Sunday, February 1, 2009
Hello. Today was an awesome day. I was in an exceptionally good mood for some reason. Probably because I'm a free person now. Freedom. It's a good thing. I also found out the true meaning of the phrase "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". More on that later.I'm going to do something fun today. The topic of the day is [drum roll please] :
By now, you could be thinking one of two things. "Watchmen? Awesome!!" or "What the hell is a Watchman?" Before I proceed, let me make one thing clear. Watchmen is one of the most celebrated graphic novels of all times. So the movie is a pretty big deal.
The movie will open internationally on the 6th of March 2009. It will no doubt be a great movie, but only to those who have actually read the graphic novel. If you haven't, this movie is just going to be two hours of confusion for you.
Knowing the way Singaporeans are about these kind of things, I'll just take it that most of you reading this have no clue what Watchmen is about. So what I'm about to do right now, is a quick summary of the events that take place in the movie. Hopefully this will help reduce your confusion while you watch it.
Of course, for any story to play out, there has to be characters. I know that Watchmen may seem like another superhero film, but the actual fact is that all but one of the character don't actually have superpowers.
With the exception of Dr.Manhattan, every other characters are just human beings, but they have unique traits, like being the smartest man alive, or being exceptionally agile and skilled in fighting. Here's a brief introduction to each of the main characters:
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RORSCHACH
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This guy is pure badass. Rorschach is definitely my favourite character of the Watchmen, despite the fact that he is one of the more hated and feared vigilantes in the Watchmen universe. Rorschach wears a white mask that contains constantly shifting ink blots, and he continues to fight crime in spite of his outlaw status.
He is a brawler, preferring to use brutal but slow moves during fights. He is able to use anything he can get his hands on as a weapon. Rorschach is a loose cannon with an unstable mind, and over the years, these traits have turned him from a "soft" costumed hero to a cold killer. Rorschach views the world as a set of black-and-white values that take many shapes but never mix into shades of gray, similar to the ink blot tests of his namesake.
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THE COMEDIAN
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Probably within the first five minutes or so of the movie, you will witness the murder of The Comedian. Later on, you will find out that The Comedian isn't exactly what most would call a "hero".
The Comedian is a man in his late forties, but he has been able to maintain his large build. The Comedian is one of the few remaining costumed heroes working legally for the government. He was involved with the Vietnam war, in which he was responsible for much of the senseless killing.
The Comedian views everything with a sadistic humour, even life and death. Not only will he kill someone without hesitation, he also enjoys it. He is known to the world as a hero, but many speculate that he actually uses the term "hero" as a cover, so that he can satisfy his urge for killing without getting on the wrong side of the law.
However, while The Comedian may be ruthless, cynical, and nihilistic, he is capable of deeper insights than the others into the role of the costumed hero.
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NITE OWL
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Think of Nite Owl as the Watchmen universe's version of Batman. Like Batman, Nite Owl has no powers, but he has a large array of high tech weapons and gadgetry. He is a detective kind of hero, preferring to keep a low profile to his activities, and he always tries to take the path that requires the least violence. Unlike most other characters of the Watchmen universe, Nite Owl has never killed another human being.
Nite Owl used to team up with Rorschach, when Rorschach was still mentally stable, and the duo would travel around in a oval shaped aircraft called the Owl Ship. The aircraft is affectionately called Archie by Nite Owl, and it is equip ed with state of the art technology, like an anti radar coating and heat seeking missiles.
Nite Owl retired after superheroes got banned, but during the events of the movie, he is approached by Rorschach, who thinks that they should be a team again. While Nite Owl first declines the offer, he soon realises that he misses being a vigilante, and he dons the costume once again.
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SILK SPECTRE
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The only female among the main characters of Watchmen, Silk Spectre can be seen as the one who adds emotion to the dull Watchmen universe. She doesn't want to be a hero, but she is forced by her mother, the original Silk Spectre, to continue the legacy. It is due to this that she has a strained relationship with her mother.
Silk Spectre is originally the girlfriend of Doctor Manhattan, but she later leaves him and stays with Nite Owl. Both of them eventually get back into the hero business, and after knowing each other for a while, they become a couple. Silk Spectre is the reason why Nite Owl found a reason to live again.
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DR. MANHATTAN
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Dr. Manhattan is the only character in the Watchmen universe that has actual super powers. Due to an experiment gone horribly wrong, Dr. Manhattan's human body was split to individual atoms. While most thought of him to be dead, his conscious lived on. Through the strenght of his will alone, Dr. Manhattan was able to fully reconstruct his body.
Dr. Manhattan is the one being that maintains the balance of the Earth, and only he can prevent the destruction of the galaxy, but due to the god like nature of his powers, he finds it hard to associate himself with simple human affairs, and he becomes increasingly distant to the human race.
Dr. Manhattan's powers include future sight, teleportation of himself and others, changing the size of his body at will, having multiple clones of himself, extremely high level of intelligence, limitless strength, immortality and the ability to manipulate the world with a single thought.
