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Hurm. Artistic allusions to Veidt = Nazi don't prove that he is.

>.>

it was tying it into the rape-revenge stories and making light of a verys erious sub-genre that kind of offended me.

Thank you for that.


Cool enough. Not even my wife agrees with me all the time (SECRET: She's right more than me...shhh... don't tell her I said that).



Two points where I think racism enters the picture here. And please, understand, I don't think Goode is being Racist. I don't think Zack is being racist. I don't think that Moore or Gibbons are racist by any stretch of the imagination. But the collective result will be stereotypical racism. Let me explain.

1. You are a German citizen. You sit in a Frankfurt movie house enjoying Watchmen and then, at the end, the bad guy, after killing millions of people, starts monologuing in a German accent. What is your reaction? I'd be thinking "no... they did NOT just go there? There's no reason for this shit. I had nothing to do with Hitler and I've got to hear this shit for the rest of my life?"

2. Yes, Veidt is a German name. And we have it told to us (by Veidt, an undependable source to be sure) that his parents came to this country in 1939. Why the hell do you think two Germans would leave Germany in 1939 and come to America?

And now, we're going to call them Nazis? No, Veidt's parents are supposed to be painted as good people. People who ESCAPED Nazi Germany. We're supposed to think this for a number of very good reasons.

One of those reasons is that when we see Veidt chewing a piece of grass while enjoying a beautiful day... leaning against his mother's fresh grave... we see that he doesn't give a shit... and if he doesn't give a shit about her, he certainly doesn't care about the Bernies or Joey and Aline or the Longs or anyone else at ground zero.

So we know what he is.

A German accent tells us we're wrong. It tells us that Veidt respected his Nazi parents' ideas and that he likely loved them and took on their wrongful thinking and that this is the reason for it. Very wrongheaded.

Whereas, in the novel, all of the ideas comparing Veidt to Hitler are in the subtext. The idea that one person has the right to destroy millions to make the world fit his ideal is evil. No matter his ideal. But once we hear a German accent, it comes up out of the subtext and becomes a plot point.

And comes off as stereotypical and racist and unimaginative and wrong.

Because Veidt is not a Nazi any more than Jon prefers red ants.

And in a movie, if something isn't an issue, we don't put it in the movie. That it's there informs the audience that Veidt is not necessarily a psychopath, but possibly a Nazi.

This destroys his character and furthers the stereotype that German accent = Villain.

And a theatre full of German teens in Frankfurt going "What the fuck?"

No one's trying to be racist, I understand.

But does that change the result?

Doesn't he try to bring world peace though?

Oh, fuck, that's opening a can of worms.

Weird how after 20 years of reading it, there are considerations I am just discovering now.

Doesn't he try to bring world peace though?

i dont know though the end sort of does justify the means (the world was clearly heading to nuclear armageddon)...

thats the reason why the everyone keeps quiet, the reason that the comedian didnt spill the beans and the reason that the climax works so well

i think the reason adrian did it is much more complex however IMO more than anything else he saw it as an intellectual excercize, the comedian presented him with a challenge in the map burning scene and the vain narcassistic veidt had no choice but to accept. in doing what he does he becomes the real villan of the story yet at the sametime undoutably improving the global political situation this disgusts the comedian when he finds out about the plan but he is bound by his own high intelligence to realise that this might actually be the only hope the world has left (despite being a morally wrong choice) and leave the situation be

in a utilitarianism however where a decisions morality rests soleley on its utility and in destroying NY the greatest number of people were made happy (ie; not dead)

the thing that truly makes veidt a monster is that he doesent care about the consequences of his plan in fact just the opposite he is ecstatic when he sees that it has come to fruition. whereas all the others in the know make a moral choice not to tell anyone for the greater good he doesent seem to even see that as a decision ,
as if theri deaths didnt matter in the slightest...


thats just what i think

Frankly, world peace is the last thing we want. We just need a more mature way than war to work out our conflicts.

it was tying it into the rape-revenge stories and making light of a verys erious sub-genre that kind of offended me.

But he does relive every one of their deaths,

...and then at night he dreams he is swimming towards... well it's not important.

I myself don't find Veidt to be a criminal. Morality is subjective, and most times morality is nothing more than the will of the wealthiest people in a culture.

He didn't say it wasn't important. He said it wasn't "significant." An altogether different choice of vocabulary especially when you consider his audience. And, yes, I love this reference to the Freighter. Wonderful touch.

Of course he doesn't. That's just something he says. How do you make yourself feel every one of 3 million deaths? You don't know them or their families or what you have taken... from 3 million people. No way to know. No way to feel those deaths. That he says this is proof that he is a lying hunk of shit.

it was tying it into the rape-revenge stories and making light of a verys erious sub-genre that kind of offended me.

But if you're Matthew Goode, you'll feel the deaths of 15 million.

Or maybe, the way human beings treat each other does matter. Maybe it is objectively wrong for us to lie to each other, hiding the details of reality, making existence harder to understand... maybe it is objectively wrong for us to murder each other, actually taking life in order to satisfy whim, greed, or wrath.

Of course he doesn't. That's just something he says. How do you make yourself feel every one of 3 million deaths? You don't know them or their families or what you have taken... from 3 million people. No way to know. No way to feel those deaths. That he says this is proof that he is a lying hunk of shit.

He didn't say it wasn't important. He said it wasn't "significant." An altogether different choice of vocabulary especially when you consider his audience.

And maybe it's objectively right to take lives in order to save the rest of humanity.

Maybe it's objectively right to hide the details of reality when the alternative is the obliteration of mankind.

...but Veidt doesn't go in for that kind of reasoning, and has instead decided to go the extra mile by making it his life's work to imagine endless faces to the point of suffering through chronic nightmares.

He's just that good a man.