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No, not the movie. The comic.
Yeah, I hadn't read it before. I remedied that this weekend.
This isn't a review, just a kind of stream-of-consciousness rambling on the thoughts roiled up by my reading.
This is a powerful story, as of course it was intended to be. Y'all may or may not remember the '80s as a time when the world was on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, but I do. I also remember the head-in-the-sand attitude that most people (myself included) adopted as their only defense. Moore's evocation of the headlines of the day--nuclear proliferation, rampant crime, the invasion of Afghanistan--rooted me solidly in the world he proposed, where superheroes were not only incapable of preventing or solving the world's problems, but actually exacerbated them. It is a hopeless world, and I found my 38-year-old self completely in agreement with the author who found no realistic escape.
Oddly, even though I found myself nodding along with all the evidence presented to me, I was completely incapable of going along with the conclusion. Maybe it's because I know a lot of people at the top end of the intelligence curve, and have a pretty good idea what the limits of human intelligence really are; maybe it's because unlike Moore, i know what really did happen as a result of the USSR invading Afghanistan, and am aware of the complete lack of nuclear Armageddon that has resulted between now and then; maybe it's that I feel that the main threat to the human world isn't one huge planet-cracking Event, but the constant erosion, one little happiness at a time, of society at the hands of the selfish, uncaring, short-sighted schlubs that are each one of us too much of the time; but in the end, I can't bring myself to believe, as Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan did, in Ozymandias' claim that an external, alien threat would bring us all together. And even if I did buy it, I don't see allowing the sonofabitch who just murdered half of New York to profit from it.
Interestingly, Moore showed us that petty bickering and inability on the parts of individuals to come together throughout the series--and this was particularly well counterpointed with the parallel reading of "Tales of the Black Freighter"--but especially in the climactic scene in New York just before the advent of the Squid, but he seems incapable of understanding that it isn't the Big Bad that was "destroying" society in the '80s, but the individual members of that society, same as what is happening today.
Even Rorschach, who serves as the author's primary voice*, falls down in the end, begging for death because he can neither compromise his absolutism nor convince himself that that absolutism is correct. (Looked at another way, the guy who is Just. So. Wrong. for the entire series can't survive actually being right.)
Oh, and the less said about the rape subplot, probably the better. Moore does not come off well from that at all, as far as I can see, and at the end of the day, none of it matters to the story. The Comedian was an immoral, violent, bigoted villain-in-all-but-name, and his attempted rape was not only gratuitous, unnecessary, and executed ham-handedly, it wasn't even the worst thing he did.
I am now interested in the movie, though, because I wonder how they managed it without the Squid. I also wonder how they brought this story to the screen in such a way that the primary takeaway that people seem to have had is Dr. Manhattan's enormous glowing blue schlong. In the '80s, we had movies where the victory was putting off World War III by a few years. Is that really so long ago?
*Moore may not always want you to agree with what Rorschach says, but of all the characters, he always makes sure you hear it.
Yeah, I hadn't read it before. I remedied that this weekend.
This isn't a review, just a kind of stream-of-consciousness rambling on the thoughts roiled up by my reading.
This is a powerful story, as of course it was intended to be. Y'all may or may not remember the '80s as a time when the world was on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, but I do. I also remember the head-in-the-sand attitude that most people (myself included) adopted as their only defense. Moore's evocation of the headlines of the day--nuclear proliferation, rampant crime, the invasion of Afghanistan--rooted me solidly in the world he proposed, where superheroes were not only incapable of preventing or solving the world's problems, but actually exacerbated them. It is a hopeless world, and I found my 38-year-old self completely in agreement with the author who found no realistic escape.
