Television Who watches the Watchmen? (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?), update - HBO confirms no second season

[SimpleG]

1 hour ago, Anathema- said:

Or maybe it's like the novel and all the weird asides (lube man, elephant, UFO, Jupiter, etc) will all play a part in an insane finale we couldn't imagine.

Honestly your answer about fluid is likely the correct one .

[SimpleG]

36 minutes ago, sexy_shapiro said:

I don’t think the elephant needs an explanation nor should it. It was just a quirky bit of world building that should be accepted more than explained. Just take it at face value. A cure for a nostalgia OD is derived from an elephant. What else more is there to say?

Because it was treated as more then just world building. No one watching that episode went 

  Quirky! when Angela walked into that room . It was a collective “ da fuq ? “ moment for the audience and it’s obviously meant to be one. This bit is my only complaint about the show and as @Anathema- pointed out it could very well be addressed .

[TwinIon]

The Trieu industries logo is an elephant.

 

 

I don't think it really needs an explanation, but wouldn't mind if there is some deeper meaning. 

[Anathema-]

4 hours ago, SimpleG said:

Honestly your answer about fluid is likely the correct one .

 

Probably. But maybe not! Lindelof's curse.

[Anathema-]

[skillzdadirecta]

On 12/3/2019 at 8:43 AM, Brick said:

 

It's partial blame. They're all at fault 

 

Nah it's definitely Lindelof and Scott's fault. I read the Spaith's script and NONE of the silly shit that people bitch about in Prometheus is in there so 

[Anathema-]

2 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

Nah it's definitely Lindelof and Scott's fault. I read the Spaith's script and NONE of the silly shit that people bitch about in Prometheus is in there so 

 

At the same time I don't see any Lindelof in the film. Nothing that's intrinsic to his work comes through.

[skillzdadirecta]

46 minutes ago, Anathema- said:

 

At the same time I don't see any Lindelof in the film. Nothing that's intrinsic to his work comes through.

 

I see a TON of Lindelof in the film especially when you see the differences between the two scripts. The whole being "deliberately vague in service to mystery" being chief among his influence. Also, Spaith's script was more of a typical alien movie. All of the stuff with the engineers was added from Lindelof. Ultimately Ridley Scott is responsible because he's the director, but the stuff that folks complain about the most regarding Prometheus? That stuff wasn't in the script until Lindelof got a hold of it 

 

Last night's Watchmen was amazing though once again. 

[Anathema-]

I think it's worth saying that withholding information until the last moment necessary is a good thing.

[Anathema-]

And yeah I'm really not sure how this is all going to turn out, I think they really have the balls to do absolutely anything with the source and it's really exciting .. Which is crazy to me because adaptations that take so many liberties usually come off as uninspired and disrespectful of the source.

[skillzdadirecta]

Just now, Anathema- said:

I think it's worth saying that withholding information until the last moment necessary is a good thing.

That's fine but withholding information and never answering the question is just cheap and lazy. Lindelof's early work was rife with this stuff. Judging from Watchmen he's learned his lesson because he seems to be answering questions he's raising pretty rapidly. This is NOT something he did during his LOST days. I DID enjoy Tommorowland too though. I'm one of the few people who did I think LOL

[Moa]

No wonder this show reminded me so much of LOST. I'm liking the show quite a bit but the thing I'm enjoying most is trying to unravel the differences between this world and our own. I also think this show does a good job with addressing politics in the year of our lord 2019. Every time I laugh at the idea of Robert Redford being president I remember how implausible our current predicament would seem if only it were fiction.

 

"Is this a Zeus thing?" has to be the line of the series.

[SuperSpreader]

Fuck Dr Manhattan, mf is just bored playing games 

[TwinIon]

Overall, I think they did an excellent job of dealing with Manhattan in this episode. His very nature makes him hard to write, but I think they managed to portray it really well. I also liked that they didn't show his face while he wasn't wearing Cal's. It made it feel like Cal's face was his real face, and not merely one he adopted. 

 

They're really hinting hard that someone else (likely Abar) will be getting Dr Manhattan's powers. It seems like the obvious conclusion, but on the other hand, anything hinted at too strongly seems immediately suspect.

 

 

So, Dr. Manhattan said that the 7th Cav was going to teleport him somewhere in order to steal his powers, right? Unless they're secretly being controlled or at least fed tech by Treiu, that all seems hard to swallow. Hopefully something about their ability to conjure up that kind of tech will be revealed. I feel any successful plot against Manhattan has to be better than Veidt's, and therefore you need someone more capable than Veidt to make it believable. Treiu is the only character set up that way, so either she's behind the cav, or there better be a hell of a reveal.

