Well, I got the Director's Cut of Watchmen today, so I figured I could use this as an excuse to revisit things I wanted to say about the film. So, yeah, this is going to contain MAJOR SPOILERS. You've been forewarned.

I really rather like Watchmen. I saw it twice in theatres, which is rare for me. I have to really like movies to do that (for instance, I saw both Sin City and Taken, which are top contenders for "favorite movie" multiple times). The Director's Cut, while not as significant an improvement as the one for Chronicles of Riddick (the Director's Cut of which transforms a forgettable action/sci-fi movie into a worthy action/sci-fi followup to Pitch Black), is much better than the theatrical version. They add a lot of little details that tie the whole movie together and make it better all around.

Of course, the biggest problem the movie has is one that they don't fix. Of course, I'm referring to the worthless, piss-poor ending they gave it. And it would have been so easy to deal with. I don't even mean the stupid logical fallacy where Dr. Manhattan has to be the villain (even allowing that the world needs a villain to unite it, I have yet to understand why Ozymandias can't be that villain). What I mean is that Ozymandias is a smug, narcissist with no compunctions for murdering millions of people in cold blood with no remorse. Yes, he claims to have remorse, but (and this is the problem and the easy fix) he doesn't bother to show it at all. All they'd need is a scene where he actually bothers to cry about their deaths, show some kind of emotion other than self-satisfaction. It is difficult for me to describe exactly how much I hate Ozymandias. I hate him more than almost any other character I can possibly think of. I truly despise him. What I'd really have liked is for him to have died, his own sacrifice for the utopia he wanted. But of course, I'm denied that too. I'm a bit surprised, considering how well the movie does with comeuppance (it's a movie all about comeuppance; you spend most of the movie learning how the Comedian earned his). But I guess we don't get everything we want.

Dr. Manhattan is also a character I don't care much for. He's an emotionless robot who only does what he's told and is good for exactly two things -- blowing up what he's told to and stating the obvious. For a nuclear physist, he's also incredibly unthinking. He never bothers to think critically about anything throughout the whole movie. It's embarrassing and sad. He's also remarkably without any kind of moral compass at all.

I do, however, love Rorschach. That might be at least partly because he's got a moral compass much like mine. A twisted, exaggerated distortion of my moral compass perhaps, but it's one that stays steady in all things. I have to respect that. Nite Owl's greatest asset is that he's human. He's got the same sort of foibles and failures of morality as any other human. But without him, we'd only have monsters to identify with in the show, and that obviously wouldn't work very well.

All in all, it's a great movie, with a terrible ending. It's not that Rorschach dies (I'm really fine with that, despite him being my favorite character). It's that Adrian Veidt, a completely despicable monster, has his horrible, murderous plan succeed completely without any drawbacks or remorse. He never pays for his crimes. In fact, he apparently profits from them, considering the preponderance of Veidt Industries construction stuff in the end of the film. If they were going to bother with changing the ending so that it'd seem less silly to a movie audience, why not make it more palatable to the audience? It's a remarkably unsatisfying ending to an otherwise terrific film.

-- And also --
Something I've always remarked about Dr. Manhattan is that he needs to grow some balls to go with his big blue dick. He espouses gibberish philosophy that neither makes sense nor do I agree with, and then doesn't bother to act (practically at all) even once he learns the meaning of Christmas. His only damn function is blowing people up, and he doesn't manage to do it to the only person in the whole movie who really deserves it.

Labels: movies

Well, the biggest single change in my life since I last was posting regularly is my recent acquisition of a motorcycle. I'm the proud owner of a Triumph Street Triple. And honestly, I couldn't be more ecstatic. I love the bike. Everything about her. The way she looks, muscular, with the broad shoulders of the gas tank and the clean lines of the naked frame an engine, the odd pair of headlights. The way she sounds, the throaty purr (which my cousin describes as "very British") with the harmonizing intake and exhaust notes like nothing else on the road. The way she rides, powerful and upright, like I'm a duke of the road itself. And of course, I'm sort of ornery and like to be just a little different, and the Triumph is not a common bike.

Most folks agree that she's a gorgeous machine. My uncle's complaint is that she "doesn't sound like a motorcycle." Which is pretty true -- the inline three cylinder engine doesn't sound anything like the Harleys or Hondas that you're used to. But you can't deny that she's a beautiful, beautiful bike.

The tale of me ending up riding a brand new, unusual, British, naked motorcycle is a bit of an odd and convoluted one. I started out very pointedly not making any sort of decision about what kind of a motorcycle I wanted. I'd never ridden a motorcycle before, and I didn't want to make uneducated decisions and set my heart on something I wouldn't like. So I waited until I took the MSF course, though I had my leanings, based on common sense and aesthetics more than anything. I didn't pass the driving test on my first try. (I'd set the bike down earlier in the day, and lost my nerve. Riding is mostly in your head, and if you can't focus, you really shouldn't be riding.) So I spent the next couple weeks preparing for a retest, riding my cousin's old Yamaha 650 Special, what he calls "the sacrificial bike." I decided I really liked the way that it handled, as a middleweight standard, and started to look more seriously at standard bikes. He dropped the name of the VMAX, Yamaha's huge, heavyweight naked bike, and I looked into it. To this day I'm not sure if the new VMAX is really pretty or just really strange. But the older models are very pretty. It was around then that I got really attached to the naked look. I thought it was attractive, the engines of that sort of motorcycle are all fun (quite powerful, but more focused on lots of torque rather than super-high horsepower), and, most importantly, they rode mostly upright, varying a bit around "standard." I started to look for other naked bikes, especially Ducati's Monster, which was a more managable size than the VMAX and was definitely pretty. When I talked about these with my cousin, he mentioned Triumph, so I started to look into their Speed Triple and Street Triple motorcycles. They were very pretty, and looked pretty impressive on paper. The more I read reviews, the more impressed I was -- everyone said that the Street Triple was the most fun of the middleweight nakeds, and it was almost universally considered the best of the class as well.

I was pretty hooked. So when I went to buy a motorcycle, I started out at the local Triumph dealer. I really didn't intend to buy a new bike. It's my first bike, and I was sure to drop it, at least once. But they didn't have any used ones (nor did the local Ducati dealer), so I finally let them talk me into it. I ordered a flyscreen and a set of frame sliders (for when she inevitably went down), though those parts wouldn't be in for nearly a month after I got her. :(

Sure, she's not really a beginner's bike, but I'm old enough now to be a fairly conservative rider, so I haven't had much trouble with her. I have put her down once. It was a beginner's mistake: I tried to take a turn too fast and couldn't manage it. I realized part way in that I wouldn't make the turn, so I straightened out and went over the median. I was fine until my wheel dropped off the median and the bike went over. Fortunately, God was looking out for me, and we got through it okay. I just got everything fixed up at the 500 mile check up, and we're almost 100% back. She's still got a few scuffs and scratches, but you have to look for them to spot them.

Labels: motorcycle

*blows dust off blog*

Wow, it's been quite nearly a year since I last posted. That's awful! Ah, well, I've decided to come back to blogging, at least for a little while. I've had a few posts bouncing around my head for a month or three and I've been meaning to come back for them, so I'm finally going to do it. A lot has changed in the last year, and yet, in many ways, very little has changed. But I'll get to all of that. *grin*