History Fridge / Watchmen

* The incredible symmetry that slowly unveils itself over the course of the book.

** The term "Watchmen" refers to both costumed heroes and Jon's original desire to be a watchmaker.
*** Similarly, [[StealthPun "Minutemen"]] also fits the clock theme.

** Dr. Manhattan experiences time in a non-linear fashion. How is the story told? Primarily through flashback, i.e. non-linearly. In fact, since Dr. Manhattan can perceive all of time at once, it could be argued we're seeing the story from HIS perspective.

* In a slight change from the comic book, Dr. Mahattan claims to not be omniscient despite retaining his ability to view the past, present, and future simultaneously. This makes sense given the different medium he's currently in. Unlike a comic book, where the reader could read and/or view two different events on different pages simultaneously, the same can't be said for watching a film; the viewer can only rewind and fast-forward to see a particular scene, and even using the "scene selection" feature only allows them to see the scene at a certain point.

* A little bit of meta fun: comic-readers will know that the sequence of Ozymandias almost being assassinated was depicted in chapter 5, 'Fearful Symmetry', which is famed for its clever use of literal symmetry with the issue's events and even how the panels are laid out to be read, with Veidt flooring his would-be assassin in the dead-centre of the issue. Obviously the film was every chapter merged into one, and it would've been nearly impossible to lay the scenes out in the same way without just literally slapping the comic pages on the screen ala Ang Lee's 'Hulk'. Yet they still managed to make the assassination scene have a theme of symmetry... through the set. Two reception counters on either side, with identical looking receptionists, and a simple geometric fountain structure in the dead centre of the room, with a slew of elevators in the back, while Veidt stands in the middle of a group. The entire room is a mirror image down the middle.

** And on a lesser extent, it also explains why he built that big weird glass thing on Mars in the style of a watch-- in some ways it's a glass prison, an extension of his detachment from reality, and how his fatalism has led him to believe everyone just runs like clockwork. Silk Spectre breaking it... well, I think you can figure that one out.
** People often wonder why Jon keeps the same personality, etc, etc, doesn't change sides from the US after he becomes Manhattan. It occurred to me: Manhattan is utterly a creature of physics. And Newton's First Law of physics is inertia: namely, that a body which is not acted on by an outside force will ''keep on doing what it was doing.''

** The first time I read through ''Comicbook/{{Watchmen}}'' I thought the pirate comic was fun and interesting (if [[{{Squick}} squicky]] story about the tale of a man trying to protect his loved ones and ultimately becoming the thing he tries to protect them from, but not terribly relevant to the story. It wasn't until a second read through that I realized that the "Tales" story is all about [[spoiler:Adrian]] doing the very thing he is trying to prevent (i.e. [[spoiler:killing millions of people in a single strike]]).

* One might find the story's non-costumed characters boring. It always seemed like their plotlines were pointless compared to the "heroes." Later, during my umpteenth re-reading, I suddenly realized that ''this was the whole point''. All of the scenes of their lives in the previous chapters make you invested in their stories, [[spoiler:making it all the more harrowing when they are all violently killed by Ozy's scheme. Through their deaths, we are made to understand the enormity of what Ozy has done. Those dead characters are just a tiny fraction of the ''three million people'' that died in that horrible moment. Moore couldn't have made us feel every life (like Ozy claimed to do to himself), but though those characters that we came to know, we are able to better feel the true scale of the evil that Adrian has unleashed.]]

** Dr. Manhattan experiences time in a non-linear fashion. How is the story told? Primarily through flashback, i.e. non-linearly. In fact, since Dr. Manhattan can perceive all of time at once, it could be argued we're seeing the story from HIS perspective. * Over time Dr. Manhattan "loses touch" with humanity, and one of the ways this is illustrated is his dialogue: soon after his transformation, he asks Janey "What's up?", but when the TV host asks him the same question later, [[LiteralMinded he doesn't seem to appreciate the idiom.]]

