Damon Lindelof developing "Watchmen" TV series for HBO!

WTF?

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/watchmen-tv-series-damon-lindelof-works-at-hbo-1014987

 

"'In the end', Adrian? Nothing ever ends..."

 

Isn't WB's animation department also working on an animated adaptation?!

 

I'm sure Alan Moore's bound to enjoy one of them, right?

Right?

 

Finally, a piece of pop culture to warn us of the horrors of nuclear war!


... I mean, non-proliferation, and the safe dismantling of existing nuclear weapons is a matter that still absolutely deserves serious attention, no question. But, as a pop culture theme, unless something genuinely fresh is brought to the table, I'm kinda ready to move on.

 

^That would be you completely missing the point. It's no more about nuclear proliferation than it is about Nixon or Vietnam.

At this point he just doesn't care. I believe he even gave his movie royalties or rights to Dave Gibbons.

 

No, never.

 

I thought Snyder did an adequate job adapting Moore's novel.

If they want to do something worthwhile, they should give The League of Extraordinary Gentleman a makeover. That, or Swamp Thing. A Watchmen series would be like doing a V For Vendetta series. It's been done and done well.

 

Moore will treat the series with the same degree of respect and fondness Harlan Ellison reserves for casual attempts at using the Guardian of Forever.

 

Lol, wut? Watchmen is all about the very real danger (at the time of writing) of global nuclear war. It's very much Doctor Strangelove with costumed vigilantes. To imply that the (past or) present-day issue of nuclear proliferation, rather than the existence of already-made nukes, is somehow "missing the point" of that warning is laughable.

 

When?
I'd love a V for Vendetta or Watchmen movie that doesn't completely miss the points of the graphic novels.

I take that back, the graphic novels are great, more attempts to adapt them won't change that. They may proceed.

 

Having read the comic and seen the movie, I love the V for Vendetta movie. The comic is good, but in my opinion the movie improves on it. The movie is probably a Top 10 favorite movie for me.

As for Watchmen, its the only Snyder film that I don't think is completely bad. Mostly because I can get through the movie and it has some decent moments, while I think the comic sucks and I've never been able to force my way through it.

All that aside, I don't know why they're doing this. I wish someone would adapt the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and do it right. It could fit very well as a TV show, and its a great idea that needs an adaptation that isn't complete garbage.

 

Poor Zack Snyder. The media and certain moviegoers will never forgive him for showing how ugly human beings can be . . . in comic book movies.

 

The proximity of the Doomsday Clock to midnight is indeed the Inciting Incident of the story (of the original graphic novel and of the film based on it). However, that doesn't make Watchmen "all about" the danger of nuclear war. It's also many other things, such as a treatment of several competing ethical frameworks of criminal justice, societal order, vigilantism, super-heroism, and super-villainy as well as various other themes, such as cosplay fetishism and tinfoil hat crackpottery. As popularly understood, it's an in depth deconstruction of the superhero genre.

 

Ah, Lindelof. My old nemesis. I guess the good thing here is that I will expect nothing from it as opposed to being disappointed.

 

Yes, those themes are also all present, and they are all secondary. The primary thematic thrust of the work is a direct expression of the central plot thread - that the danger of nuclear war is so imminent, and so probable, that one of the world's most brilliant minds is compelled to commit mass murder and a comically elaborate ruse in order to trick the Cold War powers into putting aside their differences in order to confront an even larger threat, in hopes that the alliance will outlast the deception. All else is secondary, a point illustrated by the fact that the heroes don't even realize the nature of the plot until it's already been carried out.

 

Your reductive position, that the central plot thread equals the main thematic thrust and everything else is secondary, is an interpretation of the work that I do not support. To paraphrase Hackman's Luthor, that would be like saying that it's only a simple adventure story.

The central plot thread is of course one level of the work. The associated implications for how to view the moralities of the opposing sides in the Cold War as it played out in the real world would be another level. The deconstruction of the superhero genre with the story as a kind of archetypal formula ("Save the world!") would be a third.

The importance of the second level (as I enumerated it there) is even underscored in the work itself, by the epilogue in which Rorschach's journal is given to Seymour. The epilogue, in conjunction with the file pages throughout the work, evidently suggests that we are, as it were, reading the very sequence of events constructed by Seymour. From this self-referential metaphor, we can conclude that the work is being given to us so that we might consider how the story relates to the real world, as if we were reading a kind of exposé (in case we weren't already considering that). The very name Rorschach, as the source of the journal evidently thus suggested as the basis of the narrative, even implies ironically that the depicted events have multiple interpretations.

So, to say that it's primarily any one of the many things it is is really to miss the point. Anyway, that's my opinion.

 

I'd like a League series too. I'd skipped The Watchmen film at the cinema as the only trailers I'd seen hadn't done anything for my friends and I. We've all seen it since and wished we had seen it on the bigger screen.

 

If they were going to do a comic adaptation, I would really have preferred to see them do something that hasn't already had a movie. Since this is HBO there's plenty of good stuff at Image or Vertigo that would be perfect for them.
Is there really even enough story in the comic for a TV series?

 

That second part is not what I'm saying. I'm saying the secondary themes all contribute, to some extent, to the primary nuclear war theme, if only by illustrating the contrasts. Example: what does it matter if Dan Dreiberg has sexual performance issues if nuclear war will kill everyone at any moment anyway? But those secondary themes don't so much in turn contribute to the primary one. (Whether or not Dreiberg "gets it up" is of no importance to the nukes, and whether they fire.) That's what makes them secondary, rather than co-primary, themes.

I don't mean to bash or minimize the secondary themes by calling them by that term. They're there, and they're interesting.

What I am saying is the notion that Watchmen is "no more about nuclear proliferation [/war] than it is about Nixon or Vietnam" is absurd, and that to not grasp that the story is primarily about nuclear war is to "completely miss the point."