The movie's ending implies ambiguity with Rorschach's journal but I think there is no ambiguity at all. "Veidt did Manhattan" would be the "Bush did 911" in universe. Veidt also has vast resources and intellect to buy and control the media. There is no way it would be anything but another conspiracy.
Is this problem addressed in the novel or is it the same brainlet muh ambiguity?
Have sex
conspiracies are cool
rebellion is cool
Ligma
I had sex thirty five minutes ago.
>most powerful being in the universe
>dicklet
manhattanbros
It's 7 hours and twenty minutes from now. I am having a bad trip on the crack I smoked out of a broken lightbulb
How the fuck would Veidt be connected to the alien attacks? In the show it's covered up with "scientists fucking up", but that Ozzy did Manhattan thing is pretty funny
I'd say there's more ambiguity in the comic overall but your interpretation's even more supported by the comic. The paper Rorschach sends the journal into is shown to be a fringe right-wing rag, kinda like Breitbart. There's even a cartoon that's a pitch perfect spoof of Ben Garrison before Ben Garrison was even a thing. Pic related. So yeah, it's not just a 'Bush did 9/11' thing, it'll more likely be interpreted as far right-wing conspiracy nonsense.
Cut the bullshit D
Just to add to this OP, honestly one of the biggest thing's that's missing from the movie's ending is the all-important scene where Manhattan confronts Veidt after killing Rorschach. In it Veidt asks, "I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end?" To which Manhattan replies, "In the end? Nothing ends Adrian, nothing ever ends." and then disappears before elaborating on it. Since Manhattan can see the future it is implied that the Adrian's whole plan will be a folly in the end (or at least that's my interpretation - it can go either way.)
In the movie for some fucking reason they give this line to Silk Specter while making out with Dan way later. If I remember correctly I think she says something along the lines of, "If Jon were here, I bet he'd say 'Nothing Ends...'" Which completely robs the line of all its meaning and subtlety, but then again that's kinda the problem I have with the movie in general.
Also Rorschach is a mentally insane multiple homicide vigilante (his public image) and iirc he supports the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which he also writes in the journal. Of course it's about the principle since the nukes weren't sold as lies, it was straight up we are blowing up hundreds of thousands of people to save millions, but I think no one would care about the fine print of a deranged psychopath.
Based Moore naming the Jews.
i thought they couldn't even read rorschachs journal because it's written like schizo chicken-scratch
Ah yes, the ever-present and ubiquitous "right wing media".
He's talking about human nature. That's the flaw in the plan.
>he supports the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Correct. But if you read his psychological profile it's a little more complicated than him just being a right-wing 'ends-justify-the-means' type. There's a really interesting letter written by a very, very young Rorschach where it's clear he's believes that from a young age because he's siding with his absent father rather than his abusive, whore mother.
And then, when actually put into a position wherein 'the ends justify the means' when he finds out about Adrian's plan, he's the only one who finds it repugnant. Who can't stand the idea that all these people got murdered over a lie, even if it causes world peace and less death overall. Of course the movie cut out/ignored all of this and it made Dr Manhattan just come off as kinda a dick when he kills him.
Well... yeah. Well said.
He can't handle Adrian's plan because it is morally grey. His whole thing is seeing in terms of black and white. Can't believe I have to explain this.
>because it is morally grey.
>thinking you have the intelligence to explain anything to anyone
lmao bet you believe moore about rorschach too.
This completely reconceptualizes the ending and opens up the possibility that Jon sees the plan not working in the end but him also being so far gone from his human self he lets the chips fall where they may. Which is why he sees the plan not working in the first place, not the other way around, it's not "I can't change the future only see it muh strings" but I don't give a fuck so that's why this is the future.
Yes. I wasn't arguing that wasn't the case. It's just there's a real irony to that. When Truman dropped the bomb it was black and white to young Rorschach, because if he hadn't dropped the bomb there would have been more war and more people would've been killed. Yet when actually confronted with that exact same situation with Veidt's plan he can't fucking handle it, because it is actually beyond shades of grey. I just find it really interesting that it's rooted in his child abuse at the hands of his mother and his whole political belief system is based on what little fragments he knows of his father that he gleaned from his mother.
Also I just love this fucking page. Again, not captured in the movie at all. On every single other page the pattern on Rorschach's face changes from panel to panel. And yet when confronted with the fact that Veidt has more or less won, and seeing all the other 'heroes' compromise... it's the one page where the pattern remains resolutely the same for the whole page. It's subtle but your brain notices it.
