Brother Steve– when you told me you fell asleep during Watchmen, awakened only by the applause at the end, and that your cousin found it neither good nor bad, just ‘curious’ (or whatever that word was) it made me want to hurry up and see it.
After last night, I think I understand yawl’s reaction. I REALLY enjoyed Hulk, Iron Man, the Dark Knight, and 300 too– but leaving Watchmen made me THINK, not feel excited. After 300 I wanted to turn over cars. After Dark Knight I wanted to talk about the Joker and the Batpod chase. After Watchmen, I wanted to be talk about character. About people. About ‘What If…’ Watchmen is a movie that’s not about major action scenes. You think Matrix during some fight scenes, but the fight’s not the point. Its a psychological drama about what it means for a man to be saddled with superhuman powers, and how lonesome that make you. This isn’t a superhero movie, & its not about heroics– its about people who become super and lose their sense of humanity.
In the movie, I now better understand the Comedian’s coldness and fuck ‘em attitude. If you have the power of a sledgehammer, every person and problem looks like a nail.
–Sorry, A quick aside: Comic books never talk about how being heroic in a leather and latex identity-shielding costume can be a sexual turn on. There’s a reason behind some people being turned on by S&M and leather. Sex, among other things, can be about power. Yet regular superheroes (Tony Stark is your exception) come off as nearly asexual. We wonder why The Hulk never bursts out of his pants, and there’s a reason for that. We kinda don’t want him to (at least I don’t). And It becomes a totally different story. People were trying to hoot during the sex scene, but it felt like an impatient, uncomfortable childish response. Its important in the movie not because its a turn on (it aint) but because of what it says about both characters loneliness and needing to be accepted and wanted. When there’s no villain, no world to save, who needs a hero?
Anyway: When Dr. Manhattan exiles himself to Mars, it forced me to think of how the superhero mythology subconsciously connects back to Jesus in the Bible– God manifested as man. I wish you’d read Last Temptation of Christ where the writer Nikos Kazantzakis looks at the humanity behind Jesus. The fact Jesus has this power and responsibilty, but he’s still human and weighed down with all that being human entails. Yet (Okay, Spoiler) Jesus makes the ‘right’ decision, and follows the Godly path instead of remaining a flawed human.
In Watchmen, you have all these flawed people who have elevated talents, yet their abilities can’t save them from their own insecurity, their loneliness, their weaknesses. Their humanity. How many superhero stories even allow their heroes to have sexual thoughts– let alone actually dare to try to rape one another?
How many superheroes (I’m thinking Rorshack and the child killer) hold onto difficult memories of past crimes they solved?
Watchmen would be a masterpiece if it was made in the 1970’s and talked about a future 1985 where heroes walked among us and did help us win Vietnam in a week. But showing this movie now, to you and your cousins’ generation, I can see how the movie and its message would be meaningless. Its a mistake to market this movie to the people who pushed Dark Knight above a billion dollars at the box office and who thought Iron Man should get an Oscar. Watchmen is after something totally different.
You noted there was no character development, that you didn’t know who these people were. And somehow, that’s the point. They are no longer really human. Their identities don’t matter to the people in a burning building. In one scene I’m sure you dozed on, after Silk Spectre II leaves Dr. Manhattan to visit Nite Owl, she tells him she has no place else to go. And she really doesn’t. She no longer fits among regular people. And in the context of the movie, with President Nixon banning masks and groups of heroes, she is homeless.
Brother Jon:
Watchmen is like a superhero movie made by Ingmar Bergman. Its got the flash of the mythology and it reflects the book exactly, but its got an emotional weight that throws me for a loop. It represents the book exactly, and its a masterpiece, because its so unexpectedly adult and heavy. Its a movie that should be shown in psych classes. When I was in school my sociology teacher screened Fatal Attraction. I can see college lectures in the future on this book and movie because both are so dense with IDEAS instead of action.
My favorites here are still Dr. Manhattan– but now Rorshak, too. For his powers and confidence. He’s the only one still wearing a mask, I guess because he’s the only one left for whom there is no human face left for him to wear. He has no human identity worth going back to. He has even less a lovelife than Dr. Manhattan– who has a girlfriend, but who no longer has need for emotion or people.
I shouldn’t write too much because for the first time in a long time, I’ve seen a movie that is growing roots in my subconscious, that truly stopped me and made me think about hero mythology and the state of being human.
I am glad they changed the ending, btw. My other friend said he wanted to see more piles of dead people in the street, but that’s highlighting the obvious. We get it. The movie ending feels more appropriate, ‘realistic’. If they kept the original, it would have thrown me out of the flick. Made it laughable. But the alteration feels just right. Its a movie one must revisit, esp on dvd. There’s too much under the surface to treat it as a standard issue popcorn flick.
