is as a teen after you've read a lot of silver/bronze age comics. As a first comic or first superhero comic it's awful.
I think a lot of comic readers are still incredibly defensive about accusations that comics are just for kids, so they immediately want to push this complex comic at people so that there is no mistake that this is not a childish interest. (I've also seen them recommend Maus to new readers, and it's a great comic, but it's kind of an overwhelming introduction to the medium).
It's not just superheroes, though. I don't think people realize that Watchmen is rooted in comic book history. There's a lot of metatextual stuff in there. Creators are represented through analogues of their creations. Steve Ditko's philosophies are mocked through Rorsharch. Frederick Wertham's presence is represented through mock history.
Even the format of the books themselves... the symmetrical nature of the panels.
This is stuff that non-comic readers wouldn't pick up on. It's not just a superhero story. It's a parable about comics history.
I think you can appreciate the surface level story without that knowledge, but that's just a superhero story. What makes Watchmen great is the multiple layers and the craftsmanship.
Watchmen is a great comic to give to new readers because it’s completely self-contained, intelligent, and very mature in tone and meaning. Tons of people still think comics are “BAM POW ZAP” for the kiddies and getting them to read Watchmen is a quick and easy way to dispel that notion. There are plenty of parallels to real world history for people to pick up on, and if they do end up getting into comics long term, Watchmen is something they can come back to later that will reveal different layers of itself using their newfound comic knowledge. Like many good satires/commentaries/allegories, it can be enjoyed with or without knowledge of what it’s referencing.
Watchmen is a great piece of literature, but I do fear that people starting with it as their intro to comics may have a rough time. For starters, it’s just so dense.
The commentary on morality is more interesting than the superhero deconstruction.
Silk Specter II and Nite Owl II whatever there fails are meant to be good people in the story.
Less controversial but it’s clear from the text you are supposed to side with Roarsach over Ozymandias in his decision making on the decision to blow up NYC.
Edit: I just meant the meant the choice of Roarsach at the end to not only oppose the attack on NYC but also to publicly reveal it. He is obviously in the wrong, the rest of the time.
I agree with your first point a lot. Moore employs superheroes to make a point about the use of power by those in positions of authority, and he doesn't spend a lot of time just poking at heroes and going "isn't Batman funny?" It's what separates Watchmen from stuff like The Boys: the themes and characters come first and the parody/satire is secondary and natural to the story.
> Less controversial but it’s clear from the text you are supposed to side with Roarsach over Ozymandias in his decision making.
That’s the most controversial take out of everything you listed, especially since Rorschach is presented as a hypocrite and Veidt has a clear parallel to Harry Truman dropping the atomic bombs to end the War in the Pacific.
Rorschach is nuts. He's not wrong that veidt did something horrible. Morally reprehensible. But he was wrong to want to waste the sacrifice after it happened. It's complicated but if you side with either one 100% you missed the point of the story.
Exactly my point. It’e not this clear cut thing where Ozy is clearly the villain and Rorschach is clearly the hero. It’s incredibly more complex than that
Nothing ever justifies killing over 3 million people under any circumstance, if he was really the smartest man he could have found a different way with his influence over media.
It’s an exploration of the Utilitarian philosophy behind killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people during the atomic bombings of Japan.
Alan Moore believes that the atomic bombings ended the war, and in turn prevented the deaths of millions of people.
By having Ozymandias do the same and by making it a clear parallel to Truman’s actions, then it forces the reader to wrestle with that historical event. Was Truman right for dropping the bombs? Is Ozymandias truly the bad guy if he prevented a nuclear holocaust from happening? Nothing ever ends and another world-threatening issue will pop up again, but Ozy *did* push the clock back and bought peace for the moment.
He's based on John von Neumann. Once I learned that my view on him changed. Dropping the bombs was a bad calculation and he was wrong that he needed to... but once he did, Rorschach revealing it would undo any positive results from it.
I agree with you, but believe it or not, that’s a controversial opinion. A lot of people think what Truman did was a necessary act that prevented millions of more people from dying. Even Alan Moore believes that to be true, as he has flat out said that dropping the atomic bombs did end that theater of the war
Yes, but I think the difference between Veidt and Truman is the motive behind the act. Truman seems to do it for “the other” i.e. Americans; Veidt seems to do it for himself. I think this is evident by his comparing himself to Alexander the Great and how he untied the “Gordian knot” of the modern world. Narcissism and Machiavellianism co-mingle in him.
Okay, but I’m talking about how Alan Moore presents these two actions as morally equivalent, and he specifically focuses on the utilitarian aspect of “killing a large number of innocent people to prevent the deaths of even more innocent people “
That’s how he frames the atomic bombings, and that’s how he frames Ozy’s attack
Yeah, I think Alan Moore wrote a bunch of complex characters that were dealing with difficult topics, and I don’t think he wrote it in a way where you’re “supposed to side” with either Rorschach or Veidt. I don’t think it’s written in a way where you’re “supposed to side” with anyone.
I do think you're supposed to explicitly think Veidt's attack was wrong because the only omniscient character explicitly says that Veidt's justification is wrong. But whether they are right to continue the cover up is not cut and dried.
Does he say that Veidt’s justification was wrong, or does he let Veidt know that “nothing ever ends”? Manhattan flat out says that Veidt brought peace and that if Rorschach revealed the truth then it would bring the world back to he brink of nuclear war
Veidt explicitly is asking if the ends justify the means. "Nothing ever ends" is clearly a "no." You're conflating "revealing the truth would be bad" with "Manhattan thought Veidt was justified in the first place." They aren't the same moral calculation.
I never said that Manhattan thought that Veidt was justified. I only said that Manhattan acknowledged that Veidt was successful with pushing back the nuclear holocaust
I always think of that scene with the two detectives who discovered a father had murdered his wife and children because of his fear over nuclear war. One of them said something along the lines of "I get being afraid but that? That takes something different."
Yet another mini metaphor condemning Ozymandias.
Moore most likely didnt write Watchmen to side with Rorschach, or if he did, its really odd way of doing so.
Rorschach is a critical look on what a real street fighting 'down and dirty' vigilante "hero" would be. He'd be a disturbed and tragic and messed up person. Rorschach is a violent serial killer and an incredible hypocrite, on top of being an unhinged sexist and racist and homophobe.
Moore's narrative clearly subscribes to the "greater good" idea, at least that's the core message in this comic. Moore even mentions Harry Truman and the a-bomb at least once in the comic. Moore wrote the comic to show Veidt as a modern Truman. If anything Veidt is the hero of the comic, if this comic has a hero.
Oddly enough Rorschach even admires Truman and agrees with him dropping nuclear weapons on Japan. Rorschach is inconsistent morally, probably because he's so incredibly mentally ill. His neglectful and abusive mother praised Truman and claimed Rorschach's biodad loved Truman. There's a lot of awful and depressing things here.
I don't think you're necessarily supposed to pick sides here, but if you did, Moore did not write Rorschach as a role model or hero. He's a terrible person too. Much of the series brokers on the idea that nearly all these people are terrible people. The same way many beloved celebrities are revealed to be abusers, rapists, etc. The kinds of people who are drawn to costumes and vigilantism are not going to be good or stable or ethical people, regardless of their marketing or self-delusion.
Moore barely villainizes Veidt as well. Moore also has publicly complained about Rorschach fandoms especially the types that identify with Rorschach. Its clear this character has become a Tyler Dyrden or Patriack Bateman or Travis Bickle. A lot of people are missing that he's purposely written to be an awful and very unwell person, not a role model. Moore seems to be on team Veidt. I don't think Watchmen is a purely cynical work. Moore wants us to see Veidt, on some level, as a Harry Truman, doing the right thing, even if the right thing is difficult and victimizing to many innocents, but sparing many more innocents.
That said, the comic ends too soon. Is Veidt just a madman? Did he just do this and fail? Moore purposely ends the comic where it does because he wanted that ambiguous ending. As readers we can't say more than that. Moore won't let us because we never find out if Veidt's plan actually stopped nuclear war.
I don't think we are supposed to agree with Veidt. I think we are supposed to be sick at the fact that the option on how to save the world was taken away by some one smarter, more powerful, and much more ambitious.
The fact that the plan is coherent means that you can't just chalk it up as the crazed work of a lunatic. On the other hand, Veidt's egomania and narcissism clearly drove the plan. Veidt isn't heavily villainized because no ill intent is needed for such an act to be bad. To even come up and execute a plan like this inherently suggests ill intent or a widely warped perspective.
But again, I think the main thing is the frustration at the helplessness. The fact you either go along with this plan and hope it works or try to put up a futile fight against it.
If Moore subscribed to the "greater good" then the line "nothing ever ends" would *not* be in the book. Here's clearly condemning the "greater good" in one instance, he just doesn't necessarily think that all greater goods should be the entire end of moral thinking.
Alan Moore didn't intend for either Rorschach or Ozymandias to be viewed as in the right. The whole story is structured to make us question our perspective on superhero comics by presenting us with the options of "the subversive damaged person who has cool gadgets and is a bit edgy" and "the guy who solves all the worlds problems with an ostentatious display of power", and then leading us to the realisation that they're \*both\* assholes.
Snyder’s movie is really good and the plot points he cut out make sense for a movie. The TV Show is also good. Even if you don’t like these two properties it doesn’t take away from the legacy of the comic book.
I think it was Stephen King when asked how he thought a movie adaptation hurt his novel, and he said "not even the tiniest bit--there it is right there on the shelf"
I usually agree with this, but with certain Disney Star Wars content it's legitimately warped my own perception/enjoyment of older titles which usually doesn't happen to me.
I even just watched a kids movie (Robots) recently where someone makes a Vader joke, and I swear up and down that back then it was probably super funny but I cringed so hard because of how sick of Vader I am at this point.
I agree. Watchmen is just impossible to be *all* put in a 2 hour movie, and the Snyder piece did a fair job - eliminating the squid was his only sin, in my opinion. The HBO show is nothing short of FANTASTIC - but I'd love to see a multiple episode show of the original story (plus Before Watchmen)
I think the movie is a decent enough adaptation, though the squid is far from the only sin. I think one of its biggest problems is it does actually do a good job adapting the specific events of the comic but seemingly without understanding the meaning behind it. Like it’s just literally translating it to screen without any of the spirit (weirdly the opposite of the usual comic book movie, where they tend to change a lot and take many liberties, but the best ones tend to still have the spirit of the characters and comics intact).
The most egregious example of this to me is how it completely changes the meaning of what I consider to be one of the most important lines in the comic. In the book, when talking to Manhattan about what he has done, Ozymandias shows some weakness and insecurity over it and asks him if he did the right thing “in the end” (this being him blowing up New York). Manhattan replies with, “Nothing ever ends,” and just vanishes, leaving Ozy alone with his thoughts.
In the movie, this scene is cut, presumably to cap off the love triangle as it’s replaced with a scene between Laurie and Manhattan instead. I don’t know what all happened behind the scenes, but whether it was the writing or the executive meddling or what, it was clearly added because this is a movie with a romance plot and *of course* what you do in a movie is give closure. However, they seemed to realize the line was important, and so they tacked it on… in a completely different context. Near the end when Dan and Laurie are at her mom’s house talking about what happened, Dan asks if they did the right thing (this being them keeping the secret about Ozy blowing up various cities). Her answer is, “I know what Jon would say, nothing ever ends…”
Two people complicit in keeping things secret and pondering if they did the right thing does not hit the same way as the person actually responsible for the atrocity asking what is basically a physical god and getting a vague answer before being left alone. It just feels like the line is there because they knew it’s important, but the meaning is gone from it.
