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(SPOILERS) Watchmen is the greatest book ever written

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  • DouglasDangerDouglasDanger PennsylvaniaRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Please don't turn this into a thread that should be in D and D.

    Does Absolute Watchmen include any extra stuff?

    DouglasDanger on
  • Gabriel_PittGabriel_Pitt (effective against Russian warships) Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Virral wrote: »
    Ummm I'm completely comfortable with never fielding a military. I accept that this is unrealistic, but why does that make it a bad thing to wish for?

    All these people who say its just maths and they would kill X to save Y... I wonder how many of them would still be comfortable with it if they were told that they and their families would have to be part of group X before pressing the button.
    I would be very unhappy, but the 'or die trying trying to find another way' argument is so abysmally stupid because if you fail, then everyone dies. Some people seem to view that maintaining a death grip on their sense of moral superiority is more important than anything else, even as they're going up in a mushroom cloud.

    On the face of it, I see no single life as being more valuable than another. Would I shoot an innocent person in the face to save fifty others if that was the only option? I'd feel bad about it, but I just saved fifty lives.

    At no point did Ozymandius twitter with glee, 'I'm saving the world _and_ murdering millions all at the same time! Joygasm!' Did his megalomania perhaps blind him to a less bloody solution? Possibly, but with the plan he did use, in one single stroke he averted the inevitable nuclear holocaust.

    Gabriel_Pitt on
  • jkylefultonjkylefulton Squid...or Kid? NNID - majpellRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Please don't turn this into a thread that should be in D and D.

    Does Absolute Watchmen include any extra stuff?

    IGN has an article that says the book has 50 pages of supplemental material. I'm guessing it's the same material that is in the original HC.

    jkylefulton on
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  • DouglasDangerDouglasDanger PennsylvaniaRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    What kind extra stuff was in the hardcover?

    DouglasDanger on
  • jkylefultonjkylefulton Squid...or Kid? NNID - majpellRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Scripts, notes, character designs, essays by Moore and Gibbons. The designs are particulary interesting, in that they give information that we don't get in the series (Ozy living to be 150 years old, for example). They also elaborate on what they would have done with each character if they'd been allowed to use the original Charlton characters, instead of surrogates. Also, there's a gallery of different covers from foreign reprints editions, portfolios, and whatnot.

    Oh, and I guess the Absolute is recolored.

    I gave away my original Graphitti HC during my last move, and I don't think my scans of the supplemental material survived my last HD meltdown. :(

    jkylefulton on
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  • ManonvonSuperockManonvonSuperock Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    The new coloring is good. It is still done in flat tones, so it does not look out of place or modern (read: "crappy digital airbrushing"). The palette is more subdued and muted, as opposed to the unavoidable garishness of the old CMYK color plates. The coloring alone was worth the extra cost to me, but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

    ManonvonSuperock on
  • JengoJengo Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    If you accept that he's the world's smartest man, then you must accept that he considered these other possibilities and found his own mass murder hoax to be preferable, for whatever reason.

    No I don't have to accept that. Because I find it incredibly contrived that this is the best solution that the world's smartest man could come up with. Oh wait, it is incredibly contrived because Moore has a tremendous hard on for moral ambiguity and damn if it makes sense or not! I find it even harder to swallow because, as I understand it, a big point of the comic is saying how comics do a bunch of stupid shit and how they're retarded for doing that stuff. This is just the same as the contrived "the hero saves everyone" endings in other comic books just in the other direction.

    The other thing that really bothers me about the ending, when it gets to like 5 years after the attack don't you think someone will figure out that there are no aliens coming? I mean, there's a limit to how long the governments would wait for the other shoe to drop. Those nukes don't seem like they'd be going anywhere and then you'd be right back in the same situation as before only 5 years later.


    It's difficult to accept the "inevitability" of nuclear war when real life has shown it's not inevitable at all.

    This is also a really good point.