* Chekov's Gun not within the comic proper, but the supplemental pieces inbetween - Rorschach's arrest record makes a point to mention that the Rorschach's journal, the thing that the final twist revolves around, contains handwriting eccentric to the point of illegibility...

** Dr. Manhattan experiences time in a non-linear fashion. How is the story told? Primarily through flashback, i.e. non-linearly. In fact, since Dr. Manhattan can perceive all of time at once, it could be argued we're seeing the story from HIS perspective.
** A watchman can refer to a guard. It can also refer to a person who repairs watches
* Over time Dr. Manhattan "loses touch" with humanity, and one of the ways this is illustrated is his dialogue: soon after his transformation, he asks Janey "What's up?", but when the TV host asks him the same question later, [[LiteralMinded he doesn't seem to appreciate the idiom.]]

* Near the end of the story, Adrian quotes the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah's victory stele: "Canaan is devastated, Ashkelon is fallen, Gezer is ruined, Yenoam is reduced to nothing, Israel is desolate and her seed is no more, and Palestine has become a widow for Egypt - [[UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans All the countries are unified and pacified.]]" Like his superhero name, its a hint that his plans are doomed to fail in the long run - Merneptah's stele was carved in the year 1203 BCE, on the eve of the Late Bronze Age Collapse, which abruptly ended the prosperity of the New Kingdom and reduced Egypt to a shell of its former self. This began a downward spiral for ancient Egypt [[EndOfAnAge from which it never fully recovered]]: The century-long dark age that followed the LBA collapse was itself followed by the "Third Intermediate Period" in which Egypt fractured into several petty kingdoms, which was in turn followed by a period in which Egypt was controlled by a rotating cast of foreign conquerors; first Kushites, then Assyrians, then Persians, then Macedonians, then finally Romans.

** "Watchmen" originally ran for 12 issues, and there are 12 hands on a clock.

[[AC:Fridge Brilliance]]

[[AC:Fridge Horror]]

[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]

* Seeing the one-time "Mister Moloch" as an old man in a cheap apartment who's dying of cancer really seems to take the wind out of Rorschach's monochrome "evil must be punished" sails... after he went to the trouble of ''ambushing him from inside his refrigerator.'' Rorschach probably ''wanted'' a super-villain to fight, not, as he is finally faced with, downbeat old Edgar Jacobi.

* A little bit of meta fun: comic-readers will know that the sequence of Ozymandias almost being assassinated was depicted in chapter 5, 'Fearful Symmetry', which is famed for it's clever use of literal symmetry with the issue's events and even how the panels are laid out to be read, with Veidt flooring his would-be assassin in the dead-centre of the issue. Obviously the film was every chapter merged into one, and it would've been nearly impossible to lay the scenes out in the same way without just literally slapping the comic pages on the screen ala Ang Lee's 'Hulk'. Yet they still managed to make the assassination scene have a theme of symmetry... through the set. Two reception counters on either side, with identical looking receptionists, and a simple geometric fountain structure in the dead centre of the room, with a slew of elevators in the back, while Veidt stands in the middle of a group. The entire room is a mirror image down the middle
* Unlike the comic, the movie actually showed us the Comedian's death, starting with his unknown killer entering his apartment. If you've read the comic then you'll already know who it is, but if you haven't there's a small hint [[spoiler:from the advert on the television for a Veidt perfume]]

* How was Jon Osterman capable of rebuilding himself into Doctor Manhattan after his intrinsic field was removed? I think most of us agree it was his background as both a watchmaker and a nuclear physicist which allowed him to do that, but I'm talking about a more basic concept here: somehow, his conscience must have remained alive, without a body, for him to be able to apply all his knowledge into his own reconstruction, right? Now, it's horrible enough to imagine what Osterman's life must have been during those months he spent trying to reassemble himself, but think about poor [[spoiler: Bubastis]], drifting in nothingness for who knows how many months (or years, or forever), unable to rebuild [[spoiler: herself]] or even understand what's happening...