"Watchmen" is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the "Doomsday Clock" - which charts the USA's tension with the Soviet Union - is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion - a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers - Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity... but who is watching the Watchmen?" - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/synopsis
Watchmen is a movie which deals with certain human elements which are linked to mans inability to come out of conflict, without superhuman intervention. Unlike many sci-fi movies which are set in dystopian futures, Watchmen is placed in a parallel timeline, where society is much dysfunctional as ours. Of course in this time line certain key events are seen to have happened otherwise. Most notable of these is Nixon who was removed from presidency after the Watergate scandal is still the president in the US, and the Cold war is still in full swing.
Vigilante operatives were made illegal, leaving only Dr. Manhattan (a US version of a walking Nuclear arsenal) and Rorschach (an idealist) who refuses to bow to the rules. For me, Rorschach idealises something of humanity. Scarred yet unbowed and a thirst for truth, which lies at his core. He lays down his life for truth, while many of his colleagues (super heroes like himself) accept the rational of "ends justifying the means"...
"Whats one more body among the foundations of utopia" are one of the last things said by Rorschach before being killed.
In bringing peace to the world in the way depicted in the movie one of the protagonists utter "you havent idealised mankind, you've deformed it, mutilated it"....
Certainly a film worth watching and understanding...
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