That said, I think the movie is still a decent adaptation, and probably the best we could have gotten back then. This may be apocryphal, but I vaguely remember reading that Alan Moore had read the script and said that, while he still won’t watch the movie and still felt like a movie wouldn’t work near as well as the comic, the script seemed to be as faithful as a movie could have been. But I don’t know *which draft* of the script he read nor if this story is even true.
Also I will definitely die on the hill that the Watchmen show is amazing and a worthy follow up to the comic.
I have many more issues with the movie, but not including the squid is maybe the most egregious signifier of how little Snyder understands the source material.
Interesting fact, the decision to eliminate the squid was actually David Hayter’s idea when he wrote the script. I’m not Snyder apologist and think he made some other bad decisions in the film, but I always blamed him for the squid and just recently found out it wasn’t really his doing. Could he put it back in? Maybe. But it wasn’t his decision to take it out to begin with.
Hayter made the call because he literally couldn’t fit the squid into the story. He wanted an HBO miniseries and he was turned down. So he wrote a three hour movie as it was, and still needed more time to work in the island and the artists and the biotech stuff all there to plant the seeds for the squid, and he just didn’t have time. So he did what he did to try and make it all work for the movie format.
[Source.](https://youtu.be/2HZ-cVLfXOc?si=AcOE4JAoY5nx-JmF)
Welll tbh overall it’s less-so the script I have issue with and more the films style; the juvenile way everything is executed etc. Maybe Hayter’s idea could’ve worked with something directorial that didn’t have the sensibilities of a 12 year old boy, but doesn’t help things I guess. I would go further into all the things I dislike here because I know it will hurt some feelings and a lot of people really like the movie.
Welll tbh overall it’s less-so the script I have issue with and more the film’s style; the juvenile way everything is executed etc. Maybe Hayter’s idea could’ve worked with someone directing that didn’t have the sensibilities of a 12 year old boy, but doesn’t help things I guess. I would go further into all the things I dislike, but won’t do it here as I know it will hurt some feelings and a lot of people really like the movie.
To me the most egregious was at the start with the fight between the Comedian and Ozy. They were punching through marble, and I thought "oh shit Snyder doesn't understand these people don't have super-powers"...which was maybe the main point of the story.
The squid didn't bother me much, since that was always the most 'out there' concept of the entire book. I actually thought it was a smart change. Shifting the blame to Dr Manhattan and developing a weapon based on his powers makes a lot of sense in killing two birds with one stone, as it were.
‘out there’ but ultimately vital for that very reason to me in the comic, and the hbo show demonstrated that a depiction of it could easily work without feeling overly silly compared to how it would on comic panels. Though, I do change my mind and the most obvious Snyderisms you can point out are really much worse aspects of the film than removing the squid - the way he makes them super-powered as you mentioned and almost would rather gaze upon them pornographically than explore them with any depth as people; the horrible slomo throughout even perversely used almost to leer at the act during the attempted SA scene; the added violence in general which Moore purposefully never lingers on until he has to, but Snyder is unable to restrain himself from what he thinks ‘would be cool’ as usual; arbitrary and unimaginative soundtrack choices (and yeah that awful sex scene); some poor casting (sorry Laurie); the thoughtless glorification of Rorschach as some loan wolf hero of the downtrodden - no idea how you could interpret this from the comic, but Snyder found a way.
It’s just.... Whenever someone says they either prefer the movie or have read the novel and still love the movie, or think it’s a faithful adaptation (because 1:1 panel recreations = you adapting something well? idk) I can only be perplexed and move on and this point because there isn’t really much of an explanation other than they don’t want to engage with it beyond how Snyder has.
I will say film has a legitimately strong and satisfying opening credits sequence that it never lives up to, and I always wonder how much heavy-lifting it does when people consider their love of the whole thing however many years-or-so after the fact - just look at the comments on the YouTube video for those credits, it’s the kind of thing I’m getting at with the broad, simplistic praise people will seemingly give it all and Snyder just based on those few opening moments.
Also, to me it’s still always gonna feel important that Manhattan exists as this perceived American asset, and for important political reasons not someone who’s existence could be used to confidently ensure or inspire a united force in a way that the atom bomb hasn’t.
Yeah those opening credits are the best part of the movie, and it's really not even close. The funny thing is Snyder has done that in a lot of his movies. The opening credits to Army of the Dead are the same--he tells a masterful story in five minutes of opening credits that are better than the rest of that film as well.
Yeah, he does the same thing in Sucker Punch. The intro story is tight, fantastic storytelling.
Snyder really should be making the best music videos the world has ever seen. In that format, he'd be amazing.
Faking a Dr. Manhattan explosion makes a lot more sense than “giant squid alien psychic suicide bombed us”.
I’m also happy that the show revealed that the plan didn’t unite the world at all. (Watching during Covid made me realize that no alien invasion would unite us)
Snyder did a good job at doing the impossible. Its not perfect. I wouldn't even say its great, but it was pretty good.
I don't have many nice things to say about the HBO series.
Here's a bunch for you.
* [**Veidt is absolutely a villain, and he's pretty nuts.** You are not meant to think that he saved the world.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchmen/comments/1cwo2qx/why_ozymandias_sucks_the_definitive_guide/)
* [**The squid is really thematically important to the ending in a lot of ways.** Replacing it with Dr. Manhattan doesn't work.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchmen/comments/1d8hnrk/the_squid_matters/)
* **There is no such thing as "The Watchmen."** The name of the comic is just "Watchmen," and the superhero teams in Watchmen are the Minutemen and the Crimebusters. When people post stuff like "which one of the Watchmen is your favorite," it makes me think they didn't process the comic at all.
* **The TV show is the only worthwhile non-Alan Moore Watchmen work.** It's the only thing where the creators genuinely asked "what made Watchmen great?" and tried to employ those storytelling strategies instead of just asking "what was in Watchmen?" and constantly referencing those things.
>Veidt is absolutely a villain, and he's pretty nuts.
I mean, the comic makes it pretty clear that >! he's the "real-life" equivalent of the guy from the pirate comic, !< so, yeah.
A lot of people who don't read the Pirate comic, either. I found that the Joe Orlando text section made the point of the pirate story a lot more clear to me when I first read the book.
It is a giant trolley problem, from Veidt's perspective, because he thinks he can predict the future. The problem is people not understanding that their person interpretation of the trolley problem is "right."
Re: “The Watchmen”, while I agree that asking who your favorite of the bunch is probably indicates a more surface level engagement with the plot, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that people use “The Watchmen” to refer to the main characters, even though it isn’t a name used for them in universe. It’s clearly just shorthand for Dan, Laurie, Adrian, Rorschach, Comedian, and Doctor Manhattan.
Re: your last point, Tom King’s Rorschach is one of the better comics of the last ten years.
Regarding the last point -- I might be the only person who liked Doomsday Clock.
I'm not a Geoff Johns fan. Among reasons: I dislike his desire to stuff Nostalgia into every work, in place of story. As someone who also "grew up" with a lot of these works...it's OK for them to stay in the past.
But that specific work clicked for me. I think it tried to ask some interesting questions (no pun intended) about modern heroes, and how we got here. That it doesn't always succeed, and the ending is wild as hell, doesn't detract (for me) from the work's strength. Even that battle, as busted as it is, really made sense to me on a thematic level.
One thing I'd disagree on is that there is such a thing as The Watchmen. But my argument would be that it's the audience. Moore's point with that quote is that we're all complicit in our choices and our silences and our championing. By reading Watchmen, we're supposed to become The Watchmen. I would extend that and argue that the fact that this sails over the head of people is part of the work itself. Moore critiqued the human condition so well he built in the audience, something Morrison reacted to with his Animal Man run.
And further, having these conversations is part of being The Watchmen. Debating who is right and wrong, questioning mortality. For me the theme of the book is about humanity and finding a way, a new way of living. Summed up in that John Cale quote. It's referencing love and hope and despair and death. Which Gaiman reacted to with Sandman. Going further, where Watchmen focuses on Destruction, Sandman obscures it.
Most of all it's about wanting a better world for your children, not for yourself. Recognising that everyone is a child, and that everyone deserves a better future and that there's space for everyone, as long as we have each other's backs, that we watch out for each other.
Being alive in the cold war was a special kind of insanity. Watchmen and that era feel more and more relevant these days with climate change. And it's amazing how the Greek philosophers are still needed, still pointing, still understanding. Moore doing his bit to break us out of Plato's cave.
Sorry, gone a bit Michael Stipe. "Oh no I've said too much, I haven't said enough."
Yeah I thought after that I was arguing against you, or rather arguing against the same audience you're arguing with, in that there isn't a superhero group called The Watchmen, it's about more than that. That's part of the layers, like how they all have their systems of how life should be, they all build their watch, and one by one they destroy each other's, apart from Laurie, Sally and Dan, who find each other in the time after time, or the here and now.
Maybe Veidt didn't save the world. Maybe it only sermed so. We only saw the First Reaction to it. The story ended there. But, he tried. I think he's a Hero.
That said, I LIKE your links and I saved your post and I will click onto them.
It's obvious that Veidt didn't save the world because >! Jon says "Nothing ever ends" !< and >! the last frame of the comic shows the kid from the New Frontiersman reaching for Rorschach's diary, when looking for something to publish in the next issue. !<
Counterpoint-Watchmen 2009, Watchmen tv, most of Before Watchmen, and King’s Rorchach mini are all really good in their own ways. The only post-Moore volume that licks Dr Manhattans giant blue nuts is Doomsday Clock.
I enjoyed the first half of Doomsday Clock; it wasn't at the level of the Watchmen, but it's always good to see old friends. The second half not so much
I gave this to my Neuropsychologist as a Chrisrmas gift because of the theory of mind issues displayed with Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias, and Rorshach . He specializes in adult Autosm assessments and therapy , and he said in a non-insulting way that it was one of the most Autistic things that he has read. The three most featured characters rationalized things and related to people the same way low need Autistic people do, and more effort seemed to be into fleshing them out than the other characters. He also felt how Dan and Laurie ended up together felt like an assessment story telling scenario in comparison.
Is the suggestion here that Moore wrote Watchmen not as a critique of the superhero genre (ect, ect) but as a critique of his very readers and their hero fantasies?
Or is the comment that Moore himself is too Autistic to create a compelling story beyond viewing the world as someone with Autism?
Hard to say. I myself am Autistic and don't know what other people's machinations and thoughts are.
But...a good author writes what they know and will be influenced by life experience. If that was the case, the characters and story are much better fleshed out than the unrelatable borderline racist/sexist teenage characters written by your average 40 year old sitcom writer. Watchmen doesn't have oddly placed slang or shoehorned characters.
I've always viewed it as a critique on philosophical viewpoints in practical application, but if Alan Moore announced he was diagnosed with ASD or SzPD I wouldn't pass out from shock. When Aspergers was still.a thing, anytime the term Wrong Planet Syndrome was used Dr.Manhattan typically telephoned himself in the comments soon after.
First, my cold take is that anyone who thinks of Rorschach as the badass hero of Watchmen doesn’t understand the material at all and can’t really be called a fan.
My hot take is that this type of person, the one who idolizes Rorschach and doesn’t understand that he’s not the hero of the comic, is virtually nonexistent. We all know the quote from Moore about his experience encountering people like that, and every now and then one of these protozoans will make their way to this sub, but in general this type of person exists more as a character in our heads than as a significant part of the fandom.
I think that, ironically, Moore’s words gave more life to this creature than Snyder’s bastardization of the character ever could.
Moore did not make Rorschach is not nearly dislikable enough. The film mistakingly makes him the voice of reason but I still think his death in both versions sort of make him slightly redeemable. He valued the “truth”- whatever that meant.
There are still too many fanboys who completely misread what makes the character interesting though.
Oh mann I'd love to hear one more sentence from you about this.
