Watchmen Chapter II Review

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This is a DynaMic Network podcast.

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and peruse our merchandise, accessories, posters, calendars. Again, Jonathan and I are donating 10% of the proceeds between the months of November and December to the charity Stand Up to Cancer. So support our show, support A Great Cause, and do it in a timely fashion because you're running out of time. Thanks guys, happy holidays and on with the show.

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Dynamic Duel Podcast, a weekly show where we review superhero films and debate the superiority between Marvel and DC by comparing their characters in stat-based battle simulations. I'm Johnny DC. And I'm his twin brother Marvelous Joe. And in this episode, we are reviewing the conclusion of the two-part Watchmen animated adaptation Watchmen Chapter 2. I can't say I was looking forward to watching it.

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because the first one I thought was very, very redundant. And you'll find out later on in this episode whether I thought the same about chapter two. So Jonathan, I was thinking we watched the Watchmen, right? And the listeners are listening to us talk about watching the Watchmen. So are they watching us watch the Watchmen? They're the watchers of the Watchmen watching the Watchmen. Answering the real philosophical questions on this podcast.

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Before we dive even more into the philosophy of the Watchmen, we're going to break down the comic book movie news from the past week, of which there was just one news item, and that was the reveal that Rob Hardy is the cinematographer for Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow. As always guys, we list our segment times and our episode description, so feel free to check out the show notes if you want to skip ahead to a particular topic. Our artificially intelligent duel simulator AJ9K has a quick message for our listeners, so listen up.

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Why hello there, do you want even more from this podcast? Then become a part of the dynamic duel community on Patreon, where you can choose from three tiers. The dynamic two-oh tier gives you access to our Discord chat server. The fantastic four tier gives you two bonus episodes each month. And the X-Force tier makes you an executive producer of this show. Lastly,

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Guys, be sure to tune in to the other shows on the DynaMic podcast network this week, including Max Destruction, which pits your favorite action heroes from film and television against each other. Hosts Scotty and Gilly are taking a break for the holidays, so now is the perfect time to get caught up on their back catalog of episodes if you missed any. On the Sendrow World podcast, host Zachary Hepburn speculates on fights between fan favorite anime and manga characters. This Thursday, Zach will reveal who would win in a fight between Tsuna-Dei from Naruto

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Unohana from Bleach.

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Definitely make sure to check that out by visiting dynamicpodcasts.com or click the link in our show notes to listen to all of the shows in the DynaMic Podcast Network. But with that out of the way, quick to the No Prize! A No Prize is an award Marvel used to give out to fans. Our version, the Dynamic Duel No Prize, is a digital award that we post on Instagram for the person that we feel gave the best answer to our question of the week. Last week we asked you guys, or not last week, it was like two weeks ago, we asked...

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What Marvel character would you cast former 007 actor George Lazenby as and why? And this is coming off of the news that Daniel Craig is currently negotiating a deal with DC to play Sergeant Rock in an upcoming Sergeant Rock film. And I, being a huge 007 James Bond fan, was super jealous because it seems like all the currently living Bond actors have gotten DC roles but not Marvel roles. Of course, you had Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate.

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You had Timothy Dalton as the chief from Doom Patrol. You even had Sean Connery as Alan Quartermaine in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which came from a DC imprint. George Lazenby though, he's still kicking, and we gotta get him a Marvel role so that we could have some 007 in the MCU. And we got a lot of answers actually. Yeah, way more than I thought we would actually get. We're gonna break down this week's honorable mentions before revealing the no prize winner. Our first honorable mention goes to Cyrus Moore, who said,

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Hey guys, Cyrus Moore here. Uh, George Lazenby would be a perfect old man Hawkeye, I believe. And DC side, just I know you guys didn't ask, but I think he'd be a perfect Alan Scott. Uh, but old man Hawkeye? Oh, that'd be fantastic. He's kind of already got the look that matches the old man Hawkeye comic book series, so it just be flawless.

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Yeah, that's a fantastic answer. You know, Old Man Hawkeye is a character established in the world of the Old Man Logan series, and Old Man Hawkeye even got his own comic book. George Lazenby, I think, would be great in the role. Not just because, like, he has a great sense of humor, but also because I feel like George Lazenby is kind of, like, seen as the Hawkeye of the James Bond actors, and that he doesn't seem quite as relevant because he was only in one film, so, yeah, I think there's a lot of through lines there, and I think Lazenby could pull it off. How old is George Lazenby? Uh, dude is 85 years old right now.

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Oh snap. Yeah, pretty up there. Well, I mean, Ellen Scott is an old guy. I could totally see George Lazenby playing Kim. Like you'd probably have to do CG work for the action shots, but just do it from far away. It'll be it'll work out. It'll work out. Plus, George Lazenby is pretty dapper, as is Ellen Scott. I actually think Ellen Scott would be a better choice for George Lazenby than Old Man Hawkeye. You might be right, because like Old Man Hawkeye has long hair. And I don't know if I could see Lazenby pulling off that look. Our next honorable mention goes to Mike Williams.

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who said,

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Yeah, coming off of our recent duel matchup of Black Mask versus Madame Mask, I think this was a great answer. We know that Madame Mask, of course, is the daughter of Count Nefaria, who was a leader within the Magia crime family in the world of Marvel. And yeah, I could totally see Laysen be as like the patriarch of a mafia crime family for sure. Yeah, that would be kind of cool. Almost like a Marlon Brando-esque type role. There you go. Yeah. Take that vibe and then add superpowers to it.

