Who is watching the Watchmen?

1
Who is watching the Watchmen?

• Contemporary film in the English classroom

2
Focus areas

• The importance of relevance when teaching film
• Engaging the students
• Using contemporary films at Junior, Middle School
  and Senior level
• The bigger picture stepping beyond the text
• Making a film unit a success for external
  assessment standards

3
Why these films?

• All three of these films are very recent releases
• All three are box office and critical successes
  they are quality AND quantity!
• The use of film technique can be easily
  identified and discussed
• Each are multi-layered in terms of meaning
  there is a lot more than meets the eye
• Two of these texts are based on graphic novels
  and comic books this means shots are carefully
  crafted and visual elements are prominent
• The other is animated the ultimate in terms of
  control of the visual image

4
The benefits for students

• These are the films they watch by learning to
  deconstruct and analyse them, students will
  become more informed, thoughtful and educated
  viewers.
• Their vivid and striking visuals, clear use of
  sound and music, pop-culture references and
  accessible (and important) themes presented via
  these techniques mean that they are readily
  recalled when responding in examination
  situations.

5
Film 1 Watchmen

• Some background This film, directed by Zack
  Snyder (Dawn of the Dead, 300), is set in an
  alternate 1985 America, where Nixon is still
  President, America has won the Vietnam War, and
  costumed superheroes fight crime out in the
  open. It is based on the graphic novel by Alan
  Moore and Dave Gibbons (which is often regarded
  as one of the finest ever written). This leads to
  one of the most interesting questions that this
  film asks its audience to consider so if there
  are superheroes, what would real life be like
  with them in it? More importantly, what would
  they be like?

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Superheroes in Real Life

• The introductory sequences in the film examine
  the fates of the original Minutemen. Shot in a
  jerky, old fashioned style these characters
  seem almost comic and ridiculous. However, such
  a concept in reality IS ridiculous and this film
  makes the audience consider this prospect. The
  fate of the original Minutemen is anything but
  ridiculous they become victims of
  violent crime, alcoholics and mentally
  unstable. What happens to the second
  incarnation?

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The answer to this question is

• One of the many issues at the heart of the
  film!! While the term superhero is used, none
  in fact possess any super powers, bar one. The
  film begins with the murder of one of them, we
  discover that they have in fact been outlawed by
  an act of government, they have been driven into
  hiding, and Cold War tensions are escalating. As
  the murder is investigated, a vast conspiracy is
  uncovered which will change history and unite the
  USA and the Soviet Union against a common threat

8
The Characters

• The Comedian aka Edward Blake
• (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan)
• One of the original Minutemen, it is his murder
  that triggers events in the film. The Comedian
  is commissioned by the US government to act as a
  covert operative, and is shown throughout the
  film to be directly involved in a number of
  significant historical events (including the
  Kennedy assassination). The name Comedian is
  ironic, as this character is one of the most
  brutal and violent in the film.

9
Silk Spectre II aka Laurie Juspeczyk(played by
Malin Akerman)

• The only woman in the second incarnation of the
  Minutemen, Silk Spectre is the daughter of the
  first of that name, and as such was under immense
  pressure to take over from her mother. She is
  initially the partner of Dr Manhattan, but as
  he drifts further from any involvement with
  humanity, she turns to Nite Owl. She is a
  powerful and physical fighter but struggles
  with her place amongst the Minutemen,
  particularly when she finds out who her father
  really was.

10
Rorschach aka Walter Kovacs(played by Jackie
Earle Haley)

• Is the most overt vigilante of the group, and
  has operated illegally since costumed
  crimefighters were outlawed. His moral view is
  absolute he literally and figuratively sees the
  world in black and white due in part to his mask,
  which is modelled on the psychological Rorschach
  tests using ink blots to test spontaneous
  emotional responses. Rorschach single-mindedly
  pursues the murderer of the Comedian, and unlike
  the others, is unable to reconcile the final
  choice made by the other Minutemen.

11
Nite Owl II aka Daniel Dreiberg(played by
Patrick Wilson)

• Is very much the Batman character of the
  group a technological wizard whose
  superpowers are very much as a result of his
  gadgets and devices. Nite Owl has been adrift
  since costumed crimefighters were outlawed,
  and as such is overweight, out of shape, and can
  be compared to a soldier returning from war who
  struggles to find his place in society. However,
  Nite Owl and Silk Spectre are the two Minutemen
  most capable of interacting and connecting with
  humanity and as such are the only two with any
  prospect of a happy ending.

12
Ozymandias aka Adrian Veidt(played by Matthew
Goode)

• The clue to this characters true nature is in
  the name. He is a retired superhero who has
  since made his identity public, and has built a
  huge financial empire. Other than Dr Manhattan,
  this character is probably closest to being a
  genuine superhero he has relentlessly
  trained and educated himself to become the
  perfect ageless Aryan superman. Like Dr
  Manhattan, his abilities and wealth have
  isolated him from society and he proves himself
  to be capable of acting with shocking detachment.

