Silence Speaks

watchmen

went to catch Watchmen (m18) with M and N on friday after going incognito clad in ny uniform to NUS for a statistics and applied probability talk organised by the math department. blending was the key and apparently we did it so well no one recognised us except ms seah when we came back to sch and hopped on the ride. lol.

the talk by Prof Cook was rather interesting and he showed us several "sure-win" methods. anyway one of the eg he shown us was a real game show hosted back in the 80s called "Let's Make A Deal". the contestant would be given 3 doors to choose from and only 1 of which would lead to the prize money and the other two something else. the objective was of course to get the prize money. after the contestant was asked to choose one, the host then reveals another door which leads to something else. after which the host would offer another option to the contestant; to switch doors or to remain faithful and untempted. of the two out of three times of class participation, it proved to be fruitful to remain faithful despite temptations. the math behind it is fairly interesting to say the least; initially, each door holds a 33.3% of probability of being the right door, including the three - the right and the wrong doors. by logic: chances of picking the right door is 1/3, while the wrong one being 2/3. after a door is revealed, with two doors remaining, the prob of the right door increased to 50% while the prob of the wrong one falls to 50% (from 66.6%). hence naturally speaking based on probability, it becomes the most reasonable to stick with your own choice. fascinating huh. anyway, go watch the movie "21". it's a really good show revolving applications of math in real life, though i'm not sure if it really works. lol

Watchmen was kinda weird and unexpected. Set back in the 60s, the characters banded together for justice initially. Strength in numbers - i get it, but it wasn't like the superhero worked together with one and another, but rather with themselves. And the scenes were pretty gruesomely violent. Then some where along the way, some turned crazy, and only a few remaining. Unlike the typical superhero film, the supervillian (Ozymandias) in the show turned out to be one of the superheroes with a warped sense of saving mankind. He even went to the extent of sacrificing one of his teammate's innocence (Dr Manhattan), and the lives of millions to which according to him would in turn save billions. And then one of the female character (Silk Spectre II) hopped from one male superhero (Dr Manhattan) to another (Nite Owl). Lol that's like pretty bad behavior for a superhero isn't it? But the most interesting thing was, this female character wasn't the original one, her mom was. She actually inherited the position from her mom. Lol. And she was the fruit of labour of her mom and another fellow superhero (The Comedian - who was killed from the start because he figured out Ozymandias's grand plan). Then of course there were some sad characters like Rorschach who ended up dead because he wanted to reveal the truth and Dr Manhattan who banished himself off to Mars. The plot was quite well written in a way that keeps you guessing who was the mastermind.

okay this is it for now. my bed is beckoning me. toodles.

posted by wantington-ny @ 12:10 AM