Damon Lindelof's Watchmen

(I mean S3, lol... obviously I’m a true fan)

Ok, so after reviewing some in-world documentation, the OG NYC Squid wasn't able to be forensically analyzed as it ... dissolved into water. So yeah, everyone is breathing, drinking, and bathing in aerosolized telepathic engineered squid now, and will be forever more.

Which given that everyone is, what, 50–70% water, is really fucking annoying. When someone's in the sauna, are they extruding squid?

Imagine the smell of gyms.

Pilot was fine but the Trent Reznor soundtrack felt very intrusive, almost Murray Gold-ishly so. The direction wasn't dynamic enough to match it.

A friend of mine had a similar complaint but it didn't bug me; I really liked the industrial noise strk accompaniment to the 1921 sequence especially. Also Reznor/Ross going full early-90s NIN (as opposed to the more subdued textures of other soundtrack work they've done) makes sense for a world where technology is lagging.

Maybe it's the mixing, then? Like a lot of recent shows, the music always seems like it's mixed too high over the dialogue.

There were lots of good things about this, although (at least for this first episode) I couldn't shake the sense that I was watching a more polished and interesting version of "Heroes".

Lindelof's great (and underrated IMO) strength isn't his twisty plotting but his ability to write about misery and miserable people without producing misery porn. There was some heavy (maybe flippantly heavy) imagery in this but also lots of narrative momentum and good gags - the rifle-behind-the-bed bit was almost ZAZ-worthy.

The ethics of it still stink, though! The DC logo in the end credits left a bitter taste.

I’m still not sure where this is going, but I’m reminded of something I said when I found out the movie adaptation of Watchmen was coming out:

The comic was meant as a commentary not just on the medium and conventions, but also the history that shaped those norms. Any adaptation should do the same, whether it’s a movie deconstructing current box office trends in the context of historical antecedents, or an HBO miniseries examining its peers.

idk, it’s a lot to ask and a comic in the 80s had a more encapsulated task

some cringey dialogue this week but also more humor, which I definitely appreciated. and I liked that there was a comically long trigger warning for American Hero Story that no one in-world bitched about.

How is Don Johnson?

Botoxy

A Boy and His Botulinum Toxin

the Snyder-esque hooded justice TV show was pretty funny

Ok, Reeves is Hooded Justice. They're building an interesting route to get there, but given that Gossett is wearing a hoodie and a bright red blazer, we get it. If he does turn out to be an anti-Captain America, a German-manufactured reminder of the worst of America, that's a brilliant twist.

Agreed mh that no adaptation can really touch how meta Watchmen was - the sixth issue was symmetrical, for God's sake. That said I was really happy they kept the retaining-panel-composition-leading-into-and-out-of-flashback device, that translates to film really well.

The Black Freighter scenes commented on the surrounding action, and I think the American Hero scenes here are meant to do that, just by keeping Hooded Justice top of mind for right now but there may be more subtext there that's escaping me.

So many echoes - the 'very Devo' night vision goggles, finding Comedian's costume, Rorschach relentlessly needling and interrogating his friends and forever eating things by pushing his mask only over his mouth ... some of these I'm enjoying, some of them seem a bit much, but it's a labor of love so I can't complain too much,

The Veidt scenes are really interesting, I'm a little reluctant to speculate because potentially killing a good reveal months in advance isn't fun (I'm not watching the trailers or 'next time on' clips)

Never mind that last bit, I have no idea why I'm saying I need to not speculate on something while I'm on a bulletin board speculating about it. The only question is whether this is Manhattan being kept prisoner by Veidt, or Veidt being kept prisoner by Manhattan. All the references to 'Manhattan can't appear human ... or can he?'

I'd missed that the supplementary materials list Ezra Klein as press secretary, which...makes a fair bit of sense, really

This episode was excellent. Show is off to an amazing start

Show is literally stolen and everyone working on it should be in jail.

The in-show television show aping Snyder and being completely ridiculous might be the best commentary we get, but the montage of different groups watching it, including Abar's family doing so with a kid after all the warnings about it being unsuitable for underage viewers, was good

the second batch of Peteypedia pieces are up

https://www.hbo.com/peteypedia

Perfect Strangers storyline was the best part of leftovers. Hope ALF makes a cameo in Watchmen. Maybe Doc Manhattan blew up Melmac?

