![]() ![]() But the real beauty of Watchmen is the moral diversity of its superheroes. This scene has the lyrical feel of my favorite piece of fiction, Alan Lightman's almost unbearably beautiful Einstein's Dreams, and the reference to Einstein cannot be ignored. His account is dizzyingly elliptical, since he does not see time as linear the way others do. Manhattan has a sort of recollection of his life. The deity reference is reinforced often, and one thinks of Oppenheimer's citation of the Bhagavad-Gita, in which Vishnu takes on a godly form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." In an expository scene in the second act, Dr. His character is an allegory for God, and his relationship with man mirrors the apparent detachment with which God sees suffering in the world He created. Manhattan, named, of course, for the Manhattan Project, which yielded the atomic bomb. The use of it in this movie is equally impactful. Ozymandias was the first poem I ever examined from an expositional point of view, and I was blown away. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.' Clearly one must see the allusion to the work, in this case, of a superhero who hopes to leave mankind a lasting legacy, but realizes in the back of his mind that everything is eventually lost in time. Here's the full quote And on the pedestal these words appear - "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. The character even quotes the poem on a plinth in his Antarctic lair. I'm wondering how many people who viewed the film ever even heard of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem by the same name. Consider, for example, the character Ozymandias. Watchmen is iconic and iconoclastic, deconstructionist and revisionist, laden with allegory and allusion. And, as with all such movies, you must be able to look beyond the literal. But, unlike the dreadfully insipid Titanic, at the end of this movie I wasn't asking for those three hours of my life back. Yes, the movie is long nearly three hours. I've heard so many comments focused on a blue dick, or the length of the movie, or some other such nonsense, that I'm sure watching it with someone would have been a constant barrage of commentary and complaint. First, I'm glad I went to see the movie alone. After seeing Watchmen, I may have to reconsider. For over 25 years now, I have cited Blade Runner as my favorite movie of all time. ![]()
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