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I think you got yourself a good Count Nefaria with George Lazenby in the role. Great answer, Mike! Our next honorable mention goes to Mason Thompson, who said, Hey guys, so first thing I saw when I looked at some photos of him, Uncle Ben. Maybe he's in the multiverse as an Uncle Ben. And he comes to our universe, gives our universe, the Spider-Man, a little motivation, something like that. But if we're talking like Prime, when he was in his Prime, he's

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He's Tony Stark. Look at him and tell me he's not Tony Stark. Give him a little goatee and he's Iron Man. Great answer. Yeah, actually, Uncle Ben was the answer that I immediately thought of. And I was really hoping like people out there would come up with better options than just having him as Uncle Ben. But the problem I had with casting George Lazenby as Uncle Ben is that even though he looks exactly like him nowadays, the MCU Uncle Ben would have to be a lot younger to have dated Marissa Tomei's.

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Aunt May, right? Maybe. But then Mason Thompson reminded me that the multiverse is a thing, so he could always be a multiversal Uncle Ben. I think it totally works. Mason also went on to say that the prime version of George Lazenby, you know, back in 1969 when he played Bond, would make a great Tony Stark. And I don't disagree. I think a lot of the James Bond actors would make a great Tony Stark. In fact, if I recall correctly, artist Alex Ross paints his version of Tony Stark.

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in the likeness of Timothy Dalton, who was another James Bond actor. Oh, man, I need to look this up. Yeah, look up Alex Ross, Tony Stark. Oh, holy cow, he does. That's awesome. So there are definitely like parallels between the Stark and James Bond character. And thanks to Mason Thompson for reminding us all about that. I want to give a quick shout out to Colby Hentges, who.

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called in with the answer of Silvermane, but also suggested that Aaron Taylor Johnson would be a good choice for the next 007 after Daniel Craig, and he's totally my choice as well. Also shout out to Judson Batty, who actually gave a DC answer. He said George Lazenbeek could play Uncle Marvel from the Captain Marvel Shazam family. And a dishonorable mention to Miggy for not having the imagination or trust in his fellow listeners to produce answers for this question.

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It was just crickets. But he said on behalf of everybody. But the winner of this week's snow prize is Brandon Estregard, who said.

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Hey guys, I would cast George Lazenby as the original human torch, Jim Hammond, for three reasons. One, they were both ornate created in the same year, 1939, which was also the year that World War II started. Two, you can cast him at his current age and give him a cameo like how Hank had his World War II amman cameo in the original amman movie. And three, every Bond actor deserves an iconic role. I really liked this answer. Of course, Brandon said that...

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George Liza to be could play the original Human Torch, who was the superhero on the very first issue of the very first Marvel comic book ever. The original Human Torch was not a member of the Fantastic Four. Of course, Marvel fans know that he was an android named Jim Hammond, who was created by Dr. Phineas Horton. I go a little bit into his backstory in the Vision vs. Marsha Manhunter duel episode that we have. But yeah, the android was actually briefly featured.

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in the Captain America movie when Steve Rogers and Bucky went to the World's Fair with their dates. Jim Hammond's Human Torch was a hugely influential World War II hero and it would be really cool to see him show up in the MCU as George Lazenby. I thought it was a really cool factoid that Brandon pointed out that the Human Torch comic book character and George Lazenby were both born in the same year of 1939. Yeah, it might be even cool to see that version of the Human Torch.

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appear in the upcoming Vision television series, considering the character's backstory. Oh yeah, that would be totally great. No matter how it happens, we just gotta get this Bond actor in a Marvel role, cuz screw DC for taking in all the 007 actors. But thanks to everyone who called in, congrats to Brandon Eschergard for winning this week's No Prize. If you the listener want a shot at winning your own No Prize, stay tuned to later on this episode when we'll be asking another question of the week. And now that that's done… No SCREW MARVEL!

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And onto the news!

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Alright, over a week ago, James Gunn revealed on threads in a conversation there that Rob Hardy, a veteran cinematographer in Hollywood, will be doing the cinematography for the upcoming Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow film. That film of course is starring Millie Alcock as Supergirl and is based on the comic of the same title. Now, this news is pretty awesome because the comic Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow

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takes place across the cosmos and visits different planets and it looks really awesome. The art in the comic is fantastic. So to get someone of Rob Hardy's caliber to do the cinematography for it makes it seem like the movie is just going to be breathtaking to watch. Rob Hardy has done cinematography on prior films that include Ex Machina, Annihilation, Mission Impossible Fallout, Men, and Civil War among other films.

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Yeah, a lot of those movies have a very grounded approach to the cinematography, I would say, with probably Annihilation being the exception. I'm assuming he's going to pull largely from that experience to direct the photography for Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, I think Annihilation is a good precedent for what he could do with the film in terms of her visiting these alien worlds. DC has had some amazing cinematography in their past films. You can take a look at...

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The Batman, the Joker films, Marvel films, their best one was probably what, The Eternals? For the MCU, yeah, I would say the best cinematography was The Eternals or maybe Guardians. Prior to that, I think the Sam Raimi, Spider-Man films had great cinematography. Cinematographers aren't as renowned as directors, but they contribute a lot to the look of the film. And I gotta say, Rob Hardy joining Supergirl makes me really excited for how that film is going to look. I've yet to hear like really anything bad about that film. It looks like it's shaping up to be

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really something special. But speaking of cinematographers, that brings us to our question of the week.

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What live action Marvel or DC film do you think had the best cinematography and what was your favorite shot? Yeah, give us the film, give us the cinematographer, and give us your favorite cinematic scene from that movie. Record your answer at dynamicduel.com by clicking on the red microphone button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, which will prompt you to leave us a voicemail. Your message can be up to 30 seconds long, and don't forget to leave your name in case we include you on the podcast. We'll pick our favorite answer.

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and award that person a dynamic duel no prize that we'll post to Instagram. Be sure to answer before December 14th.

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Well that does it for all the news for this episode, but now let's go ahead and move on to the main event where we review the animated adaptation Watchmen Chapter 2.