    Concerning Rorschach, I think a lot of people like him because despite being crazy he's the only one who says, "Viedt, you're a shit bag for killing 3 million people and you should feel bad." You know, I could have given Nite-owl a pass for eventually agreeing to keep his mouth shut if he had simply admonished Viedt just once. Of course it'd have been fairly out of character but I think it could have worked in a "his character has grown" sort of way.

    Jengo on
    3DS FC: 1977-1274-3558 Pokemon X ingame name: S3xy Vexy
  • AlephAleph Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Why do you find it contrived? I mean, give a real reason instead of that straw man argument on Moore's plotting.

    Aleph on
  • Gabriel_PittGabriel_Pitt (effective against Russian warships) Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Within the setting of Watchmen, nuclear confrontation between the U.S and U.S.S.R is inevitable. There's no way to argue against that. There was no detente, Nixon never went to China. The U.S relied on the threat of Dr. Manhattan as their beatdown stick whenever there was a confrontation. Vietnam showed that having Manhattan on the U.S side trumped the use of a traditional army, so the only thing they had if they ever had their backs to the wall was their nuclear arsenal, and again Manhattan meant their nuke stockpile would be vastly less effective. The Soviets were a nuke capable rat that the U.S was pushing further and further into a corner.

    You also have to pay attention to the details, and the articles and supplementary material to understand what was going on. The alien wasn't supposed to be part of an invasion. I forget if it's a headline, or casual mention, but there's talk of a research lab attempting to make contact with other dimensions. When things are put back together, the likely sequence of events will be the lab initiated it's experiment, and holy shit, this is what resulted. Was it an accident? Deliberate? The lab and everything that could have answered those questions were probably all destroyed in the incident, and no one is going to try and replicate the research until they're ready to deal with another one of those things popping up. All that's known is that the alien and its dimension are completly inimical to human life, and what happens if more come?


    Finally, it doesn't matter if the nukes don't go anywhere for five years. Like I said a few posts back, when the truth of things is discovered, the world is not going to go, 'holy shit, a hoax? Reset the Armageddon clock back to 11:59, we're going to have a do-over.' However, early on, revealing it was man-made will shatter the tentative peace, as both sides try and figure out who was responsible, while the U.S probably goes 'holy shit! Russian superweapon!' while the Soviets go, 'Yankee bioweapon gone awry!'

    Veidt's own self-doubts are very telling. The whole point of the black freighter story was that if the guy had just taken a second to see what was really going on, instead of letting his fear dominate him, then he would have seen that everything was actually all right and he didn't need to do these terrible things.

    Gabriel_Pitt on
  • JoJoHoraHoraJoJoHoraHora ItalyRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    So this is an odd question, but I have a friend whose wife is into comics, and I think she'd like Watchmen. She doesn't speak real good English though, so I was wondering if anyone knew if it was ever translated into other languages? Specifically Italian.

    Yeah, I remember seeing it in my local comic store awhile ago. It was a hardcover edition going for 35€, printed by Planeta De'agostini.

    JoJoHoraHora on
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  • Brian888Brian888 Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Within the setting of Watchmen, nuclear confrontation between the U.S and U.S.S.R is inevitable.
    Veidt's own self-doubts are very telling. The whole point of the black freighter story was that if the guy had just taken a second to see what was really going on, instead of letting his fear dominate him, then he would have seen that everything was actually all right and he didn't need to do these terrible things.


    But how could everything actually be OK if nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and the USSR was inevitable?

    Brian888 on
  • JengoJengo Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    You also have to pay attention to the details, and the articles and supplementary material to understand what was going on. The alien wasn't supposed to be part of an invasion. I forget if it's a headline, or casual mention, but there's talk of a research lab attempting to make contact with other dimensions. When things are put back together, the likely sequence of events will be the lab initiated it's experiment, and holy shit, this is what resulted. Was it an accident? Deliberate? The lab and everything that could have answered those questions were probably all destroyed in the incident, and no one is going to try and replicate the research until they're ready to deal with another one of those things popping up. All that's known is that the alien and its dimension are completly inimical to human life, and what happens if more come?

