You hear that? That's the sound of Alan Moore casting another hex and flipping off the sky.
Maybe the episodic formula could work better, but I don't see what there is to gain to making a remake so soon. The film of Watchmen achieved as much as a film of Watchmen could do, and it's only six years old. (I liked parts of it.)
Alan Moore can go away, for all I care.
I actually liked the movie version of Watchmen, so I'm curious about this.
Formerly G.G.
The movie was alright although I still prefer the graphic novel and it still seems superior to any adaptation. Still, I would go for this if this were a miniseries and not a long runner.
"Analay, an original fan character from a 2006 non canon comic. Do not steal!"
This is a really unpopular opinion but I think that Watchmen is incredible dated. The comic might have made a big impact when it contrasted with the heroes which were around at the time when it was made, but nowadays the Superhero genre has evolved into something different. That is always the problem if you deconstruct something, you are only relevant as long as the audience still knows what you are referring to.
The movie is good for exactly five minutes, after that it becomes so boring and the characters are so unlikable and bland that I needed two tries to watch the thing because I kept falling asleep. It is one of those movie which has a few powerful and memorable scenes, but they don't connect to a compelling narrative.
Plus, it is incredible sexist. And yes, I know that the intention is to comment on the way heroines are treated in the comics, but that doesn't change the fact that the movie falls into the same traps of what it is supposedly criticising.
I'd say those issues are more Snyder's fault than the source material. For instance, the book depicted violence in a more critical light and had scenes that clearly showed Rorsarch was not someone you were supposed to admire.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Well, I was referring to the movie. May main issue with the comic is really that it is dated. If you want to do a new version of it, I think you need to update it in a way that it refers to how comic book and comic book movies are today.
'The movie is good for exactly five minutes, after that it becomes so boring and the characters are so unlikable and bland that I needed two tries to watch the thing because I kept falling asleep. It is one of those movie which has a few powerful and memorable scenes, but they don't connect to a compelling narrative." That sounds like a trend for Synder's movies...
Was Man of Steel good for five minutes?
What I noticed is the underlying sexism in his movies. Oh, he tried with Man of Steel, but it is obvious that either he or Goya had no idea how to deal with a female character. And 300...the movie has what, one female character and still manages to portray femininity as evil by pitching a very fussy bad guy against a really, really manly hero.
Bottom line: While I think that Watchmen is dated, I actually can see the possibility to update it and make an unusual TV show out of it...but with Zack Snyder in the mix? No thanks!
We Are With You Zack Snyder
You're in luck, Zack Snyder isn't actually involved HBO confirmed there have been talks with WB and DC about Watchmen series but they denied reports of Zack Snyder's involvement in the project.
edited 11th Oct '15 8:46:44 AM by Halberdier17
Batman Ninja more like Batman's Bizarre Adventure
That's great! I really can't stand his work.
Never Trust
Snyder has gender issues with more than just women. 300 should be subtitled Sissy Villain versus Macho Camp
tbf that has more to do with the source material than Snyder himself.
The movie didn't really betray any of the characters and themes. It's along the line of no such thing as an antiwar movie. No matter how hard one tries, vigilante justice/violence will never not look cool.
Kind of funny, but that was David Hayter's original intention when he wrote the original screenplay. He wanted to re-imagine the Graphic Novel instead of doing a straight up scene for scene adaptation.
We Are With You Zack Snyder
Bumping this old thread.
Damon Lindelof (The Leftovers) is going forward with a Watchmen adaptation on HBO.
Zack Snyder is reportedly no longer involved.
Batman Ninja more like Batman's Bizarre Adventure
Perpetually Confused
Snyder not being involved isn't surprising, as all other things aside, I doubt the recent family tragedy gave him much a taste to do projects.
I think a Watchmen series can work since, I think it actually could benefit from a small-screen budget. With the movie's budget and Snyder's directing, everyone had superpowers. It turned it into basically a reconstruction of the superhero genre. Nite Owl and Silk Spectre's fight against the Topknots was amazingly dumb and really undermined the entire point of the movie.
