Mostly about the ending. Anyone who has watched feel free to chip in.
*takes deep breath*
1)In the original comic, Ozymandias/Adrian Veidt, was revealed to be the killer who had killed the Comedian (this scene was moved to the beginning of the movie) because the Comedian didnt quite react to "the plan" the way Ozymandias expected.(instead of going along and helping in the plan, the comedian "had a change of heart")
2) THE plan. Ozymandias had created a giant, alien-ish squid (pic below)
with the help of the greatest geniuses in the world(whom he later killed to protect his secrets) and teleported it into New York City to unleash wanton destruction
His reasoning, was this. With the world on the brink of war, his theory is that the presence of a major alien threat from parts unknown will unite the world against it, thus ending hostilities between the nations, and forcing them to become allies rather than enemies. For the greater good, he’ll kill a few million people in New York, if you will. In his mind, the ends justified the means.
In the movie, there is a squid. Look carefully at the machine that DR Manhattan is helping build. It has a ver long name but its short form if you take the first letters of each word it spells S.Q.U.I.D.
Now dont you want to go watch the movie again?
NVM.
Anyway, this time in the movie, Ozymandians tricks Dr Manhattan into helping him build that machine which mimics Manhattan’s powers(all the while pretending that he was researching a way of creating clean, renewable energy for the world.) Ozymandias than uses the device to blow up various cities around the world, thus framing Doctor Manhattan and achieving the same goal as the squid idea — by forcing the warring nations of the world to unite against a common enemy: Doctor Manhattan.
So, now i pose the question. Do the ends really justify the means? Take this concept and let it move beyond the narrative into the movie as a whole and apply the inherant "ends justify the means" philosophy into the ends of the movie and the means by which they got there.
Both endings achieved the same ends. Both presented the similar ideas and philosophies. But both are widely different.
Everyone has their own opinion.
here's mine.
I'm happy that the messages were kept. The ideas were kept and, faithfully translated to screen, were quite easy to catch. Whats more, i prefered the movie ending honestly. Having Ozymandians "betray" one of his own fellow colleagues just made the emotional impact even greater. In this case, yes the end did justify the means.
Another thing about the ending i want to being up is Rorshach. In the end, he disagrees with Veidt, determined to reveal to the world the mastermind behind the disasters, but he is stopped by Dr manhattan.
Dr Manhattan, so firm in his logic that "this is the only way to achieve world peace" and Rorshach "never compromising even in the face of armaggedon". In the end, Manhattan is left with no choice but to kill Rorshach to protect the peace of the future world.
Now i want to know what is your interpretation of that very sad moment before Rorshach's death when he takes off his mask and starts sobbing.
In interviews, Alan Moore himself states that he "just FELT it was how the character would react". Ok, so no concrete answer from him.
Personally, in the comic, that part came across to me as a little like this. Rorshach himself came to the conclusion that Veidt was right, that if he were to reveal to the world, the peace would be shattered. After all he's been through, Rorshach cracks. The calm inhuman demeanor he portrays throught the story shatters as he realises he was wrong all along. Yet he was still determined to go through with his actions if not for Dr Manhattan stopping him.
Now at the point in the comic where Rorshach takes off his mask and shouts to Manhattan "DO IT!"(aka kill me) i get 2 quite different interpretations from comic and movie.
In the comic his "do it" was more a "lost all hope" kind of thing. It seemed as if he were begging for death and willingly submitting to it. His "Do it" came across like as a challenge to Dr Manhattan. Like "Please kill me". His tears came from the fact that he realised there was no way out, that he was wrong and that he wanted to be killed. (a little sub point is that he realised that this new world no longer had a place for him and he did not want to live in a peace built on a lie)
But the taking off of the mask kinda signified that Dr Manhattan was merely killing Walter Kovacs, and that Rorshachs(the ideas he represent) would live on.(which in the comic is quite vividly shown that it was his intent).
The movie kept the end. About the mask significance and the ideas living on. Going so far as to show the huge Rorshach blood blot in the snow to further emphasise that point. The "do it" however was slightly different. The various sub-points are still present but require a little more digging than usual. In the movie, his tears seeemd to be out of fear.
