Damon Lindelof's Watchmen

incidentally, Tom Perotta has a new series of his own w/ Kathryn Hahn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Fletcher

Lost was a mesmerizing window into the world of mastercraftspeople as they devoted years to the loving assembly of a wondrously-intricate clockwork machine which, when they finally wound it up and set it into motion, ultimately twitched and heaved and collapsed on its creators and audience with a sad mechanical fart.

Why would there be no cell phones or a internet in the present-day Watchmen universe? Even if “everything changed” at the end of the book, that stuff grew out of technology that would have predated the Squid Event...

it’s because blue lives matter iirc

https://oyster.ignimgs.com/wordpress/stg.ign.com/2014/09/watchmen.jpg

see, it’s a rich metaphor, lindelof is good again

Most of Lost was NOT good, they pulled a bullshit 'the whole episode was a dream, nothing you just watched happened' move partway through the first series, which is when I abandoned it. The first EPISODE was good.

I agree it was bad but ilx certainly did not agree with that contention

I watched the first episode and went “wtf is this bullshit, are they supposed to be in purgatory?” then checked out, so the finale discourse was extremely satisfying

xxp there is no dream episode. maybe you're thinking of the episode where they gave hurley an imaginary friend, which was indeed a bad episode, but it was in season 2 i think.

only the "flashsideways" in the final season were purgatory. it was dumb.

just to go full challops, Lindelof was only co-showrunner on Lost and wrote way smaller a % of it than he did on Leftovers

Lindelhof is a walking "Do you see" meme and Lost was terrible from Season 2 on.

Nah, was an episode where pregnant australian girl died, turned out to be a dream

The trades have seen six of the nine eps. Variety is mixed, HR is pretty positive.

https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/watchmen-review-1203370058/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/watchmen-review-1247215

That Variety review is really well written.

oh wow whoda thunk it

Here’s where things get tricky, and why the pilot, which screened at New York Comic Con, has drawn some criticism for setting up what looks like a false dichotomy between the Tulsa police and white nationalists. But Lindelof and his co-executive producers Kassell, Tom Spezialy, and Stephen Williams quickly earn back trust with the second hour, then in subsequent episodes that are full of graceful world-building, deft characterization, nuanced writing, but little thin-blue-line boosterism.

https://tv.avclub.com/damon-lindelof-s-watchmen-is-a-reckoning-worth-waiting-1839036902

lost was awesome, the leftovers was better, lindelof is gonna have a long leash for me with this show. especially considering how much the leftovers improved from season 1 to season 2

I was under the impression that the biggest blot on Lindelof's copybook was Prometheus

https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/454df05a-c590-4bd7-b3a0-734b0f26c6ac/d5lonet-2cb6c8e0-5611-4319-a593-d8c7651d4f41.gif?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQ1NGRmMDVhLWM1OTAtNGJkNy1iM2EwLTczNGIwZjI2YzZhY1wvZDVsb25ldC0yY2I2YzhlMC01NjExLTQzMTktYTU5My1kOGM3NjUxZDRmNDEuZ2lmIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.VZ5uz64xn2YCcZjMQ_QHm94ole0mY-wk3wvZ4WWKorU

I mean his cinematic CV ain't great

Cowboys & Aliens
Prometheus
Star Trek Into Darkness
World War Z
Tomorrowland
The Hunt

The Hunt was pretty good! Mads makes everything better by my oh wait

I gather he's kind of a studio patchwork/for-hire type dude in the movie arena. Those movies are all pretty bad (the ones I've seen) but y'know everyone liked Chernobyl and that guy's movie CV ain't exactly pristine.

But it grows wearying to watch episode after episode of a project that so heavily borrows from its source material a tone of grandiose, baroque unhappiness.

Great! It sounds exactly like the leftovers, then

The thing about moving the setting of a, er, “property” from New York City to someplace like Tulsa is that the move was almost certainly budget-driven in part (filing in NYC is hella expensive, and dressing up Toronto to look like NYC is maybe played out a bit). It’s interesting if that move also reaps artistic dividends... but reading those reviews just made me wonder (again) why they’re making this a “Watchmen” series at all, instead of its own thing (other than the obvious “built-in hype” reasons).

I wonder if an element of shame about adapting Watchmen led them to then avoid it as much as possible.

Not sure "shame" ever enters Hollywood decision-making

Lindelof has boasted of his attitude toward shame already

I am ready for the thread pivot from "this will be garbage" to "oh this is kind of interesting actually but I wish it weren't Watchmen"

gonna be a long wait

as for "why is this based on a pre-existing property at all," that's because virtually everything/anything with a big budget that gets greenlit is (in recent HBO terms: GOT plus forthcoming spinoffs, His Dark Materials, Westworld...)

and to speak to this one last time, I understand (sic)'s bone-deep objection but I can't bring myself to care when Moore is far wealthier than I'll ever be and puts out 1000+ page opuses without so much as an editorial peep from his publisher

cool I will just start stealing as much intellectual property from those richer than myself then - starting with HBO, I'm sure they won't mind, should work out real well. Have you heard about my new TV show Game of MurderBoobs?

(also lol if you think Moore is richer than Lindelof and HBO and all the other jackals involved in this stupid fucking bullshit)

a quick google puts his net worth at $10mil, he's gonna be OK

for a deeply avowed leftist your ethics are p weird

I think the situation sucks but the show will be good and I plan to enjoy it but not spend money on it, and I am comforted by the fact that the wronged party will enjoy comfort levels I never will in perpetuity. Not that weird imo

didn't you also work for a cryptocurrency firm or am I misremembering something

No, you remember correctly. I also worked for a company that made accounting software that turned out to have a contract with the US DoD. Incidentally, if you have a Netflix or Prime )account you're underwriting labor abuses of one flavor or another. (Personally I'm signed up for one but not the other.)

that's cool, I have neither

I dunno if consumer habits rise to the level of livelihood in terms of commitment but... you do you buddy

What abuses are you referring to re: Netflix?

https://www.fastcompany.com/90250828/the-death-of-hollywoods-middle-class

(btw, since we're on the subject I guess, that shitty company I worked for never got a damn thing off the ground)

https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-and-netflix-announce-historic-contract

I'm sure that's the end of them finding ways to screw casts and crews.

idk if that's apples:apples with Netflix and Amazon there tbh

also dunno why this was even brought up except as a deflection, it has no bearing on what we were talking about afaict

xp Noted that you're hanging your "labor abuses" hat on a vague, hand-waving prediction

You were the one who brought up my fucking job. xp

Incidentally there's also the small matter of Netflix generally capping series at three seasons to keep rising compensation at bay. You can argue these are pettier abuses than Amazon, that's fair and fine, but these companies are all rotten and screw artists.

the general thrust of your argument seems to be "the world is corrupt and evil to the core, therefore whatever minor abuses I encourage or engage in are ok"

that is what I meant by weird ethics

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-16/netflix-s-reputation-for-canceling-shows-too-soon-is-overblown