Watchmen Series?!?!?
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peter
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Absolutely Wayfriend. I've been on board since the first episode and have a few observations to make. I'm an Alan Moore fan of old. Started with the Watchmen film and was so blown away immediately went out and read the graphic novel. Was so taken (I've re-read it whole twice more, and piecemeal a few more again) that I before long began to seek out his other works and began to understand what phenomenal talent he is.wayfriend wrote:I did see the first episode. It was, in fact, brilliant. Now I am waiting to see if there is any interest in discussing it here.
But back to the series, after episode one I was taken - but not wholly or completely. It seemed..... I don't know.....a bit too 'TV' (as opposed to film or book) and TV has never been my favourite media. The story seemed a ways away from what I understood Watchmen to be - a bit disjointed and difficult to grasp. But then I discovered a breakdown and analysis of the episode on YouTube, about fifteen minutes long, that ran through the episode and began to pull out all of the myriad connections that I had totally missed with the original. Immediately it all fell into place and since then there has been no going back for me.
After each successive episode (each one better than the last) I return to this breakdown series on YouTube for help in pulling things together, to see the connections I have missed, get the speculation on where different elements of the story might be going, and it is absolutely making all the difference to my appreciation of the series. I think it absolutely has to be the case that not to have seen the film or better, read the graphic novel, is going to seriously hamper anyone's ability to take this series on board. This is an absolute sequel to the original, pretty meaningless without a serviceable grasp of the events of the first. In this work, as with Moore's original, the devil is in the details. Drink deep of this Moore inspired well - or drink not at all.
(Edit; the episode breakdown videos I have been watching post each episode are posted by Think Story on YouTube. I absolutely recommend them. They have made this series for me.)
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
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wayfriend
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Well, there's certainly something to say about a show that requires another show to explain it to you!
I watched episode 3 last night, which introduces Laurie Blake who, like Adrien, is an original character. There are a lot of moving parts now. It's all so very fascinating. It's starting to get a lot easier to follow as it goes on, I find.
I think the Veidt interlude was particulary revealing. Here's what I think is going on:
This is the "giant squid" of this series. It won't make sense until the final episode when Veidt's grand design is revealed. Jeremy Irons is spectacular here - serious, emotional, hinting at insanity, and a twist of whimsy all rolled together. The perfect super villian.
Blake was incredible. "I eat good guys for breakfast."
And may we be seeing another original character soon?
I watched episode 3 last night, which introduces Laurie Blake who, like Adrien, is an original character. There are a lot of moving parts now. It's all so very fascinating. It's starting to get a lot easier to follow as it goes on, I find.
I think the Veidt interlude was particulary revealing. Here's what I think is going on:
Spoiler
The bit with the frozen slave (what else would you call them?) who froze in the suit makes me think that he had been exposed to the vacuum of space. Veidt was pissed off, apparently because he hoped something else would happen. So: is he trying to invent some sort of teleportation technology? He seems to be stuck in some sort of prison/exile and may be trying to escape, or something worse. He would not be Ozymandias if he weren't going big.
Blake was incredible. "I eat good guys for breakfast."
And may we be seeing another original character soon?
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peter
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Spoiled section above certainly keys in with the explanation given in the breakdown - but doesn't go as far in terms of extrapolation or speculation Wayfriend.
I won't go into matey's theories here because a) half the fun for you might be the thing of developing your own as the series progresses (a real benefit of seeing it in weekly chunks that I'd never cottoned onto, being allowing you/us the time for meaningful speculation - and adding another layer of enjoyment thereby as you see the fruits of this materialize or collapse to dust) and b) the risk of being led, perhaps in directions you might not choose, or indeed could be incorrect, in this manner might simply not be to your taste. Irrespective of this, I recommend at the end, if not before, visiting the videos, simply to see if he gets it right, and maybe spots things that you might have missed. A clue to his modus operandi is to pay attention (in great detail) to background details - posters on busses, newspaper headlines, the child buying the bundles of newspapers, the structures in the periphery - this kind of thing.
You mentioned the great sequence ending in the words "I eat good guys for breakfast". I however, loved the lady's fake shiver given in response (remeniscient of that given by Fenster during his police interview in The Usual Suspects when faced with a similar threat). Beautiful!
One thing. Rorsarch was always my favourite character in the original story and the take on his 'place' in this new foray should come as no surprise, given the always somewhat..... dubious nature of his sanity?.....in Moore's novel. He was never the standard 'good guy' and his placement of his journal in the hands of The New Frontiersman at the end of the film tells us much about where his thinking was, and justifies in a sound way, where the writers have taken this story in terms of his place in it.
