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'Watchmen' TV Series From Damon Lindelof on HBO {SPOILERS FROM PAGE 8}


AncalagonTheBlack

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The biggest problem with Watchmen (the movie) is that it does faithfully the comic beats, and entirely misses the soul of the movie. Being a superhero vigilante isn't supposed to be totally fucking bitchin'. It's supposed to be kind of brutal and nasty and very weird that these people want to go out and fight. They're supposed to be really messed up. Instead, it's them just being all meet-cute and awesome. Rorschach isn't supposed to be a ninja either - his thing is that he's tactically smart and willing to go places others aren't. 

Snyder can't ever do that. His fight sequences have to be absolutely amazing and wonderful, Watchmen was pointing out how much psychosis someone like this would have to have in order to do this sort of thing. That's the Comedian's entire point, and largely the point of the story. Oops.

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1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

The biggest problem with Watchmen (the movie) is that it does faithfully the comic beats, and entirely misses the soul of the movie. Being a superhero vigilante isn't supposed to be totally fucking bitchin'. It's supposed to be kind of brutal and nasty and very weird that these people want to go out and fight. They're supposed to be really messed up. Instead, it's them just being all meet-cute and awesome. Rorschach isn't supposed to be a ninja either - his thing is that he's tactically smart and willing to go places others aren't. 

Snyder can't ever do that. His fight sequences have to be absolutely amazing and wonderful, Watchmen was pointing out how much psychosis someone like this would have to have in order to do this sort of thing. That's the Comedian's entire point, and largely the point of the story. Oops.

Pretty much sums it up.  Enjoyable, pretty to watch, largely misses the point.

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It is something that the TV show has so far nailed. The fights are not fun and pretty. They're nasty, pretty brutal, with gore and mowed down cows and things on fire and people being hung. 

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16 minutes ago, Triskele said:

That all makes sense.  I was quite interested in another thread to hear about some of the ways Rorschach is different with Snyder glorifying him up in a way that Moore hadn't done.  

He was a really popular character even before the movie. Despite Moore not intending him to be. 

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7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Rorschach's popularity is a great example of misaimed fandom. 

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Not to be a provocateur for provocation’s sake, but the thing about Watchmen is you can create a space to have these conversations. The territory that worries me the most is what I’ll call the Joker territory. Was this irresponsible to do? Is it harmful? Not just in the most extreme case, where God forbid, somebody goes and sees Joker and that incites them to engage in a violent act. But if somebody wanted to be Rorschach for Halloween, would they go, “Maybe I can’t do this anymore because Damon Lindelof ruined Rorschach. Now, if I put on this mask, people are going to think that I’m a white supremacist.” I don’t want to ruin Rorschach. But at the same time, when you were dressing up as Rorschach before I made this show, which part of him were you idolizing?

https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/watchmen-hbo-damon-lindelof.html

 

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Rorschach's popularity is a great example of misaimed fandom. 

Eh, I’ve seen GRRM say he was surprised so many people liked Jaime Lannister and the Hound. Good characters are good characters. 

Rorschach and Ozy are probably my favorites from both mediums of Watchmen. Guess I’m a bad person. :P

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22 minutes ago, Triskele said:

There's the "Dr. Manhattan is the only superhero" thing, but in that film, while of course he's the most exceptional by far, the others seem like they have superhuman fighting abilities at least and Veidt can catch bullets and whatnot. 

Yeah my impression leaving the theater for the first time was Veidt must have had some type of super-speed.  The others, though, just seemed like they were awesome at fighting like Batman or any other regular-powered action star.

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Rorschach is a great, realized character. He is super interesting. But a lot of people think hes a good guy. They want to be like him. They think hes cool and smart and knows what's going on. As that vulture article points out, he is kind of a massive fuckup. He is a pathetic loser who rages against the world in a badly aimed way accomplishing nothing of note. He is a conspiracy nut who would fit right in with the worst of the alt right. 

Theres nothing wrong with liking the character. Theres something very wrong with admiring him. 

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59 minutes ago, Nictarion said:

Eh, I’ve seen GRRM say he was surprised so many people liked Jaime Lannister and the Hound. Good characters are good characters. 

Seems kind of strange considering he goes out of his way to show how complex Jaime actually is via his POV chapters, and we see the Hound do good things throughout the series, even if he's a miserable cunt about it.  

Rorschach, on the other hand, is pretty clearly just a violent sociopath.  At least, that's clear to me in my thirties.  I thought he was super cool when I was a kid.  :lol:

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1 hour ago, briantw said:

Seems kind of strange considering he goes out of his way to show how complex Jaime actually is via his POV chapters, and we see the Hound do good things throughout the series, even if he's a miserable cunt about it.  

Rorschach, on the other hand, is pretty clearly just a violent sociopath.  At least, that's clear to me in my thirties.  I thought he was super cool when I was a kid.  :lol:

You read Watchmen as a kid? I was more into characters like Marty McFly, Alan Grant, and Luke Skywalker, myself. :lol:

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I'm defo re-reading the comic before next week's episodes, I feel like I'll be missing out on stuff it the book isn't fresh in my mind The DC classics edition looks rather nice. Might get that.

Also, the score is rather nice - I didn't realize it was Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross! I need to get my hands on the album.

 

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5 hours ago, Nictarion said:

You read Watchmen as a kid? I was more into characters like Marty McFly, Alan Grant, and Luke Skywalker, myself. :lol:

I mean, I was into all of those too but I read comics a lot when I was a kid and Watchmen came out when I was like two years old so it was readily available by the time I got into comics.

And when I say kid I'm talking like 12ish give or take. 

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Watchmen currently has a 46 percent audience approval score on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to its 96 percent critic approval rating. On Metacritic, it has a 6.8 positive audience score, with 35 negative reviews. In contrast, not one professional outlet listed on Metacritic gave the show an outright negative review.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/10/24/20926872/watchmen-hbo-backlash-politics-sjw-race

Crazy. People are the worst. 

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