Though I note that I do like the change to the ending.
edited 20th Sep '17 8:17:44 AM by Larkmarn
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It's possible it'd work. Snyder's main issue was copious amounts of Do Not Do This Cool Thing that crippled the own point he was trying to make, I agree. I actually think the worst example was when the Comedian fights a crowd of protesters. It has the wonderful scene of Comedian shooting protesters with a shotgun in slow-mo whilst a highly funky tune plays in the background. The scene makes Comedian come across as a badass, not a dangerously unstable nihilistic psychopath.
That isn't just missing the point of the scene, that is not even walking within the same continent as the point of the scene. It's no surprise a lot of viewers root for Comedian despite the fact he's quite probably the worst person of the cast.
Otherwise, I find the movie a great adaptation, but much more because of a fantastic script (written in part by none other than Solid Snake) than Snyder's directing (which honestly just gets in the way and muddles the text) so I'm not particularly hungry for a tv show.
As contentious as it sounds I'd actually be more interested in a prequel to Watchmen allá Before Watchmen (except, you know, not shit).
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
It often seems like Snyder gets distracted by opportunity to toss in another grandiose fight. The scene where Rorschach is arrested displays this too. In the comic, his aerosol flamethrower stunt buys him time, but Reality Ensues when he jumps out a window and is promptly too injured to escape. In the film? Lands perfectly, immediately starts fighting a dozen cops all by himself until they pile on him.
https://www.polygon.com/tv/2018/5/22/17381476/hbo-watchmen-series-damon-lindelof
HBO's Watchmen will be set in modern day
So an original story that's Watchmen-esque?
edited 22nd May '18 3:37:49 PM by VeryMelon
I'm guessing it's essentially a part 2 to the miniseries.
Kinda surprised me since I was expecting an HBO miniseries that was Truer to the Text than the movie, but then again, would anyone be up for another adaptation after almost 10 years?
In any case, we don't know if it'll follow the movie's ending with the attack made to look like it was coming from Dr. Manhattan or the comic's ending with the alien attack.
Maybe this will be for the best?
I echo Swanpride's sentiments above. Watchmen, like The Dark Knight Returns suffers quite a bit now that it's approach and tone are no longer novel. I think Watchmen holds up better as a story than does DKR, but in the wake of it's influence, it no longer feels like an especially great work (though a good one, certainly). Someone approaching it now for the first time, having experienced super-hero comics made since it was published, might justifiably wonder what all the fuss is about.
This is the problem inherent in any work that banks so much on being "new and different" which is the question of what, besides novelty, have you got going for you? Newness fades, eventually. The defense of the old-timer of "We'd never seen anything like it before" fails before the younger readers' "Well, we have seen it before. Lots." The Watchmen is an important work, certainly, but I'm no longer sure it's a great one.
I enjoyed the movie myself (though some of the dialogue, lifted word for word from the comic, felt really stilted and unnatural), and I'll probably at least take a look at the series. It's funny now, with these seminal works diffusing their way into the general public's consciousness now (like the DKR references in Batman v. Superman), as a lifelong comics fan, who experienced those works first hand, it feels a bit like old news.
edited 29th May '18 9:34:55 AM by Robbery
It’s with that in mind that we report that Snyder has been meeting with HBO to talk about a Watchmen TV series. Our sources tell us that the meetings about adapting the DC Comics property have taken place, but unfortunately we don’t have any details as to whether this would be a prequel series, a re-imagining of the events of the Watchmen story itself, or a sequel series.
It’s also worth noting that HBO is notoriously difficult to predict until a series has a hard release date. For example, they couldn’t reach a budget compromise with David Fincher for his Utopia series, and shut down the production of Fincher’s half-hour comedy series that he was developing simultaneously. Clout and/or popularity doesn’t automatically mean a greenlight, as further evidenced by the network famously passing on Noah Baumbach‘s star-studded The Corrections pilot.
http://collider.com/watchmen-tv-series-hbo-zack-snyder/
edited 1st Oct '15 2:11:57 PM by windleopard