Should Veidt live or die?

[Motown Marvel]

i never said i condemned the action. good grief, all of this either/or, black and white from those who are ridicule what they perceive as black and white views. quite ironic. no, i don't condemn the action; it was necessary, and i approve of what he did. the president is charged with the defense and protection of this country. there was no other option than defeating the enemy.

so, you believe the action was necessary, and the right thing to do...is that opinion dependant on the enablers status in society?

 

[Overman27pj]

what matters is one has been given the power to make those decisions and to defend a country by any means within his arsenal while the other hasn't.

Adrian Viedt is not acting for or aligned with any paticular country, and is not bound to those rules.

 

[Mysterio]

Adrian Viedt is not acting for or aligned with any paticular country, and is not bound to those rules.

and therefore the difference between him and Truman. it is what makes him nothing more and nothing less than a mass murderer. although as a citizen, he is most definitely bound by the rules, but has chosen (as have the others) to act outside those rules.

 

[Mysterio]

the enablers status in society?

explain what you mean.

 

[Motown Marvel]

explain what you mean.

you say truman's actions were necessary and the right thing to do. is your opinion of that dependant on the fact that he was the president of the USA and was legally empowered to do so?

 

[Gilpesh]

Veidt's actions were necessary to stop a nuclear war that would have destroyed Earth.

 

[Sandman138]

you can't possibly be serious. again, you are trying to go for a base-level comparison, as if everything is equal. let's see...an oppressive, totalitarian government with the goal of world domination and the eradication of an ethnic and religious group(s) through murder, versus delivering defeat to an enemy of liberty and freedom through an act of self-preservation.

what do you think makes them different?

Of course I'm not serious. It's an obvious hyperbole, but you have yet to clarify what your position is so I'm kinda forced to debate each premise on its own. You said the system gave Truman authority to do what he did, and the lives and concerns of the Japanese citizens were irrelevant, so I brought up another system that gave Hitler the authority to do what he did, assuming that the lives and concerns of the British people would be equally irrelevant. Or do you think that the women and children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obvious enemies of liberty and freedom?

 

[Sandman138]

and therefore the difference between him and Truman. it is what makes him nothing more and nothing less than a mass murderer. although as a citizen, he is most definitely bound by the rules, but has chosen (as have the others) to act outside those rules.

So, if Veidt had been aligned with the US, and done this to make the US the sole authority over all the world, and let's say, instead of New York, it had been Moscow... would that make it heroic?

 

[Mysterio]

you say truman's actions were necessary and the right thing to do. is your opinion of that dependant on the fact that he was the president of the USA and was legally empowered to do so?

it is partly based on the fact that as president he is empowered and required to defend, protect, and preserve this country and our constitution - the fabric of our government and guaranteer of our freedoms - and the need to defeat and ensure victory over enemies in order to do so.

 

[Sandman138]

it is partly based on the fact that as president he is empowered and required to defend, protect, and preserve this country and our constitution - the fabric of our government and guaranteer of our freedoms - and the need to defeat and ensure victory over enemies in order to do so.

And a superhero, by some definition is empowered and required to save the world.

 

[Motown Marvel]

it is partly based on the fact that as president he is empowered and required to defend, protect, and preserve this country and our constitution - the fabric of our government and guaranteer of our freedoms - and the need to defeat and ensure victory over enemies in order to do so.

so you would consider it wrong if anyone other than the president took the necessary measures to end the war?

 

[Motown Marvel]

well, lets not have mysterio's disappearance ruin our good time....i think there were some good discussions going on before the thread was interrupted....lets keep it going.

 

[newwaveboy87]

I dont understand how Veidt dying makes this movie more appealing. The tragedy of the book is the death of millions - not the survival of Veidt. His death does not change that.

because it will give the masses a easily digestible, very obvious villain. and a payment for his crimes in killing so many people. despite the fact that it would completely contradict just about everything leading up to that point.

ugh...nevermind to Mysterio's post i originally had up here. back to the question at hand...i think that Veidt has to live. his dying would be contradictory to the bigger picture of the book.