Do you think this was more about Rorschach facing his own ideolog daddy issues and discovering he is a hypocrite or about the technicality of the lie? Say if Veidt's fusion bombs were known to the public just like the nukes in 1945 (even though that's impossible because the plan needs the lie), would Rorschach be okay with it? Okay Adrian you are not lying, you can nuke millions?
Ooh that's a slightly difficult question. First though are you OP? I'm only asking cause you said this:
>Say if Veidt's fusion bombs were known to the public
Which implies you don't know about the giant squid. If you don't, short version: there's no fusion bombs or Manhattan getting framed in the comic. It's a giant, psychic squid instead. Veidt unites the whole world into world peace with a fake alien invasion. I'll try to answer the rest of your question but a lot of Veidt's logic makes way more sense when he's only killed a fuckton of New Yorkers and he's convinced the world (both the US and the Soviets) that they're about the be invaded by giant squids.
>the pic
Urge to take mescaline and sit in the desert intensifies.
I am op and I know about the squid but I am focusing on the movie here more since it's Yea Forums after all. I also think the movie is less convoluted than Veidt replicating the teleport but it explodes everything that goes through, and then using it and creating a mutated alien that blows up the moment it is teleported, thus killing millions in the city. That's.. so retarded it cycles back to being galaxy brain because nothing could expose it.
The sixth panel looking like a mushroom cloud implies Veidt has only delayed nuclear war, not prevented it.
Now 2nd part of that question. I'd say no as far as Rorschach goes. The whole mommy-daddy issues is just one small layer to it. One of the big things that the movie cut out was Rorschach's subtle character arc after he's broken out of prison. In the comic he confronts his whore landlord who'd lied about him on national tv. He's about to do something when he looks into the whore's kids' face and then does nothing. And it's the first time he breaks that black-and-white, no compromise rule he has. He just leaves. And there's a few other scenes with him and Dan which implies he's slowly getting his humanity back, albeit little by little.
>Since Manhattan can see the future it is implied that the Adrian's whole plan will be a folly in the end (or at least that's my interpretation - it can go either way.)
I mean that's A WAY to interpret it but I'm not sure that's the direct conclusion I would draw.
>aliens invade
>except it was just the one because no other ones show up
>governments team up for a bit before they realize aliens arent showing up
>either investigate and find out the truth or they just go back to the cold war again after shrugging their shoulders
awesome plan veidt, also works with the movies faker manhattan attacks
> I just find it really interesting that it's rooted in his child abuse at the hands of his mother and his whole political belief system is based on what little fragments he knows of his father that he gleaned from his mother
I side with Rorschach because I had a similar upbringing. In life you’re either heading into the black or into the white - becoming richer, fitter, more educated, and so on. Is it a spectrum? Sure. But you’re operating in one of two modes. It follows logically that Rors would have the POV he does. His illusions were shattered from an early age. The main discussion is what do you do with truth, is it a virtue, what does a world look like where truth is emphasized? Can life continue, so on? Veidt combines everything Rors stands against lie over truth, abusive paternal behavior, and so on
Rorsarch obvipusly represents the ideas of objectivist moral philosophy in ethics but his problem with Adrian's plan is WAY more complicated than "it was gray".
Don’t talk about the squid thing.
That was the one good thing they changed in the movie.
>I also think the movie is less convoluted
I'm honestly not the biggest fan of the squid. I think that the whole point is that the plan is so convoluted and absurd that... well, yeah you said it, galaxy brain. Problem with the movie is that they changed the actual plan but didn't change anything around it so now Adrian's plan makes no fucking sense. Dr Manhattan is 'Superman/God but he's American' so the second the Russians heard that Dr Manhattan was responsible then they would totally declare war on the US. It's a weird issue because I think it's one of the few 'good' changes the movie makes honestly. It simplifies the story a bunch and brings it back to the characters. It's just that now the plan is really fucking stupid and Adrian's a retard. I know this is Yea Forums but if you try to analyze Veidt's plan from the movie you just realize it's just not going to work and that Rorschach was right. So I kinda ignore the movie.
There's a bigger problem with the movie ending than just the squid though. In the comic there's a whole cast of extras who are just living their lives in the background of nearly every page. There's the locksmith, the lesbian cab driver and her girlfriend, the guy on the corner selling watches, the knot-tops and so on. There's a bit of story stuff that involves them, mostly told from the perspective of the newspaper salesman, but for the most part they're just living their lives out in the back of frame. If you look closely you'll notice them and that they have whole little lives going on behind the main characters. Anyway, when Adrian drops the squid they all die, and it's gruesome and bloody and awful.
