Watchmen (comics)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Tropes found in the comic:

  • Alas, Poor Villain: Moloch, murdered halfway through the story to get Rorschach out of the picture.
    • It's hard not to feel a bit sorry for the very anti-heroic Comedian, either, as we see how his attempts to connect with Laurie failed in the past, and that at the end of his life he's become a sobbing, remorseful wreck.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: All of the primary characters.
    • Eddie Blake/The Comedian in particular, he asks for forgiveness when he faces his death, and when he found out about Adrian's plan, he has such a breakdown he asked for forgiveness in front of his old enemy, Moloch, in tears and tried to justify what horrible things he did. The evidence does stack up that it wasn't that he never cared as some characters claim. He cared too much, and it drove him insane.
    • Is Doctor Manhatten truly unable to alter the future or is he just so much of a fatalist that he won't even make the effort?
    • Is Rorschach's inability to compromise admirable or detestable?
  • Broken Base: The upcoming prequel comics, being made without Moore or even Gibbons's involvement, have been the point of division with many fans. Is this just a pale attempt at making Watchmen a Franchise Zombie, or a good way to reinterpret the story?
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Rorschach is a sympathetic character but not a role model. The Comedian is also subject to some of this.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Rorschach is much, much more popular than Alan Moore intended.
  • Fan Myopia: Around the time the movie came out, fans of the comic were openly discussing the ending and other plot points without spoiler tags, assuming anyone interested in the franchise had to have read the comic.
  • Genius Bonus: Several. "At play between strangeness and charm", seen in the lab where Osterman worked, is a pun on quantum mechanics, just to say one.
  • Heroic Sociopath: Rorschach and the Comedian, though the Comedian's case is arguable -- both the Heroic and Sociopath parts, in fact.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: So, a US-USSR nuclear war is inevitable, Adrian?
    • In fairness, it is pretty explicitly stated that the big difference between our world and that of Watchmen is Doctor Manhattan. He tilts the economic and military balance of power so far in America's favor that the Soviet's feel far more compelled to be on a war footing than they did in our world. Then throw in Richard Nixon with a god in his pocket for about four terms and it's easy to see how the antagonism level might have gotten so severe.
    • Also, every time we see Rorschach before The Reveal, he's bumming food off whoever he's visiting. That's because he's essentially a homeless bum.
    • In one of the text supplements, Ozymandias talks about making a Saturday morning cartoon show.
  • It Was His Sled: Ozymandias is the killer. Also, giant squid. This got particularly bad around the time of the movie.
    • Edward Blake is Laurie's father.
  • Japan Loves Rorschach: Rorschach is one of the few western comic characters you can find stuff of on Pixiv. We don't know why either.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Rorschach. The Comedian to a lesser extent.
  • Logic Bomb: Possible explanation for why Rorshach told Dr. Manhattan to kill him. He realized how hypocritical it was to approve of Truman's decision to bomb Japan, but not for Adrian to bomb New York, despite both being done with the same intentions.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Ozymandias, especially after The Reveal.
  • Memetic Outfit: Rorschach's entire ensemble, but especially the black-and-white mask.
  • Memetic Mutation: "RRAAAARRL" and "Hurm."
    • "I did it thirty-five minutes ago."
    • "Rorshach's journal. Unusual event happened, must investigate further."
  • Misaimed Fandom: Some people take Rorschach and The Comedian seriously (as face-value superheroes, that is).
  • The Scrappy: Laurie/Silk Spectre II has a noticeably smaller fandom than the rest of the Crimebusters.
  • Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Watchmen influenced a ton of other works. These works fleshed out the tropes Watchmen introduced and put them in the forms that are now extremely familiar to readers. A superhero like Rorschach who goes around killing people was shocking in the 80s, but after several decades of the Punisher, he seems tame and reasonable by comparison. The notion of flawed heros like the Comedian was very fresh in the 80s, but it's par for the course these days. Dr. Manhattan pissing all over the status quo with his superpowers by altering history is far less amazing today than when it was first introduced in an era of Reed Richards is Uselss. Watchmen is still a great story, but reading it is no longer the paradigm shifting experience it was for comic fans in the 80s.
  • Squick: Rorschach's backstory. Also, there's just something odd about giving a "Tijuana Bible" of yourself to your effective son-in-law.
  • Tainted by the Preview: General opinions on the prequel comics? Not very positive.
  • Weird Al Effect: With the possible exceptions of The Question, Captain Atom & Blue Beetle, hardly anybody remembers the old Charlton characters the cast of Watchmen were based on.

Tropes found in the film:

Laurie: Whatever happened to him?
Dan: Oh...Well, he pulled that on Rorschach, and he dropped him down an elevator shaft.
[Beat]

[Both laugh]

Laurie: [still laughing] Oh God, that's not even funny.

Dan: Well, it's a little funny.

  • Draco in Leather Pants: Rorschach, Ozymandias. And how.
  • Dull Surprise: Malin Akerman, as Laurie Juspeczyk, gives rather ... measured responses to being on Mars and to being told the world will end.
    • To be fair, she'd been dating Doctor Manhattan for some time. That sort of thing was probably expected around him, to some degree.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Due to being played by the handsome Niall Matter, Mothman has seen a surprising level of attention in the fandom recently, in spite of not really being all that important.
  • Every One Remembers the Stripper: Judging from some message boards, you'd get he impression that the movie is 2 1/2 hours of blue penis closeups.
  • Fashion Victim Villain: Subverted -- like David Bowie in Labyrinth, Matthew Goode as Ozymandias has the uncanny ability to be put in some rather ridiculous outfits (purple suits? Egregious floppy Eighties Hair? A supersuit with nipples?) and nevertheless look good enough to make otherwise rational straight women and gay men Squee their brains out from all the Perverse Sexual Lust he creates. Then again, he comes dangerously close to a male example of Power Hair.
  • Fetish Retardant: The sex scene with Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" playing in the background. Zack Snyder claimed that it was deliberate, since the big-wigs wanted a steamy sex scene -- they decided to placate them, while turning up the cheese factor Up to Eleven.
  • Fridge Brilliance: During the opening credits, it has Neil Armstrong on the moon and says "Good Luck Mr. Gorsky." There's an urban legend that his neighbor said the day the neighbor kid went to space is the day his wife would give him oral sex. Since this film takes place in an alternate timeline, it goes from confusing to clever.
  • Genius Bonus/Viewers Are Geniuses : The symbol Jon draws on his forehead is a representation of a Hydrogen atom. Hydrogen was the first element to be created and is the single element from which everything else in the universe comes. Which is why it's "something [he] can respect" versus something "the marketing boys" think up. The comic gives a brief explanation; the film puts the scene in but never explains it.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The businessman's line "'Free' is another word for 'Socialist'" in regards for energy. Right around the time the film was made, people were calling Barack Obama's energy policies such as support for cap and trade just that. (And they were right.)
    • Wally Weaver's statements on Doctor Manhattan could also count as this.

Wally:What I said was 'God Exists, and he's American'. If that statement starts to chill you after a couple of moments' consideration, then don't be alarmed. A feeling of intense and crushing religious terror at the concept indicates only that you're still sane.
Which later got vindicated on how Ozymandias implements his forced peace.

Tropes found in the unproduced Sam Hamm script:

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