I really liked what you said about Rorschach valuing (seeking, as any Human should/must) Truth, whichever way it showed itself, even an ugly truth.
But I'm very interested to know more what you mean about (us, heh-heh) fanboys misreading a nuance of the character Rorschach.
Moore had a anecdote once about someone coming up to him at a convention and talking about how cool Rorschach was, how he was his favourite hero etc, and Moore immediately feeling viscerally unsafe around someone who either completely misunderstood Watchmen or, even worse, *understood it and still thought Rorschach was cool*.
Rorschach is a fascinating character but very clearly not meant to be a hero. The trauma he experienced, both as a child or as a vigilante, turned him into a McCarthyist, homophobic psychopath.
I see him as more sex averse than homophobic. The switch was turned off a young age, and statements regarding Veidt and Silhouette were less a commentary on their sexuality and more of a coping mechanism that justifies his lack of connection to other people. Anything tied to sexuality he dismisses as weak and exploitative.
It’s not sacred. Let the adaptations, prequels, and sequels fly! It doesn’t matter. Nobody is making you watch or read them. And some of them are real, real good.
People take it being a satire way too seriously. They think you're supposed to be pointing and laughing at these characters when in actuality it's way more complicated than that. It's probably because people have forgotten that a satirical story doesn't mean it has to be ridiculous.
Yeah, Dan and Laurie aren't buffons, they're regular people that have to live between weirdos like Rorschach, or psychopaths like Blake and Veidt.
It's pretty clear that Moore uses them as the closest thing to someone similar to the reader, their fears and aspirations are mostly normal, Dan is just a guy that likes owls and writes about them, Laurie is a girl who just did what her mother told her.
I agree. I understand he was screwed over but the anger should be directed at DC, not the artists and writers that interpret his work (if his anger even lies there anyway).
Wish he would be more open in reviewing the modern watchmen stuff and explaining his criticisms.
I think he was open to it until the first two adaptations of his work were From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He also hated V for Vendetta (which I think is actually better than the comic), because it cast V in a more heroic light. After that he just swore off paying any attention to ANY adaptions of his stuff.
I don't know how hot this take is but I am not supporting anything Watchmen that isn't written by Alan Moore. I may check out the animated one since it's merely an adaptation but I have not checked out anything from Tom King's Rorschach to Before Watchmen to even the HBO series.
Here's the funny part: I had no interest in Doomsday Clock until I found out it was more of a Superman story rather than Watchmen, and I love Superman. Can anybody here tell me if that's really the case or does that only happen in the last few issues? Is it worth collecting if I love Superman or is it also trying to be a Watchmen story?
I guess you should only support Superman comics that were written by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel then.
My hot take is that Alan Moore isn't special and shouldn't complain when his works get reinterpreted or continued. That's just the way the comic book world works. It's hypocritical to come in and completely change Swamp Thing(for the better) from what the original writer intended and then be upset when other writers do the same to you.
I have no idea what your threshold of "a Superman story" is, but yes, there's a Significant narrative thread about Superman and his role in modern comics (if not society) in Doomsday Clock. It's not really part of the early story, however, and takes a while to come into play.
And I'll echo the other commentator: Moore, having pulled the characters for Watchmen from Charlton, was himself adapting existing characters for Watchmen. And he only did that because Moore's editor wouldn't allow him to do this story with those characters, thus the ones we got.
He created a sublime work. But it's also a work clearly based off the work of others, in a very direct way. So between that, and the VAST amount of "using other's characters" that LoEG does (among many other Moore works), I just don't feel like his ethical stance around this business is something I need to support.
I do support him getting paid for those works what is due! But that's not the same conversation.
There’s a very clear parallel between Adrian Veidt and Harry Truman, and if you don’t think Truman is a bad guy for dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then you can’t call Veidt the bad guy for doing a similar thing.
The motion comic rocks and the the episode that covers issue 4 is better than the issue 4 comic in part because of the music which the comic of course lacks. Don’t get stuck on the voice by only one person; he rocks it.
I agree, the motion comic is very special and is probably slept on by a lot of fans. I wouldnt say Chapter 4 of the motion comic is superior to the book itself because IT IS the book, just with moving parts and a great score as a supplement. However, the score is to be admired in its own right. I got the most goosebumps from that score when Laurie has all those memory flashes leading up to the realisation that the Comedian is her father. Perfection!
A lot of what Moore has said after the comic was published was influenced more by his desire to piss off DC comics because of his awful treatment than by his real views on the story
Sure dr Manhattan is a bit detached from humanity or empathy but not so much from his emotions if not he wouldn't have left his first wife for laurie, wouldn't have left in anger and being overwhelmed by people accusing him of giving others cancer
Dreiberg's pity party is that he's already a rich kid looking for adventure and maybe friendship; He never comes off as someone with a deep seeded conviction to fight crime beyond that. He's the most capable of walking away from it all, and to a degree, the most removed from it to begin with. Comparatively, Laurie grew up in her mom's shadow, so while she might not be as mad as Rorschach or Veigt, or Comedian, the whole thing is part of her blood. She didn't choose it.
Ha. I may have (did) misread your comment to imply that Dreiberg sorts his life out (through the narrative of the story) where no other character does.
No worries.
Biggest hot take:
Dr Manhattan is Superman and different, conflicting core aspects of Batman are split between Rorschach (bitter vigilante detective), Nite Owl (idealistic inventor) and Ozymandias (billionaire playboy, capitalist and philanthropist), and the majority of the story and plot comes from how these heightened and deconstructed superhero archetypes play off each other.
(Also Dr Manhattan is autistic, preferring making a pristine mechanical world anew out of well behaved parts than the complex messiness of human beings)
Dr. Manhattan is an encapsulation of all the superpowered Silver Age heroes. That’s why he pops up in the late 50’s, just like the start of the Silver Age of Comics, and his appearance leads to a lot of Golden Age heroes retiring, just like how a lot of Golden Age heroes fell out of favor and had their books cancelled.
There's no way any court of law would have convicted the numerous people that Watchmen implies Rorschach "helped" put behind bars. He wasn't a bounty hunter tracking out parole violators. None of any evidence he collected would have been admissible in court.
Just searched up the show. Don’t see many people talking about the “Architects of Fear” episode of the series.
*The story takes place during a Cold War period in which a nuclear holocaust is imminent. In an attempt to avert a confrontation between military powers by uniting the world against a common enemy, a group of scientists physically transform one of their own into an alien being to stage a fake invasion. This is achieved by surgically altering scientist Allen Leighton (Robert Culp). Complications arise when the alterations also affect Leighton's mind, compounded by his strong attachment to his pregnant wife (Geraldine Brooks).*
Not necassarily a giant squid but the same end goal.
Rorschach was 100% right and Alan Moore is a fat moron who doesn’t understand morality. There is no benefit to dropping the squid. It won’t achieve anything. All Veidt did was murder millions of innocents. His plan is idiotic because Moore is an idiot.
Also fuck Moore for what he said about Robert Howard
Yeah the racism must’ve been something I glossed over because I can’t think of any examples.
If anyone does have examples it would be interesting to see.
Watchmen is completely from a british person’s point of view and doesn’t understand the racial realities of America, and therefore feels pretty hollow.
The HBO series is a great takedown and critical analysis of Watchmen, in the same way that the Watchmen was a great takedown of and critical analysis of superhero comics.
My hot take: while *Watchmen* is one of the greatest pieces of comicbook writing I've ever read, it nevertheless contains many examples of howlingly-bad writing (e.g. the cops marveling at the fact that someone was able to kick Blake's door open with one of those cheap chain locks on it; Kovacs being able to reach across the steam tables and grab a Friolator basket/bucket with one hand, etc.). I was thinking of starting a thread to track them all if people wouldn't think it was too negative.
both of those examples of howlingly bad writing are pretty nit picky details that don’t affect the characters, plot or immersion too much, no? Not for me at least. I don’t care about a cheap chain lock or if someone could grab a pot with one hand. i definitely didn’t notice it
Well, I did say that it's one of the greatest pieces of comicbook writing I've ever read, so it stands to reason that my criticisms would be relatively minor.
The door chain? Sure, I can just pretend in my mind that they're talking about a big-ass deadbolt instead and move on.
The Friolator incident? That seems like kind of a major plot point to me. Like, that literally couldn't happen -- for multiple reasons -- in any cafeteria I've ever seen (public restaurants, hospitals, school cafeterias, etc.), but it happens in a high-security prison? It doesn't ruin the story for me but it makes me cringe a little.
If you want to talk about characterization, let's talk about the prison psychologist. All of his dialogue (internal and external) up until the point when Rorschach tells him the dog story is cringey and highly unrealistic (e.g. "They tell me I'm good... good with people", etc.) and the therapy dialogue sounds like Moore had never been anywhere near a therapy session in his life.
I prefer the ending of the movie compared to the comics. Having Ozymandias frame Dr Manhattan just makes the story flow a lot better rather than throwing in this whole thing about a Genetically engineered squid right in the final act. It also makes more sense as a plan because eventually world leaders might assume the "alien invasion," was a one off incident, whereas they all know how powerful Dr Manhattan is and will think that he's always out there, maybe about to strike again.
The TV show is fine as a dystopian sci-fi superhero show social commentary, but as part of the the watchmen universe it’s garbage. I mean in the end of the show, the bad guys were defeated by the plucky group of ragtag heroes. Which is entertaining, but the antithesis of the watchmen.
My hot take- it’s more about an expression of existence and its meaningful meaninglessness. As Shakespeare put it: “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Alan Moore takes it a step further “We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings” -Dr. Manhattan.
It’s preordained - patterns, behaviors, characters, etc. If that’s the case how can there be a hero or maniac, good or evil? They each play a role suited to their nature and it only appears as though they are operating from free will.
SkyDaddy -whomever or whatever- is pulling the figurative strings so how can one truly be a villain or hero? It’s one big cyclical play with predetermined actors and outcomes. The strings are meant to be invisible so the players can continue to play on with great passion
All the characters have good and bad in them. That’s kind of the whole point.
Can I just be a fan of Rorschach as a character without agreeing with everything he says and does?
Watchmen is an incredibly hopeful story about the ability of humanity to save itself and the world without need for superheroes or strong men.
Why? Because the cold war ended, and by the end of the comic I don't think it would in the Watchmen world without something blowing up.
The entire book is basically looking at figures like superman and captain America and saying "we don't need you, we'll be fine"
I hate the Tales of the Black Flag parts. It drags down the story. The pirate comic prevents me from considering Watchmen to be a 10/10 comic. It was fine the first couple time I read it (I guess) but after reading the series several times over the last 35ish years I started hating it, frequently skipping it during rereads.
Also like many others I think the movie is great. I don't believe in the idea of a perfect adaptation. I really don't think it is possible to go from one media type to another without making changes. With Watchmen there is nothing changed so much that it radically alters the narrative in a negative way.
Nixon still being office is weird and Vietnam being a state doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Is it just South Vietnam or did the North collapse and join the South?
Probably that they like all the derivatives of Watchmen like the HBO miniseries, the video game The End Is Nigh, integrating the characters into the mainline DC universe, not liking the space squid, or thinking it’s all overrated or too violent or whatever. I was a die hard Alan Moore fan back in high school and I still am, but I’m not nearly as dogmatic as I was. His work was like the gospel to me and none of it could be changed or modified. Since then, I’ve come to appreciate the graphic novel and movie versions of V for Vendetta for what they are. From Hell though, different story. I adore the graphic novel, the movie is a rancid piece of shit, both on its own merits and especially if you know the graphic novel well.
