Watchmen (film)

"Rorschach's journal, October 12th 1985. Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city's afraid of me. I've seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood. And when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up around their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll whisper "No." Now the whole world stands on the brink staring down into bloody hell. All those liberals, and intellectuals, and smooth-talkers; and all of a sudden nobody can think of anything to say. Beneath me, this awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children. And the night reeks of fornication and bad consciences."

"Hurm. [repeated line]"

"[As the Owlship careens out of control] Daniel... Do not wish to interfere with operation of ship, but perhaps you should pull up sharply..."

"[discovering that the victim of murder was The Comedian] Tonight, a comedian died in New York. Somebody knows why... somebody knows."

"Rorschach's journal, October 13th 1985. 8:30pm. Meeting with Dreiberg left bad taste in mouth; a flabby failure sits whimpering in his basement. Why are so few of us left active, healthy, and without personality disorders? The First Nite Owl runs an autorepair shop. The first Silk Spectre is a bloated, aging whore dying in a California rest resort. Dollar Bill got his cape stuck on a revolving door where he got gunned down. Silhouette... murdered, a victim of her own indecent lifestyle. Mothman is in an asylum in Maine. Even Adrian Veidt. Possible homosexual? Must investigate further. Only two names remain on my list. Both share private quarters at Rockefeller Military Research Center. I shall go to them. I shall go tell the indestructible man that someone plans to murder him."

"Took a lot of effort to get in here to see you. I'm not leaving... [teleported away by Dr. Manhattan] ...until I've had my say."

"Edward Blake, The Comedian, born 1918, buried in the rain. Murdered. Is that what happens to us? No time for friends? Only our enemies leave roses. Violent lives ending violently. Blake understood. Humans are savage in nature. No matter how much you try to dress it up, to disguise it. Blake saw society's true face. Chose to be a parody of it, a joke. I heard a joke once. Man goes to doctor, says he's depressed. Life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world. Doctor says "Treatment is simple. The great clown, Pagliacci, is in town. Go see him. That should pick you up". Man bursts into tears. "But doctor", he says, "I am Pagliacci." Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains."

"Men get arrested. Dogs get put down."

"God didn't kill that little girl. Fate didn't butcher her. Destiny didn't feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind. From then on I knew; God doesn't make the world this way, we do."

"None of you seem to understand. I'm not locked in here with you... you're locked in here with me!"

"[on being unmasked] MY FACE! GIVE ME BACK MY FACE!"

"[on the whereabouts of his mask] WHERE'S MY FACE?!"

"Your turn, doctor. Tell me! [He slides his mask back down over his face] What do YOU see?"

"[to Nite Owl II in Veidt's office] Ancient Pharaohs looked forward to the end of the world. Believed cadavers would rise to reclaim hearts from golden jars. Hurm. Must currently be holding breath in anticipation."

"[Final line of the film] Rorschach's journal. October 12, 1985. Tonight, a comedian died in New York."

"[Surveying the carnage after the Comedian has broken up one of the "Keene Act Riots" by gleefully shooting rioters] We were supposed to make the world a better place! What the hell happened to us?!...[quiet and broken] ...What happened to the American dream?"

"Okay, no, listen: I've had it with that! God, who do you think you are, Rorschach? You live off people while insulting them, and nobody complains because they think you're a goddamned lunatic!"

"People's lives take them strange places. They do strange things, and sometimes they can't talk about them... I know how that is."

"I've walked across the surface of the sun, seen events so tiny and so fast that they hardly can be said to have occurred at all. But you, Adrian...are just a man. And the world's smartest man poses no more threat to me than does its smartest termite."

"Miracles. Events with astronomical odds of occurring, like oxygen turning into gold. I've longed to witness such an event, and yet I neglect that in human coupling, millions upon millions of cells compete to create life, for generation after generation until, finally, your mother loves a man: Edward Blake, the Comedian, a man she has every reason to hate, and out of that contradiction, against unfathomable odds, it's you — only you — that emerged. To distill so specific a form, from all that chaos; it's like turning air into gold. A miracle. And so... I was wrong. Now dry your eyes, and let's go home."

"You know, mankind's been trying to kill each other off since the beginning of time; now, we finally have the power to finish the job. Ain't nothing gonna matter once those nukes start flying; we'll all be dust. [sets fire to a map of the United States.] And Ozymandias here will be the smartest man on the cinder."

