First of all I would like to say this:
Watchmen is an accurate character study, both about the concept of the übermensch and humanity’s journey to achieve the unattainable. It’s a cautionary tale about the tragic portrayal of the human condition, making its way to hell with good intentions, and how justice is a fine line. Alan Moore wrote a masterpiece in my opinion and Zach Snyder captured the essence of that masterpiece and translated his intentions perfectly into digital history. Every time I watch the movie or read the graphic novel I gain more respect and appreciation for both the content and its creator. I know that humanity will never be perfect despite our countless efforts to cure the human condition nor will we (without some crude manipulation like Ozymandias’s plan) be able to overcome our dual nature of creating and destroying. Perfection is in imperfection and I appreciate that.
-PLOT DEVICE: Death begins the life of the film.
The entire movie begins with the sudden death of the former vigilante ‘The Comedian’.
Years after masks (the name given to heroes, villains and the like) were banned by a third term of President Nixon (Watchmen exists in an alternate timeline to our own. One where we won the Vietnam War, thanks to Dr. Manhattan!) someone from his past (shown as a shadowy figure) appears and after a brief struggle puts Eddie Blake (his real name) through the glass window of his high-rise apartment in New York. Rorschach, who never retired despite being on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, shows up to investigate and finds out who Eddie Blake was, and from there proceeds to warm up to each member of the entire team while simultaneously investigating the comedian’s death. . As we see the progression of the comedian’s funeral and final resting place, he begins to get the backstories of the other ‘Watchmen,’ and from there, the gang comes together again to break out a framed and imprisoned. (to get him out of the always-unravel puzzle) Rorschach.
-The übermensch is born! -A Doc-Man story.
Here’s a rough backstory of the only real ‘superhero’ in Watchmen (taken from Watchmen.wikia here):
Doctor Jonathan Osterman (born August 14, 1929), also known as Doctor Manhattan, is a main character in Watchmen. Due to an accident involving a nuclear physics experiment, Dr. Osterman was taken out of the physical realm and returned with godlike, even superhuman powers. strength, telekinesis, the ability to teleport himself or others to planetary and interplanetary distances, control over matter at the subatomic level, near-total clairvoyance. Furthermore, he perceives that the past, present, and future happen simultaneously, but at least he believes that he cannot act on that knowledge, since his own actions and reactions to chronological events are apparently predetermined. he increasingly disinterested in human affairs, despite his importance in the Cold War, and is unable to connect with others (especially his love interest Laurie, the second Silk Specter). Like most of the characters in Watchmen, Manhattan seems to have a personality disorder, in his case, schizoid personality disorder, which is characterized by reclusiveness and voluntary withdrawal from socialization to the detriment of personal relationships.
It’s even alluded to, at least in the movie (it’s been a while since I’ve read the graphic novel, so it might have been mentioned there, but I’m not sure off hand), it’s implied that the creation of The ‘Doctor Manhattan’ it was the reason the Soviet Union began stockpiling nuclear warheads and inadvertently started the Cold War. He’s a walking nuclear deterrent, but he’s also a valuable tool/ally/weapon for his former allies and a good fear totem for his enemies. I mean come on… man wiped out vietnam is one day… ONE DAY…
His role in the film signifies, to me, the general reality of gaining more human than human status…you literally cut yourself off from what it ‘means’ (in whatever capacity or philosophical explanation it means) to be human…ultimately defeating point. Humanity is fragile and divinity is absolute. But I ramble…
-BRIEF HISTORY LESSON:
In the Watchmen universe, ‘skins’ began appearing in response to bank robbers and rising crime rates that normal police jobs couldn’t or wouldn’t chase. So ordinary citizens stepped up and prepared to fight crime, thwart petty theft, and work to protect the general population. The coalition known as the ‘Minute Men’ was formed. These were your typical superheroes from the Captain America era, the do-gooders. They weren’t looking for trouble, but they would stop it if they found it. They were not a police force per se, but were a defensive arm for the general public. They weren’t in it for fame or fortune, they were in it for the ideals and altruism over anonymous justice.
Then came the next generation of heroes, the ‘rock star’ generation of superheroes.
