True, Zack Snyder was failing to understand comics long before Disney was.
Don’t get me even started on how WB fucked over the Snyderverse. Fuck WB, lost all interest in DC movies because of their constant meddling.
But it would be derivative if released nowdays. A part of its appeal was that it was something different in a sea of the same.
There’s an incredible irony here too. Watchmen the comic was released after years of superhero comics had played out the tropes to exhaustion. Watchmen was a critique of that comics industry. So to say that it belongs in a post-Endgame world is to acknowledge that the movie adaptation is now working as pre-satire of what superhero movies would become.
It just goes to show how far ahead of the cultural curve comic book authors/artists can be.
I’m waiting for Alan Moore’s Promethea to gain traction, but that’ll mean the majority of people are ready go to movies that speculate on how to go about becoming enlightened…so I’m not holding my breath.
I liked Promethea, astounding to encounter another fan in the wild! (I liked it enough to try to read Jerusalem, which convinced me that maybe I’m not generally an Alan Moore fan, haha.)
It could probably work well as a limited series, like on Netflix, but I think they’d water down the messaging too much to really do it justice. But it could also be an opportunity to correct flaws as well. I didn’t always love how the (almost?) all male creative team wrote women, as one prime example I remember.
But this is why things like The Boys and Invincible are doing so well right. They parody the super hero movie tropes, as well as modern day life and media. The Watchmen movie as it exists was just fine for what it was, but instead of dark parody, like its source material, it went full-on blockbuster superhero. If it was released today and done well, I think it would be a hit
The point you made about the boys and invincible is the point the article is making. If it had realesed around now itd be crazy successful as a tear down of the super hero capeshit, assuming they did it the same justice now as they did then.
I keep telling people to watch the HBO show from 2019. It has some obvious flaws but Regina King is always fire and IMO episode 6 is still some of the best TV I’ve seen.
It also came out the year before the BLM protests of 2020 and damn was the subject matter relevant. Almost prescient.
It’s a good show but it feels like it has barely anything to do with Watchmen. The main villain was so weak compared to what the comic was going for, and the main character is a raging asshole while the show acts like we’re supposed to be sympathetic to her.
the main character is a raging asshole while the show acts like we’re supposed to be sympathetic to her.
So… like the comic?
That’s what they were going for, but missed completely. In the series it feels like she gets rewarded for being that way, the ending especially sucked.
Watchman is a franchise with an intense blessing when so many seem cursed. The movie was made by someone who didn’t understand the comic at all and it turned out fantastically, despite that. Easily the best Snyder product, and I do generally like his goofy ass.
Then, over a decade later, it has a weird HBO TV show, made by the creator/writer of Lost, someone who did at least understand very well the comics. But someone with a controversial track record, and making a show entirely out of original material. And it SLAPS. I tend to market it as “what if lost was rated R, 1 season long, and perfect”. Still got my fingers crossed for another season, but it doesn’t need it at all.
My wife and I had never heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre at the time. We were debating whether it was in poor taste to write such a disturbing/racist/violent event in fiction. Then we actually looked it up and realized how we had been failed by our grade school educations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre
It was honestly mind blowing to learn that most white Americans legit didn’t know what the US was like in the 1900s.
That realization played a large part in me investigating how white Americans basically lied themselves into believing the US gov/white Americans made amends for their crimes towards blacks during the period called Reconstruction - in reality, most gains black Americans made after the civil war (e.g. the surge in black politicians, the ability to get educated/start schools, etc.) were immediately taken away by means of terrorism, disenfranchisement, and bs legislation.
The movie/doc Exterminate All The Brutes does a great job detailing the stories Americans used to tell about themselves and how they had to deal with savage natives/tribes and whatnot. It’s hard to watch but it really shows how we’ve all been victims of very effective propaganda. I mean, we literally recite a pledge of allegiance as children. The bs goes deep.
Maybe a controversial take… I like Snyder’s ending better than the book.
Ozymandius tricking Dr Manhattan into building a bomb that blows up NYC is a lot more grounded in possibility that a giant psychic squid.
The whole Dr Manhattan plan could’ve blown up at his face though if he took it personally and killed everyone.
I do kind of like the squid ending because it’s supposed to be something completely unexpected and unbelievable that governments would actually believe it’s an alien. They could’ve foreshadowed it a bit better but I like the weirdness of it.
I like the TV show fleshing out the squid thing more. I think the movie ending was fine for the time though.
I remember recommending the movie to people and being told “you should have warned me there was blue penis” by one person. And then he went on to say “blue penis” at random times when he saw me. I don’t know how he would have reacted if there was a giant alien psychic squid attack
Yeah, while the movie had its flaws, notably pacing, my wife and sister lost it at “big blue penis,” and I was like, “what? THAT was what you focused on?”
I still felt the movie was pretty true to the message and had some memorable scenes and lines.
“None of you seem to understand. I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me!”
I saw that movie and recommended it, with a caveat. I said, “It’s a great movie, but there’s a lot of big blue schlong. If that’s a problem for you, you won’t enjoy it. If it isn’t, it’s a great show.”
The ending works a lot better, agreed. But most of the beginning and middle bits change the tone/framing/emphasis/etc to give the exact opposite meaning to what was originally intended. Biggest example I can think of is the opening battle between the Comedian and Ozymandias the mysterious assassin; in the graphic novel that fight is framed as a dying, bitter alcoholic well past his prime getting absolutely bodied in an unceremonious and fitting end to a despicable man. In the film, sure he loses in the end but it’s a much closer fight and he goes out in a blaze of glory, defiant to the end, quite literally a hero’s last stand. Snyder also does his best to make Rorschach look as cool as possible (while still being grungy and uncouth) instead of how he is in the graphic novel: psychotic, extremely antisocial, and borderline fascist. Again, the change to the ending was a good choice, but there were many other choices made that I personally completely disagree with
They’re both products of their times. The squid made sense in a time where comic books weren’t as grounded as they are today.
Also a squid makes more sense when you actually foreshadow a squid. The movie would have had to shoehorn that in through the plot and that would have been a mess.
It was cleaner. Different medium, different capabilities.
I don’t see how foreshadowing improves anything. Ozy explaining his bizarre and horrible plan and then revealing it’s already happened is a wonderful moment. Knowing it’s going to happen before it does would ruin it.
Foreshadowing the squid is well done in the comics and does not change the reveal. You should read it if you haven’t.