All that cynism, all that complexity, was replaced to give us a "good must be done" typical moral view, which is one of the reasons i think Moore didn't want his work adapted: because he knew they would make it less cynical than what the comic was, and they would need to find a way to make a comic about disgusting and complex characters into an adaptation about tragic anti-heroes.
I agree with you here. This finale definitely did not have the comic's nihilist ending. It had a much more optimistic approach, which simply does not fit Alan Moore's anarchic, cynical worldview.
I found that to be very un-Watchmen-like. The graphic novel always stressed that those in power, who do not have oversight, will not face consequences for their actions -- even if they are believed to be virtuous actions. With that particular scene, it contradicts the comic's original sentiment. Instead, it paints another powerful organization (the FBI, in this case) as doing the 'right' thing when it comes to justice.
That just does not fit Alan Moore's MO.
The only way this scene works is if, despite the character's arrest, he gets away with his past actions.
I am currently in the same boat that the finale did not challenge the superhero genre enough as it should have. It needed to be much more transgressive, like the original comic book.
It is still an excellent series, just small improvements could have made it even better.
that scene works so well imo because deep down inside its probably what Adrian has always wanted because now he will get credit for his crime instead of being a forgotten hero of the past he has constantly been annoyed in this show with people not knowing or giving him credit for saving humanity
My biggest gripe with the finale is that I felt things wrapped up too much in the conventional “good guys defeat the bad guys” way. That to me isn’t in the spirit of the source material that was always about subverting classic superhero tropes. That to me was a big knock on this finale, and I wish Trieu was more fleshed out as a character. Plus I didn’t care for the comedic beat of Adrien being knocked out. Thought was an unneeded moment of levity.
Part of what makes Watchmen great is that it subverted your expectations every time and kept you guessing up until the end, and part of thrill of the subversion was playing against the normative traditions of the genre that had the villain be defeated in a generic last-minute plan or something. I love that in the original graphic novel the good guys failed to take down Adrien in the original and he was essentially successful in his goal, and Adrien in the end was presented as somewhat sorrowful for his heinous acts, but he doesn’t feel guilt because he was “right” in the sense his actions did help avert a potential nuclear war. His villainy wasn’t so obvious.
Trieu is kind of the opposite and is kind of one-note evil power-hungry narcissist cliche’ that the graphic novel knew to avoid. She needed a flashback to further elaborate on her backstory & her motivations and I also thought her demise was very underwhelming and anti-climatic and ran counter to what the show was building itself as. With way the show started, it just didn’t seem to me they would head in the generic ‘the bad guys got foiled by the good guys!’ thing again. Trieu almost needed an ending like Marlo Stanfield from The Wire where her fate is ambiguous, and you’re not sure what will happen to her in the future.
Giving her a generic villain death felt the least Watchmen to me.
I love that Dr Manhattan constantly reminds us that our past is always with us. Watchmen hits this theme again and again.
Nothing ever ends. Our shared histories of racial disenfranchisement and imperialism. Our intimate relationships leave marks that never go away. The scars we've gained from violence, pain, and fear are still there.
We're still our mother stealing a rich lunatic's sperm and also our grandfather wearing a mask to see justice in the world. We're still naked & rejected in a funhouse as a psychic scream destroys the world around us, desperate for a real family, cradling the lithium-powered fake dong of our ex, and raised by a powerful family to believe our skin color makes us deserve to be a god.
Our past is a lubed up silver man forever sliding into the storm-drain of our present.
A day late and a dollar short per usual but my god that finale.
Truly incredible, I have no complaints. Some things I saw coming
Lady Truei being the ultimate evil, Angela getting Manhattan’s powers
but for the most part I was pleasantly surprised by all the twists and turns. And on a personal level even if I know it was mildly pandering,
watching a church full of white supremacists getting incinerated was wildly satisfying.
Bravo Lindelhoff, I loved this show. It’s been a few years since I’ve read the original graphic novel but my first time watching and experiencing this was almost as entertaining and thought-provoking as my first time reading through the original.
Obviously you can’t really compare the two but for a show that I felt was biting off more than it could chew, it more than stuck the landing IMO.
Question, do you guys have friends/family who watch this show without any knowledge of the book? I wanna recommend this to some of my friends but im honestly not sure how they’ll digest it not being familiar with the mythology and characters. I feel like at least a base knowledge of the book’s infamous moments are sort of a prerequisite to following this story.
FWIW my wife has never read the book or watched the movie and loved it. Same with my friend and his wife. It’s a surprisingly accessible show once you explain the basic characters (really just Veidt and Manhattan) and the books ending.