"(After Rorschach tells him that justice matters) Justice is coming to all of us. No matter what the fuck we do."

"It's a joke. It's all a fuckin' joke."

"(While shooting gleefully into a crowd of rioters, Nite Owl asks him what happened to the American Dream) What happened to the American dream? It came true! You're looking at it!"

"(Dr. Manhattan tells him that he sounds bitter over American victory in Vietnam) Me? Bitter? Fuck no. I think it's hilarious."

"I've done some bad things. I did bad things to women. I shot kids. You know, in 'Nam. But that was FUCKING WAR! But this? I've never seen anything like this. And here I am, spilling my guts to one of my archenemies. The truth is, you're the closest thing to a friend I've got. What the fuck does that say?"

"The only person with whom I felt any kinship with died three hundred years before the birth of Christ. Alexander of Macedonia, or Alexander the Great, as you know him."

"Well, it was unprecedented. I wanted... needed to match his accomplishments, and so I resolved to apply antiquity's teaching to our world, today. And so began my path to conquest. Conquest not of men, but of the evils that beset them."

"[raising a toast with his researchers] What, in life, does not deserve celebrating? This is the new Karnak. This represents the culmination of a dream more than 2000 years old. A dream now assured because of your unquestioning assistance. And for this, I am ashamed. Ashamed that you must now share such inadequate a reward. To the pharaohs. Their greatest secrets entrusted to their servants. Buried alive with them in sand-floored chambers. [the researchers die from drinking poisoned champagne] Sleep well, gentlemen. Our new, peaceful world will be indebted to your great sacrifice. Bubastis."

"Dan, grow up. My new world demands less obvious heroism. Your schoolboy heroics are redundant. What have they achieved? Failing to prevent Earth's salvation is your only triumph."

"Of course, my moral safeguards gave me pause at the necessary sacrifice. A few key regions around the globe - New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Hong Kong - disintegrated in an instant. Fifteen million people killed by Dr. Manhattan himself. The world's punishment for flirting with World War III."

"You see, the Comedian was right. Humanity's savage nature will inevitably lead to global annihilation. So in order to save this planet, I had to trick it. With the greatest practical joke in human history."

"Who Watches the Watchmen?"

"Justice is coming to all of us. No matter what we do."

"It's the end of the superhero as we know it."

"This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face."

"I am used to going out at 3am and doing something stupid."

"The existence of life is a highly overrated phenomenon."

"Jackie Earle Haley — Walter Kovacs / Rorschach"

"Patrick Wilson — Daniel Dreiberg / Nite Owl II"

"Malin Akerman — Laurie Juspeczyk / Silk Spectre II"

"Billy Crudup — Dr. Jon Osterman / Doctor Manhattan"

"Matthew Goode — Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias"

"Jeffrey Dean Morgan — Edward Blake / The Comedian"

"Carla Gugino — Sally Jupiter / Silk Spectre I"

"Q: You drew these panels that were full of carnage and bloody streets, and they're not in the movie. How did you feel as an artist, about not being able to see the actual destruction?"

"A: All in all, using 9/11 as an excuse to change the ending of the movie doesn't sit right with me - especially since the film already shows a little girl in a dog's mouth and plenty of gore earlier in the film. Why spend so much time remaining true to the book, only to drop the ball in the final act? I sympathize with film-makers who have to work with the studios, but they could have tried harder to meet them halfway. Perhaps it didn't have to be as graphic as the novel, but there must have been some way the filmmakers could have demonstrated the lives that had been taken. The loss of those images creates more confusion, and dilutes the seriousness of the movie's grand finale."

"A: The ending of the book shows just piles of corpses, bloody corpses in the middle of Times Square, people hanging out of windows just slaughtered on a massive scale. To do that in a comic book, and release it in 1985, is different from doing it real life, in a movie, and seeing all of these people brutally massacred in the middle of Times Square post 2001. That's a legitimate concern, and one that I shared."

"Q: So the studio had reservations about the ending, because of September 11 and because people wouldn't be ready for it. But weren't you worried about changing the ending, as someone who loved the graphic novel?"

"David Hayter's screenplay was as close as I could imagine anyone getting to [a film version of] Watchmen. That said, I shan't be going to see it. My book is a comic book. Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book. It's been made in a certain way, and designed to be read a certain way."