 

I actually thought that the reveal of Veidt's location was a bit of a let down. For a man that was always thinking so many steps ahead, that it was his choice to go to Europa without any real knowledge of it seems odd. Of course, he'd been sitting by himself, stewing in his partial failures for decades, but we just got so little time to see him that way before he was teleported away.

 

I really hope the finale pulls everything together. It's got a lot I'd like it to do, but I'm sure it won't do everything. This has easily been the best season of TV this year, so I sure hope it can end that way.

 

[TheLeon]

Do we think they gave Angela the last name Abar just so they could do that pun for the episode title? 

[Firewithin]

3 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

Do we think they gave Angela the last name Abar just so they could do that pun for the episode title? 

the funny thing is the ep title had it as two words then the splash came up as one and i was like

 

[legend]

I loved the last episode. Dr. Manhattan was delightfully infuriating and tragic.

[skillzdadirecta]

30 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

Do we think they gave Angela the last name Abar just so they could do that pun for the episode title? 

YES.

[SuperSpreader]

1 minute ago, legend said:

I loved the last episode. Dr. Manhattan was delightfully infuriating and tragic.

I hate him I hope he IS dead. Whoever racist gets his powers is gonna turn into a wow I'm bored cunt too.

[SuperSpreader]

I also hate the chicken or the egg thing because Dr Manhattan could have corrected it but he didn't because he's an ass. And he could have not "died" since he knew where it would happen, but he let it because he's a bitch. All the things that happened, the argument, he could have prevented, but he instigated everything. 

[legend]

45 minutes ago, 2user1cup said:

I also hate the chicken or the egg thing because Dr Manhattan could have corrected it but he didn't because he's an ass. And he could have not "died" since he knew where it would happen, but he let it because he's a bitch. All the things that happened, the argument, he could have prevented, but he instigated everything. 

 

I don't think Manhattan's nature permits him to have agency the way you're describing.

[Moa]

2 hours ago, 2user1cup said:

I hate him I hope he IS dead. Whoever racist gets his powers is gonna turn into a wow I'm bored cunt too.

 

It's been a long while since I've read the comic book, but this is the impression I get. Whoever they give Dr. Manhattan's powers would just be Dr. Manhattan. The nature of his powers would make who he was prior to becoming Dr. Manhattan irrelevant.

[skillzdadirecta]

3 hours ago, legend said:

 

I don't think Manhattan's nature permits him to have agency the way you're describing.

Exactly. He can't change the past or the future because it's literally all happening at once to him. he doesn't "see" the future. He exists in all periods at once. Sometimes HE even has trouble keeping track of where he is and what's happening.

 

1 hour ago, Moa said:

 

It's been a long while since I've read the comic book, but this is the impression I get. Whoever they give Dr. Manhattan's powers would just be Dr. Manhattan. The nature of his powers would make who he was prior to becoming Dr. Manhattan irrelevant.

 

I dont't think that's the way it works either. They would definitely become MORE than human, but their past life would STILL have influence over them. Dr. Manhattan's relationship with his watch maker father for example. And the fact that he still feels human emotion and can fall in love. Who ever gets his powers would become something else... not necessarily become HIM.

[Anathema-]

3 hours ago, TheLeon said:

Do we think they gave Angela the last name Abar just so they could do that pun for the episode title? 

 

3 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

YES.

 

No, they named her after Abar The Black Superman.

 

At work now, more later.

[Brick]

Yet another fantastic episode. Dr. Manhattan is such a fascinating character in terms of writing, especially with his perception of the fourth dimension. 

 

Not sure how I sit with the paradox of Will knowing about Crawford because in the future Angela knows he kills him, because time travel/fourth dimension and whatnot is tricky in fiction since how is there not a first time something happens, so how did Will learn the first time that Crawford was Seventh Kavalry, kill him, Angela finds out, tells Manhattan, who then tells past Will about it, who then finds out, kills him, then Angela finds out, tells Manhattan, who then tells past Will about it, who then finds out, kills him, then Angela finds out, tells Manhattan, who then tells past Will, and oh no I've gone cross-eyed... 

 

[skillzdadirecta]

17 minutes ago, Brick said:

Yet another fantastic episode. Dr. Manhattan is such a fascinating character in terms of writing, especially with his perception of the fourth dimension. 