Lindelof redeemed himself after Lost. I was so worried he’d leave too much to ambiguity but they wrote it in such a way that was satisfying but without being just a data dump.
Sooo... this season is brilliant. The finale was predictable and I was correct in many of the main predictions, as were others I'm sure. The hardcore fanbases of properties dissect things so thoroughly it's hard to surprise an audience.
I thought the finale was a step down from the previous episodes. I really liked how all of the main characters converged perfectly for the culmination of the series. Especially seeing as most of them were out doing their own thing.
My main gripes were: the acting. Dr. Manhattan is still comical in his appearance as Blu-Kal. I wasn't a fan of his voice in the climax, wasn't Manhattan to me Senator Keene was not even a believable human being by the end. Lol I get that he's a wannabe god and megalomaniac but it took me out of the stakes a bit. Which leads me to my next gripe: the lack of overall subtlty within the episode. There was a lot of stuff that hit like a sledgehammer and wasn't particularly affective to me.
That said, this was an amazing experience. It it were cut into a mega epic film (which I'm sure someone will even being 8 1/2 hrs), it would serve as an extraordinary sequel to the GN and although I wasn't a fan of a couple of the major plot points, I recognize this EASILY as one of television's best series ever produced considering the writing, mood, setting, acting, world-building, etc. etc. Even the decisions made by Lindelof that I didn't like made so much sense in the story and what was trying to be accomplished.
I will buy this on blu-ray when it drops, hopefully they make a steelbox or badass special edition.
I'm not a big fan of the book, but I loved Jon's arc in here. It felt to me that it gave more meaning to his arc in the books.
Jon is a man who becomes god, and by doing that, loses his connection to humanity. Here, it's reverse. The show tells a story of a god who becomes a man and rediscover his humanity. I loved that.
I feel like overall Lindelof was very respectful to the source material and the characters.
That was actually one of my biggest gripes with the season. Dr. Manhattan's ultimate tragedy from the GN is replaced with typical 'sacrifice for greater purpose and loved ones" and transferring abilities as well as other tropes and standard comic book fare.
The reason his character was so tragically haunting was he was a being, much like space, who drifted further and further from humanity with no friction. He is just stuck as being an omnipotent being with little reason to reverse mankind's sins any longer.
I agree that some of the plot twists were predictable, but I honestly don't mind.
Comparing it with another HBO show, Westworld second season wasted so much energy in trying to outsmart the audience, that lost many of its heart and soul. The audience most of all want story and characters they care about and root for.
Watchmen didn't outsmart its audience in some aspects, but told a meaningful and enterteining story that had a lot of heart. It's what matters to me.
Slightly related, but I think the fact that Watchmen brought to many people the realities of the Tulsa massacre helped make a news story like this one not just possible, but seen by more people who otherwise may have passed it up:
Geophysical scanning identified two spots at the Oaklawn Cemetery that might bear bodies of those killed in the city's race riots almost 100 years ago, Scott Hammerstedt, a senior researcher for the Oklahoma Archeological Survey, said Monday at a public hearing in Tulsa.
...
HBO's "Watchmen" recreated the two-day event in its pilot episode in October. The show, based on the 1980s graphic novel, used the unsettling massacre to set the tone for its season.
I like veldt's arrest tbh. makes sense with Laurie's growth as a character. Veldt being held culpable by the bystander to his crimes and a direct victim is great. Also liked Laurie's lil quote along the lines of " people keep saying the world's gunna end but we are still here".
Pretty much this. All the show really had to do is be respectful of the source material and have a solid understanding of the world Moore created. That does mean that Lindelof was beholden to Moore's worldview.
Liked it a lot, touching ending, and it was narratively very well done. buut, i'm slightly underwelmed. Yes, a lot of the twists were predictable, but i didn't care that much about that, as it was really well told.
i was also hoping a little more from Laurie, and Looking glass. As it was executed, they didn't have that much of a role
. It also lacked intensity, and the complexity of the Watchmen Gn finale ( as those of the 5, 6,7, and 8 episode of the tv show) Its not that fair, to compare the Gn to the serie, as they don't adress exactly the same thematics ( as in Lindelof serie, it is about legacy) but still The finale of Watchmen Gn was thought provoking : we were in an impossible situation : an horrible event, a truth hidden about it, a journal that leaved it all " in our hands"... in the Tv serie, as beautiful as that final image was,
it's essentially a "faux suspense". IF Angela has not inherited Manathan power, the Doc sub plot doesnt make any sense, so we know that the has (and Lindelof confirmed it now) so of course we can ask what she will do with his power, but we know who she is, and she is relatively a nice person ( and even more at the end, as she is more in peace with herself) so we trust her to do the right thing.