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Watchmen Chapter 2 is the second half of a two-part animated adaptation of the comic medium's seminal masterpiece created by writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons. It concludes the mystery of a killer targeting retired crime-fighting vigilantes in New York City amidst escalating global tensions and the threat of nuclear armageddon at the height of the Cold War. It's a satirical examination of superhero comics

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that revolutionized the comic medium in the 1980s. And because it was so narratively complex and perfectly suited to the comic medium, it was long considered unadaptable to screen. Of course, you know, until the 2009 live action film by Zack Snyder, but even that was met with mixed reactions. 15 years after that, Warner Brothers has attempted another on-screen adaptation, this time split into two parts, chapters one and two.

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with our podcast being the only tomato meter approved publication that gave chapter one a rotten rating, saying in our review that despite the filmmakers best intentions, the film is faithful to a fault, and in essence, it's an abridged and superfluous version of the celebrated graphic novel. Well, it just means that we have integrity, okay? We're willing to call out something as bad if we perceive it to be bad.

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And I definitely don't think it was deserving of a 100% Rotten Tomato rating, because after watching Chapter 1, I concluded that the story of Watchmen is too good and too important to justify an abridged version. But if you're going to condense the story into something easier to consume on screen, then we already have a better, more cinematic abridged version in the live-action film. And this animated adaptation, in its ambition to be even more faithful to the graphic novel,

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makes itself redundant and less special. We speculated in our review of Chapter 1 that because of the ramped up tension in the latter half of the story, Chapter 2 is probably going to be better, and it is, but just barely. So I'm not going to recommend watching this movie. I am going to recommend everyone read the graphic novel though, and if you're going to, stop listening to the spoiler review now because it will also spoil the book.

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And if you're not going to read the book, then I would recommend pairing the 2009 Zack Snyder film with the 2019 HBO Watchmen series. With the understanding that the end explosion was caused by different sources, though. I don't care. I just don't recommend this two part animated adaptation. I will agree, though, that this chapter two film was better than chapter one. Right. Yeah. Now, I went on at length as to why Watchmen is such a celebrated story in our review of Chapter one.

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So I won't repeat any of that here. What I will say is that I regret that Warner Brothers' animation didn't release both chapters simultaneously, because releasing the story in two parts, I feel, didn't allow the story's tension to build and conclude in one unified experience. So the narrative's most powerful moments, especially the final moral quandaries, lose some of their impact because of the rushed nature of this second half.

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There's a ton more story here from the books that was cut or rushed through than there was in Chapter 1, and because of that, the lead villain of the story doesn't even debut in this film until the final act. Both Chapters 1 and 2 were just shy of 90 minutes each, putting them combined at under 3 hours, which is shorter than the director's cut of Zack Snyder's Watchmen, and that's still my favorite adaptation.

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I'm afraid this means that there was no reason to split the story in two parts other than corporate greed on behalf of Warner Brothers. Like no reason. If they wanted to do the graphic novel justice, which I'm now convinced as I mentioned in our last review, that the only way to have done that was a 12 episode animated series. For sure, or live action series. I still hope to see that one day.

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maybe as, you know, another HBO series where every issue of the Watchmen graphic novel is an episode of the series. If they could do a series that was like in the same vein aesthetically as something like Blade Runner, I think that would be absolute perfection. Yeah, Blade Runner is a little sci-fi, but if you could like throw in some like taxi driver type vibe, like make the television series really feel like the time period that it's set in, like it was made during that time. I think that would be mind-blowing. Absolutely.

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100% agree. Now, my gripes aside, I do have to say that I did actually think this film was enjoyable. There's a lot more action in the second half than there was in the first in more ways than one, if you know what I mean. I don't know what you mean. What do you mean, Jonathan? What do you mean by that? You know, action. What does that mean? OK, virgin sex. That's what I mean. From the prison fights with Rorschach.

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to the escapades of Night Owl and Silk Spectre, to the actually good climax we got this time at the end of the film, the movie moves at a pretty brisk pace, even with the tales of the Black Freighter interludes. That said, for all the action it had, I felt Chapter 2 absolutely dropped the ball on the underlying tension of nuclear war that the book expertly managed to balance along with the character drama. Like-

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There was only one brief scene with Richard Nixon in this film. And to me, the adaptation struggled to capture the moral gravity that defined the source material, that Cold War-era fear of nuclear Armageddon that loomed over every scene in the comic, creating this almost suffocating tension and urgency to the characters' struggles, as well as their moral compromises. The heart of Watchmen, for many readers, I think, has always been its commentary.

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on humanity's capacity for self-destruction and the horrifying lengths one might go to in order to prevent it. That's the moral of the story, right? We are creatures who stand on the brink of annihilation and any solution to that problem can be as monstrous as the threat itself. Watchmen Chapter 2 does present Ozymandias' terrible solution in full detail, Giant Squid and all, which is something previous adaptations have shied away from.

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but without the nuclear dread consistently simmering throughout the narrative, the final twist feels more like a shock tactic than this culmination of the existential anxieties from that era. I wonder if the animation has anything to do with that. It's kind of just really hard to connect with anything that you're seeing on the screen due to the rather stiff nature of it all. Yeah, as we mentioned in our review of Chapter 1,

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the animation for this film particularly now that I've seen Suicide Squad Isekai, which we reviewed after Chapter 1. Suicide Squad Isekai has kind of ruined, in a way, all DC animation for me because it is, I would say, DC's best animated project that it's ever done and way better in comparison to the animation that was done for Watchmen, unfortunately. Tragically even.

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Like imagine what this squid exploding scene would have been like in anime style. That would have been incredible. Like Akira? Yeah, like I was just gonna say Akira. Yeah, that's what it kind of reminded me of. The nuclear Armageddon felt secondary until the very end of the film, which devotes most of its running time to the Mask Killer mystery and only fully acknowledges the specter of nuclear war after Ozymandias' plan has been fully revealed and executed. And I think that was a huge mistake.

