Comments on: To Squid Or Not To Squid: The Unreviewed 4 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/01/to-squid-or-not-to-squid-the-unreviewed-4 Lollards in the high church of low culture Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:17:05 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 By: thefatgit https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/01/to-squid-or-not-to-squid-the-unreviewed-4/comment-page-1#comment-669414 Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:17:05 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16746#comment-669414 I agree with TommyMack. The squid scenario ties in the Center For Extraspatial Studies, the SciFi writer, the surrealist, the geneticist and the comic book writer, which in turn ties in The Tales From The Black Freighter (used by Moore as co-narrative in the book). The companion DVD also expands the Shipwrecked story and does a clever TV interview piece about Under The Hood. All this had to be omitted from the original film to keep it pacy. No need for any such constraints from the book as we can immerse ourselves in the Watchmen world as much as we like. Read Blood From The Shoulder Of Pallas to understand Dreiberg and his twin fascinations with ornithology and mythology for instance.
The film needed to demonise one or all of the main characters, because in Hollywood, no character flaw goes unpunished. Dr Manhattan, detached from humanity is exiled. Veidt, the architect of both endgame scenarios is punished for hubris. Blake, told a joke that even he struggles to laugh at is tossed out of his apartment window. Rorschach, uncompromising to the end becomes a symmetrical blot in the snow at the hand of Dr Manhattan. Laurie and Dan survive but not without being confronted with their own shortcomings and having to accept them and move on. In truth, the squid is merely a plot device, something that Snyder recognised immediately. The fact that Dr Manhattan is the scapegoat in the film does not detract from what is essentially a deconstruction of the superhero and what it means to the human psyche to be in the presence of one.

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By: Tommy Mack https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/01/to-squid-or-not-to-squid-the-unreviewed-4/comment-page-1#comment-669097 Fri, 08 Jan 2010 16:46:20 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16746#comment-669097 The problem I had with the Squid is that it’s a grand conspiracy theory involving hundreds of people which has to be written into the story just to set up the ending. Whenever the stuff about sci-fi writers and artists disspearing popped up in the book, it seemed that it must have some grand significance since it had little to do with the rest of the plot.

Stitching up Dr Manhattan on the other hand is a neat, nasty little twist

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By: Martin Skidmore https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/01/to-squid-or-not-to-squid-the-unreviewed-4/comment-page-1#comment-668998 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:42:35 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16746#comment-668998 I think the reason it fails to make the solution seem as monstrous as it is is because the film omits all the ordinary people. We do glimpse the two Bernards, for instance, when the explosion happens, but that’s their only screen time. When Veidt says he’ll feel every death he has caused, every day, I was very conscious of our being deprived the opportunity to feel a few of them.

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By: Pete Baran https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/01/to-squid-or-not-to-squid-the-unreviewed-4/comment-page-1#comment-668996 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:14:53 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16746#comment-668996 That is a better point than the one I made.

What I think is good about the Dr Manhattan ending rather than the Squid ending from a storytelling point of view is that it IS ALL IN THE TEXT. Manhattan no longer cares about humans, is outside of time and space, and is basically a sentient nuclear Armageddon. So the purported actions in the film are completely consistent with his attitude AND consistent with Man In The Street solutions to the problem (just blow ’em all up and start again). Where the film does drop the ball a bit is in trying to visualise how this logical solution is so beastly. But then films have never been very good at death on this scale, look at how little the deaths of billions in 2012 effect us over the saving of a dog (AGAIN WITH THE DOG EMMERICH).

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By: a tanned rested and unlogged lørd sükråt wötsît https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/01/to-squid-or-not-to-squid-the-unreviewed-4/comment-page-1#comment-668985 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:27:21 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16746#comment-668985 oops and sorry about outlander pete: i can’t now think of a single thing i wanted to say about it, so i shouldn’t have baggsied it — except perhaps to point out her AWESOME FROCK which remains spotlessly blue even after she’s spent a night thrashing around in the middle of a giant pile of half-eaten corpses

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By: a tanned rested and unlogged lørd sükråt wötsît https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/01/to-squid-or-not-to-squid-the-unreviewed-4/comment-page-1#comment-668984 Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:24:31 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16746#comment-668984 i actually liked the film’s acknowlegdment that laurie and dan’s violence isn’t really any different from rorschach’s: it;s one of things the manky art in the comic obscures — i don’t think it;s silly at all, it just turns the critique back on itself: that their self-rightenousness on this issue is basically deluded, and that rorschach IS the one that understands the politics of vigilante superheroismus

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By: Tommy Mack https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/01/to-squid-or-not-to-squid-the-unreviewed-4/comment-page-1#comment-668952 Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:49:28 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16746#comment-668952 I suppose when you put it like that, it does make more sense that way.

Wouldn’t they just examine the Squid,once the dust had cleared and find out that it was made of rubber?

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By: Matthew https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/01/to-squid-or-not-to-squid-the-unreviewed-4/comment-page-1#comment-668942 Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:17:18 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16746#comment-668942 I like the Watchmen Squid. I don’t get how the-nations-of-the-world-uniting does anything to forestall a second attack from Dr Manhattan, who is just the laws of physics with the capacity to hold a grudge. Whereas evidence of sentient, hostile life elsewhere in the universe is a very good reason for the human race to band together in a spirit of peace and harmony.

Plus, Doctor Manhattan was first and initially foremost an American citizen, I would have thought him going berserk would have given the Russkies an extra excuse to hate the Yanks.

Also, like Bernard Cribbins I just like squid.

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By: Tommy Mack https://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2010/01/to-squid-or-not-to-squid-the-unreviewed-4/comment-page-1#comment-668893 Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:16:48 +0000 https://freakytrigger.co.uk/?p=16746#comment-668893 Nixing the Squid was definitely a good move in Watchmen. Never made that much sense and just seemed like another layer of complexity for it’s own sake. Much neater dove-tailing in the film.

What was a bit crap (and I think quite a few critics picked up on this) was the scene where Laurie and Dan beat off the muggers – a low-key fist fight in the book, a ludicrous Tarantino-esque bloodbath in the film – makes a mockery of the book’s characterisation – how can we recoil at Blake or Rorschach’s excesses when we’ve just seen the voice of reason stabbing a man through the neck with his own knife? Very silly.

That said, otherwise very entertaining and yr right about the credit sequence, I’ll never hear The Times They Are A-Changing again without thinking off a man in a giant moth costume being hauled off to the looney bin.

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