That said, again, nice (and logical) ending.
They do a follow up? Consider me aboard, hoping that they have a really good idea. If not, it's been a great ride, overall the serie was excellent, and a worthy sequel to the Watchmen Gn. Bravo.
great show overall but one thing i will say is i much prefer doctor manhattan from the film than the tv show i thought the look,performance and voice of billy crudup were much more haunting but i do realize the show and film are 2 completely different versions of Manhattan
Haha, the woman who played Trieu's biological mother was also the violinist in Spider-Man 2
She was also a miscellaneous crew-member on Snyder's Watchmen film.
Slightly related, but I think the fact that Watchmen brought to many people the realities of the Tulsa massacre helped make a news story like this one not just possible, but seen by more people who otherwise may have passed it up:
I'm one of those people. I had never heard of Black Wallstreet before the show. It may have been covered briefly in a history class back in high school or something, but it was not common knowledge for me whatsoever.
It's all a little black and white. For all the twists and turns there were supposed to be, it was still a bit paint by numbers in the end. Trieu's "arc" just sort of ends prematurely because she's dumb and broadcasts her plans, and aside from the vehicle of her "demise" (I didn't see a body, and this woman has teleporation tech), she dies rather conventionally for a supervillain (ditto Veidt).
This show was undeniably directly inspired by WATCHMEN, and generally really well made and executed...it's clearly a series that is inspired by the source material, and serves as a love letter to certain elements, and there are some parallels to Moore's approach, but its not quite the same. And maybe that's the point. To look at things from a different perspective. Because it works quite well on its own, serving as an answer or a reflection or a parallel to the events and approach of the original graphic novel.
I don't know that anyone was going to present anything that felt as groundbreaking and unique as the original novel did. Not for TV, though there were some major highlights of the season.
Toward the end of the season however, it does feel like its lacking ambition in some ways, and coasts along on weirdness a bit. Maybe that's because the later episodes don't quite reach the emotional/intellectual heights of keystone episodes, or maybe because it feels like the focus shifted away from the key themes from earlier episodes to focus later on main narrative and sci-fi stuff. But then, the original story had some fairly arbitrary sci-fi stuff too.
The wrapup with Angela, Jon and Will is pretty good. Laurie and Looking Glass have somewhat perfunctory character resolutions, though I suppose they're appropriate for the characters.
I don't know how to feel about it quite yet. Maybe that's a good thing.
During an interview with Collider’s own Steve Weintraub, Lindelof said it wasn’t until they were breaking the outstanding Episode 6—the one in which Angela (Regina King) takes her grandfather’s Nostalgia pills—that he and his writing team realized there was no going back from that episode, and 10 episodes probably wouldn’t do:
“The original plan was to do 10. And, then, I think around the time that we had written the scripts for four and five, and understanding what episode six was going to be—and six needed to happen exactly when it happened in the season, in our opinion—that we felt like once six ended, that we were closer to the ending than we were to the beginning. Six didn’t feel like a mid point. It felt like, we now know everything that we need to know to move into the endgame. And, every way that we looked at it, it felt like if we were going to do seven, eight, nine and ten, one of those episodes was going to be filler. And I was like, ‘We’re just not doing the filler episode. We know exactly what we need to do in our endgame. It’s time to start doing it. I don’t want to stall.’”
Lindelof says given that Watchmen is such an “odd” show it felt fitting that it should be only nine episodes in length, as opposed to the even length of seasons of shows like Fleabag, Game of Thrones, or Lindelof’s The Leftovers.
But what was planned for that extra episode? What story did we miss out on? Lindelof didn’t say exactly, but elsewhere in the interview he did express regret that they never got to explore the bountiful backstory they plotted out for Hong Chau’s Lady Trieu:
“If there are any regrets, it’s that we didn’t get to dimensionalize Lady Trieu as much as we did in the writer’s room, on the screen. Especially given, in my opinion, the magnitude of Hong’s performance. I just thought she was fantastic. It was one of those things where we got into the endgame of the season, and it felt like we were moving back too much, between episode seven and eight. We talked about Lady Trieu’s childhood, how she became who she was. But, a lot of her backstory got shorthanded between what Bian is saying to Angela and Lady Trieu is saying to Angela, in episode seven.”
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