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uhm... you missed the part where the movie/book attempts to show exactly how ridiculous these people are, how little difference anything they do matters, and how they are just crummy people (and that humans themselves are crummy)... It is, in large part, satire.

I think I am again proven right. They primed for a superhero movie, and people expect a normal story with a beginning/middle/happyending. this does the opposite, and it throws people off. and the satire ends up being lost because people are too busy dealing with their own cognitive dissonance.

I don't actually understand complaints about this movie. it was cool, it was neat to watch, it played with and explored the idea of superheroes, and humanity. It was a live action comic book for christ's sake. The characters were archetypes... of archetypes. Also it had neat special effects, poignant dialogue, sexy people naked, super-powered violence, and a very tight script. It was exactly what one should expect an awesome movie to be. Movies like this should define an entire genre of cinema. So what's the deal?

I get why uber religious nut jobs with no tolerance for pornography might be up in arms, but how anyone with any imagination and an open mind could have not liked this film is beyond me. Objectively, as a film, it was amazing. But that aside how can you read science fiction, or ever have enjoyed a comic book, and not have appreciated this movie? It struck a cord from within the darkside of comicbookdom. It explored the gritty world of human nature, and what it is to be a god amongst ants, and... it did it well, with some of the best minds and technology mainstream cinema has to offer. If that doesn't make a great story... then I just give up.

The worst part, is that since this movie is getting just such a poor public response it means we are less likely to see anything similar in the future. People should praise this film just for making it to the big screen, never mind the fact it was amazingly done. I maintain that this sort of negative response is due to not only to a lack of understanding, but also an unwillingness to understand.

There, that's my rant.

Liquidprism wrote:I don't actually understand complaints about this movie. it was cool, it was neat to watch, it played with and explored the idea of superheroes, and humanity. It was a live action comic book for christ's sake. The characters were archetypes... of archetypes. Also it had neat special effects, poignant dialogue, sexy people naked, super-powered violence, and a very tight script. It was exactly what one should expect an awesome movie to be. Movies like this should define an entire genre of cinema. So what's the deal?

I get why uber religious nut jobs with no tolerance for pornography might be up in arms, but how anyone with any imagination and an open mind could have not liked this film is beyond me. Objectively, as a film, it was amazing. But that aside how can you read science fiction, or ever have enjoyed a comic book, and not have appreciated this movie? It struck a cord from within the darkside of comicbookdom. It explored the gritty world of human nature, and what it is to be a god amongst ants, and... it did it well, with some of the best minds and technology mainstream cinema has to offer. If that doesn't make a great story... then I just give up.

The worst part, is that since this movie is getting just such a poor public response it means we are less likely to see anything similar in the future. People should praise this film just for making it to the big screen, never mind the fact it was amazingly done. I maintain that this sort of negative response is due to not only to a lack of understanding, but also an unwillingness to understand.

There, that's my rant.

I for the most part agree. But, because of the responses i've gotten, even from intelligent people that like the genre, I am chalking it up to cognitive dissonance for the most part. That's the only thing I can think of that explains it... That, or it was just too ugly, and/or corny to actually see the superhero stuff in a "real world" sense.

No no no, I get it, it's just lame. They faffed about almost the entire film. It was stupid.

It wasn't cognitive dissonance, and it wasn't a misunderstanding of the film, and it wasn't an unwillingness to understand, or my failure to secrete my bodily fluids into the comic book, or any of that. It was a dog shit bullet fired directly into the hearts and minds of comic book people.

I have never associated cheesy masked avengers with genuine entertainment value, mostly because they don't have any. I mean, if you're into comic books that's all well and good and maybe that's what gets you your jollies but I don't feel like casting an already shitty in my perspective genre in an even shittier light and satirizing it ad nauseum was a particularly good idea.

I mean look, I really tried to like this film. I was excited to pay money for a bootlegged copy and I halted my frenzied study afternoon to watch it and a friend of mine even piggy backed his headphones onto mine and we watched it together. And we discussed it and were interested in the heroes for a while and then it eventually dawned on us that we'd already gotten what little explanation and back story we were on the most inexplicable of heroes, and we'd spent hours and hours on the least interesting, most annoying, least well thought out heroes, by the end of it all I was glad it was over and had to watch something else to get that bad taste out of my eyes.

And I've always been giving the caveat that Dr Manhattan was very well depicted and yeah they did a good job thinking through their miracles especially in regards to Dr M and hooray, I finally know what it's like to be a god amongst ants, but honestly that wasn't a question burning in my mind.

And while perhaps maybe the idea was there to satirize and demonstrate the inherent shittiness of man even when super they still had all the trappings of successful heroes, even bird faced man had his little bird face cave with his magical flying owl pellet that contained at least five miracles of science and begged the question as to why they needed flamethrowers and machine guns to fight crime? and if its ok to shoot or set on fire criminals, why then go to ground and punch them around a lot? Oh wait, that's what the 'punisher' did, (I won't type again the worst hero name since Bladder Man) and he was a rapist, and killed women and children, and haphazardly discharged firearms into a crowd of rioting civilians.