    I suppose I just glossed over some of that stuff. It never did make sense the way I interpreted it, thanks.
    Finally, it doesn't matter if the nukes don't go anywhere for five years. Like I said a few posts back, when the truth of things is discovered, the world is not going to go, 'holy shit, a hoax? Reset the Armageddon clock back to 11:59, we're going to have a do-over.' However, early on, revealing it was man-made will shatter the tentative peace, as both sides try and figure out who was responsible, while the U.S probably goes 'holy shit! Russian superweapon!' while the Soviets go, 'Yankee bioweapon gone awry!'

    Yeah actually that makes a lot of sense, I guess I was just being dense.


    Within the setting of Watchmen, nuclear confrontation between the U.S and U.S.S.R is inevitable. There's no way to argue against that. There was no detente, Nixon never went to China. The U.S relied on the threat of Dr. Manhattan as their beatdown stick whenever there was a confrontation. Vietnam showed that having Manhattan on the U.S side trumped the use of a traditional army, so the only thing they had if they ever had their backs to the wall was their nuclear arsenal, and again Manhattan meant their nuke stockpile would be vastly less effective. The Soviets were a nuke capable rat that the U.S was pushing further and further into a corner.

    Veidt's own self-doubts are very telling. The whole point of the black freighter story was that if the guy had just taken a second to see what was really going on, instead of letting his fear dominate him, then he would have seen that everything was actually all right and he didn't need to do these terrible things.

    Maybe I'm just misunderstanding you but it seems like these two paragraphs don't parse.

    EDIT: Glad I'm not the only one who's confused by that.

    Aleph wrote: »
    Why do you find it contrived? I mean, give a real reason instead of that straw man argument on Moore's plotting.

    Maybe contrived isn't exactly the right word for it but I'm looking for something close to that. Smartest guy in the world decides killing 3 million people would be an awesome solution. Why wouldn't you know getting the two sides to talk together work or using super robots to dismantle all the nukes or anything that's pretty much as ridiculous as building a fake alien psychic death bomb? I just don't buy that it's really and truly the only way. As such it feels like he chose this solution for no other reason than he loves moral ambiguity.

    Jengo on
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  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    edited March 2008
    Moore didn't choose it though. Veidt did. Discuss his motivations for not finding a better way, Moore's are irrelevant.

    Tube on
  • PantheraOncaPantheraOnca Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Moore didn't choose it though. Veidt did. Discuss his motivations for not finding a better way, Moore's are irrelevant.

    i dont think i necessarily agree with that statement.

    PantheraOnca on
  • augustaugust where you come from is gone Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Moore didn't choose it though. Veidt did. Discuss his motivations for not finding a better way, Moore's are irrelevant.

    Is that an order?

    august on
  • Brian888Brian888 Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Jengo wrote: »
    Maybe contrived isn't exactly the right word for it but I'm looking for something close to that. Smartest guy in the world decides killing 3 million people would be an awesome solution. Why wouldn't you know getting the two sides to talk together work or using super robots to dismantle all the nukes or anything that's pretty much as ridiculous as building a fake alien psychic death bomb? I just don't buy that it's really and truly the only way. As such it feels like he chose this solution for no other reason than he loves moral ambiguity.


    I agree with you that Veidt's solution to the problem is extreme. Given that he idolizes Alexander, it also fits his personality to a tee to use violence to solve a seemingly insoluble intellectual problem. That being said, I don't think we can cavalierly dismiss Veidt's solution quite so easily. It seems like Veidt honestly believed his solution was the best one. If the two superpowers weren't already talking, I'm not sure what Veidt could have done to facilitate negotiations; he's a very wealthy corporate leader, but nowhere is it implied that he has a lot of political clout (especially with the USSR). As for trying to dismantle every bomb on the planet, I think that would honestly be much more difficult to accomplish. Veidt's plan had the benefit that nobody in the larger world would know that it actually WAS an artificial plan to stop nuclear armageddon (which may or may not happen due to Rorshach's journal). Obviously, Veidt's plan was monstrous. We just have to realize, though, that he was bound by the limitations of the story. If Moore set it up so that diplomacy wouldn't work, then Veidt couldn't use diplomacy.

