Watchmen

First off, sweet movie. Way better than I expected. After the first scene and the opening credits with "The Times They Are A-Changin'" playing in the background, I was hooked. Probably a half hour too long, but that didn't knock it down more than a half a notch. Cool special effects, good characters. I just wish I had read the comic because there seemed to be a lot of mythology I was missing out on. Maybe it could have done better as a trilogy or a miniseries or something so us less-devoted fans could have been a little more in the loop. Anyway, by the end I started to realize why D&C tend to mention it when discussing their influences, and I think there are a few Lost predictions that can be made from it's conclusion.

The similarities between Dr. Manhattan and the Man In Black were striking. The big blue guy saw humanity as imperfect, corrupt, and violent. Although by the end he saw value in life, for much of the movie he was rather indifferent to the suffering of people. Because he could see the future and the past and the present, he was a believer in fate - the anti-Jacob. As the credits were about to role, Laurie said he would have said something like, "these things never end," which, again, is the opposite of Jacob, who said in The Incident "It only ends once." Could Dr. Manhattan's change of heart be a sign of things to come with the MIB? A glimmer of hope for John Locke? If anything, it's the opposite. More on that in a bit.

Adrian, the guy who orchestrated the series of events that led to the framing of Dr. Manhattan, seems to parallel the viewpoint of Jacob. He wanted to make humanity better than it really was. He thought progress could be made. As a result of his actions, the world turned into a utopia, a "hippie commune" as one of the characters said. Sounds pretty Dharma-like to me. Still, Adrian was hardly the hero of the story. He was a selfish character with poor intentions. Jacob, on the other hand, seems to have good intentions. Obviously, the two stories can't fit together perfectly. That would be too easy and far less interesting, but still, it makes me wonder if Jacob played a role in bringing Dharma to the Island, and if so, why couldn't they coexist with the Others? This lends a little more credence to my theory that Jacob has not been the only one giving orders to the Others' leadership, and he certainly didn't give the go-ahead for the purge.

The end of the movie had a bit of a "not the hero we need right now" vibe, like the end of The Dark Knight. Dr. Manhattan was an indestructible force, a one man nuclear defense. He single-handedly protected the country from all danger abroad. But, only as a villain could he save the world from nuclear holocaust. How does this apply to Lost? Unfortunately, I think it spells trouble for the Box Man. For much of the show, it appeared that Locke was destined to be the leader of the Others, to protect them and the Island from any and all threats. He was given his legs back. He was chosen to move the Island. Now Locke's dead, but his death might just be the ticket to bringing Jack, Kate, Sawyer and crew back to the present and avenging Jacob's death, maybe even saving the Island, just like Dr. Manhattan going down spared the world from the apocalypse. He's still the hero, just not the hero I was hoping him to be.

I guess in the back of my mind I always thought Locke would end the show as the leader of the Others, the one that brought balance to the force, so to speak. And lately I've been struggling to come to grips with the idea that Locke is really dead, and that every second of his pathetic life was just part of the MIB's mousetrap for Jacob, but if it turns out to be more of a "sacrifice that the Island demanded" to save the Island and the rest of the survivors, that would be a little easier to swallow.