One of the many things to get cut from the film that was present in the book, was the culture of cigarette smoking in the world of Watchmen (it's the 80's--DUH), and the number of featured characters in the book that smoked.
I always wanted to see how they would make that weird, Alan Moore- glass pipe cigarette work in a film. It was a disapointing detail to lose.
Hollis Mason, Detective Fine, Laurie Juspeczyk, Janey Slater, The Silhouette, Young Bernie (though he, Det Fine, and some of the knot tops smoke hand rolled cigarettes) Milton Glass (though he was lame ass Wally Weaver in the film), were all more prominent characters that smoked in the book. There are also numerous background characters that are smokers.
My questions is this--In making a period authentic film based in the 1980's, why was ALL cigarette smoking left out of the film? Has anyone watched the original Ghostbusters lately? All of them smoke their asses off--because it's 1984, people smoke indoors everywhere--because that's how the world was in the 1980's; they were soft on smoking. Ghostbusters 2 was much more PC because it was the dreadful 1990's--None of the Ghostbusters or New York citizens smoke--Ray is allowed to smoke a cigar--like the Comedian or Big Figure. Cigars ok...Cigarettes bad?
Was the decision to remove all cigarette smoking a studio one? Or was it a creative decision?
