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

[Jason]

 

[Kal-El814]

Good. 

[Brick]

Sort of a bummer, but sort of not. 

[Moa]

Good, the people who made this show great aren't going anywhere, let them work on something new rather than shoehorn in another season of a finished show.

[skillzdadirecta]

Let's hope HBO sticks with this and doesn't just offer one of the other writers on the show the job to come up with a second season.

[Jason]

Does my monitor just suck, or is it impossible to see anything in a lot of scenes? I'm early in the second episode.

[johnny]

39 minutes ago, Jason said:

Does my monitor just suck, or is it impossible to see anything in a lot of scenes? I'm early in the second episode.

Your monitor sucks 

[Brick]

51 minutes ago, Jason said:

Does my monitor just suck, or is it impossible to see anything in a lot of scenes? I'm early in the second episode.

 

Your monitor sucks. The scene with a black woman, dressed in all black, running at night was praised for how clear everything was. Good cinematography. 

[Jason]

15 minutes ago, johnny said:

Your monitor sucks 

 

3 minutes ago, Brick said:

 

Your monitor sucks. The scene with a black woman, dressed in all black, running at night was praised for how clear everything was. Good cinematography. 

 

Okay thanks, I'll move this over to my TV, that should hopefully handle these scenes a lot better if the video itself isn't the problem. 

[Guest]

Just watched the whole thing finally.

 

A God Walks Into Abar is one of the best hours of TV I’ve ever seen. I don’t have anything else to add that hasn’t been covered.

[Kal-El814]

Rewatched this recently and it’s still so good.

 

Also I don’t think the world is ready for a season featuring an omnipotent, black woman with a penchant for social justice.  Also as @Emperor Diocletian II said in another thread, this is one of the most timely shows in recent memory.

[Guest]

Like, I was literally yelling "DO SOMETHING JON" at the end of A God Walks Into Abar. I can't get that episode out of my head.

 

That and the Nostalgia episode to me show the strength of longer form story telling that TV/streaming is capable of. So many shows just waste their runtime on fluff, but Watchmen squeezes so much into each moment and really builds to spectacular places.

[Kal-El814]

32 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Like, I was literally yelling "DO SOMETHING JON" at the end of A God Walks Into Abar. I can't get that episode out of my head.

 

That and the Nostalgia episode to me show the strength of longer form story telling that TV/streaming is capable of. So many shows just waste their runtime on fluff, but Watchmen squeezes so much into each moment and really builds to spectacular places.

 

Honestly the only thing I’d be curious about WRT to a follow up would be:

 

Spoiler

Does Angela have the same perspective on time that Dr. Manhattan did? Based on what Will said about hoping that Dr. Manhattan would have done more, it seems like she might not? Fun to think about.

 

[legend]

On 7/28/2020 at 4:16 PM, Kal-El814 said:

 

Honestly the only thing I’d be curious about WRT to a follow up would be:

 

  Hide contents

Does Angela have the same perspective on time that Dr. Manhattan did? Based on what Will said about hoping that Dr. Manhattan would have done more, it seems like she might not? Fun to think about.

 

 

Spoiler

For her sake I hope that part wasn't transmitted! It seems like a curse.

 

But it could just be that that element hasn't yet manifested, in which case she's doomed  

 

[skillzdadirecta]

35 minutes ago, legend said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

For her sake I hope that part wasn't transmitted! It seems like a curse.

 

But it could just be that that element hasn't yet manifested, in which case she's doomed  

 

What if

 

Spoiler

Angela from that point on percieves Time the way Manhattan did. In other words from the time her powers manifest until her death wheneveer that is.

 

[legend]

1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

What if

 

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Angela from that point on percieves Time the way Manhattan did. In other words from the time her powers manifest until her death wheneveer that is.

 

 

 

Spoiler

Yeah that would seem pretty terrible to me. I would have hesitated eating the egg over concern of experiencing all time simultaneously alone.

