In a nutshell, this is a good movie. I liked it and I recommend it.
Even if you haven’t watched the movie, please read on :) only as I think it may still make sense….to some extent without giving away the plot of the movie!
The Watchmen is a fairly complicated, twisted movie so, even more the reason to keep this post succinct. Hence, forgive me for dipping into only a few things that I have found particularly thought provoking to share.
For the first half of the movie, my thoughts were along the lines of, “What a depressing movie, chooses to focus on the dark and sickening side of the human mind and that too in such explicit and graphic ways?!”
For the second half and in my view the best part of the movie, my thoughts changed to, “Wow, that’s different way of looking at human mind and life. Quite a complicated yet positive philosophy. One thing I specially liked was the character Ozymandias’ approach on bringing peace in the world by portraying another entity as the enemy. A situation where all the nations (which initially were fighting with one another) united to fight the enemy, which in this case was Doctor Manhattan. And Doctor Manhattan, of course, willingingly taking the position of the evil one, for that was a minimal price to pay for World Peace. A bit like the movie Dark Knight where Batman chooses to be seen as the bad guy just to keep the goodness, the hope and peace alive in the human minds. The only difference was, the Watchmen’s belief was “Sacrificing millions to save billions”.
As for the characters, the ones I liked were, Doctor Manhattan and Rorschach.
Rorschach – because he was just so simple and straightforward. I particularly liked the scene in the prison where he says that, the worry wasn’t so much that he was in the prison with those guys but much so that those guys were in the prison with him. The courage and honesty of this character was admirable and his arrogance was amusing.
Doctor Manhattan – my favourite and I don’t know why! Perhaps because he had an aura of tranquillity, wisdom and being in a state of equilibrium. I like Doctor Manhattan because, although he was seen as God like by others, he never associated himself with that. On the other hand, I can see why he may come across a hypocrite because he said he felt no emotion but then, he made confessions on few occasions which reflected his acceptance of feeling some emotion. Fellow human beings thought of him as a selfish being because, he had all God-ly powers through which he could have easily avoided the situation of the Nuclear war or stopped the Comedian from committing horrific acts and he chose to not act on those.
Even if you haven’t watched the movie, please read on :) only as I think it may still make sense….to some extent without giving away the plot of the movie!
The Watchmen is a fairly complicated, twisted movie so, even more the reason to keep this post succinct. Hence, forgive me for dipping into only a few things that I have found particularly thought provoking to share.
For the first half of the movie, my thoughts were along the lines of, “What a depressing movie, chooses to focus on the dark and sickening side of the human mind and that too in such explicit and graphic ways?!”
For the second half and in my view the best part of the movie, my thoughts changed to, “Wow, that’s different way of looking at human mind and life. Quite a complicated yet positive philosophy. One thing I specially liked was the character Ozymandias’ approach on bringing peace in the world by portraying another entity as the enemy. A situation where all the nations (which initially were fighting with one another) united to fight the enemy, which in this case was Doctor Manhattan. And Doctor Manhattan, of course, willingingly taking the position of the evil one, for that was a minimal price to pay for World Peace. A bit like the movie Dark Knight where Batman chooses to be seen as the bad guy just to keep the goodness, the hope and peace alive in the human minds. The only difference was, the Watchmen’s belief was “Sacrificing millions to save billions”.
As for the characters, the ones I liked were, Doctor Manhattan and Rorschach.
Rorschach – because he was just so simple and straightforward. I particularly liked the scene in the prison where he says that, the worry wasn’t so much that he was in the prison with those guys but much so that those guys were in the prison with him. The courage and honesty of this character was admirable and his arrogance was amusing.
Doctor Manhattan – my favourite and I don’t know why! Perhaps because he had an aura of tranquillity, wisdom and being in a state of equilibrium. I like Doctor Manhattan because, although he was seen as God like by others, he never associated himself with that. On the other hand, I can see why he may come across a hypocrite because he said he felt no emotion but then, he made confessions on few occasions which reflected his acceptance of feeling some emotion. Fellow human beings thought of him as a selfish being because, he had all God-ly powers through which he could have easily avoided the situation of the Nuclear war or stopped the Comedian from committing horrific acts and he chose to not act on those.
It was interesting to see how the people saw Doctor Manhattan as good for as long as he did good things, but, the views totally changed when accussations made of him doing wrong things.
This makes me wonder, how is God perceived? (I am not at all relating the two!)
Is God only great when good things happen in the world?!
Is God only great when good things happen in the world?!
This reminds me of a quote from Paulo Coelho’s The Fifth Mountain…..
“God is all-powerful. If He limited Himself to doing only that which we call good, we could not call Him the Almighty; he would command only one part of the universe, and there would exist someone more powerful than He, watching and judging His acts. In that case, I would worship that more powerful someone.” The Fifth Mountain, Paulo Coelho
On a more relevant note, ending the post with something what Rorschach said in the movie,
"God did not make the world as it is. It is us humans that have turned it into this".