# The Watchmen Questions (movie version-open spoilers) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 12, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588 "2010-01-12T01:26:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/61 "2010-01-14T01:46:26Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > I don’t know about Doc Savage doing it, but Remo Williams did it as part of his ongoing training. I had to look him up. According to wikipedia, at one point he’s said to be an avatar of Shiva. If they kept that up, in a serious way, I’d have to call that a super power. Now if it was just his trainer’s opinion. . . . ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/62 "2010-01-14T03:13:39Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The second bullet catching (in Antarctica) was real. > > It’s true that the Watchmen characters were inspired by the Charleton characters that DC had recently acquired. Alan Moore thought it would be cool to use them, but DC decided they’d rather fold the characters into the main DC continuity, so he just filed off the serial numbers. Yes, Rorschach was originally The Question, Dr. Manhattan was Captain Atom, the Comedian was Peacemaker, Nite Owl was Blue Beetle, and so on. And, coming back around, Ozymandias was originally Thunderbolt: a top martial artist who’d honed his mind and body to peak condition and could maybe pull off one borderline superhuman athletic feat per adventure. Like, imagine the archetypal 90-pound mother who gets a freaky adrenaline rush when she absolutely needs to lift that car off her kid – and now imagine a muscular kung-fu expert who can, by concentrating really hard for a moment or two, dial up that level of performance at will. So he usually gets by as a superhero in the Batman/Mister Terrific mold – but if he ever needs to, say, pull off a jump guys like that can’t quite hit, well, that’s okay, so long as he’s not trying to leap tall buildings in a single bound; he can maybe set a new world record in the high jump by a couple of feet, but that’s about it. And so it’s supposed to be _ **almost,** _ but not _ **quite,** _ a superpower: it’s not that he’s from Krypton or got bitten by a radioactive spider, it’s that anyone who eats right and gets plenty of exercise can do what he does via self-hypnosis given enough years practicing meditation techniques. So, okay: given enough time to fire up a focused HIII-YAAA, he can (a) barely manage to get shot in the hand instead of the gut, and then (b) explain while bleeding that even he wasn’t sure he could do that. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/63 "2010-01-14T10:35:25Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > The book pretty unambiguously suggests that Veidt was correct that what he did was necessary to save the world from a worse fate. The fact that he had to sacrifice his soul and turn himself into a monster in the process arguably makes him more of a hero, not less. I think that’s taking his account of himself too much at face value. An equally plausible reading is that he’s a psychopathic narcissist who – rather than use his intelligence and resources to defuse the international tensions he clearly anticipated – has spent the last twenty years exacerbating them (to his own personal financial benefit), so that he can play out his fantasy role as a second Alexander, and cut the Gordian Knot. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/64 "2010-01-14T11:08:11Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > I think that’s taking his account of himself too much at face value. An equally plausible reading is that he’s a psychopathic narcissist who – rather than use his intelligence and resources to defuse the international tensions he clearly anticipated – has spent the last twenty years exacerbating them (to his own personal financial benefit), so that he can play out his fantasy role as a second Alexander, and cut the Gordian Knot. I agree with this assessment. For Dr Manhattan, these were mere trivialities, whether Ozy did that or not wasn’t important to him, the end result that humanity was saved was all that was important. To us, that might not be so cut and dry. ---
**Author:** ![YamatoTwinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/cc9497/32.png) [@YamatoTwinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YamatoTwinkie)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/65 "2010-01-14T19:34:29Z")
> [@capeo](#): > > Moore goes to great lengths to show these are regular people (except Dr. M of course) and the film makes them do ridiculously acrobatic crap that none of them are capable of. But that version has problems of its own- why is there a group of non-super powered people (a teenage girl, no less)going around fighting crime in tights with nothing but their fists? Criminals have guns. Its never adequately explained in the graphic novel why the non-supered Watchmen aren’t all carrying firearms and body armor themselves. The premise is completely ridiculous, unless they _all_ have Batman-level martial arts training, acrobatics, stealthiness, non-lethal projectile weaponry, and a similar psychological adversion to guns. And even Batman had body armor. The movie version seems to give the Watchmen quasi-super strength and acrobatics to avoid the same logical pitfall as the graphic novel. But I agree, in doing so, it weakens the uniqueness of Manhattan and the resulting plot. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2010, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/66 "2010-01-14T21:12:00Z")