 

Not sure how I sit with the paradox of Will knowing about Crawford because in the future Angela knows he kills him, because time travel/fourth dimension and whatnot is tricky in fiction since how is there not a first time something happens, so how did Will learn the first time that Crawford was Seventh Kavalry, kill him, Angela finds out, tells Manhattan, who then tells past Will about it, who then finds out, kills him, then Angela finds out, tells Manhattan, who then tells past Will about it, who then finds out, kills him, then Angela finds out, tells Manhattan, who then tells past Will, and oh no I've gone cross-eyed... 

 

 

Again, there isn't really time travel happening. Dr. Manhattan doesn't travel through time. He's present ALL of the time in every time period. Everything is happening to him all at once so for him, there is no "past, present and future." He is experiencing everything at once. There is no paradox.

[Brick]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

Again, there isn't really time travel happening. Dr. Manhattan doesn't travel through time. He's present ALL of the time in every time period. Everything is happening to him all at once so for him, there is no "past, present and future." He is experiencing everything at once. There is no paradox.

 

I didn't say he was time traveling, I said time travel plot points in fiction can be tricky, as well as fourth dimension time relativity. I said time travel as an inclusion. 

[skillzdadirecta]

1 minute ago, Brick said:

 

I didn't say he was time traveling, I said time travel plot points in fiction can be tricky, as well as fourth dimension time relativity. I said time travel as an inclusion. 

Ok, but that doesn't change the fact that there is no paradox. Not from Manhattan's perspective.

[Brick]

15 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Ok, but that doesn't change the fact that there is no paradox. Not from Manhattan's perspective.

 

For him, no, but looking at time as an outside source to view the whole thing like we can, how did this timeline get cyclical of Manhattan telling Will about Crawford because Angela asks him? I don't know if I can properly explain what I'm trying to get at because this sort of stuff gets so tricky, but to use an example, look at the first Terminator movie, where a paradox is created by having John Connor send his own father back in time to then go and impregnate his mother with him. John Connor is a great Resistance leader, sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect Sarah Connor, who then impregnates Sarah, who then gives birth to John Connor who will grow up to be the Resistance leader, but how was John born originally before Skynet was a thing?*

 

So yeah Manhattan being able to perceive the fourth dimension is all well and fine, but if there are no multiple timelines, and Manhattan can "remember" the future like a memory because everything is his present, during the actual present where Will doesn't know about Crawford, and Manhattan tells him about him, how can he ask him if Will doesn't know him and therefore hasn't killed him leading Angela to ask him how he knew Crawford was 7th Kav? Like is Manhattan asking him making him alter the future outcome? It's been mentioned in this thread that Manhattan totally could prevent things like him and Angela arguing if he sees it coming, but he chooses not to, so did him asking Will alter things in an alternate reality/timeline where Will never did learn about Crawford, or found out on his own? 

 

This stuff is confusing, and I don't know if I'm explaining my point well because I'm so fucking tired from lack of sleep, and I should probably go to bed 

 

 

*as an aside I always thought it would have been interesting if the Terminator movies brought this up (had the franchise not gotten so messy) if the first John Connor was actually a different guy completely than the John Connor born from Sarah and Kyle. Like the original John was just a random guy that survived Judgment Day, and rose through thy ranks to become a great Resistant leader, but then by sending Kyle back who then impregnates Sarah, they alter things by creating a different John Connor entirely DNA-wise, and they could have played that up as he doesn't become a great military leader for the Resistance because he isn't the same guy, or he still does because he now grows up learning all about Skynet and the terminators already, and therefore becomes an even greater Resistance leader because of it. I believe The Sarah Connor Chronicles was going down a similar route to that latter one before it was cancelled. 

[legend]

8 hours ago, Brick said:

 

For him, no, but looking at time as an outside source to view the whole thing like we can, how did this timeline get cyclical of Manhattan telling Will about Crawford because Angela asks him? I don't know if I can properly explain what I'm trying to get at because this sort of stuff gets so tricky, but to use an example, look at the first Terminator movie, where a paradox is created by having John Connor send his own father back in time to then go and impregnate his mother with him. John Connor is a great Resistance leader, sends Kyle Reese back in time to protect Sarah Connor, who then impregnates Sarah, who then gives birth to John Connor who will grow up to be the Resistance leader, but how was John born originally before Skynet was a thing?*

 

So yeah Manhattan being able to perceive the fourth dimension is all well and fine, but if there are no multiple timelines, and Manhattan can "remember" the future like a memory because everything is his present, during the actual present where Will doesn't know about Crawford, and Manhattan tells him about him, how can he ask him if Will doesn't know him and therefore hasn't killed him leading Angela to ask him how he knew Crawford was 7th Kav? Like is Manhattan asking him making him alter the future outcome? It's been mentioned in this thread that Manhattan totally could prevent things like him and Angela arguing if he sees it coming, but he chooses not to, so did him asking Will alter things in an alternate reality/timeline where Will never did learn about Crawford, or found out on his own? 

