The weekly WATCHMEN episode sum-up

Ozy saved the world, end of story. The only thing I don't buy is comedian getting so upset about it. He seemed like he understood the world, but in the moment of truth, he faltered.

 

If you believe that, why are you watching, and commentating on, a sequel? If there's a sequel, then obviously the story isn't done. Even in the comic, Jon tells Adrian that "nothing ever ends".

I wouldn't be surprised if Ozymandias' lies comes to light and bites all sorts of people in the ass. A lie is only effective so long as people never learn the truth. And the truth always comes out. Always.

 

What happened to rorshacks journals?

 

I think someone you know might have some comment about your thinking:

Good luck!

It's hinted at in the end that Rorschach's journal will come to light.

 

What makes more sense to you? The opposite?

 

I can see Watchmen the TPB, from where I am sitting, but from a logistical viewpoint, it is MORE than a little convenient that The Doomsday Clock and the jellyfish invasion climaxed simultaneously.

To the fucking second.

Veitch was massaging the doomsday clock and artificially ratcheting the world powers to a heightened and heighteneder warfooting so that they would be at their worst, when Ozymandias was finally ready to save world.

Without Vietch inflating the hysteria, bringing it all to a boil, like Palpatine on both sides, it's possible that Russia and America were not going to nuke each other dead for another thirty or forty years, if ever.

Dude didn't save shit.

 

You really really don't need to know anything Watchmen related for this show. I would suggest reading the original book anyway because even if you don't like the story it provides a lot of historical context for comics today.

 

We're only one episode in. I imagine that by the time the season wraps up, there will be more connections to the original story.

 

You can say "we don't trade lives" like captain America, but in the real world that just means everyone dies.

 

I know that was what we were promised, but the first episode just seemed like an HBO series with the name Watchmen slapped on it.

I hadn't been reading any press on this and I thought that Jeremy Irons was actually Dr. Manhattan living out a fantasy life on Mars when I watched the episode and only realized he was Veidt when I went to look up the cast on IMDB.

 

I think ozy’s servants are genetically made, like his cats were. They aren’t quite...there yet.

I am not quite seeing the Terrorist group as actual white supremacists yet...they have all the hallmarks of them, the imagery etc, but part of the problem is we know they are telling the ‘truth’ (I.e the inter-dimensional attacks aren’t real.) because of the original comic/movie. Whilst I expect moral ambiguity in Watchmen, I usually expect it to have a point. I accept however, the point may be hard to see at this point... it seems largely to be poking at groups in the audience very surreptitiously.

I will be interested to see where it’s going...the reviews are annoying me, most of the newspapers don’t seem to have grasped that it is a sequel, not an adaptation of the original, and humourously mention Alan Moore. He of course probably hates it, whether it’s any good or not.

 

There’s tons of watchmen ties in it.
In terms of Veidt...well, (a) It looks like veidt and (b) we literally pan across the snow to his little green reclaimed pastures. (Also we see footage of Manhattan building on mars, during the speech about eggs and wall building.)

 

Yep.

Ozy manipulated Doc into leaving Earth and the world powers went to alert and prepped for war. Ozy created the crisis. How does someone read the series and miss that?

 

The crux is that he doesn’t even do it to save billions, he does it so that he can say ‘I saved billions, and made hard choices to do it, hurt my ‘friends’ and everything’. It’s all part of his self aggrandising. If Nite Owl and Rorsach are two sides of the same archetype, so too are Manhattan and Veidt.

The thing about Rorsach is that he was once more ‘send them to prison’ but once he saw how low criminals could go, he broke even more than he was already. He is about Justice, which is more than the Law, essentially.
In this series, we seem to be seeing his image taken on by people he wouldn’t support...which is an interesting comment in itself. Although the jury is still out on that, because the lines haven’t really been drawn yet. Our ‘goodies’ in the first episode were police officers who beat information out of suspects, and covered their faces for their own safety versus criminals but who act from the cover of anonymity. (I.e they are also the mob) There is nuance within that...the Panda character is funny, but also interesting.
Are the police the goodies?
Are the redneck gangs?
We are shown them acting as terrorists, but this is a world order based on having killed millions millions in what we, the audience, *know* was a false flag attack. In this way, they are no different to the forces they oppose. Our only focused ‘hero’ dresses as a nun whilst being sexual on screen, hides in a baker identity behind Soviet imagery (look at the bakery sign) working with/for literal secret police. (Led by a man who misses playing the hero, and uses cocaine, played by an actor who rose to fame in the eighties as a cop archetype.)

They are playing with a *lot* here. I don’t think any of it is going to be as clear cut as some of us commenting on it (here and elsewhere) seem to believe.

 

I thought the first episode did a fantastic job of world building based on the original graphic novel. (for Moore purists before they rant: up yours, he was playing with old Charlton comics characters and dozens of recycled ideas as well. he did a monumental job of it, along with Gibbons but there's nothing new in comics)

This thread is going to need spoiler alert in the subject line if any real discussion is going to go forward beyond discussing the limited merits of Rorschach's inability to compromise.

If you are confused about what you saw on Watchmen, the Peteypedia may provide some help:


https://www.hbo.com/peteypedia

Spoiler

The world of Watchmen in in the modern era really does give a glimpse at just how far the actions of Veidt (and Rorshach's refusal to let the truth die with him) have left the world perverted and off track from our own. Technology, far ahead of ours thanks to Manhattan and Veidt in their 1985, stagnated due to fear of interdimensional incursions and is now significantly behind. The right wing extremism of the never-ending Nixon years has instead been replaced with something similar by the never-ending Redford presidency. Cops needs to call in for a long process to access to their firearms, sometimes with disastrous results, Police must hide behind masks to avoid a continuation of a war with the terrorist 7th Kalvary, a Rorshach worshiping group that appears to have avoided justice for its past actions just as all the murderers of the Tulsa massacre have done. The spark hydrants are gone. People depend on gasoline once more.

I've been a fan of Watchmen for many years and I also loved the Snyder film. I liked this as much though I suspect it might be too much for audiences to handle. It does not hand-hold at all, and much like Donnie Darko depends on outside material from web sites to fill in the picture that most of the bewildered audience will not bother to access.

 

That’s actually pretty neat, it’s like the written segments from the Watchmen comics.

 

The profile-pull over of the hip hop listening supremacist dude showed his car dash running on electricity still. Though I think I agree with the broad brushstrokes of your point here.

 

I saw the battery meter also, but I think there was also a gas gauge too. I noticed cars did make engine sounds in the series and the peteypedia files imply that the spark hydrants were put out of service due to fears of Manhattan radiation.

 

Am only looking at the peteypedia now.
The sounds are...well. Starships make sound in space xD
The thing that is intriguing is that with the tech and the ‘unifying threat from beyond’ the Watchmen universe should look like Trek. So why is there so much poverty?

 

Veidt was a self-serving potentate that couldn't see past his own ego to see he'd only saved humanity on his own terms so he could continue to watch over it and that the seeds for his plans downfall were sewn on the day he'd committed himself to it?

My suspicion: Robert Redford was a more significant foe to Veidt than Nixon. I will be curious to see how this develops.