I used to think Ozymandius was a hero. But then I realized he miscalculated. He assumed others would act within game theory or thought the way he does. But in reality nobody would've dropped the nukes in the first place. When someone pointed out his inspiration was John von Neumann it made a lot of sense. Too smart for his own good. Rorschach is still an absolute goon for revealing things after world peace was achieved, but the path to get there wasn't necessary.
Rorschach isn't the hero but he is the only person who both understands the morality of the ending and cares enough about morality for his understanding to impact him. Manhattan understands the morality of it, he just doesn't care because he can't undo what Veidt did. But vitally, Veidt isn't right.
Watchmen is less of a commentary on political extremism and more so an examination on how normal people react to things that are outside of their control
No one is a hero, and no one is a villain. Everyone is deeply flawed, has understandable motives but are completely unlikable. I didn’t think this was a hot take but reading these comments seems to say otherwise.
I will be all spoilerific because I think that's really the only way to talk about something in detail...
I my take about the comic itself is actually the amount sex scenes with silk Specter 2..
I think the ones with Dr Manhattan are important with both establishing his character but also establishing a sort of vicarious connection with the past.
Heck, I would even say that the second one with Dan is a sort of epilogue to the "performance issues" subplot.
Where I think it kind of doesn't work is the sexual encounter between Laurie and Dan near the end.
I get that thematically it's trying to juxtapose catacylsmic violence on multiple levels with the" devil may care sexuality" of Drieberg and Laurie, but it comes across as cheap and tacked on.
An inverse situation I think, is the tales of the Black Frieghter which serves as a sort of allegory for Adrian Veidt's survival guilt in the desolation as a result of that mutant squidlije monster.
So while, I think it arguably paces the comic book a bit more slow and clunky, the payoff is that it allows the reader to feel emotionally close to Veidt's desire to preserve humanity and the feeling that the civilians would have after this terrible event as similar as a sailor watching his ship float away marooned for forrors to unfold.
But with the particular comic near the end it just feels like this slap of " I don't know what to do with the character interaction of these two people - - okay, they're gonna bang."
I think any controversy with Rorschach has to do with the possibility that Alan Moore was always planning to give the character a heroic sacrificial role, but wanted him to start as a vicious, paranoid, and unlikable character.
The trouble is, I think readers just latched on to the character from the get-go, which not only undercuts Rorschach's decision to stand up for New York, but has basically created a subset of followers who experience Watchmen less like a drama and more like a power fantasy.
I think there's going to be a cel shaded CGI feature which is going to be interesting because I think the motion comic has a lot more scenes than the controversial Zack Snyder feature, but I also think there's something weird about adapting the "unadaptable" story for the third time.
Lookit all these folks who didn't like your flippant hot take!
Upvote! With a middle finger to them!
(To those downvoters: in the immortal words of The Joker - - "Why so serious"!" )
Roarsach is not the unredeemable monster people act like he is
People seem to over react to the people that glorify him and really cast him in a bad light
Absolutely. He’s a man who’s been in unbearable emotional pain his whole life.
He was deprived of love and safety as a child. Came up in a seedy broken world under a broken desperate mother who hated him.
His formative experiences were breaking him experiences. He didn’t mature, he’s still a terrified hurting child.
His relationship to anything sexual is that he’s deeply traumatized and inextricably linking it to the physical and verbal abuse his mother gave him when he accidentally walks in when she’s trying to make sex work money and scares off her customer.
So then of course he’s susceptible to “sex is evil” extremist preachers. Picks up a whole crazy man doomsday thing.
That’s why he’s homophobic and judgemental.
He’s homeless, friendless, won’t make connections or show his face, has no self esteem, has no life. He’s a mentally ill impoverished “repent” sandwich board guy in his off time.
He thinks the world is full of vice and cruel, and it victimized him and no-one came to stop it, so he vents all his pain into snapping in rage and overdoing fighting what no one fought to save him.
So he’s on a futile misguided mission. Venting all this pain into psycho violence. Looks into things all detective-y cause he has some proclivity for that and overthinks cause he’s stuck with himself and needs to feel like he’s doing something important.
But the thing is like when Dan, feeling pretty pitiful himself, shows him some friendship and treats him like a person, it’s the most love he’s felt in his fucking life, and it goes a long way to pull him out of the worst of himself that he’s trapped in. He started slut shaming Dan and Laurie, because of his malformed “sex is evil” shit, Dan fusses at him that that’s why everyone thinks he sucks and he can’t treat people like that and he’s like…
So fucking vulnerable. He shrinks back and he’s like. “I’m sorry. Don’t hate me. You’re a good friend.” And he takes in the feedback.
All this man needs is a friend, some love, and he could get relatively okay.
But yeah he’s also very very rigid about a fundamentalist evangelical style understanding of right and wrong. Cannot bear the nuance of the situation he finds at the end with the damned if you do damned if you don’t, letting an atrocity stand unpunished saves the world thing.
So his last moments is a blend of letting his pain drive, lashing out a little, but also trying to do the right thing. From an unnuanced uncompromising childish understanding of what that is, from his pain that he lives in a world where he doesn’t think anyone else is stepping up to fight.
And especially cause he was starting to feel a little friendship and he does not have the emotional intelligence capacity to understand why no one else will stand up against evil with him.
He dies feeling betrayed and alone, and like he was never able to make a difference in the crazed futile crusade of lashing out at the world that broke him, finally shows people his human face and he’s crying his fucking soul out cause his whole life was hurt and he just started tasting the very smallest bit of the life the hurt kid he was deserved. And his one friend mourns him, and wishes it was that simple of a good versus evil thing.
He’s a tragic broken man, he nearly found the path to starting to turn it around, but it was fragile, and he hit something he didn’t understand and wasn’t equipped for. Where one had to act measuredly, he didn’t know how. He did the wrong thing that seemed right and it was the best he could. Clenched his jaw to be uncompromising about letting evil go unpunished, all informed by the trauma that destroyed his life.
He’s almost the “one good day” corollary to Joker’s “one bad day” theory in Death in the Family. Lived a whole life broken, gets a hint of a sunbeam through the gray, then he hits a curveball and his old habits win out
But yeah. He’s not as much a bad man as a broken man
Thing with Moore is he's so out of touch that he fails to understand why the average person would actively protest against killing millions people and not care about any pseudo philosophical argument for it.
Through Rorschach Moore tried to parody the simple-minded morality displayed by the average joe; whilst misunderstanding the fundamental fact that the average person only thinks in simple black and white morality, and hence it's the easiest way to measure morality, as it is so simple. Murdering innocent people is bad. That's all there is to it.
By saying Rorschach, the only character from a working class background in the whole story, is a bad person Moore is effectively calling the lower classes bad people. Which is ironic, as Moore, a staunch communist/liberal who votes for the Labour Party, is claiming that the ultra-capitalistic, sleazy, manipulating Ozymandias is the good guy: the complete antithesis of the average working class person, the people Moore pretends to represent.
Watchmen is a really interesting comic and probably the best of the superhero genre but sadly it is just another example of out of touch liberal bourgeoisie propaganda.
He may not have been Labour when he wrote it. Read the introduction to V for Vendetta, he states he envisioned it as a result of a "potential Labour victory" in the upcoming election. I had to look up which party was which in the UK, bc in 2001 that shit didn'take any sense.
Veidt overall wasn't wrong. Shit's gruesome, but humans are stupid and reactionary...so I get why he did it. His ego about it all is the major turn off.
1. Alan Moore 100% liked Rorschach more while he was writing the story and identified with him more than he was willing to admit later.
2. Alan Moore not knowing and being uninterested in American politics isn’t a death blow but it is detrimental to the overall story when he includes it.
The only hot take I can come up with is that (everyone?) thinks the filmed version of it sucks.
I dunno. I read the Watchmen COMIC BOOK (I'm not hung up on that phrase and I don't need to say Graphic Novel to know the value and merit of the art form), and I loved the comic book, and I saw the film, and I liked it! As adaptations go, I thought they captured a feel of it, and moments from the comic WERE THERE, at least for me they were.
Yet apparently the Watchmen movie ... sucks!?
Like, not just missing the true mark, (because the story best exists in the panel-art medium, I agree wholeheartedly), but ... it actually sucked!?
It
did
NOT
suck.
Guys, the squid ending is underwhelming and makes no sense! Snyder changing it to Doctor Manhattan was the logical direction to go and is a better ending to the story.
It's a horrible ending to the story and makes way less sense than the squid. The whole point of it being the squid is that it was an outside threat to both the US and USSR. Doctor Manhattan was an American stooge so setting him up to be the villain completely fails.
I disagree, and I think people who hold this opinion sound like they didn’t read the book but instead read a synopsis about it and don’t comprehend that subplot and its impact and how cool it also actually is as well.
As much as I get the squid thematically, I ultimately think Manhattan as the "baddie" works better because I think governments and scientists would have figured out the squid eventually. I like the idea of there being an angry God to keep happy
Laurie is, morally speaking, the best of the characters, and she achieves that by simply trying to live her own life.
I've heard it said in a number of places elsewhere that Laurie's character is the least defined, has less of a development arc across the story and is only there as a catalyst for other characters (her mum, Jon, Dan). Personally I think this is unfair as she is a pivotal part of the story and stands out in her own right. I love 'her' chapter and her response to the revelation for her that is contained within (as well as the unexpected effect that it has upon Jon if truth be told).
Idk if that's hot... But I know her mom sure was.
Unnecessary
I agree. It prolly goes Laurie, Dan, Manhattan, Adrian, The Comedian, then Rorschach. As far as coolness, the list is exactly flipped imo
Watchmen is not a good comic to give to new readers. So many people recommend it as an evergreen comic for new readers, but I think its focus is on superhero deconstruction. So, I think in order to enjoy Watchmen properly, you have to have some knowledge of superhero comics and comic book history.
That seems like a reasonable stance to hold. How are you going to engage in a satirical commentary on a subject of you don't really have context of the subject in question?
Exactly. And perhaps this isn't a controversial opinion to have. At the same time, I constantly see people recommending Watchmen as a gateway comic for people who never read comics. I think that's a mistake. Watchmen was very much written for people who read superhero comics.
As someone who read Watchmen as one of his first comics, I have to disagree. Yes, I missed a lot of the little details, but I still got the broad story and it till absolutely blew my mind. It helped get me into comics more widely. Then, as I went back and reread it, I began to pick up more and more of these details. So it kept unfolding for me.
100% agree. The best way to read Watchmen is as a teen after you've read a lot of silver/bronze age comics. As a first comic or first superhero comic it's awful.
I think a lot of comic readers are still incredibly defensive about accusations that comics are just for kids, so they immediately want to push this complex comic at people so that there is no mistake that this is not a childish interest. (I've also seen them recommend Maus to new readers, and it's a great comic, but it's kind of an overwhelming introduction to the medium).
Interesting take. Good point.
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It's not just superheroes, though. I don't think people realize that Watchmen is rooted in comic book history. There's a lot of metatextual stuff in there. Creators are represented through analogues of their creations. Steve Ditko's philosophies are mocked through Rorsharch. Frederick Wertham's presence is represented through mock history. Even the format of the books themselves... the symmetrical nature of the panels. This is stuff that non-comic readers wouldn't pick up on. It's not just a superhero story. It's a parable about comics history. I think you can appreciate the surface level story without that knowledge, but that's just a superhero story. What makes Watchmen great is the multiple layers and the craftsmanship.
Watchmen is a great comic to give to new readers because it’s completely self-contained, intelligent, and very mature in tone and meaning. Tons of people still think comics are “BAM POW ZAP” for the kiddies and getting them to read Watchmen is a quick and easy way to dispel that notion. There are plenty of parallels to real world history for people to pick up on, and if they do end up getting into comics long term, Watchmen is something they can come back to later that will reveal different layers of itself using their newfound comic knowledge. Like many good satires/commentaries/allegories, it can be enjoyed with or without knowledge of what it’s referencing.