I loved it, the emotional impact. Under all the cold inhuman demeanor, behind his hatred toward the sins of humanity, his isolated underground life, Rorshach is still only human. By the end, he comes across as even more human than Veidt who throughout the story is presented most as "a man of the world". Rorshach's tears are of fear. Fear of death. In the movie, he doesnt want to die. But knows that if he doesnt die, he will reaveal to the world Veidt's lie. Dr Manhattan knows that too and must protect the new peace, logically speaking.
When confronted, Rorshach knew his time was up and that there was no way out. He was helpless in the face of inevitability.
One thing which i think the movie would have benefitted is this.
In the comic, after Silk Spectre and Nite Owl leaves Ozymandias' fortress, Ozymandias looks back at the screens and starts to have slight second thoughts about the rationality of his actions. He sees the deaths reported by the news, then drops to his knees in tears as the scene pulls into the inscription on his statue "I am Ozymandias King of kings. Look upon my works e Mortals and tremble."
If they just added that little scene in, it would have been perfect. Whats more, they added the scene(not in the comic) of Nite Owl confronting Ozy again before leaving. Openly telling Ozymandias about how he defiled the concept of "a greater good" and how his legacy of world peace would be built on a lie and the deaths of millions. This scene combined with the previous comic scene would have made a better closure for the character of Ozymandias.
Wow, thats long.
Ok, just my opinions.
Hello- its me again, with my opinions (sounds familiar?)
ReplyDeleteI am getting two more points of discussion from this blog post. The first of which is the issue of The ends justifying the means and the concept of Necessary Evil. The second would be on the possible inferences we may attain from the scene of the murder of Rorschach. If you may allow me, I'll like to break this up into two distinct comments.
The first issue I'll be dealing is re Rorshach. If i could still remember what I had witnessed in the movie (my memory is failing), Rorshach was intent on spreading the truth behind the plan to the whole world, to make them understand that whatever catastrophe that had happened to the world was due to "all the reasons as such that had let up to the movie", and not the simplistic Common Enemy Story that has been fed to them (and partially by their deductions). Dr Manhatten went out to stop him, and after some sort of exchange, the blue man killed the masked man....
Something like that, correct right?
I believe I have disagreed with you that Rorshach had went to death in defeat (you said that he realizes he was wrong all along) and fear. Indeed, an interpretation of him showing his humane side would be timely for a movie when most of the characters were reacting out of their ideologies for nearly 80% of the time. I do not deny that Rorshach did have sentiments during this last scene, but I would like to maintain that his sentiments definitely were not one of defeat and fear.
Why? Allow me to psycho-analyze the cognition of Rorschach and his ideologies.
Rorschach is a realist through and through. He believes in an objective truth, and nothing else but the objective truth of things. Throughout the entire movie we see that time after time he has been exposed to subjective experiences (or the gray world so to speak) but, nevertheless he maintains his objective judgment and decisions. Now, it this final scene, he learns the objective truth behind the catastrophe, and that it is contrary to the truth that the world believes in. What would he do?
Naturally, he would want to tell the world about it. Uncovering the Truth was his meaning of life,and he is so focused on the issue uncovering the truth of that issue he disregards the possible catastrophes he might inadvertently be creating should the world know about this truth. Dr Manhattan knew it, and Rorschach knew it too- it becomes evident that death was the only way to stop him and his obsession for the proclamation of truth.
Now regarding Rorschach's request- would a man of fear and failure request (or challenge, this is subjective to interpretation) for death, when he knows death is the only way for someone else to stop him to attain victory in his war with objectivity? If he would have failed his war with his objectivity, and accepted that he was wrong, he would have sat there and did nothing instead. That would be the true failure for such an objective man, to give up and admit to the objective truth of subjectivity.
No he didn't. he maintained his stand even he knew it was impossible to get past the blue guy. He never bowed to even the possibility of admittance. so he eventually gets killed- but as far as he is concerned, and as I am concerned philosophically, he still wins. This is analogous to a soldier being captured and in the face of death- he was asked to renounce his love
for his country. But he chooses to die rather than to fail his ideals. Instead ,he asks them to put him to death because they know there was no other way out. Indeed, on face value he looks like he has failed, but his ideals, his ego, his character, and his legacy- all points that he had went on triumphantly.