― Philip Nunez, Thursday, October 24, 2019 1:20 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

ALF already had a prominent cameo on Mr. Robot. Yes, seriously.

I'm enjoying the show so far, the Veidt scenes are terrific and Regina King works wonders with some awful dialogue at times. The supplemental material they've been releasing is so nerdy, I love it.

I'm not sure I noticed any awful dialogue?

Don't want to get ahead of myself but at times this has that same quality that the Leftovers had at its heights...what I can only describe as this sense that just about anything can happen while simultaneously feeling bound by some internal coherence.

Maybe not awful, but there's been some really forced dialogue clearly intended for meme-ification, see the "I got a nose for white supremacy and he smells like bleach" from episode 1. She's enough of a badass without needing 80s action movie punch lines.

Speaking of bad dialogue Veidt ('Veidt'?) took an entire freaking year to write that!

guilty lol when the incineration kicked in

He has to be bad at something

This is why I'm convinced it's not him – Veidt was never this much of a goofball. (Though 'there are so many things I'd like to occur to you' is exactly what I'd expect him to say.)

Intrigued by Reeves' imperviousness to heat; he downed that hot coffee and grabbed eggs out a boiling pot.

something very odd going on

got another cake for an unexplained anniversary again this day, I see

Tomatoes growing on trees and clones is one thing, but if there's a physics glitch then we'll know we're in a simulation

Another good interview. I had totally forgotten the Hamm script, I had the same reaction to it (he also did an early Burton-Batman draft, I only remember a couple of scenes)

Ah, early draft of Batman and the one that was eventually shot, I mean

Interesting Twitter thread:

'Woke Garbage': Fanboys Don't Like HBO's 'Watchmen' Because It Deals With Race and White Supremacy https://t.co/02NdZGiYE0 pic.twitter.com/3Vh5mNvKL1

— Atlanta Black Star (@ATLBlackStar) October 29, 2019

I don't buy it. Citing Metacritic comments is scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for an angle if you're looking for actual fans of whatever medium (comics, superheroes, HBO series) and their actual opinions -- it's all g4mergat3-style takedown bullshit. They're not fans in any real sense, they're moderately motivated contrarians moving from one complaint to another.

I agree the original tweet seems click-baity, but the discussion beneath it shows that the series is resonating

(I’ve only seen the show discussed ITT, so I’m interested when I run into conversation around it elsewhere)

If anyone wants some background on Tulsa 1921, there's a great lecture-using-a-sim-as-a-visual-aid video on it (this was my gateway drug into all of his other urbanism-explained vids, which I highly recommend if two-hour docs on public housing is your thing)

Oakeshit talking about getting abuse off twitter trolls ;; stay strong sister!

lol wrong thread!

that guy's youtube channel is excellent

hey so it turns out jeremy irons is who we thought he was.

the voice of 'scar' in the lion king.

holy shit jeremy irons is chiwetel ejiofor?

spoilers

funnily enough, Jeremy Iron's portrayal of this character is basically exactly how I imagine Jeremy Iron's own life is at his personal castle after reading this article:

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/09/inside-kilcoe-castle-jeremy-irons-irish-castle

i would assume he probably treats his clone servants with a bit less cruelty, but otm

repeating myself, but that was a very leftovers-y episode with the single character focus and tight framing device...and just general aura of weirdness. great stuff.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who had to put subtitles on. no matter how high the volume was, the voices were drowned out by music. what gives?

it's the first episode to solidly tie back to the comic by focusing on one of the characters from the source material

not sure I'm sold that they stuck it, but it was an interesting take

the flags around the Veidt castle seemed to strongly imply this is our Black Freighter side story, although it could have been a red herring

ppl treating this like a serious work by a clever thinker, not some dumb shit by an idiot, are working really hard to convince themselves

"If you were dating the most powerful being in the universe, how could you ever date someone else?" Damon Lindelof explains why Laurie’s Doctor Manhattan dildo is more than a sight gag: https://t.co/8r82aWG1uC #WatchmenHBO pic.twitter.com/4Jx9pLrGRC

— Decider (@decider) November 4, 2019

Otm

It's a reasonable question and the dildo was amusing. (And Jean Smart is great.)