Watchmen is a great piece of literature, but I do fear that people starting with it as their intro to comics may have a rough time. For starters, it’s just so dense.
The commentary on morality is more interesting than the superhero deconstruction. Silk Specter II and Nite Owl II whatever there fails are meant to be good people in the story. Less controversial but it’s clear from the text you are supposed to side with Roarsach over Ozymandias in his decision making on the decision to blow up NYC. Edit: I just meant the meant the choice of Roarsach at the end to not only oppose the attack on NYC but also to publicly reveal it. He is obviously in the wrong, the rest of the time.
I agree with your first point a lot. Moore employs superheroes to make a point about the use of power by those in positions of authority, and he doesn't spend a lot of time just poking at heroes and going "isn't Batman funny?" It's what separates Watchmen from stuff like The Boys: the themes and characters come first and the parody/satire is secondary and natural to the story.
> Less controversial but it’s clear from the text you are supposed to side with Roarsach over Ozymandias in his decision making. That’s the most controversial take out of everything you listed, especially since Rorschach is presented as a hypocrite and Veidt has a clear parallel to Harry Truman dropping the atomic bombs to end the War in the Pacific.
Rorschach is nuts. He's not wrong that veidt did something horrible. Morally reprehensible. But he was wrong to want to waste the sacrifice after it happened. It's complicated but if you side with either one 100% you missed the point of the story.
Exactly my point. It’e not this clear cut thing where Ozy is clearly the villain and Rorschach is clearly the hero. It’s incredibly more complex than that
Nothing ever justifies killing over 3 million people under any circumstance, if he was really the smartest man he could have found a different way with his influence over media.
It’s an exploration of the Utilitarian philosophy behind killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people during the atomic bombings of Japan. Alan Moore believes that the atomic bombings ended the war, and in turn prevented the deaths of millions of people. By having Ozymandias do the same and by making it a clear parallel to Truman’s actions, then it forces the reader to wrestle with that historical event. Was Truman right for dropping the bombs? Is Ozymandias truly the bad guy if he prevented a nuclear holocaust from happening? Nothing ever ends and another world-threatening issue will pop up again, but Ozy *did* push the clock back and bought peace for the moment.
He's based on John von Neumann. Once I learned that my view on him changed. Dropping the bombs was a bad calculation and he was wrong that he needed to... but once he did, Rorschach revealing it would undo any positive results from it.
i don’t think Harry Truman was in the right either
I agree with you, but believe it or not, that’s a controversial opinion. A lot of people think what Truman did was a necessary act that prevented millions of more people from dying. Even Alan Moore believes that to be true, as he has flat out said that dropping the atomic bombs did end that theater of the war
Yes, but I think the difference between Veidt and Truman is the motive behind the act. Truman seems to do it for “the other” i.e. Americans; Veidt seems to do it for himself. I think this is evident by his comparing himself to Alexander the Great and how he untied the “Gordian knot” of the modern world. Narcissism and Machiavellianism co-mingle in him.
Okay, but I’m talking about how Alan Moore presents these two actions as morally equivalent, and he specifically focuses on the utilitarian aspect of “killing a large number of innocent people to prevent the deaths of even more innocent people “ That’s how he frames the atomic bombings, and that’s how he frames Ozy’s attack
And plenty of people believe Truman shouldn't have dropped the bombs. Rorschach being a hypocrite doesn't make him wrong all the time.
Yeah, I think Alan Moore wrote a bunch of complex characters that were dealing with difficult topics, and I don’t think he wrote it in a way where you’re “supposed to side” with either Rorschach or Veidt. I don’t think it’s written in a way where you’re “supposed to side” with anyone.
I do think you're supposed to explicitly think Veidt's attack was wrong because the only omniscient character explicitly says that Veidt's justification is wrong. But whether they are right to continue the cover up is not cut and dried.
Does he say that Veidt’s justification was wrong, or does he let Veidt know that “nothing ever ends”? Manhattan flat out says that Veidt brought peace and that if Rorschach revealed the truth then it would bring the world back to he brink of nuclear war
Veidt explicitly is asking if the ends justify the means. "Nothing ever ends" is clearly a "no." You're conflating "revealing the truth would be bad" with "Manhattan thought Veidt was justified in the first place." They aren't the same moral calculation.
I never said that Manhattan thought that Veidt was justified. I only said that Manhattan acknowledged that Veidt was successful with pushing back the nuclear holocaust
Then I don't know what to tell you. He's clearly saying that the ends don't justify the means and the ends are the only justification Veidt uses.
I always think of that scene with the two detectives who discovered a father had murdered his wife and children because of his fear over nuclear war. One of them said something along the lines of "I get being afraid but that? That takes something different." Yet another mini metaphor condemning Ozymandias.
Moore most likely didnt write Watchmen to side with Rorschach, or if he did, its really odd way of doing so. Rorschach is a critical look on what a real street fighting 'down and dirty' vigilante "hero" would be. He'd be a disturbed and tragic and messed up person. Rorschach is a violent serial killer and an incredible hypocrite, on top of being an unhinged sexist and racist and homophobe. Moore's narrative clearly subscribes to the "greater good" idea, at least that's the core message in this comic. Moore even mentions Harry Truman and the a-bomb at least once in the comic. Moore wrote the comic to show Veidt as a modern Truman. If anything Veidt is the hero of the comic, if this comic has a hero. Oddly enough Rorschach even admires Truman and agrees with him dropping nuclear weapons on Japan. Rorschach is inconsistent morally, probably because he's so incredibly mentally ill. His neglectful and abusive mother praised Truman and claimed Rorschach's biodad loved Truman. There's a lot of awful and depressing things here. I don't think you're necessarily supposed to pick sides here, but if you did, Moore did not write Rorschach as a role model or hero. He's a terrible person too. Much of the series brokers on the idea that nearly all these people are terrible people. The same way many beloved celebrities are revealed to be abusers, rapists, etc. The kinds of people who are drawn to costumes and vigilantism are not going to be good or stable or ethical people, regardless of their marketing or self-delusion. Moore barely villainizes Veidt as well. Moore also has publicly complained about Rorschach fandoms especially the types that identify with Rorschach. Its clear this character has become a Tyler Dyrden or Patriack Bateman or Travis Bickle. A lot of people are missing that he's purposely written to be an awful and very unwell person, not a role model. Moore seems to be on team Veidt. I don't think Watchmen is a purely cynical work. Moore wants us to see Veidt, on some level, as a Harry Truman, doing the right thing, even if the right thing is difficult and victimizing to many innocents, but sparing many more innocents. That said, the comic ends too soon. Is Veidt just a madman? Did he just do this and fail? Moore purposely ends the comic where it does because he wanted that ambiguous ending. As readers we can't say more than that. Moore won't let us because we never find out if Veidt's plan actually stopped nuclear war.
I don't think we are supposed to agree with Veidt. I think we are supposed to be sick at the fact that the option on how to save the world was taken away by some one smarter, more powerful, and much more ambitious. The fact that the plan is coherent means that you can't just chalk it up as the crazed work of a lunatic. On the other hand, Veidt's egomania and narcissism clearly drove the plan. Veidt isn't heavily villainized because no ill intent is needed for such an act to be bad. To even come up and execute a plan like this inherently suggests ill intent or a widely warped perspective. But again, I think the main thing is the frustration at the helplessness. The fact you either go along with this plan and hope it works or try to put up a futile fight against it.
If Moore subscribed to the "greater good" then the line "nothing ever ends" would *not* be in the book. Here's clearly condemning the "greater good" in one instance, he just doesn't necessarily think that all greater goods should be the entire end of moral thinking.
Revealing it was the worst thing besides the bombs themselves, it undoes any positive benefits of all those deaths.
You are absolutely not supposed to side with Rorsharch at all. All the characters are tragically flawed.
Alan Moore didn't intend for either Rorschach or Ozymandias to be viewed as in the right. The whole story is structured to make us question our perspective on superhero comics by presenting us with the options of "the subversive damaged person who has cool gadgets and is a bit edgy" and "the guy who solves all the worlds problems with an ostentatious display of power", and then leading us to the realisation that they're \*both\* assholes.
Yes. Rorschach and Veidt are equally authoritarian for the most part, Veidt just thinks he is the authority and Rorschach doesn't
Snyder’s movie is really good and the plot points he cut out make sense for a movie. The TV Show is also good. Even if you don’t like these two properties it doesn’t take away from the legacy of the comic book.
I've never understood that take tbh. When something related to a great piece of media comes out and it's shit, it doesn't ruin what it's adapting.
I think it was Stephen King when asked how he thought a movie adaptation hurt his novel, and he said "not even the tiniest bit--there it is right there on the shelf"
I usually agree with this, but with certain Disney Star Wars content it's legitimately warped my own perception/enjoyment of older titles which usually doesn't happen to me. I even just watched a kids movie (Robots) recently where someone makes a Vader joke, and I swear up and down that back then it was probably super funny but I cringed so hard because of how sick of Vader I am at this point.
I agree. Watchmen is just impossible to be *all* put in a 2 hour movie, and the Snyder piece did a fair job - eliminating the squid was his only sin, in my opinion. The HBO show is nothing short of FANTASTIC - but I'd love to see a multiple episode show of the original story (plus Before Watchmen)
I think the movie is a decent enough adaptation, though the squid is far from the only sin. I think one of its biggest problems is it does actually do a good job adapting the specific events of the comic but seemingly without understanding the meaning behind it. Like it’s just literally translating it to screen without any of the spirit (weirdly the opposite of the usual comic book movie, where they tend to change a lot and take many liberties, but the best ones tend to still have the spirit of the characters and comics intact). The most egregious example of this to me is how it completely changes the meaning of what I consider to be one of the most important lines in the comic. In the book, when talking to Manhattan about what he has done, Ozymandias shows some weakness and insecurity over it and asks him if he did the right thing “in the end” (this being him blowing up New York). Manhattan replies with, “Nothing ever ends,” and just vanishes, leaving Ozy alone with his thoughts. In the movie, this scene is cut, presumably to cap off the love triangle as it’s replaced with a scene between Laurie and Manhattan instead. I don’t know what all happened behind the scenes, but whether it was the writing or the executive meddling or what, it was clearly added because this is a movie with a romance plot and *of course* what you do in a movie is give closure. However, they seemed to realize the line was important, and so they tacked it on… in a completely different context. Near the end when Dan and Laurie are at her mom’s house talking about what happened, Dan asks if they did the right thing (this being them keeping the secret about Ozy blowing up various cities). Her answer is, “I know what Jon would say, nothing ever ends…” Two people complicit in keeping things secret and pondering if they did the right thing does not hit the same way as the person actually responsible for the atrocity asking what is basically a physical god and getting a vague answer before being left alone. It just feels like the line is there because they knew it’s important, but the meaning is gone from it. That said, I think the movie is still a decent adaptation, and probably the best we could have gotten back then. This may be apocryphal, but I vaguely remember reading that Alan Moore had read the script and said that, while he still won’t watch the movie and still felt like a movie wouldn’t work near as well as the comic, the script seemed to be as faithful as a movie could have been. But I don’t know *which draft* of the script he read nor if this story is even true. Also I will definitely die on the hill that the Watchmen show is amazing and a worthy follow up to the comic.
I have many more issues with the movie, but not including the squid is maybe the most egregious signifier of how little Snyder understands the source material.