    Brian888 on
  • OrogogusOrogogus San DiegoRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Jengo wrote: »
    Maybe contrived isn't exactly the right word for it but I'm looking for something close to that. Smartest guy in the world decides killing 3 million people would be an awesome solution. Why wouldn't you know getting the two sides to talk together work or using super robots to dismantle all the nukes or anything that's pretty much as ridiculous as building a fake alien psychic death bomb? I just don't buy that it's really and truly the only way. As such it feels like he chose this solution for no other reason than he loves moral ambiguity.

    There's real-world precedence for diplomacy failing to produce a working solution, like in the Middle East, the Balkans. I'm not sure what the super robots dismantling nukes is about. You mean, invade Russia and the United States, and go after all the ballistic submarines, and disable all the nuclear missiles before they're launched? I think the idea here is that one side or the other, probably both, would just launch their missiles before being made helpless, and the best missile defense in the world, Dr. Manhattan, could only intercept 60% of the USSR's nukes. Also, super robots don't seem like they fit into the relatively low key technology of the Watchmen world.

    Orogogus on
  • JengoJengo Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Brian888 wrote: »
    Given that he idolizes Alexander, it also fits his personality to a tee to use violence to solve a seemingly insoluble intellectual problem.

    That's a good point, I could certainly buy that he would choose a plan that used violence over another equally reasonable plan that doesn't use violence or that he chose this plan because he thinks in an Alexander the Great way. However, I'm not sure that's particularly well laid out. Unless Gabriel's interpretation is correct:

    Veidt's own self-doubts are very telling. The whole point of the black freighter story was that if the guy had just taken a second to see what was really going on, instead of letting his fear dominate him, then he would have seen that everything was actually all right and he didn't need to do these terrible things.

    Then you're quite correct Brian, Veidt had Alexander the Great blinders on and he was being a mass murder for essentially no reason. Of course that means there really isn't any moral ambiguity, Veidt is just plain wrong. There are, of course, other parts that are morally ambiguous but, I thought one of the big things with Watchmen was "did Veidt do the right thing or not?"

    So am I understanding all this correctly now because, I can live with that interpretation of things.


    Orogogus wrote: »
    There's real-world precedence for diplomacy failing to produce a working solution, like in the Middle East, the Balkans. I'm not sure what the super robots dismantling nukes is about. You mean, invade Russia and the United States, and go after all the ballistic submarines, and disable all the nuclear missiles before they're launched? I think the idea here is that one side or the other, probably both, would just launch their missiles before being made helpless, and the best missile defense in the world, Dr. Manhattan, could only intercept 60% of the USSR's nukes. Also, super robots don't seem like they fit into the relatively low key technology of the Watchmen world.

    Well I wasn't really being serious about the robots thing. It was more the idea of "hey, you can build a giant psychic alien bomb, why not something equally as impossible."

    The specific plan isn't really the point, though. When it comes to whether or not there was a better way to solve things all we seemingly get from the story is "No, there isn't because I say there isn't." I find that to be a fairly unconvincing answer, especially when you have a combination of world's smartest man and God available to work with.

    Jengo on
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  • RingoRingo He/Him a distinct lack of substanceRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Personally, I feel I completely understand Veidt's reasoning behind the destruction of New York. Veidt is a manipulator working towards what he sees as the betterment of mankind, but there are just too many variables present - too many people out there with itchy trigger fingers that could do something stupid that would escalate into full blown war and eventual nuclear annhiliation. Veidt has to come up with a way to suppress all those variables at the same time, and one of the most surefire ways of taking your eyes off the current enemy is to present a much more dangerous one.

    Why a psychic alien deathbomb? Because even the craziest people have to admit that the danger presented is much higher than simply another country full of people just like you with the same weapons as you. The worst part about MAD was the fact that people believed that it was almost as good as winning, or at least somehow preferable to 'losing'. Having the new threat be extra-terrestrial means that for those who believed in MAD now *any* loss of human life, Soviet or American or whathaveyou was a loss in the war against the alien threat.

