The Dickersons and I went to the AMC Metreon and saw an 11:30 showing of Watchmen on Friday night. I enjoyed the movie for the visual effects, the general story, but I really liked the line of questions Matt came up with afterward. Questions like "Does the ends justify the means?" and "Could you live with a lie?". I might be spoiling the movie in the next few lines here so you may want to abandon ship if you don't want to know what happens.
Matt thought that everyone feels like Night Owl is easy to identify with in regards to his struggle to do good, but to deal with the wrong his fellow mask did in order to preserve the peace. I felt like I didn't have any night owl in me at all. I felt more like Rorschach, where all of life is black and white, where he always was comfortable with his actions, where he always adhered to his principles. I like that Rorschach wanted to get the truth out there, that it would then be in the hands of the people to decide what to do with it, how to behave. The Cold War, which was the cause for the uneasy peace, was an obfuscation, a hiding of the true intentions, no trust.
I also felt like if I had to pick, I'd take Rorschach at my side, even though he may seem a little psycho, over Dr. Manhattan who didn't really seem to care one way or the other. There's a lot of texts out there that claim in-aciton is just as evil, if not more so, than doing an evil act.
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3 comments:
"I like that Rorschach wanted to get the truth out there, that it would then be in the hands of the people to decide what to do with it, how to behave. The Cold War, which was the cause for the uneasy peace, was an obfuscation, a hiding of the true intentions, no trust."
This.
Rorschach was easily my favorite of the Watchmen, and had arguably the best lines in the whole movie. My favorite, though, was this:
"Never compromise, not even in the face of Armageddon."
Principles make up a fair part of one's moral standing; if you compromise this foundation to live with a lie of that magnitude, can you call yourself a moral person?
Some of us (Will Read not included) take a more... acountant like look at things. Kill 5 million to save 5 billion? Keep the truth to yourself to save millions? One man compromises his values to keep hundreds of millions safe? Makes sense from a practical point of view. As Spock explains to Kurk when he is dying at the end of Star Trek II, "Do not grieve, Admiral - it is logical: the needs of the many outweighthe needs of the few..."
But we don't really live in a society that reflects that. It's a capitalist society, and borders on "every man for himself" with a little bit of government to give us the services we don't want to provide for ourselves, but still need. If it really were "the needs of the many outweigh the few" then my salary would go to feed a dozen starving children instead of a nice apartment and high speed internet.
I'm not saying that it's the best way to live, but I am saying that I culturally it's a stretch in the US to say that individuals do the logical thing. It goes against our grain. It very much goes against MY grain.
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