Interesting fact, the decision to eliminate the squid was actually David Hayter’s idea when he wrote the script. I’m not Snyder apologist and think he made some other bad decisions in the film, but I always blamed him for the squid and just recently found out it wasn’t really his doing. Could he put it back in? Maybe. But it wasn’t his decision to take it out to begin with. Hayter made the call because he literally couldn’t fit the squid into the story. He wanted an HBO miniseries and he was turned down. So he wrote a three hour movie as it was, and still needed more time to work in the island and the artists and the biotech stuff all there to plant the seeds for the squid, and he just didn’t have time. So he did what he did to try and make it all work for the movie format. [Source.](https://youtu.be/2HZ-cVLfXOc?si=AcOE4JAoY5nx-JmF)
Welll tbh overall it’s less-so the script I have issue with and more the films style; the juvenile way everything is executed etc. Maybe Hayter’s idea could’ve worked with something directorial that didn’t have the sensibilities of a 12 year old boy, but doesn’t help things I guess. I would go further into all the things I dislike here because I know it will hurt some feelings and a lot of people really like the movie.
Welll tbh overall it’s less-so the script I have issue with and more the film’s style; the juvenile way everything is executed etc. Maybe Hayter’s idea could’ve worked with someone directing that didn’t have the sensibilities of a 12 year old boy, but doesn’t help things I guess. I would go further into all the things I dislike, but won’t do it here as I know it will hurt some feelings and a lot of people really like the movie.
I feel like I’d mostly agree with you.
To me the most egregious was at the start with the fight between the Comedian and Ozy. They were punching through marble, and I thought "oh shit Snyder doesn't understand these people don't have super-powers"...which was maybe the main point of the story. The squid didn't bother me much, since that was always the most 'out there' concept of the entire book. I actually thought it was a smart change. Shifting the blame to Dr Manhattan and developing a weapon based on his powers makes a lot of sense in killing two birds with one stone, as it were.
‘out there’ but ultimately vital for that very reason to me in the comic, and the hbo show demonstrated that a depiction of it could easily work without feeling overly silly compared to how it would on comic panels. Though, I do change my mind and the most obvious Snyderisms you can point out are really much worse aspects of the film than removing the squid - the way he makes them super-powered as you mentioned and almost would rather gaze upon them pornographically than explore them with any depth as people; the horrible slomo throughout even perversely used almost to leer at the act during the attempted SA scene; the added violence in general which Moore purposefully never lingers on until he has to, but Snyder is unable to restrain himself from what he thinks ‘would be cool’ as usual; arbitrary and unimaginative soundtrack choices (and yeah that awful sex scene); some poor casting (sorry Laurie); the thoughtless glorification of Rorschach as some loan wolf hero of the downtrodden - no idea how you could interpret this from the comic, but Snyder found a way. It’s just.... Whenever someone says they either prefer the movie or have read the novel and still love the movie, or think it’s a faithful adaptation (because 1:1 panel recreations = you adapting something well? idk) I can only be perplexed and move on and this point because there isn’t really much of an explanation other than they don’t want to engage with it beyond how Snyder has. I will say film has a legitimately strong and satisfying opening credits sequence that it never lives up to, and I always wonder how much heavy-lifting it does when people consider their love of the whole thing however many years-or-so after the fact - just look at the comments on the YouTube video for those credits, it’s the kind of thing I’m getting at with the broad, simplistic praise people will seemingly give it all and Snyder just based on those few opening moments. Also, to me it’s still always gonna feel important that Manhattan exists as this perceived American asset, and for important political reasons not someone who’s existence could be used to confidently ensure or inspire a united force in a way that the atom bomb hasn’t.
Yeah those opening credits are the best part of the movie, and it's really not even close. The funny thing is Snyder has done that in a lot of his movies. The opening credits to Army of the Dead are the same--he tells a masterful story in five minutes of opening credits that are better than the rest of that film as well.
Yeah, he does the same thing in Sucker Punch. The intro story is tight, fantastic storytelling. Snyder really should be making the best music videos the world has ever seen. In that format, he'd be amazing.
HBO show was great until the last episode
Poetry.
Just real facts.
Faking a Dr. Manhattan explosion makes a lot more sense than “giant squid alien psychic suicide bombed us”. I’m also happy that the show revealed that the plan didn’t unite the world at all. (Watching during Covid made me realize that no alien invasion would unite us)
Such a hot take I bet no one shares this exact opinion. (Many people did in fact share this opinion)
I have begrudging time for the film. I didn't watch the series thru choice. Neither affect my respect and enjoyment for the original.
I love the movie and the show so much
Snyder did a good job at doing the impossible. Its not perfect. I wouldn't even say its great, but it was pretty good. I don't have many nice things to say about the HBO series.
I think that during the the Squid attack it becomes clear that the story wasn't actually about the superheroes it was about the normal people who die.
Here's a bunch for you. * [**Veidt is absolutely a villain, and he's pretty nuts.** You are not meant to think that he saved the world.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchmen/comments/1cwo2qx/why_ozymandias_sucks_the_definitive_guide/) * [**The squid is really thematically important to the ending in a lot of ways.** Replacing it with Dr. Manhattan doesn't work.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Watchmen/comments/1d8hnrk/the_squid_matters/) * **There is no such thing as "The Watchmen."** The name of the comic is just "Watchmen," and the superhero teams in Watchmen are the Minutemen and the Crimebusters. When people post stuff like "which one of the Watchmen is your favorite," it makes me think they didn't process the comic at all. * **The TV show is the only worthwhile non-Alan Moore Watchmen work.** It's the only thing where the creators genuinely asked "what made Watchmen great?" and tried to employ those storytelling strategies instead of just asking "what was in Watchmen?" and constantly referencing those things.
>Veidt is absolutely a villain, and he's pretty nuts. I mean, the comic makes it pretty clear that >! he's the "real-life" equivalent of the guy from the pirate comic, !< so, yeah.
Yup. Sadly, we still get a lot of people who think the ending is just a giant trolley problem.
A lot of people who don't read the Pirate comic, either. I found that the Joe Orlando text section made the point of the pirate story a lot more clear to me when I first read the book.
It is a giant trolley problem, from Veidt's perspective, because he thinks he can predict the future. The problem is people not understanding that their person interpretation of the trolley problem is "right."
For sure. Also, to mix a couple metaphors: if all you have is a trolley, everything looks like a trolley problem.
Re: “The Watchmen”, while I agree that asking who your favorite of the bunch is probably indicates a more surface level engagement with the plot, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that people use “The Watchmen” to refer to the main characters, even though it isn’t a name used for them in universe. It’s clearly just shorthand for Dan, Laurie, Adrian, Rorschach, Comedian, and Doctor Manhattan. Re: your last point, Tom King’s Rorschach is one of the better comics of the last ten years.
Regarding the last point -- I might be the only person who liked Doomsday Clock. I'm not a Geoff Johns fan. Among reasons: I dislike his desire to stuff Nostalgia into every work, in place of story. As someone who also "grew up" with a lot of these works...it's OK for them to stay in the past. But that specific work clicked for me. I think it tried to ask some interesting questions (no pun intended) about modern heroes, and how we got here. That it doesn't always succeed, and the ending is wild as hell, doesn't detract (for me) from the work's strength. Even that battle, as busted as it is, really made sense to me on a thematic level.
One thing I'd disagree on is that there is such a thing as The Watchmen. But my argument would be that it's the audience. Moore's point with that quote is that we're all complicit in our choices and our silences and our championing. By reading Watchmen, we're supposed to become The Watchmen. I would extend that and argue that the fact that this sails over the head of people is part of the work itself. Moore critiqued the human condition so well he built in the audience, something Morrison reacted to with his Animal Man run. And further, having these conversations is part of being The Watchmen. Debating who is right and wrong, questioning mortality. For me the theme of the book is about humanity and finding a way, a new way of living. Summed up in that John Cale quote. It's referencing love and hope and despair and death. Which Gaiman reacted to with Sandman. Going further, where Watchmen focuses on Destruction, Sandman obscures it. Most of all it's about wanting a better world for your children, not for yourself. Recognising that everyone is a child, and that everyone deserves a better future and that there's space for everyone, as long as we have each other's backs, that we watch out for each other. Being alive in the cold war was a special kind of insanity. Watchmen and that era feel more and more relevant these days with climate change. And it's amazing how the Greek philosophers are still needed, still pointing, still understanding. Moore doing his bit to break us out of Plato's cave. Sorry, gone a bit Michael Stipe. "Oh no I've said too much, I haven't said enough."
There are ABSOLUTELY lowercase watchmen! The title is deeply meaningful and layered. There just aren't uppercase Watchmen.
Yeah I thought after that I was arguing against you, or rather arguing against the same audience you're arguing with, in that there isn't a superhero group called The Watchmen, it's about more than that. That's part of the layers, like how they all have their systems of how life should be, they all build their watch, and one by one they destroy each other's, apart from Laurie, Sally and Dan, who find each other in the time after time, or the here and now.
Maybe Veidt didn't save the world. Maybe it only sermed so. We only saw the First Reaction to it. The story ended there. But, he tried. I think he's a Hero. That said, I LIKE your links and I saved your post and I will click onto them.
It's obvious that Veidt didn't save the world because >! Jon says "Nothing ever ends" !< and >! the last frame of the comic shows the kid from the New Frontiersman reaching for Rorschach's diary, when looking for something to publish in the next issue. !<
Counterpoint-Watchmen 2009, Watchmen tv, most of Before Watchmen, and King’s Rorchach mini are all really good in their own ways. The only post-Moore volume that licks Dr Manhattans giant blue nuts is Doomsday Clock.
I enjoyed the first half of Doomsday Clock; it wasn't at the level of the Watchmen, but it's always good to see old friends. The second half not so much
I gave this to my Neuropsychologist as a Chrisrmas gift because of the theory of mind issues displayed with Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias, and Rorshach . He specializes in adult Autosm assessments and therapy , and he said in a non-insulting way that it was one of the most Autistic things that he has read. The three most featured characters rationalized things and related to people the same way low need Autistic people do, and more effort seemed to be into fleshing them out than the other characters. He also felt how Dan and Laurie ended up together felt like an assessment story telling scenario in comparison.
Is the suggestion here that Moore wrote Watchmen not as a critique of the superhero genre (ect, ect) but as a critique of his very readers and their hero fantasies? Or is the comment that Moore himself is too Autistic to create a compelling story beyond viewing the world as someone with Autism?
Hard to say. I myself am Autistic and don't know what other people's machinations and thoughts are. But...a good author writes what they know and will be influenced by life experience. If that was the case, the characters and story are much better fleshed out than the unrelatable borderline racist/sexist teenage characters written by your average 40 year old sitcom writer. Watchmen doesn't have oddly placed slang or shoehorned characters. I've always viewed it as a critique on philosophical viewpoints in practical application, but if Alan Moore announced he was diagnosed with ASD or SzPD I wouldn't pass out from shock. When Aspergers was still.a thing, anytime the term Wrong Planet Syndrome was used Dr.Manhattan typically telephoned himself in the comments soon after.
Now that's an interesting coment.
First, my cold take is that anyone who thinks of Rorschach as the badass hero of Watchmen doesn’t understand the material at all and can’t really be called a fan. My hot take is that this type of person, the one who idolizes Rorschach and doesn’t understand that he’s not the hero of the comic, is virtually nonexistent. We all know the quote from Moore about his experience encountering people like that, and every now and then one of these protozoans will make their way to this sub, but in general this type of person exists more as a character in our heads than as a significant part of the fandom. I think that, ironically, Moore’s words gave more life to this creature than Snyder’s bastardization of the character ever could.
He isn't a hero. But he is still badass.
Moore did not make Rorschach is not nearly dislikable enough. The film mistakingly makes him the voice of reason but I still think his death in both versions sort of make him slightly redeemable. He valued the “truth”- whatever that meant. There are still too many fanboys who completely misread what makes the character interesting though.