    Ringo on
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  • Gabriel_PittGabriel_Pitt (effective against Russian warships) Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Remember that in the story, when Veidt executed his plans, the U.S. was sitting a Defcon-2, and nuclear confrontation was only hours away (remember earlier in the week when Nixon is being presented with hypothetical aftermath scenarios, he finishes the scene by saying, 'Give it a week, and then bring out the big guns').

    This is the Cold War that never thawed. It would simply not be possible to sit both sides down at a table and get them to work out anything meaningful. Vedit's plan was to present something too awful, too immediate, and too immense to be ignored, no matter what your ideology. The nuke dismantling robot theory doesn't work, because then you still have two pissed off super-powers at logger-heads with each other. The alien plan was a threat that made both sides say, 'we have to put aside our differences and work together on this, because this is a potential threat too great to face otherwise.'

    And what I meant referencing Veidt with the Black Freighter story is that he wonders if his fears are only allowing him to see what he fears the most, and that if he didn't let them dominate him and took a step back, he would see that there are other solutions, ones that don't require becoming a monster.

    Gabriel_Pitt on
  • grendel824_grendel824_ Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    After re-reading it for umpteenth time (and seeing new things and identifying with different characters each time), I noticed one piece of dialogue that proves, to me, that Veidt was still a "good guy" and not "evil," even though he certainly made extreme and questionable actions. That's when he asks Dr. Manhattan if he did the right thing. That, to me, means all the difference between an incredibly capable and intelligent person doing something "monstrous" because he is convinced that it is the best course of action and a megalomaniac like Dr. Doom who makes similar decisions and has a similar (and deserved) confidence in his abilities, but NEVER expresses any doubt that he's right and NEVER asks someone else's opinion.

    There's little reason to believe that he was incorrect in seeing that his "fraud" was the only way to prevent nuclear holocaust. And I buy that it weighs heavily upon him and that he wished there was somebody else that he could defer that kind of burden to. I remember in high school thinking Rhorschach was "right" and that Veidt's actions were unconscionable. The idealist in me wanted to believe that there would always be a choice between right and wrong and that it would be possible to tell which was which. I wanted to believe that if everybody just trusted in that, that everything would work out somehow.

    And I still wince everytime I see what happens to him. And just because I can see the right in Veidt's POV doesn't mean Rhorschach is automatically wrong. But he was gonna get everybody killed because he valued truth and punishing ANY wrongdoing over everybody getting to live. I'd totally read a thousand-page debate between all of these characters about ethics and morality and exactly how much we should value safety vs. liberty, etc. Well, at least if Moore wrote it.

    I'm currently actually more enamored with Dr. Manhattan's POV and it's relation to Everett's Many Worlds theory, of which I'm a big fan. Maybe in ten years when I'm dumpy and middle-aged, Nite Owl will be my guy...

    EDIT: That comment on Veidt and the Black Freighter is interesting. But I'm thinking Veidt still had to choose whether or not to act, and choosing to "step back" would still, in his best estimation, lead to the death of everyone on Earth. It makes him out to be even MORE sympathetic that he was desperately looking for an excuse to not have to shoulder that responsibility, and that moment of doubt speaks to his sanity (only crazy people don't doubt themselves). If you KNOW you're the most competent man on Earth, and you KNOW that, of all people, you're the most qualified to make such decisions, is it monstrous to do what HAS to be done, or is it more monstrous to abdicate your responsibility because you don't want to risk being "wrong."?

    If your choices are monstrous act 1 or monstrous act 2, is it fair to condemn him as a monster? It's too easy to say "there must be another way" but if you're there and there simply isn't and countless lives are at stake and there isn't anybody more qualified to turn to (or if there is, he's a blue nudist who doesn't seem to give a damn whether everybody lives or dies)? It's a tough place to be in, and it's tough to write. I HATE putting my characters through the wringer like that, though I wish I could do it nearly as well.


