Watchmen (HBO)

[UnsGub]

Enjoyed the first two episodes.  Glad they have removed cell phones from the world.

[Hawkbit]

I can't imagine any media property that should exist less than a continued story in this universe.

[Tale]

I've been planning to resubscribe to the Rupert Murdoch rip-off cable/streaming service that has the rights to this in Australia, based on rave Watchmen reviews from a professional TV critic friend. Waiting till His Dark Materials also starts there in a couple of days.

[Abagadro]

I can't imagine any media property that should exist less than a continued story in this universe.

It's pretty interesting so far. It has next to nothing to do with Watchmen, but on its own its good (at least through 2 episodes).

[HaemishM]

It's confusing as fuck to me. I mean, the story they are trying to tell is somewhat straightforward big conspiracy mystery thing. The confusing part is what the fuck this has to do with Watchmen and why it's considered a sequel? Ozymandias is barely in it, and just about everything else that is Watchmen is so sublimated into the background that it could be anything else. On it's own, it's not bad and decent enough that I will continue to watch it until it pisses me off. As a completely unnecessary sequel to a series that needed absolutely no embellishment whatsoever, it's a confusing fucking mess.

[UnsGub]

Adrian Veidt, Silk Spectre and Dr Manhattan are all in it.  It has the history of the graphic novel, raining squids was a nice touch.

It has only asked questions so far.  How it answers them will be interesting.

Veidt at least knows he is stuck in the past, with his family of cloned selves, and still is planning another event.  They are also not afraid to take on current topics with racism and police.

[HaemishM]

The racism/cop story is the part that feels the most out of place here, and I'm hoping that's largely because they haven't given us enough connective bits to be able to figure out WTF is going on.

[jgsugden]

I won't be watching this for quite some time yet, but the folks involved in making this have a history of hiding things in plain sight, of playing with expectations and using sleight of hand in interesting ways.  It sometimes doesn't work - it sometimes does.  I just get the feeling we'll think differently about the series after the first season ends than we do after watching a couple episodes.

[Abagadro]

I don't really care all that much about its connection or nonconnection to Watchmen. It is telling its own story and just using that world.  For what its worth Alan Sepinwall has seen the fist six episodes and says the 2nd is the worst of the bunch (and I thought it was pretty good), so let's wait and see where they go with it.

[Father mike]

It has only asked questions so far.  How it answers them will be interesting.

It's written by Damon Lindelof, so let me know how that works out for you.

[Threash]

The Leftovers complete redeemed him for Lost, shrug.

[eldaec]

This is written by Lindelhof isn't it?

So not so much a history of hiding in plain sight as just making shit up as he goes along while pretending it was a grand plan?

Waiting till the whole season is done for someone here to tell me if it works.

Edit : nvm. Teach me to write a post, then actually send it later without checking what was written in between.

[HaemishM]

Shitting on Lindelhof's notorious history of coming up with great mysteries that he never bothers solving and acts pretentious as hell about afterwards when people start slamming him is worth continually repeating.

And I say this as someone who LIKED the Lost ending. But fuck him in the earhole for Prometheus.

[Threash]

And then after that he did The Leftovers in which the very first scene of the very first episode is all the worlds top scientists going "we have no idea wtf happened, there is no explanation, just enjoy the ride". People can learn from their mistakes.

[Abagadro]

Well they certainly went deep on the original story for this third episode that’s for sure.

[MahrinSkel]

I thought I saw the Brick Joke coming a mile away...then it surprised me when it landed.

--Dave

[HaemishM]

This show was made instantly better by the addition of Jean Smart, and I don't mean because she's one of the original characters. She was just fun to watch at this part. The rest of the cast has been decent except for Jeremy Irons who seems to be given nothing to do but chew scenery in some vague way that's probably connected to the overarching plot for this season if I've guessed what's he's trying to do correctly.

[Abagadro]

Man, no one picked up on my "deep" double entendre.

[HaemishM]

I'm still processing the whole Dr. Manhatten in a Suitcase thing. 

[Abagadro]

Man, this show is bonkers. 

[eldaec]

Watched the first couple against my better judgement, and I know the comic was utterly convinced of its own importance but jesus christ.

[Rasix]

Man, this show is bonkers. 

Yah. That last one was just fucking weird.

A+

[HaemishM]

It's reveling in weirdness for weirdness sake, most notably with the Veidt storyline, which is either painfully obvious or completely irrelevant. The show is ten times better when either King or Smart are talking, squared if they are talking to each other.

[Abagadro]

I thought Lady Trieu was a great new character.

[Abagadro]

Squid pro quo.

[HaemishM]

This show vacillates between good writing and cringeworthy badness from minute to minute. I do like Looking Glass as a character and an actor.

[naum]

A very "This is Us" vibe episode in this weird Lindelof post-Watchmen alternate history universe.

Mock me, but my favorite scene in this one was...

[naum]

Oh, and this Alan Moore interview (originally done in Brazil a few years ago, but just published recently in English on his website), some juicy morsels:

What was the impact of popular heroes comic books in our culture? Why are people fascinated by alternative realities?

I think the impact of superheroes on popular culture is both tremendously embarrassing and not a little worrying. While these characters were originally perfectly suited to stimulating the imaginations of their twelve or thirteen year-old audience, today’s franchised übermenschen, aimed at a supposedly adult audience, seem to be serving some kind of different function, and fulfilling different needs. Primarily, mass-market superhero movies seem to be abetting an audience who do not wish to relinquish their grip on (a) their relatively reassuring childhoods, or (b) the relatively reassuring 20th century. The continuing popularity of these movies to me suggests some kind of deliberate, self-imposed state of emotional arrest, combined with an numbing condition of cultural stasis that can be witnessed in comics, movies, popular music and, indeed, right across the cultural spectrum. The superheroes themselves – largely written and drawn by creators who have never stood up for their own rights against the companies that employ them, much less the rights of a Jack Kirby or Jerry Siegel or Joe Schuster – would seem to be largely employed as cowardice compensators, perhaps a bit like the handgun on the nightstand. I would also remark that save for a smattering of non-white characters (and non-white creators) these books and these iconic characters are still very much white supremacist dreams of the master race. In fact, I think that a good argument can be made for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation as the first American superhero movie, and the point of origin for all those capes and masks.

[HaemishM]

Goddamn, Alan Moore went full batshit asshole. I kind of knew this already but goddamn. Still, at least he's not racist asshole crazy like Frank Miller.

[Abagadro]

Holy shit. Amazing episode.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, that was visually amazing. I'm still finding myself getting taken out of the story a little bit trying to connect it to Watchmen, but it has kept me watching.

[Abagadro]

Really? They just had a whole episode about the backstory of the original Costumed Adventurer that featured a bunch of the Minutemen and satirical take down of Snyder's version.  This episode was an entire examination of The Watchmen as a thing. 

[HaemishM]

Yes the reveal that Hooded Justice was who he was kept taking me out of the story, because I kept thinking that it just didn't sound right. I guess we'll call that a deconstructionist deconstruction of a deconstructionist story? It's a turducken of layers within layers of piss takes and "subverting expectations."

I'm not saying I didn't like it - I did. Like I said, it should win some Emmy's on its own just for the visuals, as they were clearly meant as an homage to Gibbons' panel construction as well as Will Eisner's work on the Spirit.

[Abagadro]

Did NOT see that one coming. 

[Tale]