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Watchmen: Movie

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSrgvJ2JyHs

I just ordered the Watchmen novel, and will hopefully receive by monday. It came highly recommended to me by a fellow nerd and Objectivist.

Of particular interest to O'ists is the character of Rorschach, who is implicitly an Objectivist, based off of Steve Ditko's character " The Question ". He is the only voice in the trailer, with the phrase " The world will look up at us and shout ' Save Us ' and I'll whisper ' No ' "

Apparently from what I've read, Moore doesn't have a very high opinion of Objectivism, but my friend assures me whether or not he meant it, Rorschach is the best of the heroes in the novel

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSrgvJ2JyHs

I just ordered the Watchmen novel, and will hopefully receive by monday. It came highly recommended to me by a fellow nerd and Objectivist.

Of particular interest to O'ists is the character of Rorschach, who is implicitly an Objectivist, based off of Steve Ditko's character " The Question ". He is the only voice in the trailer, with the phrase " The world will look up at us and shout ' Save Us ' and I'll whisper ' No ' "

Apparently from what I've read, Moore doesn't have a very high opinion of Objectivism, but my friend assures me whether or not he meant it, Rorschach is the best of the heroes in the novel

"Whether he meant it or not" is the key here. Rorschach has a lot of problems too. So I wouldn't take him as an Objectivist or representing it. The choice to base him off the Question was because the Question was a Charlton Comics character; almost all the characters in Watchmen were based on the old forgotten Charlton Comics characters.

It's still an amazing work of art and worth the read though.

Edited by Mammon
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The movie looks wonderful, and the graphic novel is sublime. Highly recommended to everyone

I agree with what you said: Moore meant to represent Rorschach as a mentally unstable individual, but nevertheless he comes off as a true hero.

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Yes, that's what I've taken from my friend...Rorschach is supposed to be more an anti-hero, but he comes off as one of the brightest heroes of all.

I hear Nite-Owl or whatever also has his admirable traits. I can't wait to read this stuff now!

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  • 1 month later...

I too bought the comic after seeing the trailer. It is definitely an example of an author taking 'extreme' sides of various issues and saying 'see, if we let the extremists have it they'll screw the world up!', much like V for Vendetta was a commentary on Fascism vs. Anarchism, where the author meant for you to simultaneously identify and be disgusted by both sides thus taking you on the train ride down the 'middle path' where compromise of 'moral rigidity' and 'amoral collectivity' makes you think that balance makes a perfect world possible.

Fortunately for anybody with a brain, Moore failed to successfully identify the character Rorschach as having as many monumental flaws as his opposite. Indeed, by fluke the author managed to show that objectivism, and indeed reason, will always win in the end.

Watchmen is most definitely worth reading for the hardcore and the new objectivist alike. Depending on the political slant of the film-maker, which by the production of 300 seems to be rather on the right side in most senses, Watchmen may prove to be even better than the novel.

Unfortunately the mainstream collectivist 'sacrifice everything for the sake of your fellow man' comic book fans will most likely gripe about Watchmen not being faithful enough.

(This may be a SPOILER to you, depending on your view on SPOILERS. Read at your own risk.)

As a final note, I should say that in the youtube trailer comments I found one individual who posted 'the bad guy turns out to be the good guy, and the guy you thought was good, wasn't' which, although completely based on my assumption, seems to suggest that non-objectivists also view Rorschach as 'the good guy'.

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Of particular interest to O'ists is the character of Rorschach, who is implicitly an Objectivist, based off of Steve Ditko's character " The Question ". He is the only voice in the trailer, with the phrase " The world will look up at us and shout ' Save Us ' and I'll whisper ' No ' "

That part gave me shivers. :)

Moore is definitely not friendly to Objectivism, and I expect that Rorschach will be a flawed representation of Objectivism... but at the same time I am excited to see what kind of light the movie sheds on his moral objectivism and absolutism.

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I too bought the comic after seeing the trailer. It is definitely an example of an author taking 'extreme' sides of various issues and saying 'see, if we let the extremists have it they'll screw the world up!', much like V for Vendetta was a commentary on Fascism vs. Anarchism, where the author meant for you to simultaneously identify and be disgusted by both sides thus taking you on the train ride down the 'middle path' where compromise of 'moral rigidity' and 'amoral collectivity' makes you think that balance makes a perfect world possible.

Fortunately for anybody with a brain, Moore failed to successfully identify the character Rorschach as having as many monumental flaws as his opposite. Indeed, by fluke the author managed to show that objectivism, and indeed reason, will always win in the end.

Watchmen is most definitely worth reading for the hardcore and the new objectivist alike. Depending on the political slant of the film-maker, which by the production of 300 seems to be rather on the right side in most senses, Watchmen may prove to be even better than the novel.

Unfortunately the mainstream collectivist 'sacrifice everything for the sake of your fellow man' comic book fans will most likely gripe about Watchmen not being faithful enough.

(This may be a SPOILER to you, depending on your view on SPOILERS. Read at your own risk.)

As a final note, I should say that in the youtube trailer comments I found one individual who posted 'the bad guy turns out to be the good guy, and the guy you thought was good, wasn't' which, although completely based on my assumption, seems to suggest that non-objectivists also view Rorschach as 'the good guy'.

Moore was not trying to show that Anarchism and Fascism were wrong in their own ways. He has said that he considers himself to be an Anarchist.

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If you're ever unconvinced of the power of ideas, just look at the art produced by people who claim to be, say, Anarchists. Either it comes across as horrible unconvincing propaganda or you'd never believe they were actually trying to *promote* the thing they portrayed.

