Watchmen

I am a huge sucker for alternate history kind of stuff, and this delivers that in spades. It takes place in 2019, but America won in Vietnam which is now an American state, Nixon was a great president (he's even on Mt Rushmore), Robert Redford is the current president, there are no mobile phones or internet, giant blimps patrol the skies, cops are ?good? and under attack by ??, etc. Fantastic world building.

I have no fucking idea whats really going on though, the first episode jumps around a lot and you don't really connect with any character and you don't really understand at all what anyones motivations or actions or background is. So it does an extremely poor job at actually telling a cohesive story, but Its interesting enough that I'll watch more. I don't really like Regina King and she's about 40% of the screen time so thats not great. I'm not even sure what she is supposed to be.

It doesn't feel at all like a comic book show right now, but you can see the comic book underpinnings. Right now the show feels more like a "what if racial tensions were ramped up 10x from today? How would that look? What if cops were the good guys?" I could see a lot of modern day online woketavists hating that part, but there is also a lot of stuff in here to piss off "racism isn't real" folks.

I went in expecting an unwatchable mess filled with twitter cliches, it wasn't that bad but it wasn't really good so far either. Just a setup. After 1 episode of The Boys I was fully erect and wanted to binge through the entire series. After 1 episode of this I'm more like "meh", I'll watch more when I can but if HBO deleted the show I wouldn't care either.

ShakyJake said:

Any blue dongs?

Click to expand...

There is a brief shot of Dr. Manhattan on mars on a background TV just fucking around with some structure but other than that, nope. I need to read some wiki entries or something on the watchmen, I really have no idea who is who or how they tie into the movie.

meStevo said:

Can't believe they had squid. I wonder if it's using that ending to the comic also rather than the original movie ending. It was mentioned in the interrigation too, asking if he thought it was an interdimensional attack or a government conspiracy.

Really liked this, for all the world building Spronk mentioned. Looks like Irons is this story's Ozymandias and/or Manhattan?

Click to expand...

The show is all based on what happened in the comic and not the movie.

spronk said:

I have no fucking idea whats really going on though, the first episode jumps around a lot and you don't really connect with any character and you don't really understand at all what anyones motivations or actions or background is. So it does an extremely poor job at actually telling a cohesive story, but Its interesting enough that I'll watch more.

Click to expand...

So a standard Damon Lindelof TV show.

So I had no idea that the Tulsa Race Riot off 1921 Wasa real thing, so thanks to this show for educating me on that issue. You can see why they would actively surpress that from the public for several decades, especially with attacks from goddamn planes...

I spent a good portion of the episode explaining what was going on to the people who watched with me, not because I had any prior knowledge about the series, but because they did very little hand holding for the viewer. I feel that anyone who had read the original more than once would have caught the same things I did, but they were clearly aimed above the head of a casual viewer. None of these things were integral to the plot itself, but rather clarified how this fits into the broader context.

yeah the 1921 Tulsa Riot is also known as the destruction of Black Wall Street, it was set off when a black teenager was accused of assaulting a white teenage girl, white mobs led by the KKK basically destroyed a successful black community in retaliation. The show mentions reparations a few time (one kid calls them "Redfordations", i assume a play on President Robert Redford being the one that made it happen), I wonder why in this timeline white America decides to give reparations to black America. Its also interesting to think about how reparations didn't really solve racial tensions and maybe made things way, way worse.

I just read this 1 page "summary at the end of the comics" which kinda gave me more context, like Richard Nixon did away with presidential term limits so that explains why his face is kinda everywhere. Need to find a good youtube video that summarizes Watchmen before episode 2.

The bit about Vietnam being the 51st state is in the show but very subtle during the talk that Sister Night gives at the career day event.

Seems clear that Louis Gosset Jr is Hooded Justice, who didn't get a heck of a lot of coverage in the original comic.

What isn't clear is whether or not Judd Crawford is also Dan Dreiberg. It would parallel the comic if he was and also explain why Laurie shows up next week.

spronk said:

yeah the 1921 Tulsa Riot is also known as the destruction of Black Wall Street, it was set off when a black teenager was accused of assaulting a white teenage girl, white mobs led by the KKK basically destroyed a successful black community in retaliation. The show mentions reparations a few time (one kid calls them "Redfordations", i assume a play on President Robert Redford being the one that made it happen), I wonder why in this timeline white America decides to give reparations to black America. Its also interesting to think about how reparations didn't really solve racial tensions and maybe made things way, way worse.

I just read this 1 page "summary at the end of the comics" which kinda gave me more context, like Richard Nixon did away with presidential term limits so that explains why his face is kinda everywhere. Need to find a good youtube video that summarizes Watchmen before episode 2.

8 things to remember about the comics before watching the Watchmen HBO series

Catch up on all things Watchmen before Sunday

www.gamesradar.com

Click to expand...

Here is a quick high point summary of the comics by a TV review who has seen 6 episodes.

I liked it, it was gritty, but I do regret that I have no idea what's going on with the squid and shit like that, because I never read the comics. I'll check those links.

Kiki said:

I liked it, it was gritty, but I do regret that I have no idea what's going on with the squid and shit like that, because I never read the comics. I'll check those links.

Click to expand...

WELL YOU BETTER CATCH THE FUCK UP BECAUSE DOOMSDAY CLOCK IS ABOUT TO FINISH. IT'S BEEN BUILDING UP TO SUPERMAN PUNCHING DR MANHATTAN FOR LIKE A YEAR NOW

Also it's canon. Look out motherfuckers.



Before Watchmen wasn't very good you can skip that.

First episode was pretty good. Certainly interesting enough to continue watching.

did anyone else feel like jeremy irons participates regularly in a devils threesome with his two servants

What's with all the black people?

TJT said:

Why does it rain tadpoles?

Click to expand...

squids

premiere drew 800k viewers and .25 in 18-49 demo, with 1.5 million total viewers on all platforms