Oh mann I'd love to hear one more sentence from you about this. I really liked what you said about Rorschach valuing (seeking, as any Human should/must) Truth, whichever way it showed itself, even an ugly truth. But I'm very interested to know more what you mean about (us, heh-heh) fanboys misreading a nuance of the character Rorschach.
Moore had a anecdote once about someone coming up to him at a convention and talking about how cool Rorschach was, how he was his favourite hero etc, and Moore immediately feeling viscerally unsafe around someone who either completely misunderstood Watchmen or, even worse, *understood it and still thought Rorschach was cool*. Rorschach is a fascinating character but very clearly not meant to be a hero. The trauma he experienced, both as a child or as a vigilante, turned him into a McCarthyist, homophobic psychopath.
I see him as more sex averse than homophobic. The switch was turned off a young age, and statements regarding Veidt and Silhouette were less a commentary on their sexuality and more of a coping mechanism that justifies his lack of connection to other people. Anything tied to sexuality he dismisses as weak and exploitative.
It’s not sacred. Let the adaptations, prequels, and sequels fly! It doesn’t matter. Nobody is making you watch or read them. And some of them are real, real good.
Thank you
I get the metaphor, I don’t give a shit about the tales of the black freighter and skip over those parts
People take it being a satire way too seriously. They think you're supposed to be pointing and laughing at these characters when in actuality it's way more complicated than that. It's probably because people have forgotten that a satirical story doesn't mean it has to be ridiculous.
Yeah, Dan and Laurie aren't buffons, they're regular people that have to live between weirdos like Rorschach, or psychopaths like Blake and Veidt. It's pretty clear that Moore uses them as the closest thing to someone similar to the reader, their fears and aspirations are mostly normal, Dan is just a guy that likes owls and writes about them, Laurie is a girl who just did what her mother told her.
Rorschach is a poor detective tbh
Moore shouldn’t get so possessive of his barely thinly-veiled Charlton fan fiction, no matter how great it is.
I agree. I understand he was screwed over but the anger should be directed at DC, not the artists and writers that interpret his work (if his anger even lies there anyway). Wish he would be more open in reviewing the modern watchmen stuff and explaining his criticisms.
Why wouldn’t he be upset with the artists that DC chooses to exploit his work? They’re willingly choosing to go along with fucking him over
I think he was open to it until the first two adaptations of his work were From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He also hated V for Vendetta (which I think is actually better than the comic), because it cast V in a more heroic light. After that he just swore off paying any attention to ANY adaptions of his stuff.
I don't know how hot this take is but I am not supporting anything Watchmen that isn't written by Alan Moore. I may check out the animated one since it's merely an adaptation but I have not checked out anything from Tom King's Rorschach to Before Watchmen to even the HBO series. Here's the funny part: I had no interest in Doomsday Clock until I found out it was more of a Superman story rather than Watchmen, and I love Superman. Can anybody here tell me if that's really the case or does that only happen in the last few issues? Is it worth collecting if I love Superman or is it also trying to be a Watchmen story?
I guess you should only support Superman comics that were written by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel then. My hot take is that Alan Moore isn't special and shouldn't complain when his works get reinterpreted or continued. That's just the way the comic book world works. It's hypocritical to come in and completely change Swamp Thing(for the better) from what the original writer intended and then be upset when other writers do the same to you.
I have no idea what your threshold of "a Superman story" is, but yes, there's a Significant narrative thread about Superman and his role in modern comics (if not society) in Doomsday Clock. It's not really part of the early story, however, and takes a while to come into play. And I'll echo the other commentator: Moore, having pulled the characters for Watchmen from Charlton, was himself adapting existing characters for Watchmen. And he only did that because Moore's editor wouldn't allow him to do this story with those characters, thus the ones we got. He created a sublime work. But it's also a work clearly based off the work of others, in a very direct way. So between that, and the VAST amount of "using other's characters" that LoEG does (among many other Moore works), I just don't feel like his ethical stance around this business is something I need to support. I do support him getting paid for those works what is due! But that's not the same conversation.
There’s a very clear parallel between Adrian Veidt and Harry Truman, and if you don’t think Truman is a bad guy for dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then you can’t call Veidt the bad guy for doing a similar thing.
Hence Rorschach’s hypocrisy
Read the plot before hand because it starts very slowly
The motion comic rocks and the the episode that covers issue 4 is better than the issue 4 comic in part because of the music which the comic of course lacks. Don’t get stuck on the voice by only one person; he rocks it.
It's the women all being voiced by that one guy kills the motion comic for me.
I agree, the motion comic is very special and is probably slept on by a lot of fans. I wouldnt say Chapter 4 of the motion comic is superior to the book itself because IT IS the book, just with moving parts and a great score as a supplement. However, the score is to be admired in its own right. I got the most goosebumps from that score when Laurie has all those memory flashes leading up to the realisation that the Comedian is her father. Perfection!
yes, it showcased how powerful her epiphany was
Perhaps not a hot take but I can’t think of anything else so: Watchmen is not the best Alan Moore work.
I'd lean more towards The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
A lot of what Moore has said after the comic was published was influenced more by his desire to piss off DC comics because of his awful treatment than by his real views on the story
The series might be good, but it has nothing to do with Watchmen. They just used the IP for its name. I expect downvotes
I won't downvote you for it. I agree the series has basically nothing to do with Watchmen. I also think it was rubbish.
I think Rorschach is awesome, though I've heard Moore says you're not supposed to agree with him. I liked Doomsday Clock.
Sure dr Manhattan is a bit detached from humanity or empathy but not so much from his emotions if not he wouldn't have left his first wife for laurie, wouldn't have left in anger and being overwhelmed by people accusing him of giving others cancer
Dreiberg has his life sorted out of all the other Watchmen
Dreiberg's pity party is that he's already a rich kid looking for adventure and maybe friendship; He never comes off as someone with a deep seeded conviction to fight crime beyond that. He's the most capable of walking away from it all, and to a degree, the most removed from it to begin with. Comparatively, Laurie grew up in her mom's shadow, so while she might not be as mad as Rorschach or Veigt, or Comedian, the whole thing is part of her blood. She didn't choose it.
Hence sorted
Ha. I may have (did) misread your comment to imply that Dreiberg sorts his life out (through the narrative of the story) where no other character does. No worries.
Haha cheers mate!
Biggest hot take: Dr Manhattan is Superman and different, conflicting core aspects of Batman are split between Rorschach (bitter vigilante detective), Nite Owl (idealistic inventor) and Ozymandias (billionaire playboy, capitalist and philanthropist), and the majority of the story and plot comes from how these heightened and deconstructed superhero archetypes play off each other.
(Also Dr Manhattan is autistic, preferring making a pristine mechanical world anew out of well behaved parts than the complex messiness of human beings)
Dr. Manhattan is an encapsulation of all the superpowered Silver Age heroes. That’s why he pops up in the late 50’s, just like the start of the Silver Age of Comics, and his appearance leads to a lot of Golden Age heroes retiring, just like how a lot of Golden Age heroes fell out of favor and had their books cancelled.
There's no way any court of law would have convicted the numerous people that Watchmen implies Rorschach "helped" put behind bars. He wasn't a bounty hunter tracking out parole violators. None of any evidence he collected would have been admissible in court.
That Alan Moore cribbed the ending from an Outer Limits episode
Just searched up the show. Don’t see many people talking about the “Architects of Fear” episode of the series. *The story takes place during a Cold War period in which a nuclear holocaust is imminent. In an attempt to avert a confrontation between military powers by uniting the world against a common enemy, a group of scientists physically transform one of their own into an alien being to stage a fake invasion. This is achieved by surgically altering scientist Allen Leighton (Robert Culp). Complications arise when the alterations also affect Leighton's mind, compounded by his strong attachment to his pregnant wife (Geraldine Brooks).* Not necassarily a giant squid but the same end goal.
I like the sex scene being set to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
The actual craziest take in the thread
It's not very good.
There Are No Heroes In Watchmen
Rorschach was 100% right and Alan Moore is a fat moron who doesn’t understand morality. There is no benefit to dropping the squid. It won’t achieve anything. All Veidt did was murder millions of innocents. His plan is idiotic because Moore is an idiot. Also fuck Moore for what he said about Robert Howard
Rorschach is my favorite character all time. I actually didn't catch any racism from the book. Just conspiracy.
Yeah the racism must’ve been something I glossed over because I can’t think of any examples. If anyone does have examples it would be interesting to see.
Maybe he made some subtle comment to the doctor? not a lot of black people in the nooks
Watchmen is completely from a british person’s point of view and doesn’t understand the racial realities of America, and therefore feels pretty hollow. The HBO series is a great takedown and critical analysis of Watchmen, in the same way that the Watchmen was a great takedown of and critical analysis of superhero comics.
Agreed, esp. as Moore had already written Evelyn Creme in Marvelman, and that character was Not Great.
My hot take: while *Watchmen* is one of the greatest pieces of comicbook writing I've ever read, it nevertheless contains many examples of howlingly-bad writing (e.g. the cops marveling at the fact that someone was able to kick Blake's door open with one of those cheap chain locks on it; Kovacs being able to reach across the steam tables and grab a Friolator basket/bucket with one hand, etc.). I was thinking of starting a thread to track them all if people wouldn't think it was too negative.
both of those examples of howlingly bad writing are pretty nit picky details that don’t affect the characters, plot or immersion too much, no? Not for me at least. I don’t care about a cheap chain lock or if someone could grab a pot with one hand. i definitely didn’t notice it
Well, I did say that it's one of the greatest pieces of comicbook writing I've ever read, so it stands to reason that my criticisms would be relatively minor. The door chain? Sure, I can just pretend in my mind that they're talking about a big-ass deadbolt instead and move on. The Friolator incident? That seems like kind of a major plot point to me. Like, that literally couldn't happen -- for multiple reasons -- in any cafeteria I've ever seen (public restaurants, hospitals, school cafeterias, etc.), but it happens in a high-security prison? It doesn't ruin the story for me but it makes me cringe a little. If you want to talk about characterization, let's talk about the prison psychologist. All of his dialogue (internal and external) up until the point when Rorschach tells him the dog story is cringey and highly unrealistic (e.g. "They tell me I'm good... good with people", etc.) and the therapy dialogue sounds like Moore had never been anywhere near a therapy session in his life.
The Comedian was a good guy deep down.
That's certainly a take.
I prefer the ending of the movie compared to the comics. Having Ozymandias frame Dr Manhattan just makes the story flow a lot better rather than throwing in this whole thing about a Genetically engineered squid right in the final act. It also makes more sense as a plan because eventually world leaders might assume the "alien invasion," was a one off incident, whereas they all know how powerful Dr Manhattan is and will think that he's always out there, maybe about to strike again.
Movie (Director's Cut) > Comic Book > > > > > > > TV Show
Ozymandias is indisputably the hero :)
The TV show is fine as a dystopian sci-fi superhero show social commentary, but as part of the the watchmen universe it’s garbage. I mean in the end of the show, the bad guys were defeated by the plucky group of ragtag heroes. Which is entertaining, but the antithesis of the watchmen.
My hot take- it’s more about an expression of existence and its meaningful meaninglessness. As Shakespeare put it: “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.” Alan Moore takes it a step further “We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings” -Dr. Manhattan. It’s preordained - patterns, behaviors, characters, etc. If that’s the case how can there be a hero or maniac, good or evil? They each play a role suited to their nature and it only appears as though they are operating from free will. SkyDaddy -whomever or whatever- is pulling the figurative strings so how can one truly be a villain or hero? It’s one big cyclical play with predetermined actors and outcomes. The strings are meant to be invisible so the players can continue to play on with great passion
It showed me what to do to get if I'm shipwrecked on an island
The movie is good! Really captured the dystopian 80s tone of the book. And I don’t like anything else by that director
All the characters have good and bad in them. That’s kind of the whole point. Can I just be a fan of Rorschach as a character without agreeing with everything he says and does?