I'm looking forward to the movie, that's for sure.

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  • 2 months later...

It isn't really political, I wouldn't say.

Moore himself is an Anarchist, but he really isn't putting a lot of viewpoints and moralizations in the story.

I can't say much without giving away the ending or plot points. Read the comic.

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It isn't really political, I wouldn't say.

Moore himself is an Anarchist, but he really isn't putting a lot of viewpoints and moralizations in the story.

I can't say much without giving away the ending or plot points. Read the comic.

Ok, I was just wondering whether there's a good chance that I'll walk out of the movie feeling sick :)

After hearing that Moore is an Anarchist and that Rorschach was based upon an Objectivist character, I figured there may have been a good chance of that.

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Ok, I was just wondering whether there's a good chance that I'll walk out of the movie feeling sick :)

After hearing that Moore is an Anarchist and that Rorschach was based upon an Objectivist character, I figured there may have been a good chance of that.

You may feel sick. It isn't the happiest of endings, is all I will say.

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You may feel sick. It isn't the happiest of endings, is all I will say.

Without reviling too much I think that in true Hollywood fashion they will try to work in a happy ending. From what I've read of people who know the ending of the movie it's going to be different. I don't think the comic's version of what happens to New York would have actually worked, but if they actually keep the same motive but different method for it then I won't be too upset.

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Without reviling too much I think that in true Hollywood fashion they will try to work in a happy ending. From what I've read of people who know the ending of the movie it's going to be different. I don't think the comic's version of what happens to New York would have actually worked, but if they actually keep the same motive but different method for it then I won't be too upset.

The ending I heard about that was an alternative to the comic ending seemed like it wouldn't work.

Instead of Veidt programming an alien-like thing to attack NYC, he instead does something to make it look like Dr. Manhattan set off a bunch of nukes to hit NYC. I've heard that this is true, and I have heard that it is untrue. I hope for the latter. An alien might not work on film, but the motive and result should be the same.

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The entire graphic novel is an attack on objectivism and moral absolutism. Rorschach is essentially an objectivist hero/vigilante living in a subjective world, in which villains are not merely evil but rather have complex motivations and believe themselves to be good (unlike Miss Rand's villains). Because of his overly-simplistic world view and inability to compromise his beliefs, he suffers from madness.

When Alan Moore wrote the book, he knew that (EPIC SPOILERS AHEAD)

Rorschach had to die

.

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  • 3 months later...

He's definitely committed to justice, and views things as "black and white" (a common label applied to Objectivists) - you'll see this especially in the last few pages.

For me, I liked everything about the novel, except the ending - it seemed way too rushed.

They spend the whole thing building up to the ending, and it only takes Owl, Manhattan, Spectre less than a page to conclude that they must keep silent. Likewise for Rorschach, they spend no time discussing why he is unflinching in his view - he only gets a bubble or two to flat-out state his position.

If not for the attention to justice throughout the story, the whole thing would have come off as completely confused. Manhattan has some words with Adrian at the ending that leave him uncertain about the success of his plan; that would have been a great thing, except that Manhattan's own "views" are so confused - asserting that the universe has intrinsic value apart from humans, and making the same tired arguments for the worthlessness of humanity.

Edited by brian0918
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He's definitely committed to justice, and views things as "black and white" (a common label applied to Objectivists) - you'll see this especially in the last few pages.

For me, I liked everything about the novel, except the ending - it seemed way too rushed.

They spend the whole thing building up to the ending, and it only takes Owl, Manhattan, Spectre less than a page to conclude that they must keep silent. Likewise for Rorschach, they spend no time discussing why he is unflinching in his view - he only gets a bubble or two to flat-out state his position.

If not for the attention to justice throughout the story, the whole thing would have come off as completely confused. Manhattan has some words with Adrian at the ending that leave him uncertain about the success of his plan; that would have been a great thing, except that Manhattan's own "views" are so confused - asserting that the universe has intrinsic value apart from humans, and making the same tired arguments for the worthlessness of humanity.

I think it was intentionally rushed.

Anyway, I'm seeing the movie in 3 hours but not in IMAX. Shall report back.

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I'm a little worried about the film. From the trailers, sneak peeks, previews, clips, etc, it looks like they stripped out a lot of the humor.

I think they're trying to appeal to a mass audience.

I've heard from Watchmen fanboys that the film is pretty damn good despite a couple of changes.

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Where do you guys get that Rorschach was an Objectivist? I haven't seen it anywhere.

Here's my understanding.

When Moore was planning the original graphic novel he wanted to use characters originally owned by Charlton Comics and later acquired by DC. One of the characters he wanted was The Question, an explicitly Objectivist character created by Steve Ditko. When he was unable to obtain the rights to use those characters he reworked the story to use new ones of his own creation playing analogous roles. Rorschach is the character analogous to The Question. Because he plays the same role, he has certain character and value traits in common with The Question -- particularly his unwillingness to compromise.

I don't think it's right to say that Rorschach is an Objectivist, or even that he was intended to be one by Moore. I'd say that Rorschach is filling a role in a story that was at one point filled by a different character who was an Objectivist.

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I'm a long time huge fan of the graphic novel...(see avatar)

I just saw the movie, and I absolutely loved it.

There were a few changes but I thought they were perfectly fine.

I think they genetically engineered the gentleman that played Rorschach to play Rorschach. He was perfect.

That is all.

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