 

[Kal-El814]

3 hours ago, legend said:

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Yeah that would seem pretty terrible to me. I would have hesitated eating the egg over concern of experiencing all time simultaneously alone.

 

 

Spoiler

I guess in the comic it’s more or less stated that Jon’s perception of time pops as soon as he Humpty Dumpties himself for the first time or possibly as he’s learning to do that. It’s not until we get his inner monologue in later chapters that we realize that’s how it happened, since from his POV even his reactions are scripted. So if Angela got her perception of time borked, I wouldn’t suspect that she’d react to that specifically, or to seem like she knew if she could walk on water.

 

Still, given that Trieu seems to believe that she’d be able to do whatever she wants if she gets Manhattan’s powers, and given that the characters comment that they wish Manhattan did more... seems like they’re leaning into the notion that Angela could be “free” from his perception of time.

 

Then again seeing as how the Watchmen universe strongly implies that nobody has free will, it’s just that Jon can see into all time simultaneously, I suppose that aside from Angela’s POV specifically, it doesn’t really *matter* if she does or does not see time the same way Jon does? Hmm.

 

[legend]

14 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

  Hide contents

I guess in the comic it’s more or less stated that Jon’s perception of time pops as soon as he Humpty Dumpties himself for the first time or possibly as he’s learning to do that. It’s not until we get his inner monologue in later chapters that we realize that’s how it happened, since from his POV even his reactions are scripted. So if Angela got her perception of time borked, I wouldn’t suspect that she’d react to that specifically, or to seem like she knew if she could walk on water.

 

Still, given that Trieu seems to believe that she’d be able to do whatever she wants if she gets Manhattan’s powers, and given that the characters comment that they wish Manhattan did more... seems like they’re leaning into the notion that Angela could be “free” from his perception of time.

 

Then again seeing as how the Watchmen universe strongly implies that nobody has free will, it’s just that Jon can see into all time simultaneously, I suppose that aside from Angela’s POV specifically, it doesn’t really *matter* if she does or does not see time the same way Jon does? Hmm.

 

Spoiler

Free will is a funny term. I think most arguments around it stem from disagreements in how to even define it, so I'm not inclined to argue whether "free will" exists for anyone or not.

 

But what I think is important, is Jon's perception of time fundamentally changes what is possible in terms of him making decisions. The fact that Jon perceives all time, all at once, means he can't actually *plan* a solution to anything, only react to the union of all time instances at once. This seems pretty reflected in the frustrating conversations people have with him about why he can't do anything. To them, the future is hypothetical, which means you can plan a response. But he can't change anything because it's literally already done; there's nothing to plan because he's already reacted, all at once. It would be like asking me to change what I already did 5 seconds ago. Sure you hindsight alternative action sounds great, but I already made my choice and now we have to live with it.

 

This inability to plan is a horrible curse and why I think not having that perception of all time all at once would allow a person to have vastly more agency and effectiveness and why I would prefer to not be burdened with what he had.

 

So regardless of what you call free-will and whether we have it or not, Jon is put in a different and terrible decision-making position that regular humans don't have to suffer.

 

[skillzdadirecta]

Alan Moore Told ‘Watchmen’ Showrunner ‘Don’t Bother Me’ About ‘Embarrassing’ HBO Adaptation

WWW.INDIEWIRE.COM

---

Moore slammed HBO and Damon Lindelof's adaptation of his graphic novel, and admitted he wanted nothing to do with it at the time.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

That's definitely the Alan Moore that we all know!                  

[silentbob]

21 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

That's definitely the Alan Moore that we all know!                  

You mean he isn’t this guy

 

 

[Chris-]

It’s a little ironic since I think the series did an even better job of interrogating the main point of the comic (not to mention it taught half of white America about the Tulsa massacre), but then again I wouldn’t expect anything else from Moore other than self-righteous bullshit. 