 

This stuff is confusing, and I don't know if I'm explaining my point well because I'm so fucking tired from lack of sleep, and I should probably go to bed 

 

I think the issue you're struggling with is thinking of time as we (naturally) are want to do, where events at time t+1 must be determined after time at t. Forget about time for a minute; instead just think of a space. In fact, think of a space as a painting canvas. You can paint two different points on the canvas whatever you want and painting one point does not require the other point to have been painted. Indeed if you use both your hands you're free to paint both points "simultaneously" such that they are jointly determined with neither determining the other.

 

If you view time more like space, it's easy to see that what happens in the "future" doesn't require the "past" to be determined in advance; they both can be determined simultaneously.

 

Manhattan is like that. He's not "causing" the events to unfold by asking Angela's question; Angela was determined to ask the question jointly with HJ having heard the question.

 

 

Now I'm not going to argue that Watchmen is a physically plausible universe; it's clearly not. But, this idea of time rolling back on itself isn't that far out of left field. Dynamics like this are known to be plausible within our current model of general relativity called: closed timelike curves. CTC's may end up not being possible once we have a better unification of relativity with quantum mechanics or learn other factors--CTCs are certainly stretching our model of relativity to its limits in which case you should always be a bit skeptical. But even if it's not possible in this universe, it's a mathematically okay idea.

 

Indeed, this kind "time travel," so to speak, where you can't actually change anything is one of the few ways people do "time travel" in fiction that isn't inherently broken. Movies like terminator, in which the future can be changed, are the ones that don't really make sense  At least not unless you are permitting multiple universes, in which case time travel is kind of pointless, because you'll never be able to change the universe you're in; just "make" a new one.

[SuperSpreader]

9 hours ago, Brick said:

him alter the future outcome? It's been mentioned in this thread that Manhattan totally could prevent things like him and Angela arguing if he sees it coming, but he chooses not to, so did him asking Will alter things in an alternate reality/timeline where Will never did learn about Crawford, or found out on his own? 

 

That what I'm saying! Dr Manhattan is a bored asshole playing games. 

 

"We argue now"

"what"

"because we are arguing"

"but we don't have to"

"this is where we argue"

"no"

"you're an orphan loser" 

 

Maybe the whole thing is an experiment to see if he can change time to then "save the world." 

[skillzdadirecta]

10 hours ago, Brick said:

So yeah Manhattan being able to perceive the fourth dimension is all well and fine, but if there are no multiple timelines, and Manhattan can "remember" the future like a memory because everything is his present, during the actual present where Will doesn't know about Crawford, and Manhattan tells him about him, how can he ask him if Will doesn't know him and therefore hasn't killed him leading Angela to ask him how he knew Crawford was 7th Kav? Like is Manhattan asking him making him alter the future outcome? It's been mentioned in this thread that Manhattan totally could prevent things like him and Angela arguing if he sees it coming, but he chooses not to, so did him asking Will alter things in an alternate reality/timeline where Will never did learn about Crawford, or found out on his own? 

 

Again, Dr. Manhattan is experiencing everything at once. He's not "remembering" anything because from my understanding, he doesn't really have a concept of the past or the future. For him everything is "now". One of the reasons he knows that he and Angela are together for ten years is because while his powers were off, he had a ten year gap in his "memory". From his perspective, there was a big "hole" in his perception which they referred to as a "Tunnel". There are no divergent timelines at play here because that's One, Dr. Manhattan isn't traveling through time and Two, he's not changing anything. When Angela tells him about Crawford, he is simultaneously telling William because it all is happening for him at the same time.

 

Like @legend think about time as another dimension of space that Manhattan perceives differently from us. Like the mysterious beings in the movie Interstellar, Manhattan perceives time like we perceive two dimensional shapes. That is to say when we look at a circle written on a piece of paper, we see the whole circle or at least the entirety of it that is facing our eyes. If you take that same circle and move it into three dimensional space, it becomes a sphere and we perceive even less of it than we did when it was on the paper. Imagine being able to see all sides of that sphere at once even when it is in three dimensional space. That is the closest analogy I can think of that explains how Dr. Manhattan perceives time and even that may not be sufficient 

 

