('I Will Destroy You' ended up being probably the best television of the year btw)
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Saturday, 17 October 2020 23:40 (three years ago) link
So basically you didn’t buy the premise
― shout-out to his family (DJP), Sunday, 18 October 2020 02:28 (three years ago) link
I thought it was an extremely entertaining meditation on the pernicious nature of racism combined with a subversion of the model minority stereotypes that also made explicit an implicit hanging thread from the original series (Hooded Justice made zero sense as a character until this series). I also think you bailed right when the show got super interesting. I also think the show will do nothing for you.
― shout-out to his family (DJP), Sunday, 18 October 2020 02:34 (three years ago) link
Again, it's been a few months since I tried watching the watchmen, but that said: I don't know if I'd say I "didn't buy the premise." I definitely considered the plot and presentation unnecessarily convoluted and the writing awash in far-fetched cliffhanger and punchline-based dialogue. The visuals and concepts were doing most of the heavy lifting and, for something this thematically challenging, that wasn't enough for me. I honestly wanted it to be better.
I figured out on my own that the show was likely not for me by dint of watching about half of it! It had numerous redeeming factors, I just couldn't get over the scripting and pace. There were a lot of interesting puzzles that I have little doubt end up eventually partially resolved; the clear raison d'etre of the first four episodes was simply to set up the dominoes. I would argue that taking longer than the entire runtime of The Seven Samurai to set up your story to the point where it gets "super interesting" is a fault of its creator. I ran out of patience waiting for the creators to stop introducing gotcha moments and start addressing the ideas in play and, after four hours, they lost me entirely.
Tangential topic: given some very nerdy conversations we've both had on ILX, it's probably safe to say we both have some strong opinions about the source material. I'm not inherently against expanding another constructed universe (though the original creator's strong discouragement of it should certainly count for something?), but the join between Moore and Lindelof's worlds felt jarringly incomplete to me. More of scaffolding than building on the existing structure, which isn't a sin in and of itself but it is indicative of the nature of HBO and its corporate entities to carelessly grave rob IP. There were definite positive outcomes associated in this case (broader cultural awareness of the Tulsa riots, the long overdue stardom of Regina King, a challenging presentation of white supremacy being an underground American driving force even within an alternate utopia) but I doubt that is a product of or justification of this approach.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Sunday, 18 October 2020 19:38 (three years ago) link
Would you consider it justified if a series incorporating those elements could/would not have have been made without the "hook" of the underlying IP? (This is an honest question....)
― Guitar Dick (morrisp), Sunday, 18 October 2020 19:51 (three years ago) link
Well that's a business decision right? Your phrasing suggests that corporate entities hold interesting ideas hostage in exchange for franchise building and i certainly hope it's not that much of a quid pro quo. I'm all in favor of entertainment being more challenging and innovative; not sure why that necessarily has to come at the expense of originality?
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Sunday, 18 October 2020 20:06 (three years ago) link
While some of your complaints have validity, this show most definitely did something wildly original with the source material. It ended up as a best possible case scenario more or less!
― Nhex, Sunday, 18 October 2020 20:11 (three years ago) link
xp I'm not suggesting it necessarily does, but underlying IP is often key to getting a project made, for better or worse (Lovecraft Country may be a relevant comparison here).
― Guitar Dick (morrisp), Sunday, 18 October 2020 20:13 (three years ago) link
I guess a better way to phrase the question may be - considering the Watchmen series exists, and does contain those elements, do you consider it a net gain or loss?
― Guitar Dick (morrisp), Sunday, 18 October 2020 20:15 (three years ago) link
It’s a great show but the ending is such a mess! Really feeble endings for several characters, and King wuz robbed of a great swimming pool walking scene. Would definitely watch again, though.
― Chuck_Tatum, Sunday, 18 October 2020 20:44 (three years ago) link
do you consider it a net gain or loss?
Superseding questions of cultural validity over one's actual enjoyment of a teevee program has become a lot of folks' (not necessarily anyone in this thread) default means of television criticism. That has its place but if I don't like it, I don't like it. Storytelling is hard.
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Sunday, 18 October 2020 21:21 (three years ago) link
I hear you... I only asked b/c you yourself raised the question of whether the positive outcomes were “a product of or justification” of the approach to the IP.
― bagel in the streets, donut in the sheets (morrisp), Sunday, 18 October 2020 21:26 (three years ago) link
I mostly mean as far as supporting the continuation of reboots of IP as pop culture's preferred way of exploring new ideas with old clothing, which I'm kinda over.
As a "Storytelling is hard" example: I'm currently fighting through the third episode of "Adult Material" (on HBO in December) and that's another example where the quality of the separate parts doesn't seem to be adding up to an enjoyable show for me. The acting is good, the scripting is okay, the themes are challenging but they're edging a little too far into brutal for my taste (much of the plot hinges on an anal prolapse) and the story is increasingly knotty. I watch a lot of teevee but I suppose I require total narrative cohesion to fully buy into a show.
(Lovecraft Country may be a relevant comparison here).
― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Sunday, 18 October 2020 21:36 (three years ago) link
It’s based on a recent novel, AFAIK
― bagel in the streets, donut in the sheets (morrisp), Sunday, 18 October 2020 21:47 (three years ago) link
but she has no cthulu mythos exposure and considers anything even horror-adjacent to be unwatchable
Other than the name and the first episode (maybe), it has pretty much no connection to cthulu mythos.
― Quiet Storm Thorgerson (PBKR), Sunday, 18 October 2020 22:13 (three years ago) link
We recently got HBO, via a free promo... watched I May Destroy You (which was excellent); caught up on Insecure; and now watching this crazy docuseries about the McDonald’s Monopoly racketeering scheme.