> [@Johnny\_Q](#): > > Not to mention that the cops actually do end up raiding Dan’s house(possibly on a tip from Viedt) and they break into the Owlcave right after Archie has left. No tip from Viedt - one of the detectives knew that Dan was Nite Owl 2, and kept it to himself (he even visited Dan’s place earlier in the book). After the jail break he could no longer ignore it. Oh, and Viedt doesn’t catch the assassin’s bullet - he just takes him down after his assistant (and Lee Iacocca, in the movie) are shot. When Dan asks what he would have done if the assassin had shot at him _first_, instead of the assistant, he states “I suppose I’d have to catch the bullet, wouldn’t I?” ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/67 "2010-01-15T11:36:14Z")
> [@YamatoTwinkie](#): > > But that version has problems of its own- why is there a group of non-super powered people (a teenage girl, no less)going around fighting crime in tights with nothing but their fists? Criminals have guns. Its never adequately explained in the graphic novel why the non-supered Watchmen aren’t all carrying firearms and body armor themselves. The premise is completely ridiculous, unless they _all_ have Batman-level martial arts training, acrobatics, stealthiness, non-lethal projectile weaponry, and a similar psychological adversion to guns. And even Batman had body armor. > > The movie version seems to give the Watchmen quasi-super strength and acrobatics to avoid the same logical pitfall as the graphic novel. But I agree, in doing so, it weakens the uniqueness of Manhattan and the resulting plot. The simple reason why the costumed adventurers in the _Watchmen_ wear tights instead of body armour and use their fists instead of guns is that they’re superheroes in a superhero comic. No other explanation is necessary or, indeed, possible. Without that central conceit, the whole thing falls apart. I know that _Watchmen_ has sometimes been described as “superheroes in the real world”, but that isn’t really accurate. Moore has (and had already at the time he wrote _Watchmen_) written stories with settings much closer to “real life”, and it’s clear by comparison that that isn’t what he intended here. His aim in Watchmen was to take as his initial premise a world of comic-book heroes, and apply plausible, consistent consquences to it _within that comic-book setting_. This is, in fact, one of the major criticisms of the movie: a large part of the point of _Watchmen_ is that it _is_ a comic, exploring and commenting on the themes and forms of comics. Any adaptation to another medium inevitably loses that connection. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/68 "2010-01-15T12:18:27Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > The simple reason why the costumed adventurers in the _Watchmen_ wear tights instead of body armour and use their fists instead of guns is that they’re superheroes in a superhero comic. No other explanation is necessary or, indeed, possible. Without that central conceit, the whole thing falls apart. While that’s true, there is a certain internal logic to it. For most of them, the reasons they went into the hero business were to do good. Good guys capture the bad guys (perhaps pummelling them a bit in the process) and deliver them to justice. Amoral vigilantes just shoot people. It’s a romantic notion that the original Minutemen and some of the later crowd subscribed to - if you want to be the good guy, you can’t go around shooting people. The tights and outfits were a nod to the comic book heroes they were emulating. Obviously there are some exceptions: The Comedian does in fact wear armor, carry guns and shoot people (with government sanction); Rorschach has no qualms about killing but strikes me as preferring the hands-on approach to inflicting justice to shooting from a distance; Night Owl has a whole array of non-lethal devices (in proper Batman fashion) that render the need for conventional weapons superfluous; and Dr Manhattan doesn’t need them (and didn’t really want to be a superhero in the first place). I don’t know about Ozy although it was probably the romantic notion at first as well as projecting the right image, and also an intellectual conceit that he could take on the villains without guns. Also, at the very end of the comic Silk Spectre II announces that she’s giving up the flimsy costume - stylistically inherited from her mother, who was doing it for the glam factor - and adopting the leather armor and gun approach of her father instead. ---
