reviews: King Kong & Watchmen

[abigailbrady]

King Kong was good. It manages to also, almost as an afterthought, be a better Jurassic Park than Jursassic Park was. Although I'm not sure it really deserves to be 187 minutes. Only bit about it that felt wrong was the very ending - where was the massive crater?

Also, Superman trailer woo!

---

Also located Watchmen and read it quite quickly. I'd been aware of this before obviously, but somehow the "as if superheroes were real but [bar Manhattan] didn't have superpowers" bit had somehow passed me by. This was good as it makes Rising Stars much less an unnecessary duplication of Watchmen. Caused me to think a lot about right and wrong and suchforth. I'll have to do some writing about this sometime, try to figure out what I really think.

Comments

[lilgreendave.livejournal.com]

I absolutely ♥ Watchmen :D

[elfbiter.livejournal.com]

King Kong was the second remake of the original and the 1970's version did not have the crater either (among other things). I suppose that's being faithful to the original.

--

As far as I know, one the main ideas of Watchmen were "would government tolerate de facto vigilantism" because that's what an average superhero is doing - hunting criminals without law enforcement credentials. As for Manhattan - would a real superhuman even be concerned with mere mortals?

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Yeah. There were a bunch of things that were just glossed over (like, to take another example, how the hell they got Kong on the boat). I've no idea whether the original glossed over these too - I guess so.

[landvaettir.livejournal.com]

It was a long enough film I could see why they glossed, you know? And while I am not all about the physics, I suspect it would be one part crater, two parts ape-splash.

I just re-read Watchmen. It always leaves me not quite sure what I think, too.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that too. I wonder what the terminal velocity of a giant gorilla is.

Think I'm going to read some Miller stuff next.

[vjbseven.livejournal.com]

Where d'you get a hold of Watchmen?

PS The original King Kong does gloss over how they actually got Kong on the boat.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

It finally arrived from amazon. I did spot a copy in Forbidden Planet though.

[landvaettir.livejournal.com]

My Amazon copy took ages as well, so I cancelled it. I got it for Christmas. :)

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Checking my email, I appear to have ordered mine in late September - so three months! I ordered Ministry of Space at the same time - that only took a lightning fast two months.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, getting him on the boat isn't really so much of the problem as dealing with him waking up on the boat.

[ex-froodtheh193.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming watchmen had a reprint recently, it's everywhere a most excellent book

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

At the age of 20 I thought Rorschach was the true hero of Watchmen. Now, at 30, I have a niggling suspicion it's actually Ozymandias. Blimey, I'll be voting Tory next...

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

I'm tending towards thinking they were all evil and screwed up, even the people who tried to stop them. "Everyone is wrong" is a handy attitude in life, as it avoids having to choose sides.

[landvaettir.livejournal.com]

I don't think that Dan or Laurie could be classed as particularly evil. They were legal 'masks' who quit when it became illegal. Laurie didn't become a vigilante during the book - there was a rescue, a self-defense, and then she went off with Jon. Dan did rescue, self-defense, then hacked into someone's computer, which is not precisely evil. Then he thought Ozymandius was trying to end the world, and tried to stop him.
Probably not evil.
Of course, then we reach the problem of what defines evil - which is at the heart of Watchmen. What was Adrian Veidt's greatest crime? Millions of instant deaths? Madness for thousands more? Giving hundreds cancer? Making Jon believe he'd given them all cancer? He did it all to save the world, after all... and it worked. Perhaps Veidt's real sin is hubris. Jon left for Mars, he says, because Laurie left him - Veidt had no control over that. Even now, Rorschach's journal exposes the story, should it be found. Veidt was lucky. Brilliant, but his plan depended and still depends on luck.

Rorschach - did he finally compromise? He must have known he wouldn't be allowed to leave with the attitude he took. Perhaps he knew he couldn't live with keeping the secret, so he chose not to. As I recall - I don't have the book to hand - he's the only one who cries for all the dead and mad and injured.

[darkstream.livejournal.com]

speaking as someone who quotes Watchmen's Rorschach on his LJ user info page, Watchmen = Yay.
PJs King Kong also = Yay.
Superman Trailer though...me no likey.

(http://www.livejournal.com/users/darkstream/193983.html?nc=11)

KING KONG

[spindr.livejournal.com]

You know my feelings about the film, but I have two more words to add:
SKATING MONKEY??!

*shakes head in disbelief*

Re: KING KONG

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Ah, that explains it - a SKATING ANTI-GRAVITY MONKEY, who therefore also doesn't leave craters.

Deprived upbringing

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

It took you this long to get to Watchmen?

It was my first contact with Alan Moore: I've never been quite the same since.

Re: Deprived upbringing

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Shocking, isn't it? As you can see from my LJ over the last few months I have been catching up on stuff.

Re: Deprived upbringing

[marvo.livejournal.com]

I was there when Watchmen first came out as a mini-seris comice.

There was a whole YEAR between issue 11 and the last issue 12!

That was one hell of a wait.

Re-read it so many times now.

Worth reading the text chapters too.

Have you got around to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen yet?

By the way.

Hello

I'm Crys (Marvo)

May I join you? :)

Re: Deprived upbringing

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Hi. Yeah - I liked the mix of prose and artwork. :)

If you like. Um, I'm Abi. As you may have guessed.

Re: Deprived upbringing

[marvo.livejournal.com]

Thanks Abi.