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especially during these times when we still live under the threat of nuclear war. You know, the doomsday clock that is used as a motif throughout the comics series is a real thing. And currently we're at, I think, 90 seconds to midnight as of this recording, which is wild. I mean, we got more than a whole minute left before humanity's destruction. Oh, okay. I'm feeling pretty good. Let me know when it's like 15 seconds, then I'll start shitting my pants.

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One thing I noticed from Chapter 2 is that it seemed like they actually diverted more from the source material than Chapter 1 did. Like I saw a few new scenes, a lot more original dialogue, and I remember thinking to myself like, what the fuck did they just say? Like, what is this? Like, when did Hollis Mason go back and visit Dan Dreiberg? Since when did we spend so much time on Archie, you know? It wasn't a bad adaptation and we really came down on Chapter 1 for...

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being a little bit too faithful and maybe they hurt us. Maybe that's why they added all this extra stuff. I don't know. I doubt it. They've been working on this film for three years. So I don't think it was us. Their one negative Rotten Tomatoes review. I doubt it. But no, I definitely noticed those extra scenes. They were definitely drawing to me as well. And I don't mind them condensing the story. It was just the writing that I felt was off. Like Shazinsky, the writer of this film.

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is a really good comic book writer, but he's no Alan Moore. And when you hear lines like, your butt is in safe hands, it better be or else I'm gonna kick it. I'm just like, what the fuck is this? I thought the exact same thing when I heard that line. I was like, this chapter two adaptation has way too much butt stuff. Like I remember when Dan and Lori were about to get it on on the couch the first time, there was a whole shot of her slapping his ass.

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just out of the blue. Like they cut to that specifically. And I was like, that was never in the comic book. What the fuck was that? And on Archie. I didn't need to see that. There's a lot of butt stuff going on in chapter two of Watchmen. A lot of ass kicking and ass slapping. But yeah, that line was just groan worthy. It's one of several changes where I'm like, that was unnecessary. Like honestly, looking back on these two films, I kind of wish they would have cut the tales from the Black Friday.

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because it would have given them more room to include some more of the better stuff from the books. Yeah, I think the parallels that they tried to draw between the story of the Black Frater and the story of Watchmen did not work as well within this adaptation. No, I disagree. I actually think some of the parallels they made were more successful than what they did in the comic. But that doesn't mean it was necessary. What is the moral of the Black Frater? What's the lesson there and how does it pertain to the story of Watchmen?

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Well, it has like this meta context with a lot of things that are going on within the story intentionally. But overall, I would say that it tells the story of this man who has gone through these horrible tragedies and kind of lost his soul. In the same way, you could make connections between that and Rorschach or Ozymandias in coming to the conclusion that he felt he had to come up with in order to save mankind. He became a monster in much the same way that

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the sailor from Tales of the Black Frader did. Except the sailor learned his lesson whereas Ozymandias did not. Maybe, maybe, we don't know. I'm just gonna say now, hot take, I don't think Tales from the Black Frader is necessary at all even in the comic book. The parallels that it tries to draw are just too thin to hold much weight in the larger context. Fight me. Okay, I will fight you with my fists. Not with any kind of argument against that.

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Yeah, yeah, those are frightening words, my friend. Your opinion is trash. Here's a punch to the face. Exactly. Exactly. You get it. I like Tales of the Black Freighter, but I have not liked it in any other adaptation. Like, I didn't even really enjoy it in the ultimate cut of the Watchmen film. The live action one by Zack Snyder. They made an animated version of the Tales from the Black Freighter and cut it into the movie. But honestly, as I said earlier, the director's cut without that is still my favorite adaptation of Watchmen.

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I rest my case. If they ever did a TV show though, like a 12 part series, I could see them leaving it in. Yeah, at that point, I think you'd almost need to just to fill the runtime. Yeah. Let's go ahead and move on to the character breakdown, though I will say I don't have anything to add regarding the voice performances that I have already said in our review of Chapter 1. So I'm going to skip over all of that. But let's start with Rorschach, aka Walter Kovacs.

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After being captured by police and accused of the murder of Malik, Rorschach is forced into a prison where he's surrounded by hundreds of criminals he helped put behind bars. Despite this, Rorschach shows no fear, even going so far as to tell the prisoners that he's not locked up with them, they're locked up with him, and proving as much in how he's able to disable their attacks. We see how his hardened view of the world was shaped by his upbringing, being the offspring of a prostitute.

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and teased for it growing up. And choosing the life of a crime fighter showed him the absolute worst in humanity, shaping his viewpoint that life is random and meaningless with no pattern save for what we impose on it. And Rorschach imposes his own strict black and white morality, deontological and uncompromising, which is why he's killed by Dr. Manhattan in the end. Because his inability to compromise

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to allow a little evil for a greater good would lead to greater harm. I do wish that they would have taken a little bit more time with his personal backstory that is revealed during his sessions with the psychiatrist. Super rushed. It does seem like he rushed through it. Oh yeah. And to me that was always one of the more interesting parts of the Watchman's story, how this man kind of just fell into the void.

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Yeah, absolutely. I think if Watchmen had a protagonist, it probably would be Rorschach, but I definitely feel like he didn't get as much screen time as like Dan and Laurie in this adaptation. I feel like they were treated as the protagonists, which isn't bad. You know, I don't mind Night Owl. He's probably one of my favorite characters. Speaking of him, you know, after returning to vigilantism alongside Laurie, Dan Dreiberg finds a renewed sense of purpose he lacked since giving up his Night Owl persona.

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rediscovering the thrill and meaning in what he does, whether it's rescuing people from a burning building or orchestrating Rorschach's jailbreak. As he uncovers Adrian Veidt's plan, Dan is forced to confront his own ideals. He sees the bigger picture and understands that sometimes terrible sacrifices need to be accepted for the greater good. Unlike Rorschach, Dan can compromise, and it allows him to let go and embrace a new life with Laurie. As they reinvent themselves,

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and find a peace in the world that Adrian has created. I liked Dan more in Chapter 2 than I did in Chapter 1. Chapter 1, I found it difficult to avoid comparing Night Owl's on-screen performance to Patrick Wilson's from the 2009 live-action film, but with Chapter 2 maybe a little bit less so because Chapter 2 is really where the character comes into his own.

