Random Watchmen observation

[dvandom]

I was amused to notice in the movie that the "spark plugs" didn't show up until the denounment, as part of Veidt's rebuilding of NYC. And, thinking about it, I realized that it was part of a pattern. A lot of the Dr. Manhattan by-blow tech that had significantly changed the world of the 1980s in Watchmen was either absent, or its origins were obscured (i.e. Rorschach's mask was never explicitly established in the movie to be Manhattan-tech as it was in the comic). In fact, the only piece of trickle-down tech I can recall in the movie was the four-legged chicken mentioned in the crowd noise of a restaurant scene. Hollis Mason's "obsolete models a specialty" sign is still there, but the reason why he has to specialize in that has been removed...in fact, the Iacocca scene explicates that electric cars aren't in play yet, period.

Otherwise, all the superhero tech stuff is pretty much Marvelized...confined to use by superheroes and maybe the government. Not even the funky crackpipe cigarettes made it in (although smoking in general was excised save for Comedian's cigar, making the whole accidental flamethrower scene cast Laurie as a total ditz). Heck, even Veidt still uses an early-gen Mac with 3.5" floppies.

Anyway, here's my point. Scaring the world into peace was only step one of Veidt's plan. He's been hoarding up Manhattan-based technological leaps and unleashes a whole passel of them in the wake of the big explosions, in order to usher in an era of plenty in which war will be (he thinks) unnecessary. Sure, as the aforementioned Iacocca scene made clear, there was certainly resistance to many of those innovations, resistance which has been conveniently shot in the head or blown to bits now, but Veidt also pointed out in that scene that he could have gone ahead and pushed his stuff through anyway.

So, in the movie version, most of the things humanity could have benefited from as a result of Dr. Manhattan's existence were deliberately held back by Veidt until he felt the time was right. And that time was "right after scaring the crap out of humanity". Probably because just feeding tech into the existing social framework was a case of giving a monkey more rocks to throw, and he figured that the breathing space granted by the fake "wrath of god" events would let society absorb the new tech and be changed by it, rather than simply using it to shoot at each other more. Idealistic, sure, but not totally foolish.

And rather more subtle than I'd expected from Snyder. ;)

Comments

[chadu.livejournal.com]

I thought there was a scene showing a sparkplug as Seymour is dropping off New Frontiersmen at Bernard's newsstand. The one shot we get of Bernie and Bernard before the later scene where we see NYC -- and them -- go boom.

[z4nd4r.livejournal.com]

Honestly I had forgotten WHY she ignited the flamethrower in the comic and while I could see the international symbol for "FIRE" on that button I could see her just trying it to see if it worked...

[scavgraphics.livejournal.com]

Laurie's cigarette thing was excised by command of the President (or other big wig) at WB. As I mentioned in my musings, the smile she gives before pressing it, I'm handwaving as something she wasn't allowed to touch in her teenage days.

I think it was less of Veidt stockpiling as it was as the breakthrough wasn't there yet. That's what Jon and him were working on throughout the film. Once the breaktrough happened, he launched operation missing squid and then rolled the tech out. (I had the same revelation as you when I was trying to figure out why he added a scene of Lee Iacocca being shot..unless he just really hates Iacocca.)