WATCHMEN REDUX

[wertz]

In response to my comments on Watchmen, rpeate raised a number of good questions. My original post can be found here. His comment was as follows (and I'd like to thank him for his reasoned response):

First, let me thank you for this reasoned review. You like the film, but you analyse it rationally, which enables me to take you seriously and to

Comments

[wertz]

Heh, you had me at "George Bernard Shaw" (one of my heroes). And you made my point much more succinctly: without the graphic depiction of violence in Watchmen, the visceral impact would be diluted and, like many other quasi-violent films, the necessary "training" would be absent. Of course, many people (and rpeate is probably among them) are already aware of the sickening brutality of violence and may find such reminders unnecessary.

This does, however, raise a few issues regarding his question, What's wrong with wanting to like the good guys, to think there are good guys, guys who actually behave morally? Is violence, for example, ever "moral"? If the good guys use excessive force, are they still "good"? They're not easy questions - which is one of the reasons Watchmen is not an easy film.

[scaredsquee]

holy shit tl;dr.

i just finished racking my brain to remember the names, dates and salaries for the past 5 years. that was like pulling teeth. old general managers that i used to work for are no longer part of the company, etc.

your reviews for watchmen have definitely interested me, but i haven't read the graphic novel.. so i'm not really sure if i should bother seeing the movie.

i'll read this redux later when i don't feel like gouging my eyes out.

[wertz]

I don't really think it's essential to read the graphic novel before seeing the film. The three people I saw it with hadn't and seemed to enjoy it quite a lot. In fact, the one guy that I know personally who saw the movie and was decidedly underwhelmed was an ardent fanboy (if fanboy can be used to describe someone roughly my age who bought all the original comics as they were released in 1986/87). So maybe not having read the original is an advantage. If nothing else, the movie omits a few of the things that I found a bit dopey in the graphic novel...