Lastly most of modern popular culture's concept of the theoretical concept time travel comes from two movies mainly; The Terminator and Back to The Future. While both movies have slightly different rules regarding time travel, their approach is largely the same and THEY were both inspired by the rules from H.G. Wells "The Time Machine." We've just grown to accept these rules as THE rules regarding time travel. They aren't. They're fiction and that's what movies like Looper, Time Crimes and even Avengers: End Game challenge you to do. Throw those "rules" out of the window because one, they're fictional and based no more in science than The force or Lightsabers and Two, they don't apply to THOSE movies which have their own rules regarding time travel. That's my rant... I don't know if I'm explaining how I see this thing properly but there you go 

[Brick]

The movie Arrival would be a better example, but yes I understand how Manhattan perceives time. I guess it's more that I've never liked the idea that time is set, and cannot be changed. Like, I was always going to pick cereal over eggs and toast for breakfast this morning, I was always going to decide to watch that recorded show I DVRed last week at 8:33 tonight, and if I murder someone in my future, well it can't be helped because I was always going to do it. Doesn't matter, the future is set, nothing can change, time is not happening as it unfolds, and everything is already written out for us like a book. So because I don't like this idea, when movies and TV do something regarding it I guess it always bugs me, whether it's with actual time travel, or fourth dimensional perception. Like the grandfather paradox, or that episode of Futurama where Fry becomes his own grandfather. 

 

Manhattan always being able to experience his own timeline even creates its own issues in the original story, because if Manhattan can "see the future" so to speak, even though Adrian used tachyons to hide what he was doing from Manhattan as he was working on it, therefore stopping him from preventing the squid attack, how come Manhattan still couldn't see decades into the future where the squid attack has happened, and people are living in the aftermath of it, mentioning it, etc.? Unless I'm remembering it wrong, and the tachyons didn't block that segment of time from Manhattan, they blocked him from seeing anything past that moment, and couldn't perceive his future until he was past that moment, and able to perceive his future once again. Otherwise even if he couldn't prevent the squid because its already happened to him (or is happening to him), and much like how doesn't prevent Angela and him fighting because he's kind of an uncaring, out of touch, humanity-less douche, how come he never at least mentions anything about a giant squid in passing to anyone, much to their confusion? 

[skillzdadirecta]

15 minutes ago, Brick said:

The movie Arrival would be a better example, but yes I understand how Manhattan perceives time. I guess it's more that I've never liked the idea that time is set, and cannot be changed. Like, I was always going to pick cereal over eggs and toast for breakfast this morning, I was always going to decide to watch that recorded show I DVRed last week at 8:33 tonight, and if I murder someone in my future, well it can't be helped because I was always going to do it. Doesn't matter, the future is set, nothing can change, time is not happening as it unfolds, and everything is already written out for us like a book. So because I don't like this idea, when movies and TV do something regarding it I guess it always bugs me, whether it's with actual time travel, or fourth dimensional perception. Like the grandfather paradox, or that episode of Futurama where Fry becomes his own grandfather. 

 

Manhattan always being able to experience his own timeline even creates its own issues in the original story, because if Manhattan can "see the future" so to speak, even though Adrian used tachyons to hide what he was doing from Manhattan as he was working on it, therefore stopping him from preventing the squid attack, how come Manhattan still couldn't see decades into the future where the squid attack has happened, and people are living in the aftermath of it, mentioning it, etc.? Unless I'm remembering it wrong, and the tachyons didn't block that segment of time from Manhattan, they blocked him from seeing anything past that moment, and couldn't perceive his future until he was past that moment, and able to perceive his future once again. Otherwise even if he couldn't prevent the squid because its already happened to him (or is happening to him), and much like how doesn't prevent Angela and him fighting because he's kind of an uncaring, out of touch, humanity-less douche, how come he never at least mentions anything about a giant squid in passing to anyone, much to their confusion? 

 

Because if you go back and read the story, over the course of the series Manhattan's powers are STILL evolving and he's still coming to grips with how handle them. There's a whole issue or chapter devoted to this and he mention s in the story several times that he was having trouble perceiving certain things, probably due to Veidt's interference. Also he wouldn't mention it because at the end of the story, he agreed to go along with the lie even killing Roarsach to keep the secret. So why WOULD he mention the squid attack to anyone if he agreed with its ultimate outcome and saw it as justified. 

 

As far as pre-destiny, that's a whole philosophical argument that's too heady for me to get into right now. There's a GREAT Twilight Zone episode that deals with this called "Back There" where they explore whether or not events can be changed or not via Time Travel.

 

 

[legend]

45 minutes ago, Brick said:

Like, I was always going to pick cereal over eggs and toast for breakfast this morning, I was always going to decide to watch that recorded show I DVRed last week at 8:33 tonight

 

If it wasn't determined that's a far more uncomfortable result, because it means you're not actually you or the things you do were not determined by you.