**Author:** ![kjckjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e36b37/32.png) [@kjckjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kjckjc)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/69 "2010-01-15T13:14:46Z")
The problem I have with the ending in both the movie and comic is that they never answer what comes next. Russia and the US were pretty united as separate countries against each other. Ozzy gave them a common enemy, thereby ending their desire to kill each other. He didn’t bring peace, he gave them a common enemy. As Jim Gordon says at the end of Batman Begins: “What about escalation? We start carrying semi-automatics, they buy automatics. We start wearing Kevlar, they buy armor-piercing rounds.” Now the world knows that killing each other with nukes isn’t the answer, they need to start finding something bigger and badder to kill the aliens/Manhattan with. And to me this is worse, since there isn’t a real enemy to fight, once these superweapons are created somebody is going to get bored and the world is going to end again. Also, Manhattan may not care about justice, but he cares about himself. Just vaporize Ozzy like he vaporized you. It isn’t like they needed him, even if Ozzy is smarter than Doc, Doc is plenty smart enough for what needs to be done. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/70 "2010-01-15T13:56:31Z")
> [@kjckjc](#): > > The problem I have with the ending in both the movie and comic is that they never answer what comes next. Russia and the US were pretty united as separate countries against each other. Ozzy gave them a common enemy, thereby ending their desire to kill each other. He didn’t bring peace, he gave them a common enemy. Well, they don’t answer the question of what comes next, but they address it. The first thing out of Veidt’s mouth after the masterstroke is “I did it. I DID IT! I saved earth from hell. Next, I’ll help her towards utopia.” Laurie interrupts him. “Wait a minute. Next?” But he’s already on about why they’ve all got to keep quiet about what just happened, and so he doesn’t then elaborate. He _ **did,** _ however, go into more detail earlier in the story; it’s the whole point of that new Millennium line he’s going to market to the heck out of, when he contends that a new surge of social optimism (a) is likely and (b) necessitates new imagery projecting a vision of a technological utopia that’s just within reach. He repeatedly emphasizes that his new world will still demand heroism – indeed, will still need heroes as badly as it did before – but a less _ **obvious** _ heroism. As the events of November 2nd dwindle down, the panelists on news programs are _ **already** _ talking about how the creature apparently died upon accidentally breaching our dimension, such that further attacks aren’t thought to be imminent; it’s likened unto an alien bee, not very intelligent, that stings reflexively upon death. And while that already sounds more like a problem to be helped away than one to be hit with superweapons, everyone is still putting up Accord posters and sending each other Accord cards months later – and Veidt is advertising his new “social optimism” brand with gusto. And all we actually _ **see** _ along the way is talk of elation, plus some doomsday graffiti being scrubbed away, and united flags over by the new Burgers ‘n’ Borscht place, and even the vaguely ominous mmeltdown candies have been replaced by cheery sunbursts, and Redford’s talking about getting active in politics, and – – look, they’re not exactly hunkering down for a bleak fight to the death. It’s more like earth got saved from hell, which cleared the way for something else to happen next; it’ll take work, but he’s on it; he’s not expecting the first part to get the job done all by itself, and so is plugging away on his next project. ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/71 "2010-01-15T16:46:21Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > The movie version of Ozzy is much more of a prick. You can tell from the beginning that Adrian is an asshole. I dunno, my first impression of him in the comic was pretty low. I seem to remember thinking to myself, “A guy who strews action figures of himself all over his desk must be a pretty major douche.” ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/72 "2010-01-15T17:14:56Z")
Yeah he came across as a bit of a douche in the comic–but that’s different from being a colossal prick. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588/73 "2010-01-15T18:37:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Also, Manhattan may not care about justice, but he cares about himself. Just vaporize Ozzy like he vaporized you. Don’t forget that Manhattan is a strict determinist. He can’t pulp Adrian because he _didn’t_ pulp Adrian when he looked into his future. He feels obligated to play things out as he saw himself play them out. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-watchmen-questions-movie-version-open-spoilers/524588.md?page=3)