Springtime for Watchmen

[ellenkushner]

I am so glad to learn (via Karen Meisner, a.k.a. _stranger_here) that the unsatisfying ending to the Watchmen movie was not Moore & Co's original fault. No, it's a Giant Squid - as explained in this video, which had me laughing so hard I have tears rolling down my face. Not since "Springtime for Hitler" has the Fuhrer delivered such delightful entertainment. No, really.

Comments

[themaskmaker.livejournal.com]

That is terrible. Terrible, I tell you.

[tithenai.livejournal.com]

There's a whole series of vids using that particular scene for incongruous madness. My favourite is this one, about the Ottawa bus strike that lasted seven weeks. Love.

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw another one, where Der Führer was extremely cross with the liberties taken by the movie adaptation of the manga Dragonball with the original material.

[mildmannered.livejournal.com]

I was against the squid from the start, so I actually found the film ending an improvement.

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

OMG I laughed so hard I collapsed a lung. *g*

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Heh! Well, I'm sure you can find *someone* who will be glad to apply a little emergency oxygen to the affected area.

[fangirlsdaja.livejournal.com]

I haven't watched the movie yet, but I'm really not upset about the lack of squid. I mean... a giant squid? It works in comics, I guess.

Comics are strange. You should hear some of the discussions I've been subject to. "Well, you see, there's a giant cat in space, but it's a Red Lantern Cat, so it vomits this burning liquid-fire, and... um... and in this issue Kitty Pryde thinks a slug is her son."

(And nope, I didn't make that example up. Only in comics can a giant space dwelling demon cat be treated with solemnity.)

[calimac.livejournal.com]

There are literally dozens of those "Hitler rants in subtitles" videos out there. The funniest may well be this one, (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxm20ZcONOk) in which Hitler is a rah-rah Republican crushed by the incompetence of last year's campaign.

[laurenpburka.livejournal.com]

Here's the thing about the giant telepathic exploding squid: Watchmen is still a comic. A giant telepathic exploding squid works just fine in comic book logic. And almost nowhere else, I'd imagine.

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Well, there's also the problem that the giant squid is indeed silly and awful within the context of the book itself, because it's a comic book solution brought into "the real world" of the story. When one sees the secret plot (from one who's supposed to be a genius), it all boils down to a silly giant squid... still instrumental to killing thousands of people, including some we know from the story.

Which is a major shock in the book. I don't know how the "less ridiculous" alternative idea works in the movie.

That's the point that Snyder completely missed: the super-heroes in Watchmen aren't lovable nostalgic relics who rally for a last hurrah à la Space Cowboys: they just are ridiculous busybodies, in over their heads from the start, and all their efforts have just turned the world into a worse place. 1985 in our super-hero-free real world wasn't twelve minutes away from the Apocalypse. And by the end of the story, we have a feeling even the squid isn't going to fool people very long.

The book is not sexy and cool and filled with smooth slo-mo and gosh! wow! coloured lights. It's a story about some silly ineffectual borderline nuts (Rorschach, the one everybody is enamored with, because of the purity of his ideals, is a full-fledged nut, living as a hobo) who are having a grand time playing Mardi Gras. The one with powers has been bringing the world closer to annihilation and he doesn't even care.

Alan Moore has been saying for 25 years Watchmen has been misunderstood and its spawning the grim'n'gritty wave in comics was something he deplored. Unfortunately, Snyder has gone along with the grim'n'gritty trope, because, considering the budget of the film, pathetic never-have-been heroes were out of the question: that wouldn't put butts in theatres, and that's what Watchmen is about.

[belledewinter.livejournal.com]

That was hilarious. ♥

[dryfoo.livejournal.com]

Go figure! When I read the book, I didn't find the GS silly or ridiculous at all. I completely bought in that it was horrible and unearthly. Too much Lovecraft in my early years, perhaps? To me it just registered as odd, alien, and maybe not completely or properly transported in from wherever it was supposed to have been from -- like the giant pig-thing from Galaxy Quest. ("But the animal is inside out... and it exploded.")

But until the youtube rant, I had never before used "Hitler" and "giant squid" in the same sentence, so now it's funnier.

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree one mainly feels the shock and horror of the scene, when you read it in the book. But once you step back from it, it is a silly comic book solution to a "real world" problem.

[dryfoo.livejournal.com]

And yet... a few days after 9/11, I remembered that scene, and wondered how a real-world tremendous disaster would change things. I suppose a giant squid would have been pretty shocking for a few days, but then it would have seemed increasingly *peculiar*.