[quote]Malevolence wrote:
Mad Max the movie predates Watchmen the Book and is likely where Moore got the idea in the first place. I hate to say it, but leaving it out of the Watchmen movie was probably a smart choice. Though, doing so seriously warped Rorchach’s monologue. [/quote]
Sure. I was aware that Mad Max predates the Watchmen GN and I wouldn’t be suprised if he used MM as inspiration, seeing as he used the premise of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as the basis for one of his early stories.
The point I was making is that in cinematic terms, it isn’t a fresh idea - which may or may not have prompted Snyder to make the change. The basic concept has been recycled, and appeared in many other movies since Mad Max.
Anyone remotely interested in movies would be aware of that. If Snyder remained faithful to the GN, it is entirely possible that people who haven’t read the GN would view that particular event as yet another rehashed idea.
Which, of course, it isn’t: even if Alan Moore was inspired by Mad Max, the manner in which Rorschach punishes the child-murderer serves as the defining moment of Kovac’s transformation into Rorschach.
This goes back to what Stu said earlier about Rorschach “doing something by doing nothing”(which is an excellent way of putting it, BTW). The idea that Rorschach hands the child killer the keys to his own fate, and stands back waiting for him to open the door, is possibly the most important point for the character.
When Kovacs’ mind breaks, he isn’t supposed to fly into a frenzy and slaughter the killer out of rage (as he seems to). Instead, he allows the criminal to judge and punish himself for his own actions .
In fact, everything about the character of Rorschach leads into that one moment. Walter Kovacs is lost forever in the trauma of the event and is replaced by Rorschach - an individual (if you can call him that) with no real identity. Two people are supposed to die in that building: the child killer (literally) and Walter Kovacs(metaphorically). The Rorschach who emerges has no identity because he is intended to reflect whatever each person sees in him*, hence the ever-changing mask.
Even though he personally kills criminals from that point on, he is never emotionally invested in it. Their deaths are literally supposed to be the result of their own actions. Having Rorschach punish the child killer directly was a huge mistake, IMO. There are so many reasons why…
SPOILERS!!!
*Just as he is confronted by his own true nature when he is shown the Rorschach cards in the interrogation room. In a sense, he even judges himself by lying to the psychologist about what he sees: he can’t confront his own demons when face to face with ‘the mask’…