I struggled a bit in separating out what was meant to be part of the TV series (Masked Heroes, or something) and what might be flashbacks in the actual story (was all the stuff on Hooded Justice meant to be within the TV series or a part of the story being told to us? Was he for real, what he was said to be? Was the bit where he appeared in the robbery, meant to be within the TV show in the story, or part of 'our' TV series?)
But aside from this bit of confusion it's hanging together really well. It won't be spoiling anything to say that Blake's character is taking on much more of the nature of her father's in the series..... and remember who this was! (Thanks again to Think Story for this observation - I'd have totally missed it) I'm loving the way that the series references the original material in the most subtle of ways as well as in the bigger stuff. Think also, what was the name of this last episode..... and what happened at the end. Where did this come from? What are we into here?
I won't go into matey's theories here because a) half the fun for you might be the thing of developing your own as the series progresses (a real benefit of seeing it in weekly chunks that I'd never cottoned onto, being allowing you/us the time for meaningful speculation - and adding another layer of enjoyment thereby as you see the fruits of this materialize or collapse to dust) and b) the risk of being led, perhaps in directions you might not choose, or indeed could be incorrect, in this manner might simply not be to your taste. Irrespective of this, I recommend at the end, if not before, visiting the videos, simply to see if he gets it right, and maybe spots things that you might have missed. A clue to his modus operandi is to pay attention (in great detail) to background details - posters on busses, newspaper headlines, the child buying the bundles of newspapers, the structures in the periphery - this kind of thing.
You mentioned the great sequence ending in the words "I eat good guys for breakfast". I however, loved the lady's fake shiver given in response (remeniscient of that given by Fenster during his police interview in The Usual Suspects when faced with a similar threat). Beautiful!
One thing. Rorsarch was always my favourite character in the original story and the take on his 'place' in this new foray should come as no surprise, given the always somewhat..... dubious nature of his sanity?.....in Moore's novel. He was never the standard 'good guy' and his placement of his journal in the hands of The New Frontiersman at the end of the film tells us much about where his thinking was, and justifies in a sound way, where the writers have taken this story in terms of his place in it.
I struggled a bit in separating out what was meant to be part of the TV series (Masked Heroes, or something) and what might be flashbacks in the actual story (was all the stuff on Hooded Justice meant to be within the TV series or a part of the story being told to us? Was he for real, what he was said to be? Was the bit where he appeared in the robbery, meant to be within the TV show in the story, or part of 'our' TV series?)
But aside from this bit of confusion it's hanging together really well. It won't be spoiling anything to say that Blake's character is taking on much more of the nature of her father's in the series..... and remember who this was! (Thanks again to Think Story for this observation - I'd have totally missed it) I'm loving the way that the series references the original material in the most subtle of ways as well as in the bigger stuff. Think also, what was the name of this last episode..... and what happened at the end. Where did this come from? What are we into here?
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
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wayfriend
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I think the fact that anyone considers Rorschach a "hero" exemplifies the very complex dynamics that the original authors were attempting to shine a light on.peter wrote:One thing. Rorsarch was always my favourite character in the original story and the take on his 'place' in this new foray should come as no surprise, given the always somewhat..... dubious nature of his sanity?.....in Moore's novel.
"While he seems to be a Batman-like hero at first, it's slowly revealed that he spouts homophobic and sexist slurs, murders dogs for the crimes of their owners and enjoys committing violent acts. To embrace Rorschach as a hero - as many people, including Senator Ted Cruz, have done - is sort of to miss the entire point of Watchmen. The graphic novel confronts the reader's heroic conceptions of superheroes with the harsh and ugly reality of crimefighting."
And yet, who can't like a guy who yells "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me!". amiright?
The Hooded Justice sequence was I think a snippet from a TV show in THIS SERIES about a character in it's history, which of course overlaps the original story. The over-the-top violence was supposed to say a lot about how we glorify violence when we hero-worship these guys. (And I think it was also a dig at Zack Snyder's movie.) Which is really what I said about Rorschach all over again.
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peter
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I think something of the characters uncompromising nature hits the spot. He is somewhat similar to Covenant in this way - he cuts no slack, either for other people or for himself. It's Rorsarch versus The World - and The World's in trouble! Agreed, it would be a pretty sick world where the likes of him could be considered a hero - but like a million baddies going back through literary history from Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost to the snake in the Garden of Eden, it's the devil who gets the best lines. 
It's this that draws us in.
