Watchmen (HBO Series)

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Howard_Casto:
Ok Game of Thrones is over and the Walking Dead has went so far off the rails I don't even watch it anymore so I guess this is the show to talk about. I liked the first episode, but there's a huge problem with this series... namely you have to be fully versed in the original comic book series to understand half of it. No the movie won't cut it either as this seems to be a direct sequel to the books, which differ a decent amount. If you haven't read the books you aren't going to understand about the raining squid, or the references to the minutemen or the electric meter in the beat up old pickup or any of it really. Hopefully they will explain a bit of it in future episodes because if not the ratings might tank on this one.

At first glance the show seems so divorced from the source material that I almost fail to see the point of even calling it watchmen. It looks like Ozymandias is in the show and Dr. Manhattan, but the rest would be too old to make any significant appearance (The original Watchmen takes place in the mid 80's, and the bulk of the heroes were middle-aged and washed up even then.) On the other hand, seeing the fallout and inevitable failure of Oz's master plan might be the entire point of the series.

pbj:
This series feels completely unnecessary. For all the griping people do about the movie, it’s a good adaptation.

Howard_Casto:
Dear god it isn't. It takes all the content added in ironically as biting social commentary at face value and just glosses over the parts that would be too dark or wierd for a wide release film. Zack Snyder is a moron... I wouldn't trust him to watch my pet rock.

I agree about the series though... I'm not sure if we really need this. I do find it interesting that everyone tried to save the world in their own way and in the very first episode it becomes clear that they all failed in their own specific way. Rorschach was a moral absolutist, much like myself. He thought that his manifesto would expose the corruption of Oz's plan allowing people to think for themselves. It's apparent that the only people that believed him are racist right wing nutjobs, latching on to his somewhat right-wing political views instead of the fact that he was, at his core, a decent man trying to do the right thing. So now his words are being twisted around to champion white supremacy. Dr. Manhattan decided to divorce himself from humanity, fearing that his interference was causing more harm than good. Yeah judging by everything that's going on that went real well. Oz thought he could tell a lie that would never be discovered, ultimately resulting in a lasting world peace. Of course this didn't work either and if nothing else a very brutal civil war seems to have been raging ever since. Yeah and now there's random squid monster rain, so there's that. Night Owl II created a bunch of weapons meant to non-violently take down criminals only for the police to appropriate it 30 years later and some coked-up hick police chief to use the tech to straight up murder some fleeing suspects. For that reason alone I'll keep watching for now... only to see how bad of a mess they all made.

pbj:
So, I've been hearing for like 20 years about what a subversive genius that Alan Moore is. I'll admit that by the time I got to Watchmen it was probably in the "Seinfeld isn't funny" region because of the influence it had. If you're gonna be bitter about the squid there's nothing I can do for you. :lol

I liked the movie From Hell, I'm passingly familiar with the major Jack the Ripper suspects, and I finally sat down and read the comic and the author notes. And it was ridiculous "so deep" crap like the house number was a reference to the number of stab wounds, the street name was the last name of a suspect, and so on. It did help me understand a few things in the movie better.

His Swamp Thing cycle I've been unable to finish. Page after page of the swamp thing swimming around and looking mystical.

Graphic novels may not be for me. My last purchase was Alone by Christophe Chabouté and at one point I think it was 30 straight pages of seagulls flying around a lighthouse. It did eventually wrap up nicely but it was an exercise in perseverance.

Howard_Casto:
I will agree 100% that Alan Moore is overrated..... except for Watchmen..... If you let each issue percolate in your mind a while before going to the next you'll realize it's, bar none the best comic book series ever written. It takes on the whole "does Batman actually make it worse in Gotham?" argument head on and doesn't pull any punches in the process. It really challenges all the main superhero archetypes in the DC universe really... which kind of makes it nuts that DC pulled the characters into DC universe proper... it's almost like they don't even have a superficial understanding of the books or something. ;)

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