[TwinIon]

Quote

Moore said he received “a frank letter from the showrunner of the ‘Watchmen’ television adaptation, which I hadn’t heard was a thing at that point. But the letter, I think it opened with, ‘Dear Mr. Moore, I am one of the bastards currently destroying Watchmen.’ That wasn’t the best opener,” Moore said

I kinda like that opener in a letter to Moore. It didn't matter how good the show might be, anyone making a Watchmen product would end up being "one of the bastards destroying Watchmen" to Moore, so may as well own it.

 

 

I should rewatch that series.

[Guest]

On 7/26/2020 at 12:05 AM, sblfilms said:

Just watched the whole thing finally.

 

A God Walks Into Abar is one of the best hours of TV I’ve ever seen. I don’t have anything else to add that hasn’t been covered.

This is still true

[thewhyteboar]

I need to re-watch it.

 

(and how can anyone listen to a thing Moore says without rolling your eyes and making a jerk-off gesture?)

[Kal-El814]

1 minute ago, thewhyteboar said:

(and how can anyone listen to a thing Moore says without rolling your eyes and making a jerk-off gesture?)

 

Because he's great.

[Jason]

1 hour ago, Kal-El814 said:

Because he's great.

 

[skillzdadirecta]

10 hours ago, Chris- said:

It’s a little ironic since I think the series did an even better job of interrogating the main point of the comic (not to mention it taught half of white America about the Tulsa massacre), but then again I wouldn’t expect anything else from Moore other than self-righteous bullshit. 

I think two things can be true... The Watchmen series can be great (I think it is) AND it missed the point of what Moore intended (It Kinda does) Moore intended for Watchmen to be an critique of superheroes and how problematic they would be if they actually existed, not and "adult take" on comic book characters because at the end of the day, superheroes are for children. Now in fairness to the creators of the show, he hasn't seen it and I thnk Snyder's version of the graphic novel turned him off so much he'd NEVER bother to watch it despite how well its been recieved. That said, his work doesn't belong to him any more and whether he likes it or not is irrelevant at this point. 

[Chris-]

4 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I think two things can be true... The Watchmen series can be great (I think it is) AND it missed the point of what Moore intended (It Kinda does) Moore intended for Watchmen to be an critique of superheroes and how problematic they would be if they actually existed, not and "adult take" on comic book characters because at the end of the day, superheroes are for children. Now in fairness to the creators of the show, he hasn't seen it and I thnk Snyder's version of the graphic novel turned him off so much he'd NEVER bother to watch it despite how well its been recieved. That said, his work doesn't belong to him any more and whether he likes it or not is irrelevant at this point. 

 

I'd say the series took that critique to its logical conclusion as opposed to being a mere 'adult take' on comic book characters. Hell, given how the critique was overlaid on existing power structures, I'd say the series has even more to say than the book.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Moore may be a bit of crank, but his recent statement about the concept of superheroes potentially acting as a precursor to fascism does have a grain of truth to it, especially to disaffected individuals who experience the atomization/alienation that seems to be an inherent part of our modern culture.  If not outright fascism, then at the very least there's a potential appeal to authoritarian populist tendencies where there is a "simple" solution (usually involving the application of "might") to complex problems.

 

Naturally, this isn't even to remotely suggest that this applies to everyone -- or even the majority -- who is a fan of this type of genre fiction nor that the works are inherently fascist/authoritarian in and of themselves.  However, I don't think it would be wise to dismiss Moore's critique or similar views expressed by others out-of-hand, not with the growing presence of authoritarian populist leaders and movements around the globe.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

Moore may be a bit of crank, but his recent statement about the concept of superheroes potentially acting as a precursor to fascism does have a grain of truth to it, especially to disaffected individuals who experience the atomization/alienation that seems to be an inherent part of our modern culture.  If not outright fascism, then at the very least there's a potential appeal to authoritarian populist tendencies where there is a "simple" solution (usually involving the application of "might") to complex problems

Exactly right. I grew up in the Post-Watchmen/Dark Knight Returns era in a high crime predominately black city in the late 80's and 90's, I often wondered what it would have been like to have "Superheroes" exist in that context and it was NEVER good. I love Batman as a character in comic books but when you really think about it, he's about as fucked up and problematic a character as you could possibly  come up with. He's a PURE authoritarian... HIS. He endangers children, violates privacy, civil rights and a bunch of other anti-democratic actvities all because at his core, he's insane. Anyway, that's my rant.