Indeed, we cannot say that his last moments were without sentiments. He was of course afraid of death, but do not confuse his disagreement of death as fear in general. We have evidently seen that he has braved through multiple near-death incidences without fear, even when they were cutting the bars of his prison cell. Instead, I would rather interpret it as resignment. He knew that there was only one form of victory if he could not be victorious in telling the objective truth, and he knew that victory was death- he was bounded by fate to only a single choice, and he accepted it nevertheless. That is the definition of resignment.
Resignment entails regret- that he could not spread the truth to the world. The next sentiment that went thorough him was regret. He was regretful of his physical (not idealistic) inabilities, coupled with his disagreement with death, that kinda sums up his feelings at that moment-
Resignment to circumstance, regret to physical inabilities, and yet personal victory as an idealistic parody. That was how he went on.
Of course there are still a lot of sub-feelings that went through his mind I have been rather insensitive to not pick up. Even Alan Moore refuses to give a direct evaluation on this action, and blamed it on the human cognition (when he said, just Felt how the character would react) i guess the only to get the truth behind the full sentiments would be that metaphysical intuition to be Rorschach during that time, but meanwhile, it could be anything- lest defeat and fear that is in my opinion.
Rorshach went to his death in defeat was the interpretation i got from the comic. Which i stated was different from the one i got from the movie.
ReplyDeleteSo you seem to have picked up on the significance of the mask removal and blood blot in the snow eh? Ya that significance of his legacy living on post death(though handled differently) was a point that both the comic and movie tried to make. Translated to screen very nicely
And once again, i will not say that fear and defeat were not going through rorshach's head at the time. The director himself stated that the characeters of Rorshach and Nite Owl especially were given a greater emotional range than in the comic to "fully flesh out the characters and make them believable not as characters but s real people". And having read it, yes, i agree that they have a greater emotional range in the movie.
And comparing the stance and body language, plus facial expression of Rorshach's scene in both movie and comic, he's definately a lot less courageous sounding and confident in the movie.
In the comic, as Rorshach says "gotta protect veidts utopia. Whats another body among the foundations?" He is hunched over in a very typical defeated pose, so you'll have to excuse my interpretation of him feling defeated.
Then you have his final words which i stated, coupled with his body language(standing upright staring into Manhattan's face) and facial expression(wild anger, slight smile, with tears), came across like a challenge.
That is very different from the trembling cracking sob that the movie actor gives.
In fact Dave Gibbons(the artist) has a very different interpretation as well. I'm still trying to find that inteview(It was many months back. LAst year in fact, made during the filming of the movie). I remember he says(about the book)that he drew Rorshach in the final scenes like a man who has nothing left to give, nothing left to lose. Who no longer had a place in the world.
So,do the ends justify the means?
ReplyDeleteI have an opinion, but I dun wanna tell you man right now. LOL.
But meanwhile, do understand that the issue 'ends justify the means' is actually derivative of "do the idealistic aims (plus the successful outcome), justify the technicalities and processes of the implementation of the plan?". Since the outcome is already set (and seems good), so in essence the debate is very much regarding the ideals.
Do give me your take on this issue man.
By the way, Magister Negi Magi has a take on that issue too- and it actually gives quite an insightful evaluation on the situation.
Meanwhile, enjoy man- and dun think too much
well, by "ends justify the means" in the title i was more referring to the means that the director used to achieve the same end message as the comic writer. Is the director justified in changing the ending(or the means of achieving the ending) just because the end result being the same as the comic justified the change? In this case the idealistic aim was to convey the same message as the ending in the comic. THe technicalities and process of conveying that message were changed in the movie.
ReplyDeleteaiya. Negi Magi......that case, G. I joe also has a take on the issue, Transformers, Dragonball, even the campy superfriends(the Darkseid saga especially) for pete sake. All of them to a varying degree.