Watchmen (spoilers!)

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Lunkhead
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Watchmen (spoilers!)

Post by Lunkhead »

Anybody else watching this show? It's mostly very entertaining although it's maybe falling into the camp of "initially promising premise/setup, disappointing payoff" already honestly. I absolutely love the score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It may be the best part of the show. The acting is generally very good and the direction and visuals are great. I don't love all the dialog but I think that is because of how it's being used in service of some lame characterizations.

Spoiler complaints below.
SPOILER
SPOILER_SHOW
The premise seemed good until last week's penultimate season of the episode which disclosed how some of the preceding mysterious events were set into motion. For the love of all that's decent in the world, please lazy terrible TV/movie writers stop using causal loops. It's NOT clever or innovative, it's dissatisfying and annoying. Beyond that, the premise also rests on a nearly literal deus ex. So far as they have disclosed Dr. Manhattan appears literally out of the blue (no pun intended) already in love with the main character for no disclosed reason other than causal loop stuff. There are also IMO pretty majorly out of character reversals of Ozymandias's behavior from the comic. How or why would he go to the lengths he did to make it so that no one knew that he was behind the New York attack, then record a video spilling the beans? I think they try to chalk it up to his hubris and that he would be so frustrated and disappointed that his action hadn't actually created instant utopia but I don't personally buy that character arc. He'd already expressed doubt at the end of the comic story. I think the writers have him doubling down on his convictions in response to the doubt but by just holing himself up and not doing much which seems really hard to believe. As for lame characterizations, the fact that the FBI agent is Silk Spectre has so far been totally superfluous, and her characterization seems like a big leap from the comics character too in strange ways. Soth she and Angela Abar are given stupidly curse laden dialogue which is supposed to show how tough they are which IMHO is such a lazy writing technique.
Anyway like so many sci-fi stories it's pretty entertaining, but don't think about it too much or it crumbles to dust.
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Re: Watchmen (spoilers!)

Post by owl »

I'm watching it and loving it, but I'm not super far into it yet so I'm afraid to read your spoilered comments! I agree on the score and the music direction, they're great. Were you a fan of the original comic? There are so many little callbacks to the imagery in the comic, and recontexualizations of certain details, like Hooded Justice's origin story, the can of beans, the smiley faces and blood splashes, that are really detailed and wonderful to think about. I want to know what's particularly bothering you... how far do I have to watch before I can read your spoiler?
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Re: Watchmen (spoilers!)

Post by Lunkhead »

I've watched all the available episodes so far, so all but the final episode of the season. I've read the comic a couple times but I guess I'm not a super fan. I'm not hugely steeped in the lore and I'm probably missing a lot of callbacks, particularly any subtle visual ones. I think at first before I knew what was happening I was appreciating what I thought was going to be a whole separate new story set in that world a long time later that would go into the aftermath of the comic's events and expand upon things, especially with the story of Angela and her grandfather. I did really enjoy the turn involving Hooded Justice. I thought that was great in how it created a nearly totally new, well written story that fleshed out that part of the history of this world. I think they'd have done better by using that tactic more and relying on the main characters from the comic less. I don't think they've handled those characters that well. I don't know if you've watched this far but at one point a character from the comic farts as a childish "f you" which felt so incongruous to me from the comic character, and for me they did not succeed in showing how the character developed to that point.
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Re: Watchmen (spoilers!)

Post by owl »

Oh--haven't gotten there yet but I can see what you mean from just that description. Huh. Sounds disappointing, I wonder if it will redeem itself.
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Re: Watchmen (spoilers!)

Post by owl »

Oh, haha, I got to that fart episode. Yeah.
Now that I was able to read your spoiler tag, I agree with most or all of it... I'll post more thoughts/replies later when I've finished watching/digested it some more.
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