It doesn't come across as satire, and you can't just call a bad idea satire and then get away with something, it has to actually satirize something, and the only things I saw satirized is the money people paid to see this and the attacks on the world trade center. And COME ON if you don't see the flagrant 'point' made at the end about how uniting against a common enemy that attacks civilian targets in I don't konw NEW YORK or somewhere brought about world peace. And that's a great place for cognitive dissonance to pop up because it's hard to believe that anybody would unite to fight dr manhattan, the already well described invicible god. That is literally like declaring war on god. In fact, it literally is declaring war on god. what. the. fuck. The entire film makes sure to mention every so often that dr manhattan is invincible, and can destroy all life on earth if he felt like it, or if not doing it slipped his mind and so this brilliant plan that the richest, fastest, smartest, most effeminate man in the world came up with to turn the whole world against dr manhattan and in so doing unite them all and sing kum bah yah was inherently flawed, the world would, in the face of the devastation described and depicted, acknowledge that dr manhattan had declared war on them AND THEN SURRENDER. And then dr manhattan would be king of the world and disarm all the nukes and then faff about until someone did something else stupid.

I kinda went on there.

I certainly didn't enjoy the film, I'm sure "comic book people" loved it, as they are entitled to.

Seriously.... I also am with Josh. The worst part of my movie watching experience was the two morons that sat behind us. They also hated the movie. The female was bitching all the way to the bathroom about how it was the worst movie she had ever seen. I was left with the distinct desire to hit her in the face repeatedly, but alas she got away.

I thought the movie was well thought out, the music very appropriate. I loved Rorschach, and thought he was a very interesting character. I did think the bad guy was a bit obvious. Though I have not read the graphic novel (they don't sell it in the rinky town I now reside in) I figured out that the smart guy in purple was the bad guy the first time I saw him. (Yay for the holier than thou, smug facial expressions all across his face the whole movie.) I had no problem with the Comedian as a character. He was an interesting commentary on that kind of person/character. Dr. Manhattan was, as previously stated, very cool. All in all, I was impressed by the film as a whole.

Next time I see it, I only hope to watch it with a better audience... or at least in a better theater!

but... was ozzy really the bad guy?


anyway, i think it is interesting listening to you gideon. You were watching totally different things there than I was. like your focus on the paraphernalia of owlman II. that didn't make him a success, it just showed he was mostly a lame obsessed geek. why did he punch people? because it's all he could do to stop feeling impotent.

The comedian wasn't a hero in any sense, he was a monster. he was just honest about it, which the other "heroes" weren't. There was a high degree of art in the film imo, in the way they displayed some of these concepts.

Take for example rorschach. he is horrible, as you pointed out. but according to the large portion of the movie going audience, he is also the most popular, "coolest" character (read the blog statement regarding him posted above somewhere). This ends up being meta-commentary on human shittiness, as we see how the audience is drawn to him.

I dunno. Like I said, I think that you ARE missing something, but mainly b/c of the perspective you are watching it from. The statements you make, and the way you make them, tell me you were seeeing and focusing on something totally different from me. Not sure what to tell you to look at though. Maybe it will be on video when you get back, and we can critique it together in a locked room full of badgers.

I am in fact willing to watch it again. The bootleg copy I was watching had a hissing noise in the audio throughout and made the film look like it was filmed in the seventies, but I anticipated some large lack of fidelity in the rendition. I would watch it again, hoping to Hitchberg, god of cinema, that my initial perceptions were somehow the result of a cosmic joke, and it was in fact a good film.

However, if my opinions remain valid, we have to watch mazes and monsters again. Twice.

in a row even. tom hanks as a schizo dd player. good times.

I actually did like Watchmen, but in reflection I think the thing I like most was Moloch the Mystic (crook guy). He was at one point a villan and apparently nemesis to some of the watchmen, but at the time of the movie was a rather piteous old man in a run down apartment. I find his existance and end to be more reflective of the useless nature of the heros/villans and their feats than the big killing at the end.

I will buy it when it comes out, and would love to be there.

Read the comic.

Yay for nuances and longer dramatic Mars scene.

Boo for unbelievably annoying paneling.

I also didn't think it was quite as cruel, gritty, whatever as the the movie. Most likely because its pushing 20 years old. I found the pirate comic the kid at the newstand reading to be awesome.

http://www.kmtr.com/news/local/story/Ma ... WuOSA.cspx

A man shot himself to death in a Eugene movie theater just after midnight Monday morning.

Police say about 10 patrons were in an auditorium at Regal Cinemas watching the movie “Watchmen.” About midway through the film some of the moviegoers told the manager they heard a “popping” noise like a gunshot. A 24-year-old man was found in the rear of the auditorium with a gunshot wound to the head.

Police say the man shot himself and was dead when they arrived.

The patron closest to the man was sitting two rows away.

dandy. i wonder if it was a statement, or if it was just a random thing.

If it was rubbish and not a statement then I guess they need to expand the warning labels on guns to also include

"don't clean in dark theater while watching your favorite movie"