Watchmen HBO Eyeing ‘Watchmen’ TV Series from Damon Lindelof

[Silvermoth]

I would say it sticks more to the radical vision of his work than Snyder’s did which was a shot for shot remake but missed the point and subtlety

 

[Closerframe]

Glad to see this get the recognition it deserves. It’s the best tribute to Moore’s work while creating something entirely new.

 

[Sawyer]

Well deserved wins, although I saw it coming considering the amount of nominations it racked up. I'm curious if all the praise and awards are enough for Alan Moore to consider watching it, but we'd never know if he did anyway. He may actually be pleasantly surprised.

I feel pretty confident in saying that there is no praise or accolade that any adaptation of his work could receive that would ever get Moore on-board.

 

[Kane52630]

 

[Lencho01]

 

[Babillygunn]

Finally got to watch this series. Absolutely stunning. I do wish that they hadn’t used the evil Asian scientist trope, but otherwise it was simply impeccable.

 

[Batmannerism]

I guess I'm the lone voice of dissent here.

While the show has plenty of merits, I feel it's a misrepresentation calling it Watchmen, and the suggestion that it's an adaptation because...well it's not.

I mean the themes and topics explored by the original are vastly different. The characters from the original series do things in this series that seem to be completely at odds with their characterization from the original story.

Where this falls apart the most IMO is in its version of Dr Manhattan. The whole point of Dr Manhattan's character in Watchmen, was that he had evolved so far beyond humanity that he had no interest in human affairs - he had become God, capital G. His departure from Earth, maybe even our galaxy was the next step in his development. So the idea that he came back to earth to live as a man and fall in love makes **** all sense. Also, that humans could invent a weapon that would actually destroy him is ridiculous. That's like saying a cockroach could invent an atom bomb.

I have no problem with a program that explores the concept of masks and their connection with racial politics in America. But why not do that as an original concept ? Using the name Watchmen to me just looks like exploitation of an IP for brand recognition.

Well deserved wins, although I saw it coming considering the amount of nominations it racked up. I'm curious if all the praise and awards are enough for Alan Moore to consider watching it, but we'd never know if he did anyway. He may actually be pleasantly surprised.

Alan Moore does not generally look favourably on adaptations of his work. One look at Extraordinary Gentlemen or From Hell and you see why. Even V for Vendetta, which was pretty good, annoyed him because it paid a lip service to his themes, while retaining the same story.

In this case, had the "Watchmen" program been an original work and not purported to be connected with his masterpiece, or stuck in some of his characters in supporting roles, he might have enjoyed it.

I thought the take on Hooded Justice was interesting- and given the ambiguous references to his identity in the real Watchmen, well maybe ? However, the original also strongly suggests he was a sexual sadist who had an appetite for young men - and was murdered by Comedian. So, a little bit of a retcon there, and if you're going to call yourself Watchmen, I think you need to pay more respect to the ****ing source material.

Ultimately, in its current form it would probably just piss him off, and he'd see Lindelof riding on his creativity, and pushing different agendas.

I know where you're coming from.

Fact is, Osterman became Dr. Manhattan because his consciousness - reduced to an electromagnetical form of some sort by the machine - was somehow special and it managed to "assemble" a new body. His powers are quantic.
I don't know how you can "transfer" to another being this new existential state just through mere "ingestion" of atomic particles.

I can see arguments both ways. But I fall on the side of NFW ! Osterman was a physicist who saw the universe in a particular way before he became Dr Manhattan. In the Watchmen comic it states that the accident had never been successfully repeated - perhaps that was because of the way his mind worked, he reassembled himself piece by piece, rather than suddenly inheriting super powers. As such, the egg thing doesn't really work for me.
Putting aside the " Can God make a rock so big he can't lift it ?" for a moment, more importantly why would he want to create another being like himself ? The danger in doing so seems enormous, if that being turned out to be less benevolent, and at the same time he's moved so far past humanity he wouldn't need companionship or a successor.

Similarly, I hated what was done with the Veidt character. Jeremy Irons is a great actor and could make just about anything good. But the characterization and extraterrestrial imprisonment was just ridiculous - again going back to the mischaracterization of Dr Manhattan
, who literally states that he can't condemn or condone what Veidt did.

My ultimate assessment is that Alan Moore's work remains the absolute pinnacle of comic books, and this new series has plenty of intrinsic merits. However, they are radically different beasts, with a tenuous connection based on branding logos and warped versions of legacy characters. ( a bit like JJ Abrams' Star Wars trilogy).