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OZYMANDIAS
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Ozymandias is a retired hero who has made his identity public to the world. He is famous for his perfect physique, and he is more of a celebrity than a hero. He is considered one of the smartest men alive. He is seen is the villain of the series, despite the fact that he is not actually doing anything wrong. His biggest sin is probably the fact that he looks down on the rest of humanity, refusing to regard everyone else as his equal.
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PLOT
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Now that you know a bit about the main characters, I can carry on to explaining the plot. The story starts in 1985. The Comedian is murdered, and Rorschach believes he has discovered a plot to eliminate costumed adventurers and sets about warning four of his retired comrades, Nite Owl, Silk Spectre, Dr. Manhattan, Ozymandias.
After Blake's funeral, Doctor Manhattan is accused on national television of causing cancer in friends and former colleagues. When the U.S. government takes the accusations seriously, Manhattan exiles himself to Mars. In doing so he throws humanity into political turmoil, with the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan to capitalize on the perceived American weakness.
Rorschach's paranoid beliefs appear vindicated when Ozymandias narrowly survives an assassination attempt, and Rorschach himself is framed for murder and arrested. Silk Spectre stays with Nite Owl and they grow closer together. The pair take it upon themselves to free him from prison. Dr. Manhattan, after analyzing his own personal history, places the fate of his involvement with human affairs in Silk Spectre's hands.
Nite Owl and Rorschach discover evidence that Ozymandias may be behind the plan. The pair then confront him at his Antarctic retreat. Ozymandias explains his underlying plan is to save humanity from impending nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union by faking an alien invasion in New York City, which he hopes will unite the nations against a perceived common enemy.
He also reveals that he had killed The Comedian, arranged for Dr. Manhattan's past associates to contract cancer, and staged the attempt on his own life in order to place himself above suspicion. Finding his logic callous and abhorrent, Nite Owl and Rorschach attempt to stop him but discover that Ozymandias has already enacted his plan.
I'm not going to spoil the ending for you. You either have to read the comic or watch the movie to find out for yourself. While the series ends well, the ending is really confusing, and it took me three read throughs to finally understand fully what was happening.
Anyways, remember to watch the movie when it is out in March. I have a feeling that it's going to be rated M18, because there is violence, there is a sex scene between Silk Spectre and Nite Owl [dunno if that's going to be in the movie, but it is in the comic], and Dr. Manhattan walks around fully naked [I mean it. You can see everything].
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Today we went to play basketball at some condominium. The court was really small, but we still played anyways. Say Yin's uncle and Ethel's uncle all lived there, so their cousins joined us for several matches too.
Say Yin's younger cousin Shawn was really funny. He was raping Yan Ming half the time. Two of Ethel's cousins were really good at basketball, and Ethel herself was super accurate today. After a while a bunch of kids came in to share the court. That would be fine. If they used one ball. Instead, almost everyone of them had their own individual ball.
So everything turned pretty chaotic pretty rapidly. Balls were flying everywhere. We got hit, they got hit, everyone ****ing got hit. So of course, people will get pissed. We came to an agreement with the kids that we would take turns playing in the court. 15 minutes per match.
This agreement was alright, but it was short lived. After a while one of the kids mother came into the court and accused us of bullying the kids. She told us that we had to share the court with the kids, but she was like trying to chase us out at the same time.
So Ethel went and threw more complicated words into the argument, and the mother got overwhelmed, so she had to call her husband down. This guy was freakin rude. He was like "You're not a resident here? Then I don't give a damn about you! Get lost!" What a douche.
Anyways, you play with fire, you're going to get burned. Ethel and her cousin argued with him, and he was only intelligent enough to repeat the same statement again and again. I was standing far away and being quite, but I was honestly ready to hit the guy.
In the end the parents started to attack Raffles Junior College because Ethel's cousin, who is an EX-RJC student, was wearing the school shirt. At this point Ethel was like "Aiya, shut the **** up la". That was cool. Moment of the day.
We left after that, but while we were on the bus we saw Ethel and her cousin standing there with their fathers and uncles, and they were arguing with the other parents. If you want to know what happened then, you'll have to head over to Ethel's blog to find out.
One the way back to AMK Hub, we saw something retarded. Basically there was this Chinese New Year celebration in some neighbourhood, and people of all races were invited. To further promote the spirit of racial harmony, four balloon people were placed there, one to represent each race.
That's a great idea. Only problem is, the balloon that represents the Indian is like jet black in colour. Oh wow. Great way to promote racial harmony people. It's a freakin miracle you didn't start a racial riot. And who the hell actually allowed such a thing to happen? It isn't even politically correct.
Here are all the photos I took from today:
Ethel if you want the pictures you can get them from here. Or you could ask me to send you over MSN. Up to you :D Ok, I'm done for today. Ending off, see you tomorrow.
posted @ 11:40 PM
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