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The moment when he was explaining to Laurie how he just felt impotent because of all the pressure surrounding the events worldwide and locally, I really connected with. It felt believable to me in a way that felt a little bit more palpable than even the comic book. Maybe, I don't know. In this movie, I think he came across as much more confident earlier on in the story than he was in the comic. You know, when the second half of the story starts, he's still very meek.

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It wasn't until he really went out crime fighting for the first time that he kind of began to get his edge again. But I feel like he was flirting with Laurie even before he put on the costume in this adaptation. For sure. Yeah, he got his groove back a little bit earlier than in the books. Yeah. One of my favorite things about the character of Night Owl in the comic was his gadgets. He's a gadgeteer inspired by the character of Blue Beetle. And there were a lot of them that were missing from this adaptation, unfortunately.

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I think he had some cool ones. He had those crescent darts. I call them that because that's what Moon Knight calls them. But they were like in the shape of crescent moons. But they were like taser disks, right? They had like an electrical current running between the tips. But did he have a hot cocoa dispenser in Archie? Like he did in the comics? No, but he had jazz music. Yeah. Let's move on to Laurie Yuspechik, aka Silk Spectre II. You know, after walking away from Dr. Manhattan's, Laurie begins carving out an identity.

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on her own terms. Joining Dan, she finds someone she can truly relate to, free from the weight of her mother's expectations or the stifling life at Dr. Manhattan's side. Fighting crime with Dan renews the sense of purpose within her, letting her step out of the shadow of her mother and enter her own spotlight. During her time on Mars, Laurie comes to the revelation that the comedian, the man who tried to rape her mother, is her father.

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and it affects everything she thought she knew about not only her upbringing, but also love and ultimately forgiveness. When Adrian's plan is revealed, it helps her adapt and accept the same compromises that would allow her to reconcile with her mother and grow further into her being her own hero. Laurie's Ark is always a good one, especially in Chapter 2, but I will say that I think that this film handled the revelation on Mars.

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more clumsily than I would have liked. There's just some weird dialogue surrounding it when like Dr. Manhattan's like, look at this chaotic terrain. And she was like, we have chaotic terrain, look at the chaoticness of my family. I'm like, that was kind of a stretch. I think that was from the comic. Well, that's just bad writing. I don't think it's a terrible line. The whole exchange was done so much better in the comic because there was just a lot more to the conversation.

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So it didn't feel forced and it didn't feel rushed. It felt very natural. I actually really liked that issue from the comic. I thought the live action version handled it believably and just better all around. The live action version was better and the comic is even better than that. The way the comic plays with time is done in a way that I feel like you can't really translate as well to film just because of the nature of the different panels and the way you shift from scene to scene in a comic.

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In the comic book, it doesn't necessarily feel like flashbacks. No, it feels literally like the events are taking place concurrently in the same way that Dr. Manhattan perceives time. Right. It's not as forced in a comic book as it is on screen. Exactly. Because like you have to treat a flashback as like a memory. So you kind of see Laurie kind of almost have to zone out kind of to think about this thing that happened to her previously in her life. With the comic book, you don't have to do that.

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I almost feel like if they ever want to do this scene justice, like if they ever did a 12 episode miniseries on television, they would need two frames on screen at the same time, kind of playing concurrently with each other. That would be really hard to do, though. Split screen stuff. It could be done. Is pretty clumsy. Just look at the Captain America trailer. They did it fine there. Yeah. OK. Yeah, sure. I'd at least like to see it attempted before I judge it. Yeah.

35:12
Let's go ahead and move on to Dr. Manhattan, aka Jonathan Osterman. After retreating to Mars, Dr. Manhattan finds himself increasingly removed from the human condition he once knew. Observing Earth from a distance, he contemplates time, probability, and the very structure of existence, growing more indifferent by the moment. But when Lori appears, bringing with her the messy complexities of love, trauma, and hope, he's forced to reconsider humanity's worth.

35:40
The simple, unlikely miracle of Laurie's own life rekindles a faint spark of empathy he thought was gone. After returning to Earth and witnessing Adrian's atrocity, Dr. Manhattan agrees to keep the peace through silence, yet in doing so he chooses to leave Earth behind, forging a new path where he can create life and shape his own meaning in the cosmos.

36:09
the existence of life, a highly overrated phenomenon, and then almost immediately after that calls all life a miracle. Well, he just came to that realization. His mind was changed. A being even as omnipotent as him can still be reasoned with. To me, he just seems like a man who can't stand by his convictions. That's what I say. Well, lucky enough, he didn't. I always thought that it was a convenient bit of writing.

36:36
on behalf of Alan Moore and the original Watchmen story in that, you know, if Laurie is such a miracle, he's like, oh yeah, all life is a miracle. By its very nature, then you'd have to redefine the term miracle, I think. Well, she helped him realize that the rarity of life itself in the cosmos is a miracle and that by its very nature, each human life is its own miracle, which it is because, you know, all of us were at one point, you know, different, competing.

37:05
sperm and ova fighting for a chance to become what we are now. I just feel like that's a little bit ridiculous because sure, the odds of the sperm connecting with that specific egg from your mom statistically is highly unlikely, but again it happens all the fucking time. So on earth, again, I think you have to redefine your definition of miracle because it's not that special. Cynical asshole says what?

37:35
Appreciate your own life. What does that have to do with anything that we were talking about? I'm saying you're a miracle, bro. I'm saying you have to perceive life as a miracle in order to appreciate it. I'm just saying you have to redefine miracle if it happens repeatedly over and over and even sometimes by accident. Whoa, gotta put a rubber on it, man. Gotta put a rubber on it. Well, how would you redefine it then?