I call them rockstars because they are a different breed of hero, if you want to call them that. Don’t get me wrong, I love these guys—they’re cool, dynamic, and their arcs are compelling—but they’re not heroes by definition. I would classify this crew as more of a police force. They had technology, gadgets and weapons and had no responsibility or accountability. I mean they were there to protect and they did it with good intentions but they all had too much power at their disposal with little oversight (with the exception of Dr. Manhattan and the Comedian. They were agents working with the US government. So his participation may have had a prior motive.) His intentions were to protect and punish but it was at his whim and will. Rorschach is the most doomed ‘hero’ in terms of ideals, but he is a glorified sociopath. Silk Spector does it to impress her mom, Comedian is a very Nietzschean hero in terms of morality and justice. But his function was simple, to protect society, until society outlawed them.
I think it’s the opposite of how we view authority. They had masks and they wanted cops, whereas we have cops and some people hold true to the notion of taking justice into their own hands. Could it be that, no matter the outcome, society will never ‘like’ the pointing finger? Similarly, outlaws are sometimes forged out of necessity due to an abuse of power. People tend to forget that the bad guys (the cowboys/outlaw bandits) in the movie Tombstone were formed due to police corruption and a lack of cleaning up the system from within. In the same way that the masks arose in this universe to satisfy a need that the established law and order could not satisfy only for the same law and order to come to recover the balance when the power of public opinion changed the paradigms. Will humans always be dominated by a wild nature despite our customized and scaled efforts to evolve and purge that wild nature? Are we doomed to repeat a vicious circle? Yes and no..
THEN COMES A SPIDER: Ozymandias
Ozymandias… The supposed ‘smartest man’ in the world. He is also strongly convinced of his ideals and blinded by his search for peace so much so that he adapts the philosophy “The end justifies the means” and embodies it. His answer to stopping the cold war is to trick humanity into uniting and saving itself. In the novel, he creates a giant monster that the world has to unite to stop him.
In the movie, he frames Dr. Manhattan and detonates bombs in some key cities around the world to trick the world into uniting against a common enemy. It is revealed that he is the antagonist of the film, although in some ways it could be argued that he is not a villain at all. He used the atomic bomb theory of “killing millions to save billions” and if I was faced with the same problem with the same knowledge and resources, I couldn’t honestly say I would make a different choice. He saves humanity and secures peace with the greatest mass murder and cover-up of all time (according to that universe), so he is essentially both Hitler and Truman at once. He remembers that Hitler also wanted to create a world peace… albeit a Nazi/Aryan peace. So did all the great conquerors. He says the saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”
Rorschach’s thirst for justice and his tenacious search for the truth become his downfall. Once he discovers that the puppeteer perpetuates this progressive and political agenda, he has no choice but to expose it. Here we have a moral dilemma, a dead end between Batman and Joker. You have the clash of ideals and no oversight to decide the outcome, just a democratic committee (which ultimately weighs the options and decides that the lesser of two evils would be letting the world think that Manhattan committed mass genocide to make way for a manipulated ). world peace) acting in the best interest but not in the interest of truth, freedom and justice. It’s a choice that ultimately costs Rorschach his life because, as he constantly mentions, he won’t compromise, “even in the face of Armageddon.” Again, in a dual nature you have a character who is arguably the most psychotic and also the most noble and altruistic. His root for justice and righteousness stems from his extremely broken and troubled childhood, something people today can relate to as well.
I Just Want To Do The Right Thing: A night owl’s plight for the right thing.
I will compare the story of Nite Owl with that of Hank Pym. He is a technology guy who has a lot of money with a desire to do good. He is often the voice of reason and uses his intelligence to dominate. The original Nite Owl passed the mantle to this guy: Daniel Dreiberg. He’s almost a Batman type of hero who employs theatrics combined with martial arts and obviously everything revolves around the Owl theme of him. He, at least to me, means the run-of-the-mill hero. He is a legitimate benefactor, and now that I think about it, I can’t remember any of his flaws. The only thing that stands out to me as I write this is that he is a bit of a coward when it comes to social situations and his romantic feelings for Silk Specter (well his daughter Aka Silk Specter II). He retired after Keene’s act passed and acted as the group’s leader. In the movie, in my opinion, he’s the central focus of the story and by that I mean you’re supposed to learn how his character learns things. When the final moral question is asked, he must be a surrogate for you. What would you do in his position? He decided for peace, but he was uneasy about it and definitely against the murder of Rorschach (I say murder, because it was actually cold-blooded).
