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I think you're right in saying that it does mark a shift in responsibility, post the Mars encounter with Laurie. I think we're mean't to believe that he now sees the miracle in human life; but is still "big-picture" enough to weigh millions in favour of billions.
Why does he kill Rorshach? Good question. Arguably, he'd never have made it back, and would have died. Possibly, he's enough of a tenacious little shit to have made it back to Archie and got back to New York. I have difficulty in believing that, but maybe that's what we're mean't to believe.
The ending, even ignoring squid vs Manhattan, is markedly different in other ways too.
I went to see it with my wife, who has never read the comic, and I was careful not to spoil anything; I was curious to get her reaction and see how it contrasted with mine. Firstly, she turned to me very early on and asked if Ozy was behind everything - his villain-ness was telegraphed from the start.
The other difference was that the big question posed by the book (Would you expose the plot? Or cover it up? Was Veidt right or wrong?) wasn't posed by the film - it never occured to her until I asked her. And she came down heavily on the side of "it was wrong".
I think the film paints Veidt very much as a "baddie". He's arrogant, emotionless, deceptive, a killer, represents corporate America and is possibly a gay paedophile. That's a lot of boxes ticked.
Conversely, Rorshach is painted much more as a "goodie". There are some troubling moments, sure, like his disdain for intellectuals and liberals; but hey! He's no more troubling than Dirty Harry.
And the New Frontiersman isn't represented as a rightwing rag as overtly as in the comic, so you don't get that angle. There's the comment about Silhouette's "indecent lifestyle", but it's buried early on and nowhere near as overt as "possibly homosexual. must investigate further".
And then Dan is also painted as a goodguy hero - he doesn't go along with the scheme immediately, whereas he does in the book. Instead, he is clearly troubled, and then he proceeds to give Veidt a good smack round the chops after he kills Rorshach. Because that's what the good guy does, right? He still punches the villain. And Veidt, being on the receiving end of the punch, is therefore clearly the villain - and is therefore wrong in whatever actions he has taken. We then see ground zero, with Veidt Enterprises helping to rebuild - profitting from the damage, even. Y'know, like corporations who are helping to rebuild Iraq ("DO YOU SEE??" etc etc)
So, we end up with quite clear lines drawn between good and bad in the film, which serves to remove the "question" and the moral ambiguity from the ending, which I think is a shame. |
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