There are extreme examples of maladjustment like Rorschach but Dan, Laurie? I think you're trying too hard to cast these characters as all very "crazy" which defeats the purpose of you whining about the film's supposed great lack of complexity in comparison. Though you did seem to have backpedaled a bit from your previous blanket generalization of all the characters being "complete sociopaths and/or narcissists". Not sure really whether to give credit or what, but maybe you should be a bit clearer in your language and clarify just what you think them being "sociopathic" really means in your mind? Because the majority of them clearly don't lack conscience and besides, moral conscience is exactly what makes them interesting as flawed people struggling with whether the ends really justify their means.
From Wiki :Moore said, "DC realized their expensive characters would end up either dead or dysfunctional."
Or Moore's own ideas about superheroes.
Someone else from Wiki (yes, I can admit my ideas aren't original, but I did come of them under my own reflection of repeated readings of the comic): "Geoff Klock eschewed the term "deconstruction" in favor of describing Watchmen as a "revisionary superhero narrative." He considers Watchmen and Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns to be "the first instances ... of [a] new kind of comic book ... a first phase of development, the transition of the superhero from fantasy to literature."[54] He elaborates by noting that "Alan Moore's realism ... performs a kenosis towards comic book history ... [which] does not ennoble and empower his characters ... Rather, it sends a wave of disruption back through superhero history ... devalue[ing] one of the basic superhero conventions by placing his masked crime fighters in a realistic world".[55] First and foremost, "Moore's exploration of the [often sexual] motives for costumed crimefighting sheds a disturbing light on past superhero stories, and forces the reader to reevaluate—to revision—every superhero in terms of Moore's kenosis—his emptying out of the tradition."[56] Klock relates the title to the quote by Juvenal to highlight the problem of controlling those who hold power and quoted repeatedly within the work itself.[57] The deconstructive nature of Watchmen is, Klock notes, played out on the page also as, "[l]ike Alan Moore's kenosis, [Veidt] must destroy, then reconstruct, in order to build 'a unity which would survive him."
I really, really don't want to break it down character to character, honestly because I don't think I could, but I cannot imagine you can't see it. Nite Owl can't perform sexually unless he kicks the crap out of thugs (maybe commits murder) first. Rorschach, despite having clear ideas of right and wrong in his mind, thinks that his own brand of judge, jury, and executioner is acceptable. Ozimandias just thinks that mass murder is right because it pulls us back from the brink of destruction and he along with the Comedian are the narcissists I was referring to.
Do these sound like well balanced individuals? Really?
I felt JEH's performance as Rorschach was quite good but not merely a note for note copy of the comic's character. I think you were probably let down by the softer intonation Haley used as opposed to the comic Rorschach's defiant rage. Matter of taste but I can appreciate such small differences without screaming about Snyder "failing".
The film could have been less loyal to the source material and given us a better story. The thing about movies that are adapted from novels/comics/etc. is that films are a different medium. What works for a comic doesn't always work for a film (or mix and match that example). If Snyder had taken the concept and the general story of Watchmen and used it as a jumping off point for a deconstruction of the film superhero the way the original was used to deconstruct comics, he could have focused on characters and made something that resonated emotionally. There are hints that he or someone in the production considered that, e.g. the Bat-nipples on Ozmansias' costume, but instead he chose to just copy it almost word for word. That's fine when it's a comic book ripping apart comics, but this is a film. I don't think he's even capable of taking that concept and changing it for a film. I'm not saying I could, but I would have been more impressed if he had tried that and failed instead of just regurgitating Moore's comic.
The consequences? A woman shoots a man and he catches the bullet. You think that makes the book inherently morally superior and believable in its portrayal of violence? I simply cannot fathom the tightrope act of cognitive dissonance you are walking here. We can argue shades of grey in terms of stylized violence but your black & white assertions about book vs. film are ridiculously overstated and even sanctimoniously fanboyish.
???
I'm pretty sure you didn't even attempt to debate me on the point I'm trying to make. Are you saying I'm wrong in that violence in comics wasn't called into question in Watchmen? Are you saying Snyder didn't make it look cool on the big screen? Did you read my post about The Dark Knight Rises? I don't know what you're trying to say other than "you're wrong because I say you're wrong."
Besides, as for your point Watchmen the comic portrayed realistic consequences "versus what comics had presented up to that point in time", I'm pretty sure that's not quite accurate even if I conceded that Watchmen's violence was wholly grounded and moral in its depiction of consequences. I'm pretty sure there are older, some even much older, examples of realistic consequences in comics. Gwen Stacy's death, I think, was a good deal older event in Spiderman comics.
Evidence? I'll give you Gwen Stacey was shocking, but it was still safe. That was also made in a time when comics were still for kids. Moore and Gibbons and Miller forced comics to grow up. Snyder made the movie version that felt like it was aimed at 13-year-old boys.