My Watchmen experience has come to a close, and what now? I don’t want to reveal the plot or the ending or anything, so it makes it a bit hard to really talk about. Number one: I recommend it. It’s a quick read, and just so you can gauge for yourself, it took me about 7-10 hours to complete it and I’m a slow reader. The protagonists are engaging, and, just like everyone else I’m sure, my favorite character is Rorschach.

Rorschach is popular because he’s one of the three really developed characters. Nite Owl is realistic in that he’s an aged masked-vigilante, and having a bit of a mid-life crisis. And then there’s the chick - I guess that really speaks to how great I thought she was, eh? But Rorschach is a man of action, and while we can sympathize with Nite Owl and his problems on a more human level, we want to root for the hero who can (or tries to) get things done! The other characters don’t really seem that involved or important.

One thing I really love about the setting, is the “norm” is there are no heroes with super-powers save for Dr. Manhattan, who, funny enough, suffered a super-science accident to get his powers. The heroes are simply people with their own agendas and problems. Again, I don’t want to reveal anything, you’ll just have to see what’s under the hood (hah!) for these folks.

I’ve got a major gripe about a part of the book’s presentation though. At the end of each chapter, there’s a bit of extra “world-building” thrown in. It could be an excerpt of a character’s autobiography, a news clipping, or a journal. I tried reading them, but these sections seemed to get in the way. After the first couple of these, I outright skipped them. Honestly,  I skimmed a couple of them, and if a phrase looked interested, I looked a little harder, but for the most part, it was boring. I imagine there were complicated back-stories for all the characters, and, rather than fully developing them for a graphic format, the authors went for the “brick of text” approach. Yawn.

In contrast, I would, however, love to see the adventures the characters allude to in their eariler days. I guess that’s what I love about The Venture Bros.. Much of its meaningful story-telling narrative is in flashback. Some are put-off by this, and I can understand completely, but what I believe they’re missing is the presentation is internally consistent: moving pictures, action, and dialogue. Watchmen is not consistent in this regard, and the curve-ball is not appreciated.

The story as a whole is quite good, the plot is well-laid out, and the ending has a nice twist if a little… odd.

Milhouse: When are they gonna get to the fireworks factory?

The Watchmen movie is supposed to be coming in 2009, so I picked up a copy of the graphic novel and have started into it. I’m not too far into the story, but it is very well done. When I first started it, I thought it was good, but I’d seen better: Fables came immediately to mind.

Bobby: if doc manhattin isnt nude in the movie im boycotting it
Bobby: >: |
Bobby: ill have a little sign
Steneub: like a no smoking sign, with a penis instead of a cigarette, INSIDE of a similar symbol - to show you’re against the banning of penises

Of course he’s kidding, but Dr. Manhattan is a blue energy man and he walks around naked (That’s not a spoiler - this happens in the first couple issues), and well, you see cock and balls. It’s not gratuitous and it’s makes perfect sense to see block and tackle there; one is simply used to censorship or to have it obscured or just out of frame.

I know pretty much nothing about Watchmen other than what I’ve read so far. It’s very good, and I want to see where it goes. I’ll probably have a 23 year-old late review posted when I’m done!

I am not a huge Star Wars fanatic, and as such, I don’t really know or care about all the minutiae of the politics and timelines. I’ve only briefly encountered the “ABY/BBY” way of keeping track of time in the Star Wars universe, but it is mostly the same as ours. I like space battles, my favorite sequences are anything on speeder-bikes, and I love lightsaber battles. Most of the reasons I love Star Wars are why I love science-fiction, physics, and space in general. It pained me though when I realized the Star Wars universe makes no sense. Some of the physics and tech seem unfeasible, but that part is perfectly acceptable to me.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”–Arthur C. Clarke

Done. I’ve just obliterated almost all the arguments saying this or that is scientifically impossible. “But what about…” Nope, sorry. They figured it out with their magic-like technology. The part that makes no sense though is the rate of advancement: It is excessively slow. The six films depict about, what, 50 years time? I know there are important, exciting things that happen after Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi, but for our purposes, it starts with Anakin and it ends with Anakin. I can buy the fact that the technology hasn’t advanced much in this time frame. It even makes sense that the technology behind the Rebel forces seem cobbled together because well, it was! A rag-tag, fringe group of dissidents simply doesn’t have the resources The Empire has access to.

The real problem for me was when Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was released for the X-Box in 2003. This game takes place 4000 years before the time of the Skywalkers and Obi-Wan. The technology is not significantly different. What gives? That would mean there was little to no innovation for thousands of years! Looking at our own history here on Earth, there was a very similar period of stagnation and even decline called the Dark Ages. The problem with this comparison is we were in a horse and cart phase of technology and it only lasted about 500 years. After The Renaissance, humanity flourished for the most part, and technology is advancing at a tremendous rate. With the Dark Ages ending by the close of the 9^th century, I can’t even imagine what our own technology would be like in the year 5000, let alone starting at Star Wars-level tech and then advancing 4000 years!

Lightsabers can only be constructed by those trained in the use of The Force because the components are too sensitive and volatile to be handled by a machine or someone unskilled in their use. Bullshit. I think over 4000 years, someone would have figured it out, especially a Dark Side user of The Force who wanted to arm his minions well. This is just one example, as there are countless other “stagnations.”

So, Star Wars is cool and has some great things to strive for as far as sci-fi tech goes (FTL, Repulsor Lifts, Lightsabers), but the universe in which it is set is at a stand-still as far as innovation is concerned.