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Watchmen in the Media

formerlyfreedom

By formerlyfreedom
in Watchmen [V]

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formerlyfreedom

formerlyfreedom

Click here to enter the Watchmen  forum! Otherwise Des I cuss all things Media here...


Coming to HBO in 2019!

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Watchmen is an upcoming American drama television series, based on the comic book limited series of the same name created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, that is set to premiere in 2019 on HBO. The series was created by Damon Lindelof, who is also set to write and executive produce.

Watchmen is set in "an alternate history where 'superheroes' are treated as outlaws" and "embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel while attempting to break new ground of its own."

Cast

  • Regina King
  • Don Johnson
  • Tim Blake Nelson as Looking Glass
  • Louis Gossett Jr.
  • Adelaide Clemens
  • Andrew Howard
  • Jeremy Irons as Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias
  • Tom Mison
  • Frances Fisher
  • Jacob Ming-Trent
  • Yahya Abdul-Mateen II
  • Sara Vickers
  • Dylan Schombing
  • Adelynn Spoon
  • Lily Rose Smith
  • Jean Smart as Agent Blake
  • James Wolk
  • Hong Chau as Lady T.

 

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Lantern7

Lantern7

My advice:

1. Read it.

2. Be disappointed by any and all adaptations.

Dont even think of the Before Watchmen books or Doomsday Clock. The original stands on its own as one of the best comic stories ever.

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formerlyfreedom

formerlyfreedom

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The Most Anticipated TV of 2019

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“Watchmen”
HBO
Damon Lindelof’s return to television would be highly anticipated, regardless of what the project was, but given that it is a series based on Alan Moore’s graphic novel of the same name, the interest is that much higher. In another feat of worldbuilding, “Watchmen” is set in a time and place where superheroes are not celebrated as saviors, but rather hunted as outlaws. Lindelof will be putting his own spin on the story, rather than ripping plot strictly from the comic pages.

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xaxat

xaxat

It's interesting that the title of this thread refers to the graphic novel. I read, and still have, the original comics as they were released. 

It was truly a different era. No internet, no Comicon hype, no spoilers. It's hard to overstate how original it felt compared to mainstream comics.

(Same with Miller's Dark Knight Returns.)

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AwesomO4000

AwesomO4000

Filming information:

Watchmen is now filming in a few areas of the downtown area of the town I live in. They have transformed a few block section of one of the main streets into

Spoiler

a Vietnamese commercial district. I don't remember all of the details, but here are some of the ones I do remember:  They have several Vietnamese storefronts set up. There are clothing stores and restaurants, and some kind of entertainment establishments. I think I remember some sort of music production implied maybe? There are rickshaws, props of fake fruits and other staples like rice bags, etc. The median in middle of the street has red paper lanterns strung along multiple trees, and there is a marker sign that says Saigon.  In one section of the street on the other side from the "commercial district," they have potted palm trees and a bunch of sandbags set up.

They will be filming for a few days in this area.

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formerlyfreedom

formerlyfreedom

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From Deadline, which included the above tease;

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Even as Game of Thrones winds down, HBO has been ramping up another sprawling adaptation of a genre epic that defies almost every traditional expectation about episodic television. It’s Watchmen, based on the namesake comic book epic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and published by DC Comics in the 1980s. HBO released the teaser today, you can watch it by clicking on the image above.

Set in an alternate history where superheroes are viewed as outlaws, the new drama from executive producer Damon Lindelof is rooted in the same universe as the source material but strikes out in new directions with unfamiliar characters and a different story to tell. The cast includes: Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Don Johnson, Jean Smart, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Hong Chau, Andrew Howard, Tom Mison, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, and James Wolk.

Watchmen is considered by many comics fans to be the masterpiece of its medium. Dark and disturbing, the original Moore and Gibbons epic showed the personal lives of the heroes veer into excess, corruption and madness even as their public exploits tilted historic events (such as the JFK assassination, Vietnam, and Watergate) in different directions.

The magnum opus was adapted as a feature film by Warner Bros and director Zack Snyder in 2009 with results that divided fans. The new Watchmen is neither a sequel nor a remake. That’s clear in the teaser which makes major use of a signature Watchmen visual — the ink-splotch mask of Rorschach — but has no correlation to any of the events depicted in the comics.

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Lantern7

Lantern7

This still feels wrong. I know Alan Moore is probably way past giving a fuck at this point, and I know DC Comics has given us Before Watchmen and Doomsday Clock . . . but even if the series comes out looking far better than the movie, it still feels a bit blasphemous.

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Lantern7

Lantern7

On 8/31/2018 at 1:07 PM, Lantern7 said:

My advice:

1. Read it.

2. Be disappointed by any and all adaptations.

Dont even think of the Before Watchmen books or Doomsday Clock. The original stands on its own as one of the best comic stories ever.

