not a theory: Dr Manhattan
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By solarchap
- not a theory: Dr Manhattan
- Created: Mar 27, 2008
- Last updated: Aug 13, 2008
- After episode: 3.5: The Cost Of Living
- Status: Current
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Despite the absence of a body, a form of electromagnetic pattern resembling consciousness survived
— solarchap
Ok so I am like 10 years behind everyone else in getting round to reading ‘The Watchmen’ and people have compared similarities to themes and characters in LOST before, thats what got me interested in this in the first place. Well, that and the fact that Damon Lindelof said it was: “the greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced”.
and yes, I have read somewhere on this site, a long time ago that Desmond had similarities to Dr.Manhattan, a character who had an accident in a physics laboratory, in this amazing LOSt-esque story, but I’m thinking more Cerberus.
So I just want to share this paragraph from the comic-book with you all for posterity and because it’s well interesting and coz I’m pretty sure no-one has plagiarised the comic yet like I am about to.
“In 1959, in an accident that was certainly unplanned and just as certainly unrepeatable, a young American man was completely disintegrated, at least in a physical sense. Despite the absence of a body, a form of electromagnetic pattern resembling consciousness survived, and was able, in time, to rebuild an approximation of the body it had lost. Perhaps in the process of reconstructing its corporeal form, this new and wholly original entity achieved a complete mastery of all matter; able to shape reality by the manipulation of its basic building blocks.”
and a little later there is this paragraph:
“Our entire culture has had to contort itself to accommodate the presence of something MORE than human. One single being has been allowed to change the entire world, pushing it closer to it’s eventual destruction in the process. The Gods now walk amongst us, affecting the lives of every man, woman and child on the planet in a DIRECT way, rather than through mythology or the reassurances of faith. The safety of a whole world rests in the hands of a being far beyond what we understand to be human.”
nice work, so, what do you think the producers are trying to tell us with the similarities?
Hey, I just read The Watchmen for the first time as well. I think we’re 20 years behind the times, not 10. I’ll have to look at it again and consider Lost. I didn’t think of any similarities while I was reading it.
Lost does remind me of The Magus, though. Try reading that one.
I’m not sure that Lost and Watchmen have very much in common, other than them both being amazingly complex pieces of fiction that have the ability to make you say, “Wow! That’s awesome!” quite a lot.
With respect to Dr Manhattans similarites with Desmond, the former views time in a totally different way to us, ie. non-linear and able to view the past, present and future all at once which kind of echoes with Desmonds future flashes and his consciousness time travelling, but that’s about all that i can see. Or are you just saying that the hatch implosion had the same effect on Des as the accident that formed Dr Manhattan? Maybe ….
Interesting post.
Hi lockeko, long time no speak!
I think jimbobajam answered your question for me!; both works are amazingly complex as he says, & whilst I do think there are certain ideas that transpire from both, I don’t think, and was very careful not to say that The Watchmen is Lost!
so many people say it’s this, or it’s that, it’s stephen King , it’s alice in wonderland etc etc, I have always thought that LOST is simply what it is, i.e. it’s own show.
Tich98 says it’s like ‘The Magus” and I agree! but we know it’s not ‘The Magus’, a great piece of work though, good call Tich!
When ‘The Simpsons’ or ‘Family Guy’ do cultural references to other shows or ideas, they still remain ‘The Simpsons’ & ‘Family Guy’ i.e. the whole concept of ‘Blue Harvest’ is Star Wars, but it’s Not! it’s just ‘Family guy’ paying a lot of homage!
The very well read writers of LOST have combined so many ideas & themes you can spend a week on Lostpedia reading about them.
So when you read ‘The Watchmen’ you find lots of things that relate to LOST, I just included those two bits, because they really do relate to these amazing themes we are witnessing now, especially with Desmond and especially I think, with Cerberus, who we will see agin soon I hope. I could have mentioned snowglobe, hindu/buddhism, good v bad and lots of other things as they are all in there.
I think the consciousness/electromagnetic pattern struck me the most, and jimbojabam is right with the Desmond/Dr.Manhattan parallels i.e. experiencing non-linear time (I think charlie’s consciousness is also important here, he was right near that failsafe when it was activated, and whilst ONE part of him physically died, I think it’s more than plausible that his consciousness was hurled forward in time too, I just haven’t figured out how it incorporates into a body yet!!! LOL!) , also That means Locke and Eko were also affected and it’s mad that they never seemed to talk about it!
and how mad that after posting that comment last night, I watch a film called ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ with all ITS LOST/Desmond connotations!
Jimbojabam, I think there is a huge parallel between the hatch implosion and the Dr.Manhattan thing.
Where will it end?! and more importantly, how the hell are they gong to come up with anything that can rival LOST in the future?!? it’s like kind of already covered everything, there will be nothing left to pay homage to!
Cheers for your comments guys.