    And he's not saying "There isn't another solution because I say there isn't." He's saying "I can't find another solution, and I don't see anybody else offering anything. I see this coming in the same way you see one domino striking another and causing it to fall, and this is the only way I've been able to figure out that could save the world." Chiding him for telling it like it is and being smart enough to SEE it is like you wondering why I'm so upset about the prospect of you pulling the trigger of a loaded gun that's aimed at my head. After all, who's to say something completely different will happen when you pull the trigger? What if clowns come out? What if it really shoots winning lottery tickets that only LOOK like bullets? The possibilities are ENDLESS, right? I'm just being a wimp for claiming a bullet will come out just because I SAY a bullet will come out. What terrible logic!

    grendel824_ on
  • grendel824_grendel824_ Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Ringo wrote: »
    Personally, I feel I completely understand Veidt's reasoning behind the destruction of New York. Veidt is a manipulator working towards what he sees as the betterment of mankind, but there are just too many variables present - too many people out there with itchy trigger fingers that could do something stupid that would escalate into full blown war and eventual nuclear annhiliation. Veidt has to come up with a way to suppress all those variables at the same time, and one of the most surefire ways of taking your eyes off the current enemy is to present a much more dangerous one.

    Why a psychic alien deathbomb? Because even the craziest people have to admit that the danger presented is much higher than simply another country full of people just like you with the same weapons as you. The worst part about MAD was the fact that people believed that it was almost as good as winning, or at least somehow preferable to 'losing'. Having the new threat be extra-terrestrial means that for those who believed in MAD now *any* loss of human life, Soviet or American or whathaveyou was a loss in the war against the alien threat.

    And it's very important to consider Veidt's genius. What looks like risky, uncertain action to us is often obvious, irrefutable cause & effect to him. People like us look at a chessboard and refuse to make the move that kills our poor horsie, while Veidt sees that it's the only way to win without losing even more pieces. Condeming him for acting where we would've frozen up out of fear isn't entirely fair. He could've said, "You know what? I could still be wrong, and if I act and people die I'll feel bad about it and people won't understand. Everybody's better off being incinerated. At least then I won't feel guilty and nobody will hate me." Kinda selfish, isn't it?

    I love House M.D. because it, too, is a great portrayal of how genius works and the ethics involved in making critical decisions. House ends up looking like a such a dick, often because he's right and it's more obvious to him than to everybody else (and also because he's a dick, of course).

    grendel824_ on
  • ServoServo Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited March 2008
    plus hugh laurie is a dreamboat

    Servo on
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  • ServoServo Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited March 2008

    And it's very important to consider Veidt's genius. What looks like risky, uncertain action to us is often obvious, irrefutable cause & effect to him. People like us look at a chessboard and refuse to make the move that kills our poor horsie, while Veidt sees that it's the only way to win without losing even more pieces. Condeming him for acting where we would've frozen up out of fear isn't entirely fair. He could've said, "You know what? I could still be wrong, and if I act and people die I'll feel bad about it and people won't understand. Everybody's better off being incinerated. At least then I won't feel guilty and nobody will hate me." Kinda selfish, isn't it?

    but really, i feel like that is an important point. veidt feels confident enough to actually carry out his plan but, in the end, even he has his doubts and has to question himself privately to the one person he feels might be 'smarter' in some sense than he. i think it's telling that dr. manhattan, the man who can see it all, his response is essentially the same as in 'wargames'- maybe the only way to win is not to play.


    in a sense, i think that's one of the morals of the book itself, as far as its stance on vigilantism. everything would be different if the heroes hadn't arisen. nixon wouldn't have been re-elected because the comedian wouldn't have killed woodward and bernstein and so on and so on. basically, it would have been our world, and we haven't nuked ourselves yet. so, in a sense, the superheroes themselves led to the deaths in new york.

    which is also sort of a meditation on the whole 'do costumed heroes cause costumed crime' question.

    Servo on
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  • ScooterScooter Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    I think the one aspect of "real life" superheroing that wasn't really addressed was the fact that only one hero ever actually got shot and he was pinned at the time. I'd like to know how the Silk Spectres and Mothman and so on managed to go around beating people up all the time without getting any serious injuries.