37:58
I would define it as highly probable, even though the fact that the comedian and Sally Jupiter didn't get along at first, you know, later on they did. And they boned each other and they had a baby. As these things happen. So I'm not like freaking claiming it's the same thing as air turning into gold, like Dr. Manhattan is. And yet the rest of the universe may say differently. They'd be like, holy shit, there's a planet with life on it. What? Says the planet that also has life on it.

38:28
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. I may be coming across as overly cynical and I'm not really a cynic, but I'm not nearly as wishy washy as Dr. Manhattan either. I don't think you appreciate being alive enough, Joseph. Really? Yes. I guess what I'm saying is you need like an existential breakdown. Okay. I'm pretty busy at work, so it might happen. We're going to get to Ozymandias aka Adrian Veit.

38:56
Adrian doesn't have too much screen time. In Chapter 2, he spends most of that revealing the full extent of his grand, terrifying vision. He was an admirer of Alexander the Great. And Adrian's master plan is his way of slicing through the Gordian knot that was the Cold War tensions, a problem too tangled and complex for any rational negotiation. Rather than seeking a delicate solution, he opted to manufacture a common enemy to rally humanity.

39:25
By sacrificing millions of innocent lives, he took the utilitarian approach that the ends justify the means. Yet after the dust settles and the surviving heroes reluctantly agree to silence, he looks to them for validation, an assurance that he truly did the right thing. His triumph feels hollow, and despite all his brilliance, he remains uncertain whether he succeeded in preserving life's value.

39:53
or simply proved that humanity can be manipulated into salvation for however long that lasts. Here's another issue I have with the story of Watchmen. Okay! And Ozymandias' plan. And another reason why I like the 2009 live-action adaptation better because in that film, they showed that Ozymandias not only attacked New York, but a lot of major cities across the globe. True. Which I think was important to humanity coming together.

40:21
against a common enemy. Let me draw a metaphor for you, okay? Say you're about to get in a fist fight with your sworn enemy, okay? And right before you two are about to throw punches, your enemy gets hit by a bike or something like that, okay? Are you two all of a sudden gonna join forces together against the bicyclist or are you gonna be like, thank god it was that guy and not me, that guy hit by the bike? I'm not necessarily convinced

40:48
that New York specifically getting attacked, and only New York getting attacked, would draw the entire globe together in world peace, considering that, you know, America was about to be part of the end of the world, you know? I'm not sure that New York would draw that much sympathy from America's enemies at that time. Well, if I thought that the bicyclist was also going to come after me, right after he attacked you, then yeah, I'd probably join forces with you to fend off the bicyclist.

41:17
I don't know if you caught that I consider you my mortal enemy. I was like, wait, wait, what? Why is it me that got hit by the bike? I guess you're right in that regard. But yeah, I can totally see why the live action adaptation had multiple attacks across the globe. Yeah, I would agree with you, actually. That is one of the things that the film version did better than the book version. It was that and also Rorschach going to Dr. Manhattan to see if he.

41:46
could see into the future to find out who the masked killer was. Those are two kind of gaps that are in the book that the movie covered well, I thought. Let's move on to the story highlights.

42:03
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42:24
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42:50
On a remote island, horror comic writer Max Shea and surrealist painter Hira Manish reflect on how they, along with a group of scientists, contributed to creating a nightmarish creature for unclear reasons and for an unnamed benefactor, currently being shipped off the island. Over the course of the film, interwoven within the narrative, one of Max Shea's comics,

43:19
after his ship was destroyed by the dreaded Phantom Pirate ship known as the Black Freighter. Forced to build a raft from corpses of his shipmates, the traumatized sailor grows mad as he battles sharks and the sea itself to get home to Davidstown and protect his family from the oncoming Black Freighter pirates, only to mistake his wife for a pirate while attempting to rescue her. The sailor is then chased by a mob to the sea, where the Black Freighter waits for him.

43:47
Now this of course isn't all in the first scene, it's interspersed throughout the film, but I wanted to get the Black Friday narrative out of the way. Yeah, I think I said my piece on it. Again, fight me. With my fists! Now captured and imprisoned, Walter Kovacs, aka the vigilante Rorschach, overcomes a prison attack by inmates he helped put there. During a psychological evaluation, Rorschach reveals his traumatic childhood, and how he was driven to murderous vigilantism,

44:17
after confronting a man who fed a young girl he kidnapped to his dogs. Meanwhile, Dan Dreiberg rescues Laurie Yuspechik from a fire in his basement that Laurie accidentally caused while inspecting his high-tech hovercraft, Archie. While talking about their inspirations for becoming costumed vigilantes, Dan admits the comedian's death, Rorschach's imprisonment, Dr. Manhattan's exile to Mars, and the attempted assassination of Adrian Veidt are too coincidental to be unrelated.

44:46
While watching television, Dan and Laurie eventually kiss, and though they attempt to make love, Dan finds himself impotent from the nightmare-inducing stress of impending nuclear war. One of the things they did in this movie that was taken straight from the comic that I thought they did better than the live-action version was Rorschach tying the guy who killed the young girl to his boiler and giving him a saw to cut off his own hand as he set fire to his house. The movie was way more violent.

45:15
But I actually think it's a little bit more jigsaw-esque, like from the movie Saw, to make him try to cut off his own hand to save himself, knowing that he ultimately would not be able to do that. I think the shock of the violent moment within the live action movie was more effective in portraying that transition from Walter Kovacs into Rorschach, because like he couldn't even speak. All he did was jam the meat cleaver in the guy's head saying, men get arrested, dogs get put down. You know, I thought that was in...

45:45
extremely graphic but also effective look at his transitioning psyche. Here it was just kind of like, eh, you know, saw your way out if you can. If you can't then, you know, guess you're gonna die. Well the whole transition moment was supposed to be as he's watching the building burn down. It was sort of this cathartic moment in which he like arose from the ashes as Rorschach. Sure, I'll still say less effective. Maybe.