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Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

• I met a traveller from an antique landWho said
  "Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in
  the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,Half
  sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And
  wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell
  that its sculptor well those passions readWhich
  yet survive, stamped on these lifeless
  things,The hand that mocked them, and the heart
  that fedAnd on the pedestal these words
  appear'My name is Ozymandias, king of
  kingsLook on my works, ye Mighty, and
  despair!'Nothing beside remains. Round the
  decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and
  bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away."

14
Dr Manhattan aka Dr Jon Osterman(played by Billy
Crudup)

• The only Minuteman with genuine, almost god-like
  superpowers, Dr Manhattan is transformed by an
  atomic accident to become an otherworldly,
  glowing-blue, perfect-being. His powers
  completely distance him from humanity he is no
  longer able to connect with human experiences and
  emotions, and eventually has to make a terrible
  choice. He has to take responsibility for an
  atrocity, kill the Minuteman who threatens to
  reveal all, and leave Earth forever so that
  humanity can forget their conflicts and
  unite against a common enemy him.

15
Film 2 The Dark Knight

• Some background This film, the second in
  Christopher Nolans Dark Knight series, is one of
  only four films in history to gross over 1
  billion dollars. Its massive critical and
  commercial success can in part be attributed to
  Heath Ledgers Oscar-winning portrayal of the
  Joker, and his death just as the film was being
  released and promoted. This film is the second
  to feature DC comics arch villain the Joker, and
  as with the first (Tim Burtons 1990 version
  starring Jack Nicholson) there is little doubt as
  to which character is really the star of this
  show!

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Focus points and Key Questions

• The notion of duality both external and
  internal. This is shown in the film through
  alter egos, characters playing both sides, and
  most overtly, the characters of Bruce Wayne /
  Batman, and Harvey Two-Face Dent.
• How far is too far in the pursuit of justice?
  When does a vigilante cross the line? What
  happens to those who travel too close to this
  line?
• Good and evil which is which? When does right
  become wrong?
• Faces and masks what do they reveal? What do
  they hide?
• Choices the paths we choose. Just how much
  choice do we really have?

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The Joker played by Heath Ledger

• Some men just want to watch the world burn
• It is no accident that we meet this character
  first. The introductory sequence to the film
  introduces the audience to the Joker his
  amorality, willingness to turn on supposed
  comrades, casual violence, and complete disregard
  for everything, is only the beginning in terms
  of this character. Throughout the film the Joker
  remains an enigma there are no clues to his
  identity at all. He is a genuine threat to all
  characters in the film in that he has absolutely
  no principles or boundaries so what kind of
  character can stop something like this?

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Batman / Bruce Wayne played by Christian Bale

• The Joker cannot win People deserve more than
  the truth, they deserve to have their faith
  restored.
• Bruce Wayne very quickly realises that the Joker
  is something different, and that it will take
  everything in his considerable arsenal to defeat
  him. However, in his single-minded pursuit of
  the Joker and his mob associates, questions are
  asked by those closest to Wayne about what he is
  prepared to do particularly his willingness to
  utilise surveillance technology to monitor all of
  Gothams citizens via their cellphones. Combine
  this with brutal interrogation techniques that
  include dropping gang bosses off buildings and
  the line between right and wrong becomes very
  blurry. The cellphone technology is particularly
  interesting it is a modified sonar device
  just like a bat would use and the scene where
  Batman sits in front of hundreds of screens
  watching the sound signals is one of the films
  most striking images.

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Harvey Dent / Two Face played by Aaron Eckhart

• Heads you get to keep your head, tails
  not so lucky
• Harvey Dent is described as Gotham Citys
  white knight, setting him as a counterpoint to
  its dark one. As Gotham Citys District
  Attorney, Harvey Dent has built a reputation
  based on a strong stance against organised crime,
  but the audience soon sees what it takes in a
  setting like this one to accomplish what he does.
  In interrogation scenes Dent gives his targets a
  choice and appears to leave things to chance
  heads or tails, but this is revealed to be
  two-faced indeed the coin is double headed and
  nothing has been left to chance. There are
  definite similarities between Dent and Wayne but
  the two soon take very different paths after the
  death of Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

20
Masks and Duality

• To them, youre just a freak like me
• An obvious symbol of the dual identities in the
  film, all the principal characters are masked in
  some fashion, whether it is the putting on of a
  mask like Bruce Wayne s Batman mask, or the
  removal of a mask as with Harvey Dent post
  transformation. The Jokers mask the
  grotesque make-up and disfiguring scars, is a
  direct reflection of the mind and nature within
  as demented within as without.