By "it," I mean "the book." "Twelve-issue miniseries" also applies.

On 1/8/2019 at 2:30 PM, Ubiquitous said:

Dare I ask?

In case nobody in here knows: years ago, DC Comics released "Before Watchmen," which was a series of miniseries tying into characters from Watchmen. Some of it was good, but it still felt "wrong." I haven't read the oft-delayed Doomsday Clock, but I think it's some sort of sequel with established DC characters mixed in, and the kicker is that Dr. Manhattan is going to enter the DC Universe proper. Or he has entered it. I ahven't been keeping up.

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ottoDbusdriver

ottoDbusdriver

(edited)

There's a lot to break down in that trailer, but here's a few Interesting notes:

-- the flag on the coffin had 13 stripes and 51 stars in a circular pattern (ring of 10 stars, ring of 16 stars, ring of 25 stars)
-- apparently Robert Redford is the current president (and he won't be seeking another term)
-- there's a Nite Owl still around (as there are a couple of scenes of Archie), maybe a new Nite Owl in town
-- a newspaper declares that Adrian Veidt is dead (but we see him alive later in the trailer, so maybe he faked his death)
-- Dr. Manhattan might be back, walking in the street
-- there's a scene with Hooded Justice stopping a robbery -- possibly part of the American Hero Story: Minutemen TV series
-- The Tulsa Sun headlines from Monday Sept. 9 (which may place the timeline on 2019) -- in addition to Adrian Veidt officially declared dead, KKK vandalism caused a closure of the Statue of Liberty and a Boise squid shower destroys homeless camps and kills 2
-- The Nixonville camp is probably similar to the Hooverville camps from the depression era
-- News crawl from Live Network -- man robbed of meatball sub at gunpoint, 18-year-old wins $200 million Mega Millions jackpot, water found on Mars, 
-- Dr. Manhattan was seen on the satellite feed from Mars, next to the building being destroyed
-- there is a slaughter at a carnival, with a lone survivor left standing

Edited by ottoDbusdriver
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ottoDbusdriver

ottoDbusdriver

20 minutes ago, clack said:

Shit, looks like Lindelof is going to give us another 'Leftovers'. Intelligently scripted, well acted, superb production values -- but no damn fun.

Agreed.  The casting looks good -- Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Lou Gossett Jr. -- and the production values look really well done.

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AnimeMania

AnimeMania

6 hours ago, BetterButter said:

I am guessing this has little to do with the graphic novel. There were more people in the first 10 seconds of the trailer than there were in the entire graphic novel.

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marketdoctor

marketdoctor

Quote

My advice:

1. Read it.

2. Be disappointed by any and all adaptations.

In a word, yes.  In two words, very true.  In three words, follow this advice...and I liked the movie better than most fans of the book.

The question I wonder is why to do it at all, when you could use a Watchmen-style universe and either start from scratch, or do a "The Boys" or "Umbrella Academy" or "Doom Patrol" or "Mystery Men" and find another team of "real-life", team of heroes and villains and morally complex people to write about.

Learning more about Hooded Justice and some of the others from the original sounds interesting, though.  And Robert Redford was a nice callback to the original.  Even so, I'd be happier if they called it Watchmen II--because expectations for a sequel are lower.  It's possible it'll be great (the visuals look amazing), but the original book is still relevant.  (So is V for Vendetta, if you want Another Book By The Same Author.)

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Ubiquitous

Ubiquitous

On ‎7‎/‎20‎/‎2019 at 9:44 PM, AnimeMania said:

I am guessing this has little to do with the graphic novel. There were more people in the first 10 seconds of the trailer than there were in the entire graphic novel.

If memory serves, it takes place ten years after the novel.

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formerlyfreedom

formerlyfreedom

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Watchmen: New Trailer Hints at 'Vast and Insidious Conspiracy,' Shows Regina King in Masked-Badass Mode

War is brewing in the latest trailer for HBO’s Watchmen, so we’re going to get this out of the way early: We’re on whatever side Regina King’s Angela plays for.

If the reasoning put forth at the beginning of the clip is to be believed, Angela is driven by trauma, obsessed with justice and has experienced grievous injustice in her lifetime. But that doesn’t stop her from donning a mask and kicking down doors in the pursuit of good — even if that means, as she informs Don Johnson’s police chief Judd Crawford, getting a little rough. “There’s a guy in my trunk,” she says, feet kicked up on the desk. And that kind of moxie is going to be valuable if, as Louis Gossett Jr.’s Will Reeves posits, there’s a “vast and insidious conspiracy” afoot.

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scrb

scrb

(edited)

Very good, not great reviews.

Tim Goodman wondered how the season would end, because Lindelof talked about it possibly being a one-off season.

