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In Reply to: RE: "Watchmen:" see the trailer posted by tinear on March 08, 2009 at 12:18:25
While I have mixed feelings about the Watchmen based on a muddled plot, erratic pacing and really BAD make-up in places, apparently you weren't even viewing the same movie. Here is just one example of where you missed what was going on:
>>> "A woman born of a rape--- well, not only is she glad to have been given life but so is the victim to have been so gifted!" <<<
First of all, while I'll agree that the plot point involving Silk Spectre II being the daughter of the Comedian is muddled, the film is clear in the point that NO RAPE actually occurred. It was stopped. The only problem I had with that was that 1) Silk Spectre (Sally Jupiter) was supposed to be a super heroine and yet she posed very little resistance to the brutish Comedian's attempted rape and actually had to be rescued, and 2) she apparently fell in and out of love with her attacker (at some point, later on, off screen) resulting in their having super-daughter, after which she abruptly left him for someone else and in a painfully obvious plot device never told her daughter (Silk Spectre II; Laurie Jupiter) after she was grown.
So, there was no woman born of rape in the movie; I'd have to reread the graphic novel to determine if this was substantially altered, but a rape would've been easier to communicate even though it would've left the Comedian non-rehabilitatable from a cinematic standpoint.
Also, IMO you're reading just a little too much into the sexual awkwardness of Night Owl II...
>>> "a middle-aged guy, not unattractive and buff to the max yet he acts more self-conscious, more boyish than Jimmy Stewart at his most awkward." <<<
This is almost a Clark Kent pastiche, more true to the comic-book tradition than Hollywood, even though it was consummated in a somewhat traditional Hollywood fashion in keeping with the film's "R" rating. It was very appropriate considering the material.
Anyone familiar with the comics of the 1940's should see this just for the nostalgic homage to bygone characters done with an alternative universe twist. For instance, Silk Spectre II is based on Fox's 1940's character Phantom Lady and the supporting character Hooded Justice is loosely based upon the 40's MLJ character Hangman; some of this is touched upon in the link below.
As far as glorifying gore, I saw less gut-wrenching stuff than in many other action movies. Of course Watchmen has a more fantasy based, alternative universe feel than most reality based dramas and action pictures, but I've seen far worse films depicting gore (Natural Born Killers, for example).
If you want to see some REAL gore, look at some vintage WWII Timely (Marvel) comic book covers from the 1940's; they'll curl your Shirley Temple hair doo, dude! :o)
AuPh
Follow Ups:
It was a rape that was interrupted or would have been consummated. Even worse, the woman then went on to have a relationship with the would-be-rapist: that in itself is a two-fold rape. In keeping with the plot (unbelievable as it is), it is a Stockholm Syndrome situation. On the other hand, it is a "rape" of the viewer, repeating as it does the "women like to be raped---- they ask for it." I thought you'd be more sensitive.
As far as downplaying the violence.... SPOILER: you didn't happen to see that a young girl was attacked, dismembered, and fed to dogs? Or that the perp was hit repeatedly in the head with a meat cleaver? I'd mention many other scenes, i.e. one of bone protruding from flesh after a karate blow, but you'd just say, "I've seen worse!"
You may have seen worse but hardly in a film where a "hero" does it. In your own example, Woody Harrelson's character is a worthless serial killer. We aren't meant to identify with him, he isn't portrayed as some vigilante, dispensing "tough" justice.
In a film where there is vicious violence meted out both from the Just and the Criminal, who cares about either? That's a moral (or should I say, "amoral") problem with much modern film: if both are scum bags, then there is no friction, there is just blood, gore, and violence.
One excellent example: Sin City, which BTW, is a great film, well paced and ground breaking.
AuPh
beat a woman half to death and attempt to rape her?
We can both agree that The Comedian is not especially heroic and that his behavior is far from admirable. You certainly have the right to loathe the character even though he died early on, but to be fair, in the flashbacks he didn't beat Silk Spectre half to death even if that was your impression. We should try to keep in mind that even though The Comedian is a cigar chomping lout he is just one character in a story that isn't centered on any one character. Note: This is a plot driven rather than character driven film.Speaking generally, there is uglier violence in Sin City and a lot more of it, and the violence is often justifiably dispensed by a protagonist hero. As for violence against women there is plenty of that in Sin City as well, but women frequently give as good as they get (much of the violence is dispensed by women), but there are also scenes of psychotic killers who enjoy torturing victims. In Watchmen most of the heroes are in fact heroic albeit flawed and the violence less demented or grisly.
As far as calling Sin City a bloodbath, well, you do have a point, but it is also a moody, noirish tale that is extremely well told in chapters that can be woven together in an infinite number of ways; it is deserving of the high praise it has received. Even if Sin City isn't your cuppa-tea (as Watchmen obviously isn't) it's still a bona fide classic of the genre.
AuPh
Edits: 03/11/09 03/11/09
Which might just make them more realistic.
We live in a world where a country has prisoners sent halfway round he world so its leader can claim truthfully his military don't hang people by their wrists and slash their genitals with razorblades.
A world where rape is used as part of war or was it just genocide?
At the moment there is a plague of mutilations of kangaroos going on around Perth.
Soldiers here in Queensland have been prosecuted for torturing kittens.
It's a sick old world.
okay?
I'd take a different tack: it is works such as "Watchmen" that inoculate regular, sensitive people into thinking that viciousness is "human."
I guess, Dave, it all comes down to how cynical one is and whether or not one finds entertainment in a film (and if it's not entertainment, what is it? an intellectual exercsise? Please!) that glorifies violence.
You may not find it shocking that a mainstream film argues that purposefully killing millions of one's own people is a good deterrent to global war but I am more than glad to say I am.
Watchmen doesn't glorify anything. Watchmen basically asks a few simple questions. 1. if people dressed up in costumes and fought crime in the real world what would these people be like? answer mostly psychopaths with extreme points of views be them liberal or conservative.
2. What would happen if superman were real? answer, he wouldn't be saving Lois Lane every week or fighting Lex Luther. He would have a profound socialogical and political impact. the movie doesn't glorify anything. It examines the comic book genre and mythologies from a view point that marked a revolution in comic books.
Since I never read the source material, I did not think in these terms. But as a sort of meta-comic, placing traditional comic book characters in the gritty real world, it becomes more interesting conceptually.
I guess that my main problem with the plot is that it turns on the decision of Dr. Manhattan. And his final decision is based on a rather trite high school biology factoid. It just seemed to me that such an advanced being would not equate "improbable" with "miraculous."
Humanity.
Not particularly profound things, mind you, but it does have pretensions.
It doesn't glorify any of the things you claim it glorifies.
d
I mean... come on!
"The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
And, remember I haven't seen the film yet, that the trashing of the veneer goodness of a self appointed elite of those who would "protect" us, but who are actually at least as vicious as the "baddies (compare Rambo), would not be seen as glorification.
Opinions vary.
It is a juvenile desire for no restraint, no rules. But, unlike the other films, this one has great pretensions of seriousness. It makes grand political points, argues the great issue of the day, nuclear armament and its use.
... if it were still the 1950s.
But then that is possibly the time that ALL comic books/graphic novels are set in.
...could be the Roman coliseum for our age, and a quickening towards de-evolution.Just as too much pepper desensitizes the palete, you become what you eat.
Edits: 03/10/09
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