It's this that draws us in.The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
-
peter
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- Posts: 11545
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Four episodes in and very much enjoying the ride. We're no closer to actually finding out what is going on however (or I don't think we are - I may be missing quite a lot) but the story is holding my attention nevertheless thanks to some fine character acting by the lead actors. Some of the connections between different characters are beginning to be drawn out with tantalising clues as to where the story might take us, but as we stand it's all pretty mysterious. More questions than answers at present. Moore should be happy with what they have done (but knowing him, he probably won't be ).
).The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
'Have we not served you well'
'Of course - you know you have.'
'Then let it end.'
We are the Bloodguard
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Skyweir
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Watched the first episode last night and loved it.
I am prone to enjoying historical flashbacks whether althistory or actual history.
I like how the Tulsa Race Riots are used precipitously. Its early days.. but I have the first 4 eps downloaded and look forward to where to from here.
I am prone to enjoying historical flashbacks whether althistory or actual history.
I like how the Tulsa Race Riots are used precipitously. Its early days.. but I have the first 4 eps downloaded and look forward to where to from here.
keep smiling
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wayfriend
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Caught up on Ep 4. I think that's the half-way mark.
Lots of connective tissue this in episode. Nothing very exciting.
New character.
The Veidt hijinks continue.
Lots of connective tissue this in episode. Nothing very exciting.
New character.
Spoiler
"Lady Trieu". Whatever that meteor was, she clearly knew it was coming for a long time in advance. It's a little late for a new "element", excuse the pun. Maybe something Dr. Manhattan sent to earth?
Spoiler
WTF!! Between the marsh babies and the disappearing bodies, I have to wonder where Veidt is. I am thinking he's on not Earth. I think he's maybe in a pocket universe designed by Dr. Manhattan or something.
Confirmation that he's trying to escape. Or at least trying to learn if he can.
Did those bodies disintegrate? Or pass through a barrier of some kind? Or ... leave the universe.
There is a strong connection between the baby "grown" by Trieu and the ones grown by Veidt. However, I am bothered by the rather advanced technology on display here -- it seems too far advanced for the time, it jars. I'd rather believe that Trieu had been raising a baby for a year in advance. Which means Adrien is in some other dimension?
Confirmation that he's trying to escape. Or at least trying to learn if he can.
Did those bodies disintegrate? Or pass through a barrier of some kind? Or ... leave the universe.
There is a strong connection between the baby "grown" by Trieu and the ones grown by Veidt. However, I am bothered by the rather advanced technology on display here -- it seems too far advanced for the time, it jars. I'd rather believe that Trieu had been raising a baby for a year in advance. Which means Adrien is in some other dimension?
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Skyweir
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Ok cant read those spoilers yet. Ep 2 was great.
I had my suspicions about the Chief.
I guess time will tell.
I had my suspicions about the Chief.
Spoiler
Was the KKK outfit too easy to find?
Spoiler
where did the grandfather go and what strange vehicle airlifted him?
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Skyweir
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Ahhh yess ...wayfriend wrote:Caught up on Ep 4. I think that's the half-way mark.
Lots of connective tissue this in episode. Nothing very exciting.
New character.
The Veidt hijinks continue.Spoiler
"Lady Trieu". Whatever that meteor was, she clearly knew it was coming for a long time in advance. It's a little late for a new "element", excuse the pun. Maybe something Dr. Manhattan sent to earth?
Spoiler
WTF!! Between the marsh babies and the disappearing bodies, I have to wonder where Veidt is. I am thinking he's on not Earth. I think he's maybe in a pocket universe designed by Dr. Manhattan or something.
Confirmation that he's trying to escape. Or at least trying to learn if he can.
Did those bodies disintegrate? Or pass through a barrier of some kind? Or ... leave the universe.
There is a strong connection between the baby "grown" by Trieu and the ones grown by Veidt. However, I am bothered by the rather advanced technology on display here -- it seems too far advanced for the time, it jars. I'd rather believe that Trieu had been raising a baby for a year in advance. Which means Adrien is in some other dimension?
Spoiler
Definitely in some dimensional prison. And yes Dr Manhattan likely put him there. Who else would have that capability?
Spoiler
Agree the cloning tech is clearly related. Lady Trieu clone Bian and Veidts clones marionette and mime. Trieu also used that tech to clone the baby that she gave to that couple in exchange for their property.
Spoiler
So then are Trieu and Will are trying to rescue Veidt from his inter dimensional holding cell
Spoiler
Love Agents Blake clever comedic lines. I think she IS trying to help Sister Knight who has clearly been hoodwinked by Chief Judd him being 7th Kalvary. But why did Judd spare her on that fateful night?
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wayfriend
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Regarding the Chief.
Regarding the squid.
Lady Trieu.
