The Watchmen Effect

The story of the Watchmen changed me forever. It changed forever the way I think about life, the world, and myself.

There are certain pivotal stories that have had this effect on me. Stories like Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger", Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged", and the like, gave me a view of the world that I would most likely have not had otherwise.

"The Watchmen" is the "Atlas Shrugged" of comics and, on March 6th, 2009, the film version is coming to theaters. If the film is half as effective as the comic version, then I think that, perhaps, it will have the same effect on the rest of the world as it had on me, back in the balmy summer of 1987.

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[ORPHANWORKS]

I'd also add that I really think it was a time and place thing. Most powerful when it first hit the racks. Everyone I know who read the thing before this hype has had the same feelings, to some degree, as you and I.

I think the media taints everything it touches.

The diarrhea touch of profits.

[TheLogicJunkie]

Well, the problem with profits, as I see it, is that too many people just don't understand what money really is: the shadow cast by quality.

To chase money is to chase shadows, and to miss the thing itself that casts the shadow. But if you forget money and go for quality instead, you generally end up with both, because you have caught the thing itself, AND  the shadow it casts.

[ORPHANWORKS]

To me, when I read it, I found it a detached, observational deconstruction. Rorschach gave the narrative a human (albeit batshit angry) voice, but I always kinda felt like Dr. Dr. Manhattan's POV was the overall view. Just my opinion.

As for the population having an experience like yours or mine...

NEVER.

Most people's heads are stuffed with hamburger and spam

[TheLogicJunkie]

Yes... Exactly. I also definitely felt like Dr. Manhattan's theme was the clock pulse for the story. But what's interesting is that it seemed to contradict Rorschach's, whose perspective was that of a black, horrifying anti-elegance created wholly by what he described as corrupt human choice.

To a great extent, I would agree with Rorschach on that. Yet, on the scientific level, I agree with Manhattan.

Ozymandias then adapts the two opposing philosophies to each other in his final solution.

[ORPHANWORKS]

Funny. When I was younger and misanthropic I liked Rorschach, but the older I get the more I like Manhattan.

The thing I find it odd is that most people miss that Ozzie was a raving egomaniac, all front and posture, but Rorschach's chaotic, profane thinking outwits him in the end.

I know some say it's an open-ending, but I didn't read it that way.

[TheLogicJunkie]

That's true. And the reason it's true is that, after a lifetime of living through the unthinkable, Rorschach now thinks the unthinkable as his normal order of business. And, very often in life, the most important breakthroughs can only be achieved by those who are used to thinking that way.

[WJValente]

After I saw "Zeitgeist" I could never look at the world the same way again.

[ORPHANWORKS]

Well put.

[TheLogicJunkie]

I hadn't thought of the whole "teenage in suburbia" effect.

[hirosstorageunit]

Shame this film did not grasp the central concepts you spoke about on this vid. I too still feel my perspective was changed when I read this at the age of 15. Perhaps it was the social detachment of post pubescence angst in burb America. Who knows?

Hurm.