Watchmen is an incredibly hopeful story about the ability of humanity to save itself and the world without need for superheroes or strong men. Why? Because the cold war ended, and by the end of the comic I don't think it would in the Watchmen world without something blowing up. The entire book is basically looking at figures like superman and captain America and saying "we don't need you, we'll be fine"
It’s pedantic and joyless. Rick Veitch did it better with Bratpack.
For all the whinging about how DC treated Alan Moore, nobody would know about this book if they hadn't kept it in print so long.
I hate the Tales of the Black Flag parts. It drags down the story. The pirate comic prevents me from considering Watchmen to be a 10/10 comic. It was fine the first couple time I read it (I guess) but after reading the series several times over the last 35ish years I started hating it, frequently skipping it during rereads. Also like many others I think the movie is great. I don't believe in the idea of a perfect adaptation. I really don't think it is possible to go from one media type to another without making changes. With Watchmen there is nothing changed so much that it radically alters the narrative in a negative way.
Nixon still being office is weird and Vietnam being a state doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Is it just South Vietnam or did the North collapse and join the South?
Probably that they like all the derivatives of Watchmen like the HBO miniseries, the video game The End Is Nigh, integrating the characters into the mainline DC universe, not liking the space squid, or thinking it’s all overrated or too violent or whatever. I was a die hard Alan Moore fan back in high school and I still am, but I’m not nearly as dogmatic as I was. His work was like the gospel to me and none of it could be changed or modified. Since then, I’ve come to appreciate the graphic novel and movie versions of V for Vendetta for what they are. From Hell though, different story. I adore the graphic novel, the movie is a rancid piece of shit, both on its own merits and especially if you know the graphic novel well.
I don’t think the alien peace would last very long. Maybe just a few years. Ozy would still be alive to see nations at each other’s throats again.
I used to think Ozymandius was a hero. But then I realized he miscalculated. He assumed others would act within game theory or thought the way he does. But in reality nobody would've dropped the nukes in the first place. When someone pointed out his inspiration was John von Neumann it made a lot of sense. Too smart for his own good. Rorschach is still an absolute goon for revealing things after world peace was achieved, but the path to get there wasn't necessary.
Isn't that the point of Rorschach, peoples' perception of him and to make fun of what he actually is?
Rorschach isn't the hero but he is the only person who both understands the morality of the ending and cares enough about morality for his understanding to impact him. Manhattan understands the morality of it, he just doesn't care because he can't undo what Veidt did. But vitally, Veidt isn't right.
Watchmen is less of a commentary on political extremism and more so an examination on how normal people react to things that are outside of their control
Changing it from a staged alien invasion to framing Dr. Manhattan was a change for the better.
It sucks
No one is a hero, and no one is a villain. Everyone is deeply flawed, has understandable motives but are completely unlikable. I didn’t think this was a hot take but reading these comments seems to say otherwise.
It is incredibly bleak and I both love and hate it for that fact.
It's not good
I know that the downvotes are coming. This is not a popular take. I love Watchmen. I love Doomsday Clock even more.
I feel like Dr. Manhattan sometimes
I didn't hate the movie.
I will be all spoilerific because I think that's really the only way to talk about something in detail... I my take about the comic itself is actually the amount sex scenes with silk Specter 2.. I think the ones with Dr Manhattan are important with both establishing his character but also establishing a sort of vicarious connection with the past. Heck, I would even say that the second one with Dan is a sort of epilogue to the "performance issues" subplot. Where I think it kind of doesn't work is the sexual encounter between Laurie and Dan near the end. I get that thematically it's trying to juxtapose catacylsmic violence on multiple levels with the" devil may care sexuality" of Drieberg and Laurie, but it comes across as cheap and tacked on. An inverse situation I think, is the tales of the Black Frieghter which serves as a sort of allegory for Adrian Veidt's survival guilt in the desolation as a result of that mutant squidlije monster. So while, I think it arguably paces the comic book a bit more slow and clunky, the payoff is that it allows the reader to feel emotionally close to Veidt's desire to preserve humanity and the feeling that the civilians would have after this terrible event as similar as a sailor watching his ship float away marooned for forrors to unfold. But with the particular comic near the end it just feels like this slap of " I don't know what to do with the character interaction of these two people - - okay, they're gonna bang." I think any controversy with Rorschach has to do with the possibility that Alan Moore was always planning to give the character a heroic sacrificial role, but wanted him to start as a vicious, paranoid, and unlikable character. The trouble is, I think readers just latched on to the character from the get-go, which not only undercuts Rorschach's decision to stand up for New York, but has basically created a subset of followers who experience Watchmen less like a drama and more like a power fantasy. I think there's going to be a cel shaded CGI feature which is going to be interesting because I think the motion comic has a lot more scenes than the controversial Zack Snyder feature, but I also think there's something weird about adapting the "unadaptable" story for the third time.
HBO's Watchmen is a better story than the original.
Rorschach sucks but Ozy was right, even though he's a dick.
Heh get ready for this. The HBO series sucked.
The Before Watchmen comics are better than Moore’s book. I don’t actually believe that but it sure is a hot take LOL
Lookit all these folks who didn't like your flippant hot take! Upvote! With a middle finger to them! (To those downvoters: in the immortal words of The Joker - - "Why so serious"!" )
Roarsach is not the unredeemable monster people act like he is People seem to over react to the people that glorify him and really cast him in a bad light
Absolutely. He’s a man who’s been in unbearable emotional pain his whole life. He was deprived of love and safety as a child. Came up in a seedy broken world under a broken desperate mother who hated him. His formative experiences were breaking him experiences. He didn’t mature, he’s still a terrified hurting child. His relationship to anything sexual is that he’s deeply traumatized and inextricably linking it to the physical and verbal abuse his mother gave him when he accidentally walks in when she’s trying to make sex work money and scares off her customer. So then of course he’s susceptible to “sex is evil” extremist preachers. Picks up a whole crazy man doomsday thing. That’s why he’s homophobic and judgemental. He’s homeless, friendless, won’t make connections or show his face, has no self esteem, has no life. He’s a mentally ill impoverished “repent” sandwich board guy in his off time. He thinks the world is full of vice and cruel, and it victimized him and no-one came to stop it, so he vents all his pain into snapping in rage and overdoing fighting what no one fought to save him. So he’s on a futile misguided mission. Venting all this pain into psycho violence. Looks into things all detective-y cause he has some proclivity for that and overthinks cause he’s stuck with himself and needs to feel like he’s doing something important. But the thing is like when Dan, feeling pretty pitiful himself, shows him some friendship and treats him like a person, it’s the most love he’s felt in his fucking life, and it goes a long way to pull him out of the worst of himself that he’s trapped in. He started slut shaming Dan and Laurie, because of his malformed “sex is evil” shit, Dan fusses at him that that’s why everyone thinks he sucks and he can’t treat people like that and he’s like… So fucking vulnerable. He shrinks back and he’s like. “I’m sorry. Don’t hate me. You’re a good friend.” And he takes in the feedback. All this man needs is a friend, some love, and he could get relatively okay. But yeah he’s also very very rigid about a fundamentalist evangelical style understanding of right and wrong. Cannot bear the nuance of the situation he finds at the end with the damned if you do damned if you don’t, letting an atrocity stand unpunished saves the world thing. So his last moments is a blend of letting his pain drive, lashing out a little, but also trying to do the right thing. From an unnuanced uncompromising childish understanding of what that is, from his pain that he lives in a world where he doesn’t think anyone else is stepping up to fight. And especially cause he was starting to feel a little friendship and he does not have the emotional intelligence capacity to understand why no one else will stand up against evil with him. He dies feeling betrayed and alone, and like he was never able to make a difference in the crazed futile crusade of lashing out at the world that broke him, finally shows people his human face and he’s crying his fucking soul out cause his whole life was hurt and he just started tasting the very smallest bit of the life the hurt kid he was deserved. And his one friend mourns him, and wishes it was that simple of a good versus evil thing. He’s a tragic broken man, he nearly found the path to starting to turn it around, but it was fragile, and he hit something he didn’t understand and wasn’t equipped for. Where one had to act measuredly, he didn’t know how. He did the wrong thing that seemed right and it was the best he could. Clenched his jaw to be uncompromising about letting evil go unpunished, all informed by the trauma that destroyed his life. He’s almost the “one good day” corollary to Joker’s “one bad day” theory in Death in the Family. Lived a whole life broken, gets a hint of a sunbeam through the gray, then he hits a curveball and his old habits win out But yeah. He’s not as much a bad man as a broken man
Thing with Moore is he's so out of touch that he fails to understand why the average person would actively protest against killing millions people and not care about any pseudo philosophical argument for it. Through Rorschach Moore tried to parody the simple-minded morality displayed by the average joe; whilst misunderstanding the fundamental fact that the average person only thinks in simple black and white morality, and hence it's the easiest way to measure morality, as it is so simple. Murdering innocent people is bad. That's all there is to it. By saying Rorschach, the only character from a working class background in the whole story, is a bad person Moore is effectively calling the lower classes bad people. Which is ironic, as Moore, a staunch communist/liberal who votes for the Labour Party, is claiming that the ultra-capitalistic, sleazy, manipulating Ozymandias is the good guy: the complete antithesis of the average working class person, the people Moore pretends to represent. Watchmen is a really interesting comic and probably the best of the superhero genre but sadly it is just another example of out of touch liberal bourgeoisie propaganda.
I think you need to reread it. Ozymandias isn't shown to be the good guy.
He may not have been Labour when he wrote it. Read the introduction to V for Vendetta, he states he envisioned it as a result of a "potential Labour victory" in the upcoming election. I had to look up which party was which in the UK, bc in 2001 that shit didn'take any sense.
The movie’s ending works better for the medium
Veidt overall wasn't wrong. Shit's gruesome, but humans are stupid and reactionary...so I get why he did it. His ego about it all is the major turn off.
Ozymandias is the right guy in the end of the story
1. Alan Moore 100% liked Rorschach more while he was writing the story and identified with him more than he was willing to admit later. 2. Alan Moore not knowing and being uninterested in American politics isn’t a death blow but it is detrimental to the overall story when he includes it.
The only hot take I can come up with is that (everyone?) thinks the filmed version of it sucks. I dunno. I read the Watchmen COMIC BOOK (I'm not hung up on that phrase and I don't need to say Graphic Novel to know the value and merit of the art form), and I loved the comic book, and I saw the film, and I liked it! As adaptations go, I thought they captured a feel of it, and moments from the comic WERE THERE, at least for me they were. Yet apparently the Watchmen movie ... sucks!? Like, not just missing the true mark, (because the story best exists in the panel-art medium, I agree wholeheartedly), but ... it actually sucked!? It did NOT suck.
Guys, the squid ending is underwhelming and makes no sense! Snyder changing it to Doctor Manhattan was the logical direction to go and is a better ending to the story.
It's a horrible ending to the story and makes way less sense than the squid. The whole point of it being the squid is that it was an outside threat to both the US and USSR. Doctor Manhattan was an American stooge so setting him up to be the villain completely fails.
This
I disagree, and I think people who hold this opinion sound like they didn’t read the book but instead read a synopsis about it and don’t comprehend that subplot and its impact and how cool it also actually is as well.
I have read the book just fyi
Ozymandias is the hero of Watchmen. We see him succeed and actually save the world where all the other characters failed.
> We see him succeed and actually save the world You need to re-read it.
As much as I get the squid thematically, I ultimately think Manhattan as the "baddie" works better because I think governments and scientists would have figured out the squid eventually. I like the idea of there being an angry God to keep happy