Alan Moore remains a cantankerous and antisocial genius, while Damon Lindelof is still the guy who brought us Star Trek Into Darkness and Prometheus ( IPs he has arguably mishandled and misunderstood) and Tomorrowland ( which may be his most original work....and how good was it ?)

But if folks enjoyed it, more power to them.

 

[Pennywise]

Jean Smart Reveals She Got Watchmen Role Because Sigourney Weaver Declined

 

[Drizzle]

Jean Smart Reveals She Got Watchmen Role Because Sigourney Weaver Declined

While it would have been interesting to see Weaver in the role, this is the kind of thing where I feel like it wouldn't have been much different from what we got with Smart. And I thought Smart was great for an older Laurie.

 

[Sithborg]

I guess I'm the lone voice of dissent here.

While the show has plenty of merits, I feel it's a misrepresentation calling it Watchmen, and the suggestion that it's an adaptation because...well it's not.

I mean the themes and topics explored by the original are vastly different. The characters from the original series do things in this series that seem to be completely at odds with their characterization from the original story.

Where this falls apart the most IMO is in its version of Dr Manhattan. The whole point of Dr Manhattan's character in Watchmen, was that he had evolved so far beyond humanity that he had no interest in human affairs - he had become God, capital G. His departure from Earth, maybe even our galaxy was the next step in his development. So the idea that he came back to earth to live as a man and fall in love makes **** all sense. Also, that humans could invent a weapon that would actually destroy him is ridiculous. That's like saying a cockroach could invent an atom bomb.

I have no problem with a program that explores the concept of masks and their connection with racial politics in America. But why not do that as an original concept ? Using the name Watchmen to me just looks like exploitation of an IP for brand recognition.



Alan Moore does not generally look favourably on adaptations of his work. One look at Extraordinary Gentlemen or From Hell and you see why. Even V for Vendetta, which was pretty good, annoyed him because it paid a lip service to his themes, while retaining the same story.

In this case, had the "Watchmen" program been an original work and not purported to be connected with his masterpiece, or stuck in some of his characters in supporting roles, he might have enjoyed it.

I thought the take on Hooded Justice was interesting- and given the ambiguous references to his identity in the real Watchmen, well maybe ? However, the original also strongly suggests he was a sexual sadist who had an appetite for young men - and was murdered by Comedian. So, a little bit of a retcon there, and if you're going to call yourself Watchmen, I think you need to pay more respect to the ****ing source material.

Ultimately, in its current form it would probably just piss him off, and he'd see Lindelof riding on his creativity, and pushing different agendas.



I can see arguments both ways. But I fall on the side of NFW ! Osterman was a physicist who saw the universe in a particular way before he became Dr Manhattan. In the Watchmen comic it states that the accident had never been successfully repeated - perhaps that was because of the way his mind worked, he reassembled himself piece by piece, rather than suddenly inheriting super powers. As such, the egg thing doesn't really work for me.
Putting aside the " Can God make a rock so big he can't lift it ?" for a moment, more importantly why would he want to create another being like himself ? The danger in doing so seems enormous, if that being turned out to be less benevolent, and at the same time he's moved so far past humanity he wouldn't need companionship or a successor.

Similarly, I hated what was done with the Veidt character. Jeremy Irons is a great actor and could make just about anything good. But the characterization and extraterrestrial imprisonment was just ridiculous - again going back to the mischaracterization of Dr Manhattan
, who literally states that he can't condemn or condone what Veidt did.

My ultimate assessment is that Alan Moore's work remains the absolute pinnacle of comic books, and this new series has plenty of intrinsic merits. However, they are radically different beasts, with a tenuous connection based on branding logos and warped versions of legacy characters. ( a bit like JJ Abrams' Star Wars trilogy).

Alan Moore remains a cantankerous and antisocial genius, while Damon Lindelof is still the guy who brought us Star Trek Into Darkness and Prometheus ( IPs he has arguably mishandled and misunderstood) and Tomorrowland ( which may be his most original work....and how good was it ?)

But if folks enjoyed it, more power to them.

I think the part that people seem to get hung up on, with there reverence towards Watchmen, is that this is the ultimate refutation of Watchmen. Fans like the open ended question of whether what Veidt did was right or wrong. Putting an definitive judgement to that will rub people the wrong way.

 

[flickchick85]

Jean Smart Reveals She Got Watchmen Role Because Sigourney Weaver Declined

I feel like Jean's snark is naturally a little sharper than Sigourney's, so I'm glad we got her in this role.

 

[Batmannerism]

I think the part that people seem to get hung up on, with there reverence towards Watchmen, is that this is the ultimate refutation of Watchmen. Fans like the open ended question of whether what Veidt did was right or wrong. Putting an definitive judgement to that will rub people the wrong way.

