David Bean wrote:I very much enjoyed this film, and would like to see it again. I think what fascinated me most of all was the realism of its presentation of an alternative history, most of which could very well have happened.
All right, so you can forget about Dr Manhattan, and Nixon would never have been elected to more than two terms never mind how successfully Vietnam had gone, but the idea of ordinary people deciding for themselves to become 'superheroes' might very well have happened. I was confused at first because, knowing nothing else about the universe it was set in, I didn't realise that the only real superhero - as in the only one with superhuman powers - was Manhattan; Rorschach's mask was explained as a new material derived as an offshoot of Manhattan's research, and even Ozymandias is just a man who happens to be highly intelligent and a skilled fighter. I watched a fake documentary set in the late '70s of a Watchmen world, and they explained that the original Minutemen began with Hooded Justice, who inspired so many others to follow him. If Hooded Justice had been real, who's to say that we mightn't have ended up with Watchmen-style superheroes - that we might not even have them today?
I can just picture a world where some of today's top fighters - guys like Anderson Silva and Fedor Emmelianenko, and perhaps even some of the great names of the past, like Bruce Lee and the Gracie family - had eschewed martial arts, and become masked vigilante crime-fighters instead.
In fact, who's to say it couldn't happen yet?
I take it you're being sarcastic or you're still in a dreamy post-movie state. The idea is lamentably ridiculous but I shall indulge in it for just a while. The problem with Bruce Lee or others taking up the mantle of crime-fighting is that staple of all other genres of movie that is always sadly absent from high-flying kung-fu or superhero movies, why
here's one now
Invented way back when, the gun effectively rules out all kind of machismo posturing and martial-art tomfoolery, by virtue of a simple mechanism that uses the aptly named gunpowder to propel metal missiles at an opponent with the click of a trigger. Some early examples of the gun overruling the bullshit mysticism of superhuman powers are at the Battle of Omdurman (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Omdurman) or the turn of the century Boxer Rebellion (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_rebellion), where it went single-handed against legions of magically empowered Chinese martial artists and wholeheartedly disproved the theory that incantations or invoking your magical "chi" power can provide a shield against a small lead bullet travelling a thousand yards a second.
Technology 1-0 Magic Superhuman Prowess.
In fact, to take it further, my favourite normal "hero" of childhood was Indiana Jones, muchly because when faced with a local village martial artist he promptly shot the guy dead, utilising superior reflexes in his thumb and forefinger over years of ardouos training and sacrifice. The reason, I suppose, that guns are often left out of movies where ordinary people get superhuman powers that don't include being utterly invulnerable, is because of this famous scene, and because legions of sweaty pasty-faced fanboys with waistlines to match their average IQ would like to believe they too can become some sort of Bruce Lee-esque killing machine. If only they could lay off the pies. And do some exercise. And if magic existed. And if they were chosen to recieve this superhuman goodness over millions of other human beings in better shape with less bizarre porn files and actual jobs. Witness:(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_kid)
So the whole thing is quite ridiculous, and unworthy of further comment. Apart from the Watchmen movie was good, and INDY FUCKING ROCKS MAN YEAH!
Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 9:54 am