― bagel in the streets, donut in the sheets (morrisp), Monday, 19 October 2020 00:47 (three years ago) link
I definitely considered the plot and presentation unnecessarily convoluted and the writing awash in far-fetched cliffhanger and punchline-based dialogue.
I agree with this but it's a personal preference for me and I don't know that it makes Watchmen bad, I find the HBO house style these days often convoluted and mistaking clever for interesting (couldn't stand Westworld either). Lovecraft Country is the first HBO show in years to hook me, partially because it's more human-level and because I enjoyed the book so much. (Have not tried Succession yet.)
― Donald Trump Also Sucks, Of Course (milo z), Monday, 19 October 2020 00:52 (three years ago) link
Succession rules, and I say this as someone who actively wanted to hate it.
― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Monday, 19 October 2020 01:13 (three years ago) link
Lovecraft Country is indeed an adaptation of a book and it’s more Lovecraftian Country, in both senses: full of monsters, and full of racist monsters
I think the idea that serious issues like the Tulsa massacre can only be contextualized via serious art and not genre fiction ignores how we weave the fabric of history into our stories and how that provides context in our time. We can have infinitely many films and tv shows that acknowledge Nazis and have absurdities like zombie civil war southerners that are so halfassed in execution but cement “oh, that’s the bad guy” because of historical shorthand. But when it comes to things we hold deep reverence for, it’s suddenly a grievous bastardization of history if a retelling doesn’t fit into an Oscar-winning dramatic formula
― mh, Monday, 19 October 2020 03:21 (three years ago) link
not to mention that, silly genre trappings or not, the depiction was apparently impactful/effective enough to inspire a pretty significant resurgence of interest in the event
― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Monday, 19 October 2020 12:10 (three years ago) link
Do all of these episodes have post credits scenes? I just left a videofile running while I went out of the room and found an extra scene on the penultimate one.
― Stevolende, Monday, 19 October 2020 15:42 (three years ago) link
Only one does
― shout-out to his family (DJP), Monday, 19 October 2020 15:53 (three years ago) link
if you don't count the one where Dr. Manhattan conks Rorschach with an oar
― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Monday, 19 October 2020 15:58 (three years ago) link
They were told white men ‘wouldn’t relate to’ the Tulsa Race Massacre. Then came ‘Watchmen’ https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-05-26/tulsa-race-massacre-watchmen-lovecraft-country-documentaries
― like a d4mn sociopath! (morrisp), Tuesday, 1 June 2021 00:20 (two years ago) link
Season 2 dropped:
https://i.imgur.com/cCBVscr.jpg
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Thursday, 24 June 2021 21:16 (two years ago) link
grim
― intern at pelican brief consulting (Simon H.), Thursday, 24 June 2021 23:04 (two years ago) link
ironically, Alan Moore personally approved that one#sicbait
― search term: buttrock (morrisp), Thursday, 24 June 2021 23:36 (two years ago) link
Bookstore (inc online) figures for graphic novels in 2020 are out: Watchmen (in paperback) was the best-selling superhero book of the year, and DC’s #1 seller overall. (Also its 19th, in hardcover.)32 years after DC told Alan Moore to go and get his fuckin’ shinebox, their 8th and 10th best-sellers were also written by him in the 1980s (#8 owned by AT&T, #10 also stolen). DC only had two books last year that sold close to half as many copies of Watchmen, and as their #1 seller, Watchmen was the 57th-best-selling comic on the chart overall.(DC were the #7 publisher; Marvel are at #16, with $1.3 million total in retail sales, and their top title moving 9700 copies. They only placed six books in the top 750, four of which are Star Wars comics, and two of those are “Darth Vader volume 1”, but probably different Darth Vader volume 1s.)
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Wednesday, 18 August 2021 17:54 (two years ago) link
What was #8?
― Nhex, Wednesday, 18 August 2021 19:04 (two years ago) link
The Killing Joke probably
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Wednesday, 18 August 2021 19:16 (two years ago) link
Yep; ten of DC’s top twenty are batbooks.
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Wednesday, 18 August 2021 19:27 (two years ago) link
Not to cast doubt, but would you mind linking to the data? I'm curious about everything that's selling.
― Nhex, Wednesday, 18 August 2021 20:21 (two years ago) link
I haven't seen it but I'm going to guess that Dog Man and similar YA + manga make up most of the top spots.
Marvel's constant reboots and new crossovers (and letting titles fall out of print for months at a time) keeps them from having an always-selling core like the Batfamily titles that keep DC's numbers afloat.
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Wednesday, 18 August 2021 20:26 (two years ago) link
of course DC's masterful handling of the IP has had a major effect on the continuing sales of the original book
― 《Myst1kOblivi0n》 (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 18 August 2021 21:55 (two years ago) link
Certainly explains why they have so many Gardner Fox, Wm Moulton Marston and Ostrander/Yale collections flying off the shelves.
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Wednesday, 18 August 2021 23:03 (two years ago) link
haven't seen it but I'm going to guess that Dog Man and similar YA + manga make up most of the top spots.One manga is at #18 (My Hero Academia book one), the rest of the top twenty is Dog Man, Raina and other kids or YA.Dog Man’s ten volumes alone are 13% of all comics sold through bookshop-type retail (& that’s probably a lesser fraction of what copawganda moves to libraries and direct through Scholastic), and only displaced from the top ten at #5 and #8. Pilkey did 4.2 million units, Raina 1.3.
― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic), Thursday, 19 August 2021 16:55 (two years ago) link