Spoiler
The opening of episode 1 telegraphed that the Chief was not a good guy. In the silent movie, the white hatted sherrif was the bad guy; the Chief proudly wore a white hat.
Still, it seems to simple to think he was 7K. He had a Klan robe, not a Rorschach mask. He seemed to love Angela like family. And he seemes to have rescued Angela from the White Night. (There's still a mystery there.)
Looking Glass may have been right - it may have been his dad's robe or something.
But let's not forget the main mystery: why did Will kill Chief Crawford? The notion that Crawford was somehow behind the Masacre, or something like it, dangles before us.
My best guess is that Chief Crawford planned the White Night.
Still, it seems to simple to think he was 7K. He had a Klan robe, not a Rorschach mask. He seemed to love Angela like family. And he seemes to have rescued Angela from the White Night. (There's still a mystery there.)
Looking Glass may have been right - it may have been his dad's robe or something.
But let's not forget the main mystery: why did Will kill Chief Crawford? The notion that Crawford was somehow behind the Masacre, or something like it, dangles before us.
My best guess is that Chief Crawford planned the White Night.
Spoiler
The show keeps coming back to the squid. Will they matter? Or are they a red herring.
They tie into the end of the Watchmen novel. What they mean is that someone is still supporting the Squid attacking from Space narrative. However, the effect on world leaders, or whether it continues to unify the world, seems unimportant. And Veidt is locked up. So who is sending the Squid?
Like too many things, the only possible answer seems to be Dr. Manhattan.
They tie into the end of the Watchmen novel. What they mean is that someone is still supporting the Squid attacking from Space narrative. However, the effect on world leaders, or whether it continues to unify the world, seems unimportant. And Veidt is locked up. So who is sending the Squid?
Like too many things, the only possible answer seems to be Dr. Manhattan.
Spoiler
Why a giant clock? What kind of time is it REALLY telling?
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Skyweir
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Wow wow wowwayfriend wrote:Regarding the Chief.
Regarding the squid.Spoiler
The opening of episode 1 telegraphed that the Chief was not a good guy. In the silent movie, the white hatted sherrif was the bad guy; the Chief proudly wore a white hat.
Still, it seems to simple to think he was 7K. He had a Klan robe, not a Rorschach mask. He seemed to love Angela like family. And he seemes to have rescued Angela from the White Night. (There's still a mystery there.)
Looking Glass may have been right - it may have been his dad's robe or something.
But let's not forget the main mystery: why did Will kill Chief Crawford? The notion that Crawford was somehow behind the Masacre, or something like it, dangles before us.
My best guess is that Chief Crawford planned the White Night.
Lady Trieu.Spoiler
The show keeps coming back to the squid. Will they matter? Or are they a red herring.
They tie into the end of the Watchmen novel. What they mean is that someone is still supporting the Squid attacking from Space narrative. However, the effect on world leaders, or whether it continues to unify the world, seems unimportant. And Veidt is locked up. So who is sending the Squid?
Like too many things, the only possible answer seems to be Dr. Manhattan.
Spoiler
Why a giant clock? What kind of time is it REALLY telling?
a number of pathways and threads I had not connected. I need to find out when Season 2 is coming.
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I foolishly assumed cuz only got the 4 eps that its an uber short season 
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wayfriend
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Episode 5 was a truly amazing episode.
First, it was from the POV of Wade Tillman, aka Looking Glass. We learn a good bit of his backstory. And the whole episode is strewn with images of mirrors. The funhouse, the pamphlets, the satellite, the old mall, even Agent Blake's nickname for him, "Mirror guy". I bet I missed more. It was all very well put together, artistically speaking.
But what was really great is that this episode revealed so much of what had been mysterious until now. And, on top of that, the Veidt sub-story is now tied in with the main story. It feels like the story is a speeding train now. And there's still so much left we need to know.
First, it was from the POV of Wade Tillman, aka Looking Glass. We learn a good bit of his backstory. And the whole episode is strewn with images of mirrors. The funhouse, the pamphlets, the satellite, the old mall, even Agent Blake's nickname for him, "Mirror guy". I bet I missed more. It was all very well put together, artistically speaking.
But what was really great is that this episode revealed so much of what had been mysterious until now. And, on top of that, the Veidt sub-story is now tied in with the main story. It feels like the story is a speeding train now. And there's still so much left we need to know.
Spoiler
We have everything we need now to figure out how Veidt will be rescued and returned to Earth. Because, yes, he's in some sort of bubble world on Europa, and is looking for a way out. If you haven't figured it out yet, go do so. I'd give you a hint, but any hint gives it all away.
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