46:11
While a mobster named Big Figure attempts to intimidate Rorschach in his jail cell as a prison riot bruise, Dan and Lori decide to put their old crime fighting costumes on and take Archie out for a spin, during which time they rescue tenants of an apartment fire. Feeling empowered, Dan and Lori make love aboard Archie before deciding they should break Rorschach out of prison. While planning the breakout in Dan's basement, Dan is visited by his mentor, Hollis Mason, the original Night Owl,

46:38
who warns Dan that if he could figure out which crimefighters rescued the apartment fire tenants, which was an illegal crimefighting act, the police could too. After sharing his theory with Hollis regarding the corporate connections between all of the recent murders, Dan leaves with Laurie and Archie just before the police raid his house. While Dan and Laurie fend off police and rioters, Rorschach defends himself against a big figure, killing his men and him before escaping with his allies.

47:07
Now the scene with Hollis Mason visiting Dan is not in the comics. Dan is actually visited by a detective in that scene. But I actually liked this more because it gave one more scene between Hollis and Dan before Hollis dies. Yeah, that was nice. It kind of gave viewers that are familiar with the story a little bit of closure in regards to that relationship, you know? Right. In the movie, it did seem like it was just a means for a big exposition dump.

47:35
Yes. Yeah. What the story actually was. One thing I didn't like here was how Dan does give the exposition dump in regards to all of this research that he seemingly did off screen about all the different corporations that are tied to the different deaths throughout the film. Yeah, he was much more informed here than he ever was in the comics. And we never really got to see all that information come together.

48:00
Regarding the rescue scene of the tenants from the building fire, that was another bit of bad dialogue, I thought, when one of the ladies was like, mother of the deus. And then Silk Spectre was like, different Spectre and I'm nobody's mother. Yeah, that was a Trisinski original there, I believe. And regarding the sex scene that happened right after, if nothing else, it just proved how unnecessarily pornographic Zack Snyder made that scene in his film. Okay, virgin.

48:29
Damn it! Sorry it makes you so uncomfortable. It's just gratuitous. I don't know. I don't disagree. I don't disagree. I thought this was done very tastefully actually in this animated version. Yeah. In retaliation for Rorschach's escape, a violent gang of not-tops mistake Hollis for Dan and beat him to death. During their escape from police, Dr. Manhattan appears aboard Archie and takes Laurie with him back to Mars, where Laurie reminisces through her life

48:57
in an attempt to view it from Dr. Manhattan's extradimensional perception of time, accidentally revealing in the process that she's sleeping with Dan. Upset by the revelation, Dr. Manhattan refuses to help save Earth from impending nuclear war until Laurie comes to the revelation that the Comedian was her father. Astonished by the near-miraculous unlikelihood of the union between Laurie's parents and of Laurie's existence in general,

49:25
Dr. Manhattan decides to take her back to Earth and help. Meanwhile, Dan and Rorschach visit Adrian's office, hoping he can help them figure out the connection between the corporations involved with the recent deaths, only to discover that Adrian is away at his Antarctic base, Carnac, and that he owns all of the corporations involved. On their way to Antarctica, Rorschach mails his journal to the conspiratorial magazine, The New Frontiersman.

49:52
I do like the way this movie handled Dryberg's revelation that Ozymandias was behind everything more than the book's method of having Ozymandias have a really obvious password on his computer. Like he's the world's smartest man and yet his password was Ramesses II, right? Wait, that's an obvious password? Yes. Oh shit, I need to change mine. Here there was like no hacking of anything, you know, it was just good old-fashioned detective work looking through financial records.

50:21
Maybe, I guess you could also say that those records should have probably been in a vault or a safe of some sort. And not just like in a drawer that could be easily opened. I guess that's fair. When Adrian arrives at Carnac, his assistants reveal that the shipment from the island has arrived and that everything for his plan is in order. Adrian thanks them with wine that poisons and kills them, while listening to an interview that he had done with a reporter that details his life's inspiration for unifying the world.

50:51
As Dan and Rorschach approach Antarctica, we see the ship blow up that was carrying Max Shea, Hera Manish, and everyone else who built the unseen creature, now at Karnak, who Adrian teleports away. Dan and Rorschach attempt to ambush Adrian, but he counters and disables them, before revealing that he was the mask killer, having killed the comedian for learning of his plan, along with others to get rid of Dr. Manhattan to prevent him from stopping his plan.

51:19
which was to force the world governments into an era of cooperation and peace, while seemingly under the threat of an alien attack, which Adrian achieved prior to Dan and Rorschach's arrival by teleporting a genetically modified giant squid monster to New York City and causing it to blow up half its population. Do you ever feel like...

51:40
the squid monster was a little bit far-fetched in the realm of science fiction for the very grounded world that the Watchmen story is set in, or relatively grounded world. I think without Bubastis it was. But with Bubastis we understand that Ozymandias has been researching genetic modification for years. Bubastis of course is Adrian's pet Lynx, genetically modified Lynx.

52:07
You know, we know Adrian put a lot of resources into a lot of different sci-fi-esque technologies to try to pull off this massive hoax, including genetic engineering, including teleportation. Do you think that there is a more plausible way to fake an alien attack? When we know that in history, sometimes faking an alien attack can be as simple as Orson Wells reading a radio broadcast. Of course, I'm describing, you know, War of the Worlds.

52:33
Do you think that there was probably a better way for Alan Moore to more convincingly have Adrian depict an alien attack than through all this sci-fi technology stuff? Well, how else would you kill two million people? Well, probably a bomb? I think a more plausible approach would be like the Independence Day route where Adrian just develops this UFO hovercraft that drops a big bomb or something like that. I think that's...

52:59
still believable. Developing an aircraft that's unidentifiable by the world's military is more simple than genetically engineering this whole entire new creature. Yeah, probably. But I also think that, who knows? I think that if something like a giant squid monster suddenly appeared on the planet, I'd have an easier time believing it came from outer space. Then if you just had a craft drop some kind of explosive and then like vanish.