    Scooter on
  • augustaugust where you come from is gone Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    It's Watchmen but it's still a comic book.

    august on
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    edited March 2008
    They were super careful.

    Tube on
  • Brian888Brian888 Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Jengo wrote: »
    The specific plan isn't really the point, though. When it comes to whether or not there was a better way to solve things all we seemingly get from the story is "No, there isn't because I say there isn't." I find that to be a fairly unconvincing answer, especially when you have a combination of world's smartest man and God available to work with.


    I don't think that's what Watchmen is arguing, however, any more than I think anyone here is arguing that Veidt's plan is the only one that would have worked. There may very well have been a better way to handle the situation, a way that Veidt didn't see because of his own personal blind spots. To me, the story says "This is the solution Veidt chose. Others are going along with it because they feel they have no choice, and the solution may actually work (in the short term, at least, as Dr. Manhattan suggests), but it's still a hideously evil solution; maybe Veidt could have chosen better?"

    Brian888 on
  • Gabriel_PittGabriel_Pitt (effective against Russian warships) Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    As I mentioned before, at the time the plan was actually executed, the world was hours away from nuclear confrontation. If anyone has any suggestions for a way to shout, 'Hey, cold war fucktards! Get your fingers off those buttons!" that would effectively get two intractably belligerent super-powers to back down and start talking peaceable like, I'd be happy to hear them.

    Gabriel_Pitt on
  • Something WittySomething Witty Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Man I clicked the thread expecting the spoilers to be in spoiler tags.

    I was oh so wrong.

    My fault I guess. D:

    Something Witty on
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  • jkylefultonjkylefulton Squid...or Kid? NNID - majpellRegistered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Man I clicked the thread expecting the spoilers to be in spoiler tags.

    I was oh so wrong.

    My fault I guess. D:

    King Kong dies at the end of the movie. Beauty kills the Beast.

    jkylefulton on
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  • ServoServo Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited March 2008
    Man I clicked the thread expecting the spoilers to be in spoiler tags.

    I was oh so wrong.

    My fault I guess. D:

    King Kong dies at the end of the movie. Beauty kills the Beast.

    apollo 13 makes it back to earth ok

    Servo on
    newsigs.jpg
  • DJ EebsDJ Eebs Moderator, Administrator admin
    edited March 2008
    Servo wrote: »
    Man I clicked the thread expecting the spoilers to be in spoiler tags.

    I was oh so wrong.

    My fault I guess. D:

    King Kong dies at the end of the movie. Beauty kills the Beast.

    apollo 13 makes it back to earth ok

    the titanic sinks

    DJ Eebs on
  • Robos A Go GoRobos A Go Go Registered User regular
    edited March 2008
    Servo wrote: »
    Man I clicked the thread expecting the spoilers to be in spoiler tags.

    I was oh so wrong.

    My fault I guess. D:

    King Kong dies at the end of the movie. Beauty kills the Beast.

    apollo 13 makes it back to earth ok

    the titanic sinks

    Soylent Green is people!

    Also, they blew it up! Damn them! Damn them to hell!

    Robos A Go Go on
  • grendel824_grendel824_ Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    Servo wrote: »

    but really, i feel like that is an important point. veidt feels confident enough to actually carry out his plan but, in the end, even he has his doubts and has to question himself privately to the one person he feels might be 'smarter' in some sense than he. i think it's telling that dr. manhattan, the man who can see it all, his response is essentially the same as in 'wargames'- maybe the only way to win is not to play.


    The problem is, though, that "choosing not to play" is still a choice and therefore "playing." I re-read their final exchange this morning, and I didn't get any of that from Dr. Manhattan anyway - he just act like he doesn't care, since it all happened already for him anyway. If anything, he doesn't see that Veidt made any choice - from his POV he was always going to do what he did, and nothing could stop him.