In the movie they cut all that shit out. And yet they increased the blood, gore and violence everywhere. Except when Adrian drops the bomb you just get a flash of light and a crater. There's no montage of death and bodies like in the comic. It's such a limp-wristed creative choice.
>Yet when actually confronted with that exact same situation
Bit that's the problem with Moore's angle here. It's not the "exact same situation". They're vaguely similar in GENERAL moral conundrum of "kill small number to save BIG number???" but aside from that there are numerous discrepancies that make it an Apples to Oranges comparison.
It works on a thematic level which is arguably all a narrative-driven story needs but once people start trying to seriously dissect it in philosophical debate things start falling apart here.
No squid thing is better. It’s a foreign and literally alien thread that serves as uniting force. It’s a real life alien spy op come to life that kicks the can down the road.
>The movie's ending implies ambiguity
no it doesn't. rorschach sends his journal to a far-right rag that no one but him reads. his story will be dismissed as a conspiracy theory. veidt's plan results in the superpowers cooperating for long enough that ceasing cooperation would be a greater loss than could ever be recouped.
Veidt literally comments on making a utopia. I don’t know how you can’t look at him and think he is anything other than full or hubris. Jon’s comments don’t like even need to mean the plan didn’t work in the interim but that life goes on, truths get uncovered, nothing lasts forever, and that nothing is ever over. It’s the folly of man to think the conversation ever ends. And yet, we cannot stop, we must press on and only fringe groups believe in not reproducing and ending the species.
Rorsarch's issue wasn't as simple as "it was a lie, therefore bad".
His issue was that from a philosophical standpoint "peace" and numerous other things cannot be built on lies and fabrications. Not in any lasting (and thusly worthwhile) sense. It would be at best temporary or at worst doomed to disastrously and completely fail, like anything built on deception.
Adrian thus didn't "save" the world in the implied definite sense. He would have at best killed millions to buy Earth a little time or at worst created a deception that when uncovered would ACTUALLY incite apocalyptic conflict.
We'd probably get a situation similar to the one brewing in real life, the one paid lip service in Infinity War.
World peace is great but scarcity will always be a threat, and people multiply.
You could argue that scarcity isn't an issue seeing as we're dealing with sci-fi tech, but even that has theoretical limits to stretch to.
And it isn't just an issue of the resources themselves, a large portion of the kettle is the ever increasing complexity of supply chains required to allocate them efficiently as populations explode, where one loose link can spiral the whole system into chaos due to downline dependancies, particularly when those dependencies start covering wider and wider areas and by human limits, jurisdictions. Local systems have local consequences, and the reverse is just as true.
I don't see the peace lasting.
>it is implied that the Adrian's whole plan will be a folly in the end
Not really, it just means that in the grand scheme of things Veidt's actions have only affected a miniscule part of time and space
> And it's the first time he breaks that black-and-white, no compromise rule he has. He just leaves. And there's a few other scenes with him and Dan which implies he's slowly getting his humanity back, albeit little by little
How is that getting his humanity back? When did his humanity leave? He called her a whore. He obviously saw himself in the kid. And left.
I'll add to my own point in reference to the end of scarcity concerns through technological innovation - what if such advances were feasible but, given the level of technological prowess, also exposed the lie the peace was built on. Would it matter at that point? Who knows.
I don't think Manhattan is that autistic.
>I just find it really interesting that it's rooted in his child abuse at the hands of his mother and his whole political belief system is based on what little fragments he knows of his father that he gleaned from his mother.
This is extremely reductionist. He's shown to have had other experiences throughout life that shaped his philosophy, outlook and convictions. You know, kind of like a real person?
This is one of the key issues in analyzing the morality of Veidt and another reason why comparisons between Truman's nukes and Adrian's squid/blue-bomb don't really work well beyond a certain point.
>When did his humanity leave?
When he handcuffs the guy, who kidnapped the little girl and then fed her to his German Shepherds', to a pipe, pours gasoline all over him and his house, gives him a hacksaw and advises him that if he sawed through his ankle he might get out in time and then lights a match. It's pretty explicit in the comic that that's the moment when Rorschach was truly born. They really bungle that entire scene in the movie. Seriously, Jackie Earle Hayley is the best part of the movie easily but Snyder managed to botch his big fucking moment.