Oddly, even though I found myself nodding along with all the evidence presented to me, I was completely incapable of going along with the conclusion. Maybe it's because I know a lot of people at the top end of the intelligence curve, and have a pretty good idea what the limits of human intelligence really are; maybe it's because unlike Moore, i know what really did happen as a result of the USSR invading Afghanistan, and am aware of the complete lack of nuclear Armageddon that has resulted between now and then; maybe it's that I feel that the main threat to the human world isn't one huge planet-cracking Event, but the constant erosion, one little happiness at a time, of society at the hands of the selfish, uncaring, short-sighted schlubs that are each one of us too much of the time; but in the end, I can't bring myself to believe, as Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan did, in Ozymandias' claim that an external, alien threat would bring us all together. And even if I did buy it, I don't see allowing the sonofabitch who just murdered half of New York to profit from it.
Interestingly, Moore showed us that petty bickering and inability on the parts of individuals to come together throughout the series--and this was particularly well counterpointed with the parallel reading of "Tales of the Black Freighter"--but especially in the climactic scene in New York just before the advent of the Squid, but he seems incapable of understanding that it isn't the Big Bad that was "destroying" society in the '80s, but the individual members of that society, same as what is happening today.
Even Rorschach, who serves as the author's primary voice*, falls down in the end, begging for death because he can neither compromise his absolutism nor convince himself that that absolutism is correct. (Looked at another way, the guy who is Just. So. Wrong. for the entire series can't survive actually being right.)
Oh, and the less said about the rape subplot, probably the better. Moore does not come off well from that at all, as far as I can see, and at the end of the day, none of it matters to the story. The Comedian was an immoral, violent, bigoted villain-in-all-but-name, and his attempted rape was not only gratuitous, unnecessary, and executed ham-handedly, it wasn't even the worst thing he did.
I am now interested in the movie, though, because I wonder how they managed it without the Squid. I also wonder how they brought this story to the screen in such a way that the primary takeaway that people seem to have had is Dr. Manhattan's enormous glowing blue schlong. In the '80s, we had movies where the victory was putting off World War III by a few years. Is that really so long ago?
*Moore may not always want you to agree with what Rorschach says, but of all the characters, he always makes sure you hear it.
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An absolutely devastating critique of the superman, the superhero. Hit me real hard when I got dragged to see The Incredibles (with, of all things, a bunch of lefty environmentalist lesbians. They didn't tell me there would be children to entertain). Moore really puts his thumb on putting faith in supermen.
Moore has a real, and perhaps prurient, interest in pushing the boundaries on sex. I couldn't get through Lost Girls. The rape subplot worked for me, but I work on a lot of cases that aren't all that far off from what he's describing, without even the dignity that Silk Spectre One arguably brings to it. In our lifetime, in this state, a husband was privileged to use force to have intercourse with his wife and no crime was committed; it was a privilege of marriage. I could tell you stories . . .
I have a dangerous amount of sympathy for Ozymandias, I have to confess. Though I suspect I'm more of a Niteowl as much as that embarrasses me.
FWIW, I liked the movie. I thought the change they made made a whole lot of sense, even if I do like Cthulhu shout outs. Jeremy did not like it. He resented the hell out of the loss of the Black Freighter story line. But once you figure out that the guy is eating Rorschack -- Raw Shark -- it's in there. Just implicit.
As you say, Moore wants you to hear what our deontologicalist Rorschach says. Nicely said, cos. There are times that's enough for me. There are other times where I just think that's self indulgence. We don't live in the pure land. we live in this one.
Get this; my copy is in Utah. Jeremy leant it to his mother. Who read it. She's so much cooler than my parents.
From:
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What's worse, he allows Rorshach to forget this, which leads to Rorshach being sufficiently convinced by the plan to prefer death to compromising his principle.
The final nail in the coffin is the presumed printing of Rorshach's journal by the _New Frontiersman_. In a world where Russian and American cultures have merged enough to enable the "Burgers and Borscht" chain to come into existence, the claims of a borderline Nazi paper are going to carry no weight whatsoever. Instead of presenting an opportunity for Rorshach to be vindicated, and Ozymandias punished, this represents the final joke on Rorshach, on the world, and on the reader.
*Other than the complete joke of Dr. Manhattan's crisis of identity and subsequent about-face just in time to return to Earth for the denouement. Don't get me started on Dr. Manhattan and feeble, Philosophy 101 strawman discussions around free will and predestination.