21
Choice

• You thought we could be decent men in an
  indecent time. The only morality is chance.
• The Joker sets up the most pivotal choice in the
  film Rachel and Harvey Dent are both wired to
  explosives and oil drums, and there is only
  enough time to save one. Batman races after
  Rachel, only to find that with so many of the
  choices in the film there was never a choice at
  all, just an illusion of choice and Rachel was
  always going to die. Dent is transformed by this
  both physically and mentally half of his face
  is hideously scarred and along with the skin, any
  remaining principles and morals are burned away
  to reveal the monster within.

22
Where does this end?

• You either die a hero, or live long enough to
  see yourself become a villain. Im whatever
  Gotham needs me to be.
• On a cautious note of hope Gothams citizens
  refuse to participate in the Jokers social
  experiment, and the Joker is captured. However,
  Harvey Dent is dead and Batman is on the run as a
  fugitive from the law in order to protect Dents
  reputation his choice, as it is the only right
  one that can be made.

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Film 3 WallE

• Some background Directed by Andrew Stanton
  (Finding Nemo), this is much more than just a
  animated family film. The animation, from Pixar
  Studios, is of the highest quality and the ideas
  and themes are highly relevant and are more akin
  to complex science-fiction texts. Of note is the
  central character himself a combination of
  binoculars, tank-treads, pincer arms and a
  battered cube body that somehow add up to create
  one of the most adorable characters in films.

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Focus Areas for this film

• The skill of the animators their ability to
  create characters out of inanimate objects that
  an audience cant help but empathise with. What
  specific elements are used by the animators to do
  this? How can an audience come to love these
  artificial creations?
• Its relevance as a science-fiction text. How key
  themes of classic science fiction are explored
  the perils of reliance on technology, the danger
  posed by massive corporations (in this film the
  fictional Buy N Large company has taken over
  the planet), overconsumption, environmental
  destruction at the hands of humanity the list
  goes on!

25
The Set Up

• This film, set 700 years in the future, opens on
  a post-trash-apocalypse cityscape, filled with
  rubbish skyscrapers, accompanied by a deeply
  ironic soundtrack from Hello Dolly about the
  wonderful world out there. Over-consumption by
  humanity has meant that the Earth has been
  rendered uninhabitable, and what is left of the
  human race has had to flee into space. The only
  living inhabitant is our titular Waste
  Allocation Load Lifter Earth-class (or WallE)
  and his only companion a pet cockroach.

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WallE the character

• WallE is a character of genius, as pure and
  wondrous an example of the possibilities of
  animation as you will ever see. (Empire
  Magazine, October 2008)
• So what makes such unpromising material such a
  genuine and human character?
• Its in the eyes, the movements, the gestures,
  the sounds, the accompanying music they all
  combine somehow to create magic. Centuries of
  cleaning up humanitys mess have meant that
  WallE has taken on human characteristics and has
  become fascinated by life as it was. What he
  wants the most, is what he sees on his favourite
  video-tape companionship, love, or simply,
  someone to hold his hand.

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WallE, meet EVE

• EVE, sent from space by humanity, searches the
  Earth for any evidence of life, and WallE is
  instantly smitten. His efforts to impress are
  pure slapstick comedy, and as he helps and
  protects her, he wins her over. On discovering
  plant life, EVE is whisked into space, closely
  followed by WallE to connect with humanity
  living on the spaceship Axiom. This is
  where the film serves up, as does all great
  science fiction, quite a warning

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• Not content with simply destroying the planet,
  humanity has brought itself to the edge of ruin
  due to a complete and utter reliance on a
  servant-class of robots to meet their every need,
  including hover-chairs that negate even moving.
  This, combined with the microgravity of space,
  has turned the human race into giant, swollen,
  apathetic, toddler-like beings. It takes
  WallEs intervention, indeed, his humanity
  injected in this sterile world to get humanity to
  change.

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Can the human race save itself?

• Thanks to the efforts of WallE, EVE, and a host
  of robot accomplices, humanity eventually
  uncovers a conspiracy, takes responsibility for
  its actions, overcomes a sinister Autopilot (one
  of the many 2001 A Space Odyssey references in
  the film), and returns to Earth to make things
  right. WallE and EVE finally make it
  together, but not before WallE almost
  sacrifices himself, has to be hastily repaired by
  EVE, and the audience fears his memory is lost
  for good. Do not ignore the credit sequence it
  is most definitely a message of hope for the
  human race in this film.

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Sources

• This presentation would like to thank
• Imdb the internet movie data base
• Google Images
• Empire magazine and website
• The official Watchmen website
• Wikipedia
• and repeated viewings of these films I get
  something new every time I watch them