>Veidt combines everything Rors stands against lie over truth, abusive paternal behavior, and so on
Not that you're incorrect but how does Veidt represent "abusive paternal behavior"? I don't remember that. Granted I haven't read it in 10 years.
And here's the next page
>overthinking a movie
Overthink God instead.
It is october 5th, 2011. Steve Jobs dies of ligma. November 2nd, 1985. Rorschach is asking me who the hell is Steve Jobs.
Then Rorschach is retarded, because the US did not have a set plan to nuke japan in the hope of getting them to surrender and avoid an invasion, it was simply another weapon for them to use. The surrender, which by the way was almost certainly more influenced by the soviet union declaring war on japan during that time, was basically a bonus. They fully expected to use yet more bombs and to invade japan as well, it was never thought of as a huge moral dilemma or a choice between two bad options at all.
>It’s a foreign and literally alien
That goes exactly on the opposite way of this page's point
Unknown things DEMANDS explanations. Investigation. Questions. "It was Manhattan that was insane" is so easy, so crystal clear, it's miles better.
>I don’t know how you can’t look at him and think he is anything other than full or hubris.
Next you'll tell me his namesake comes from a historical figure/classical poem overtly associated with "hubris" or something!
>but once people start trying to seriously dissect it in philosophical debate things start falling apart here
Why?
>the ever increasing complexity of supply chains required to allocate them efficiently as populations explode, where one loose link can spiral the whole system into chaos due to downline dependancies
In a situation where sci-fi tech is improving resource abundance the implication is that sci-fi tech will logically also help alleviate old problems with alocation, transport and dependancy.
But it's only a philosophical problem to Rorschach. And that's if he's even aware that it completely contradicts his entire worldview because it's likely that he's so far down the garden path he doesn't even realize the irony.
he's a grower
That guy probably didn't phrase it in the best way and "humanity" may be too extreme a term but what I think he meant was the fact that initially Rorschach as a character lacks a lot of those typical """human""" social-traits that are easily seen in those around him that are more "normal". Like Batman or the Punisher he is borderline anti-social and his actions are devoid of irrational things like emotion and instead based on what's necessary, what's right or what needs to be done. That's an at least arguably admirable trait but it's less "human" as we understand it, as humans ARE influenced by somewhat irrational things like emotion, fear, guilt, Etc.
Him changing his mind and doing something for wgat he realizes is a GREATER good rather than what is immediately deserved and necessary is an example of that slightly irrational element that is so familiar to the Human Experience.
It's similar to Robocop. When Murphy first becomes RoboCop he is also lacking in "humanity", operating more like a just but predictable robot. His arc is recovering his humanity and his more human traits that were integral to his original personality as time progresses.
Thank you. But there's also a lot of moments after that wherein Rorschach shows signs, however warped, of genuine friendship towards Dan. Like here where he tries to comfort Dan and it takes Dan a second before he realizes that Rorschach is trying to be friendly. This was, of course, all cut out of the movie because Snyder doesn't really get it.
To add to this guy's statement and how it could be (mis)interpreted:
Note that "less human" or "lacking in humanity" does NOT necessarily also mean "immoral", "unjust" or "wrong".
Rorsarch's brutality towards a literal child-murderer is, at least arguably, totally justified.
The point being made here (at least from what I'm interpreting) is that this is behavior that, right or wrong, is "lacking in humanity", as in the traits of typical humanized characters are LESS brutal and MORE sympathetic, regardless of whether that's rational/just or not.
It's similar with characters like The Punisher; him putting a child-murderer feet-first into a woodchipper isn't something objevtively morally reprehensible, but this brutality makes him less humanized and more like a force of nature. The Punisher is a humanized and sympathetic character AT HIS CORE, but his exterior is cold, brutal, stoic, calculating and unfeeling. Just like Rorsarch.
Just to add to this: A better example might be this brief handshake in which happens right afterwards where Rorschach says, "You are... A good friend." and then has an awkwardly long handshake with Dan. Which mirrors a previous scene where Dan holds Laurie's hand for an awkwardly long time. Some fucking idiots have suggested that this is evidence that Rorschach has homosexual feelings for Dan but I don't really buy it. It's more to do with Rorschach coming back, albeit slightly, to being a functional human being and not knowing how. Which mirrors Dan trying to get his game back post-Nite Owl but not knowing how to. To the point where Dan can't even get a decent erection without putting on a rubber costume and saving some people.