 

[IKnowSomeJudo]

Quoted from the book:
"Can't get away with it?
Will you expose me, undoing the peace millions died for?
Kill me, risking subsequent investigation?"

 

[Mercurius]

Veidt must live, of course.

If he dies, what is the point of Doc Manhattan's last lines for him?

 

[Captain Carnage]

None whatsoever.

Which is why in the screenplays in which he dies (um... all of 'em, from Hayter thru to Tse), Manhattan never gets to speak those last lines to Veidt.

 

[Gilpesh]

There. That's why he can't die.

It makes the movie end. And not in the sense that the credits run when the time is over. It makes the movie's story END, forever. That line is lost and the meaning of it is lost.

 

[Mercurius]

Gee, that's disgraceful.

I wasn't aware of such blatant lack of brains in the script.

Moore did not kill him because it MAKES NO SENSE punishing the baddy in this kind of story. Manhattan proves the world is more full of surprises than Veidt can expect in his brainy Cartesian schemes.

Man, that's just AWFUL .

 

[bored]

It would really take away from the punch of the ending if he dies.

 

[Bishop]

funny. i, in a shallow way, sort of wanted him to die at the end of watchmen for his crimes, but now i hear they might actually do it i'm fully against it.

 

[StorminNorman]

Lets say if Veidt were to die, I have a problem with Dan being the guy to do it. I

If Veidt is to be killed, it should be by Rorschach's hand.

And it should never be by the owl-ship crashing into him.

 

[Captain Carnage]

Agreed. In the comic, Veidt goes and kicks Dan's girl in the guts right in front of him and when Dan makes a token effort to remonstrate with him, Ozy just blows him off with a condescending Do grow up and casually breezes straight past and strolls away. Dan does s hit.

Him taking on Ozy because he's all upset over his buddy Rorschach having been blown to atoms don't ring right - it's sure not the Dan of the book.

 

[Sandman138]

Lets say if Veidt were to die, I have a problem with Dan being the guy to do it. I

If Veidt is to be killed, it should be by Rorschach's hand.

And it should never be by the owl-ship crashing into him.

Either one of those two killing Veidt is all levels of wrong. Either one legitimizes their view of the world and what it takes to make it better, something that the entire story has built itself in opposition to. If Veidt absolutely must die, make it suicide. But if he does die, then they are losing my money.

 

[IKnowSomeJudo]

Right, and not to mention that it's just ridiculous. Neither Rorschach nor Dan could have killed Veidt. We all saw the "fight". He could have snapped eithers' neck like a twig if he wanted to. Laurie fired a gun at him and he caught the goddamn bullet. Veidt is just that superior in both physical prowess and intelligence.
Veidt buying the farm is moralist revisionism at its worst a la Greedo shooting first.

 

[larryfilmmaker]

I think it's very important that Veidt lives. I have a friend, who is relatively cold heart hearted and he bases everything on cold, hard stats and facts... he doesn't seem to understand the open minded, emotional side of life at all. He roots for Veidt the entire time and believes that it's okay to murder 1000 innocents in order to save a billion lives. That's Veidt's idea. Veidt is goign to treat human beings like chess pieces on HIS chessboard and make the world a "better place" in his own eyes. In the end, by all logical... he succeeds. He lives and his plan works, no matter how sadistic it might seem to the heroes. Veidt never "gets what's coming to him" or gets beat up by a hero. That's not how real life works. He gets away with it, scott free. Until one awesome sentence from Dr. Manhattan. "Nothing ever ends".

As Manhattan leaves, never to return... Veidt is driven mad by the powerful lesson. He didn't save the world because the world will go on forever and sooner or later, the same conflicts repeat themselves, get resolved, then repeat themselves again. Veidt didn't truly fix anything, but he gave his humanity and any sense of heroism away when he murdered all those people. Veidt succeeds on a small scale but in the grand scheme of things, it was just a whisper in the wind.

Killing Veidt off completely dumbs down the whole point of the story. To make this into a two dimensional "bad guy bites it at the end" story is completely insulting and unintelligent. Veidt has to live on with no PHYSICAL harm to him. That's the whole damn point.