Actually the point I was trying to make was that what pissed me off most about this series was it was about a particular set of American issues and agendas with a veneer of Moore's Watchmen overlaid in order to get some brand recognition - when really the two works have only a superficial connection.

The Veidt issue - right or wrong is only one of a plethora of issues that show how little regard or understanding Lindelof had of what made the original great.

Watchmen hasn't become a timeless classic because of its setting- because the cold war and Soviet Union are history. It's a timeless classic because it explores a multitude of themes about the superhero genre and about people in general - and it undertakes this exploration through interesting and complicated characters.

There was no way that Lindelof , with his mediocre talent, could follow up or improve on that.

 

[Pennywise]

 

[Asharad]

Jean Smart was the only redeeming quality of this show. Awful.

 

[Kane52630]

Jean Smart was the only redeeming quality of this show. Awful.

 

[squeekness]

She was wonderful but I enjoyed the whole cast.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Jean Smart was the only redeeming quality of this show. Awful.

What did you not like about it?

 

[Pennywise]

I thought the entire cast did an excellent job, especially Regina, Yahya, Jean, Tim Blake Nelson.

Yahya really surprised me with how great his performance was in the last two episodes!

 

[Karelia]

I went from not really liking this series much at all, to digging quite a few story elements and ideas they have in it. It's well crafted for the most part. I really like Episode 5, (Raining Squid) and the idea of Nostalgia pills is a really neat concept. There's a lot here I don't enjoy still, but I see a lot more bright spots than I dis before.

Question, where is Nite Owl/Dan Drieberg at in this? In Jail?

 

[Doctor Jones]

This is still a great show, but the more I think about it, the more I think this is Watchmen in name only. It was a true joy to watch every week with its brilliant ideas and amazing execution, but this just could have been an original series about superheroes and racism in America. You could call it something else and nothing would change. I appreciate it going in it's own direction, but it's not consistent with the central idea of the comic itself and the name Watchmen gets in the way of it.

In a comic with sexual sadists, genocidal maniacs, and psychopathic murderers, I don't see how racism is made to be the thing to make it about. Racism in Moore's Watchmen would be just another Tuesday and be a piece of a larger whole at best. Watchmen at its core was a deconstruction of superheroes that challenged its ideals to work in the grey. Not that you couldn't explore racism in a follow up, but that subject matter like that was a means to an end to help address the characters who were the subject. It wasn't THE subject.

I get Lindelof's point about superheroes not being able to solve racism, and it's a brilliant premise to use for a story about them, but that's like Moore saying superheroes couldn't prevent nuclear annihilation. In the context of what Watchmen is it's myopic.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

Alan Moore Disowned HBO's Watchmen, Told Showrunner: Don't Contact Me - Variety

 

[Doctor Jones]

Alan Moore Disowned HBO's Watchmen, Told Showrunner: Don't Contact Me - Variety

Moore isn't wrong. And Lindelof's letter sounds embarrassing. Moore doesn't give two ****s about his past work and for good reasons.

 

[Filmfreak]

Take out the hyperbole in his comments due to his extremely eccentric persona and general disdain of the industry and what he says is very true. Lindelof's show completely missed the mark in the themes and characters of the graphic novel.

 

[AndrewGilkison]

I do feel that one of the missteps the show made was making Ozymandias a crazy old man trapped on another planet for most of the run (until he comes back to help Laurie and then she has a sudden out of nowhere change of heart and turns him in, which was one of the weakest things about the ending). It would've been far better to have him still on earth running everything and being a powerful billionaire who helped rebuild the world after the alien invasion (that he staged) 30 years prior, with the looming threat of "nothing ever ends" in the background.

And the more you think about it, it doesn't make sense that Jon would've been a presence in this show. He left humanity behind. He's god. Why would he trap Adrian Vedit on a distant planet? Why would he come back to earth as a black dude? Maybe it would've been better if the show had a black scientist who recreated what Jon did and became the new Dr. Manhattan (which could've been a comment on "legacy heroes" and superhero reboots)?

 

[The Lazarus Pit]

With all the talk of “elevated horror” (warranted label or not), it makes me wonder what should be considered “elevated superhero fare”. This show would definitely qualify, and as much as I enjoy many of the films, most of the MCU and DCEU output wouldn’t quality IMO.

Sandman
Watchmen
Joker
Logan
The Dark Knight

those come to mind… but there are a number of films that I enjoy more , but wouldn’t qualify for that term. The term “elevated” is silly I know but it’s worth talking about.