    And there's no "maybe Veidt could have chosen better" if you (not "you" as in the poster I quoted above, just whoever says stuff like that) read the story. We KNOW he had no better choice. People who say things like that without thinking generally assume that somehow "retroactively backtracking and altering time and space to avoid having to ever make a tough decision" is a "choice" I guess. Unfortunately, those kinds of people end up on juries and in positions where their poor reasoning ability has a chance of affecting others... :(
    basically, it would have been our world, and we haven't nuked ourselves yet. so, in a sense, the superheroes themselves led to the deaths in new york.

    I don't think there's much of that coming from the story as implication, though it's an interesting inference. But it's not like the fact that we haven't nuked ourselves yet proves that we did something right - most people have NO idea how close we were too many times. The world isn't a smoking crater several times over pretty much due to some measure of random chance. The right guy at the right spot couldn't bring himself to initiate an ordered launch, finding out later that the order was a glitch.

    It wouldn't have taken the emergence of superheroes to push things over the brink and cause an apocalyptic nuclear exchange - it would've taken one bad day. One bad MINUTE. Khruschev banging his shoe just one more time. A pilot being slightly off course. The wrong band of rebels in Afghanistan attacking the wrong Russian outpost at the wrong time. A coin flip coming out heads instead of tails. They're finding rotten half-eaten lunches crammed in with the guidance systems of some ICBMs that are being decommisioned, for heaven's sake. It wouldn't have take a giant blue guy to bring us to the brink - we were already there, and supposedly even crossed it a few times before just barely pulling everything back.

    grendel824_ on
  • grendel824_grendel824_ Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    august wrote: »
    It's Watchmen but it's still a comic book.

    NOTE: Ignore the following if you meant that as a response to the guy's wondering about the "realism" of non-powered heroes not getting put into comas on their first outing. This only applies to people whose faults are greater than not using the "quote" feature as God intended...

    And the best book you've ever read is just a book. The best movie you've ever seen is just a movie. What's your point?

    If it's that there are better stories than Watchmen, that's probably true (as subjective as it may be, but I'd agree) but you made it incompetently by saying something that sounds completely ignorant.

    The medium through which the story was told has nothing to do with its value or relevance, and unless your word choice was a mistake, you come across as extremely ignorant of that fact.

    So, you likely need to write better in order to make a relevant point, or become less ignorant in order to avoid making just-plain-wrong assertions. I'm not sure if there are any more options (though if you come down on the "grossly ignorant" side, you will likely offer up one that consists of a personal attack against me. Unless there is profound stupidity at work there, however, this should preclude that being demonstrated).

    grendel824_ on
  • augustaugust where you come from is gone Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    august wrote: »
    It's Watchmen but it's still a comic book.

    NOTE: Ignore the following if you meant that as a response to the guy's wondering about the "realism" of non-powered heroes not getting put into comas on their first outing.

    Yeah. That's what I was talking about.

    So settles down, Francis.

    august on
  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    edited April 2008
    I'm pretty sure every other person on the planet but you read that as "it's still a comic so masked superheroes not dying horribly sort of fits"

    Tube on
  • Robos A Go GoRobos A Go Go Registered User regular
    edited April 2008
    Some did die horribly, but not on screen.

    Robos A Go Go on
  • EmperorSethEmperorSeth Registered User regular
    edited May 2008
    My (2 months late) impressions:

    Well, this is the most depressing a story's ending left me since Fight Club.

    My stance is Veidt is wrong. If I was Dr. Manhattan or someone else, I might have kept the secret, but I would have popped Ozymandias' skull like a ripe tomato before I left. Hey, he idolized Alexander the Great, he gets to have the same ending.

    I'm torn on whether nuclear armageddon is inevitable. As others mentioned, we know for a fact it isn't based on our world, and while pretty much every character suggested that we were doomed, that's always what happens in circumstances like this. Even so, the "smartest man in the world" probably could have thought of another method that didn't involve killing millions of people. Hell, he could have just said "Oh, Dr. Manhattan, things are looking bad, could you smack Nixon a few times?" and solved things without exploding psychic aliens. Also, why psychic? That seemed like one too many unecessary sci-fi/fantasy elements.

    Oh, and what was the deal with those cigarette sphere thingies? I don't get the point of them at all.

    EmperorSeth on
    You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
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