Edited by scrb
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Hiyo

Hiyo

From the article on the main page:

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Without spoiling the many twists and turns of the story, the climax of the Watchmen books involves the island of Manhattan being destroyed by an extra-dimensional attack from a giant squid-monster. Which, honestly, doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility, given the context of everything else that's going on (to provide some context, Dr. Manhattan is living on Mars by choice at this point in the story, while Ozymandias has retreated to his ice palace in Antarctica). The attack, blamed on an innocent Dr. Manhattan

Nope, you're getting the original comic book and the movie mixed up. There was a squid attack, but it wasn't blamed on Dr. Manhattan. The world assumes it is a failed alien attack and unite to deal with that threat. Ozymandias orchestrated all of it to unite the world.

I'm sort of interested in this, but at the same time, Lindeldork = ugh, and I'm looking at it as more of an alternate reality future to the original comic book than a continuation of Moore & Gibbons' story.

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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

(edited)

Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons draws his own depiction of Sister Night:

The legacy of Watchmen:

Set tour with Regina King:

Watchmen podcast promo:

 

On 11/5/2019 at 8:23 AM, Catfi9ht said:

there's an Official Watchmen Podcast: https://www.hbo.com/watchmen/watchmen-listen-to-official-podcast

The first podcast episode covers show episodes 1-3.

You can also listen to it on YouTube:

Edited by ElectricBoogaloo
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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

Damon Lindelof on the use of Oklahoma! in the series premiere

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“My father was a big fan of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals, and he would bring me into the city and they would show them at the Ziegfeld [Theatre] with a live orchestra,” he recalled. “So we saw The King & I and South Pacific and Oklahoma!, and I was just completely and totally mesmerized. And it just felt like we wanted to make a real counterpoint between Oklahoma! the movie — where it’s sort of like, ‘Look at all these people singing and dancing and how wonderful Oklahoma is now that we’ve gotten rid of all the Native Americans. Let’s make it a state!’ — versus what really happened in Oklahoma, which we’re starting to uncover on the show.”

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AnimeMania

AnimeMania

2 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Behind the scenes: welcome to the squid shelter

I was going to say that it was weird that Wade didn't have that mirrored film cover all the walls of the shelter so that he would be protected if he wasn't wearing the mask, but it seems like he never takes the mask off. That sure wouldn't help anybody else, if Wade happens to let them stay in the bunker. I wonder if the baseball cap that Wade has with the lining of mirror film, if the mirror film can be pulled all the way down over his face. Wade should have built the house on top of the bunker or at least had a covered walkway connecting the two structures.

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scrb

scrb

Lindelof sits down for a long discussion and interview with Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald on The Watch podcast.

He says two goals of the series was to tell a Watchmen story and to tell the story about mistreatment of blacks in America.  Says he was inspired by Coates The case for Reparations essay.

He learned about the Tulsa massacre from Coates and other black directors and wanted to depicted.

Laudable goals but the massacre is kind of abstract to Americans living now.  Horrific event in history and to see depicted but racism continues to this day and affects how people of color work, where they live, how they interact with the police and white people in general.

We’re kind of conditioned to movie violence and can get over it fairly quickly.  But there is racism in many everyday interactions so a depiction of an event almost 100 years ago may not be the best way to tell the story of the mistreatment of POC.

The racists in the show are more competent and wily than racist who want to commit violence.  And Keene is this slick, photogenic guy who’s got the world fooled.  They’ve been effective villains, which in a way is glorifying them.

Sure they have to tell a good story but they’re not doing an effective job of their second stated goal.

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Affogato

Affogato

(edited)
15 hours ago, scrb said:

We’re kind of conditioned to movie violence and can get over it fairly quickly.  But there is racism in many everyday interactions so a depiction of an event almost 100 years ago may not be the best way to tell the story of the mistreatment of POC.

“Those who do not remember the past are condemed to repeat it “   George Santayana 

trying to think of what to add to this. I really disagree with your comments.  I think if we face what is happened in the past we will be more observant and mindful of what is happening in the present. 

Edited by Affogato
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ElectricBoogaloo

ElectricBoogaloo

Critics' Choice Award nominations!

Best Drama Series

Best Actress in a Drama Series – Regina King

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series – Tim Blake Nelson

Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series – Jean Smart

 

Screen Actors Guild Award nomination:

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Comedy or Drama Series

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Catfi9ht

Catfi9ht

Marc Bernardin interviewed Damon Lindelof at a Writers' Guild Association Event a few days ago so the interview covers through Watchmen Episode 8.  Even though it's on YouTube, it's audio only.

It's mostly about Watchmen and the process of writing the show, but there are other topics like other shows Lindelof has worked on, his influences and inspirations, etc. For anyone who enjoys listening about the process of creating a show, it's really interesting.

Warning: NSFW Language

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