53:29
then, you know, that's nothing. I guess there would be some deniability there. Yeah, if Adrian went the ship route, he'd have to have like the ship crash and it would have to be of like such advanced technology that no one would have ever suspected that he was the one who created it. Still seems a little bit more plausible than a fucking squid beak tentacle beast monster. Hey, man, don't hate the player, hate the game.

53:56
Well, I will say I don't hold Alan Moore nearly as high regard as you do. How does that mean? It means you put him on a pedestal is what I'm saying. They have a better writer than Alan Moore. Jonathan Hickman. No. Wrong. OK. Dr. Manhattan and Laurie arrive amidst the carnage in New York. Too late to do anything due to the tachyon radiation from the explosion.

54:22
Dr. Manhattan traces the teleportation energy signature to Karnak, where he, Laurie, Dan, and Rorschach hunt down Adrian for what he did. Though Adrian seemingly kills Dr. Manhattan in an intrinsic field subtractor, Dr. Manhattan rebuilds himself. Confronted by the other four, Adrian reveals via television that his plan was a success and that world leaders are calling for peace amidst the tragedy.

54:48
Each of them accept the reality that Adrian's plan worked and agreed to secrecy except for Rorschach, whom Dr. Manhattan kills before informing Adrian that he's leaving for a less complicated galaxy to create new life. I can't remember, in the comic book, did he say that he was leaving for a new galaxy or was he leaving for a new world? Because in the Watchmen HBO sequel, we saw that he went to one of the moons of Jupiter, I believe, Europa, if I'm remembering that correctly.

55:16
which is not in another galaxy. And I'm wondering which adaptation got it incorrect. In the comic, he said he was leaving the galaxy. Okay, so the HBO series got it wrong then. Uh, yeah, yeah it did. What are you trying to say? That it's not good now? Why are you so defensive, Jonathan? I just don't think you like the fact that I keep attacking what you keep referring to as the seminal work of the comic book medium. Uh, yeah, yeah, because it is. And you can't accept that.

55:46
you think you're too good for it. No DC work is ever going to be called seminal. Not while I'm still alive. That could be arranged. Laurie and Dan, now disguised as Sam and Sandra Hollis, visit Laurie's mother Sally in a California rest home, where Laurie reveals she knows the comedian was her father. Upon leaving, Laurie and Dan share renewed excitement for costumed adventuring.

56:11
In the final scene, employees of the new frontiersmen are forced to find a new story to run in their magazine now that the government no longer allows the press to criticize their former enemies. A junior staffer is asked to look through a pile of public letters for a story lead as his hand hovers above Rorschach's journal. That's the end of the film. I always liked that ending a lot, and I really like how the HBO series ran with that too, where it kind of became like this conspiracy among the militia group.

56:40
in that series. Even with like the squid babies, you know, that kept the world on its toes. That was interesting. What did you think of the Sam and Sandra Hollis disguise? Because the live action movie didn't run with that. I don't see why not. I thought it was a good ending for Dan and Laurie and I like the way they, you know, paid homage to Hollis and everything like that. In the end, the book is definitely the best way to experience the story. And while chapter two was better.

57:07
than chapter one. You know, it's still this abridged animated adaptation that, yeah, may benefit from increased action in the source material's latter half, but ultimately it fails to capture the impact of the book, largely because the background threat of nuclear war plays second fiddle to the character drama. Now I'm giving chapter two three and a half out of five stars a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That said

57:36
I'm actually not recommending this because it's the second half of a story starting with Chapter 1, which I don't recommend. And I don't recommend this animated adaptation overall. So you're giving it a fresh rating, but you're saying you don't recommend it? Yes. Because of Chapter 1's inferiority? Yes, actually. Okay, yeah, I think that makes sense. You wouldn't want people to see Chapter 2 on its own, right? They coexist with each other, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Right.

58:04
I agree chapter 2 is better than chapter 1, but if chapter 1 was a bigger letdown then I recommend the films as a whole. I'm really hoping that by me doing this it's not going to give chapter 2 a 100% tomato meter score because I don't think it deserves it. I don't think this film really should have ever been made. But I don't think it also deserves to be shit on. The film exists in this weird limbo of irrelevancy. Neither good nor bad, just redundant. Here's what I will say.

58:34
who made chapters 1 and 2 liked the source material enough to take a crack at this. I think their passion shows in how faithful they tried to make it, but ultimately it was a waste of time. But you guys have good taste. Most DC things are a waste of time. Really. So is your face. But that does it for this review. AG9K, help close us out.

59:02
Visit the show's website at dynamicduel.com and follow us on Instagram at dynamicduelpodcast. You can support the show on Patreon at patreon.com slash dynamicduel and joining a tier that works for you or by rating and reviewing dynamic duel on apple podcasts, spotify, podchaser or on our website. Don't forget to listen to the other shows in the dynaMic podcast network, including Max Destruction, Senjo World and Console Combat. In our next episode, we are going to be reviewing

59:32
Craven the Hunter. I have my tickets and I am expecting to be entirely whelmed. I think is the best way to put it. Not underwhelmed, not overwhelmed, just whelmed. Just whelmed, yeah, yeah. That is it for this episode. We wanna give a big thanks to our executive producers, Ken Johnson. John Swarovski.

59:52
Zachary Hepburn, Dustin Balcom, Miggy Mathingian, Brandon Estregard, Nathaniel Wagener, Levi Yaten, Austin Wieselowski, AJ Dunkerley, Scott Camacho, Gil Camacho, Adam Spies, Andrew Shunk, Dean Molesky, Devin Davis, Joseph Kirsting, Josh Leiner, and Mike Williams for helping make this podcast possible. We'll talk to you guys next week. Up, up and away, true believers. Who watches the watchman watching the watchman? That's what I'd like to know.