 

The Watchmen series, as good as it is, doesn't address what more was talking about in the least and is about something else which is fine, but his point is, it has little to nothing to do with HIS story and is simply trading on the name recognition. Shit there's rumors of The Watchmen characters being in the next Injustice game for some reason... that just proves his point even further. Again, I LOVE The Watchmen series, but I don't think Moore's critque of the derivatives of his work are invalid and his choice not consume them is fine. That said... check THIS out.

 

The thickening plot thickens 

 

@Commissar SFLUFAN did you ever check out Marshall Law?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

11 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

 

@Commissar SFLUFAN did you ever check out Marshall Law?

 

I have not, but thanks for reminding me!

 

11 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Exactly right. I grew up in the Post-Watchmen/Dark Knight Returns era in a high crime predominately black city in the late 80's and 90's, I often wondered what it would have been like to have "Superheroes" exist in that context and it was NEVER good. I love Batman as a character in comic books but when you really think about it, he's about as fucked up and problematic a character as you could possibly  come up with. He's a PURE authoritarian... HIS. He endangers children, violates privacy, civil rights and a bunch of other anti-democratic activities all because at his core, he's insane. Anyway, that's my rant.

 

 

Batman is unquestionably Exhibit A-1 in this discussion, but the fact of the matter that practically all major superheroes reflect at least one of these tendencies simply because they have to in order to "do their jobs" in the first place!  There really is no way to separate this genre fiction from at least some aspects of its inherent characteristics other than a complete Watchman-like deconstruction.  

[skillzdadirecta]

32 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

There really is no way to separate this genre fiction from at least some aspects of its inherent characteristics other than a complete Watchman-like deconstruction.  

Which is one of the projects I happen to be working on 

[Kal-El814]

Supervillains and superheroes have a weird symbiotic relationship in comics because you need characters who are borderline unerringly correct to combat other characters who must be stopped at all costs. There's that line from some comic where Batman muses that it's a good thing that Superman doesn't perceive himself to be a god because if he did it'd be fucking over. The smartest thing about Watchmen is the examination of what it would be like if one guy was actually at that level. Doctor Manhattan disrupts the auto industry because it takes him a moment to make batteries... meanwhile Aquaman has several close friends who could clean the ocean in an afternoon and they just... don't.

 

I feel like the MCU is especially "bad" at this with characters like Captain America and Iron Man CONSTANTLY talking out of both sides of their mouth depending on what they're confronted with moment to moment. "Yay Cap, kill those Hydra goons!" "Vision doesn't get to decide to take his own life to save half the lives in the universe!" Come on now.

 

As it pertains to Alan Moore, he's always interesting. It's always wild that the guy who did what he did with Marvelman / Miracleman gets bent out of shape when other people adopt his stuff. It's not a perfect analogy for sure, but it always comes to mind when this comes up.

[skillzdadirecta]

39 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

As it pertains to Alan Moore, he's always interesting. It's always wild that the guy who did what he did with Marvelman / Miracleman gets bent out of shape when other people adopt his stuff.

i think his problem is that they often miss the point and deliberately misinterpret what he was doing in order to sell newer product. He's accepted that these characters aren't his and the companies can do what they want with them, he just doesn't want them to dishonestly use his name to sell their products. Products that he doesn't believe in. 

 

Quote

 “I explained that I had disowned the work in question, and partly that was because the film industry and the comics industry seemed to have created things that had nothing to do with my work, but which would be associated with it in the public mind. I said, ‘Look, this is embarrassing to me. I don’t want anything to do with you or your show. Please don’t bother me again.'”

 

The dude just doesn't want to be associated with anything they've done with his work and I think that's his right.