Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
|
Post by Quiara on Oct 6, 2020 14:54:35 GMT -8
About a year too late, I've finally been watching this show. With just one episode to go, I feel comfortable calling this one of the best shows I've seen in quite a while - taking all the good elements of The Leftovers and working it into a weird and fascinating (but still emotionally resonant) universe. I feel very comfortable calling it WAY better than the source material, despite some reservations about, say, Jeremy Irons dicking around in his feudal manor.
|
|
|
Post by Incandescence 112 on Oct 6, 2020 17:25:31 GMT -8
About a year too late, I've finally been watching this show. With just one episode to go, I feel comfortable calling this one of the best shows I've seen in quite a while - taking all the good elements of The Leftovers and working it into a weird and fascinating (but still emotionally resonant) universe. I feel very comfortable calling it WAY better than the source material, despite some reservations about, say, Jeremy Irons dicking around in his feudal manor. Yes. It was fantastic. Whether it's better than its source material though.....them's fighting words. Regardless though, Damon Lindelof continues to redeem himself.
|
|
|
Watchmen
Oct 6, 2020 18:28:19 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by ThirdMan on Oct 6, 2020 18:28:19 GMT -8
I thought the series peaked, big-time, in episode six, and had a pretty conventional action finale. Certainly a strong show, but I wasn't bowled-over by it, overall.
|
|
|
Post by otherscott on Oct 6, 2020 19:55:42 GMT -8
I mostly fall on the side of JC here, I thought the finale was probably the weak link of the show. I also preferred episode 5 ever so slightly to episode 6. That being said, still think it's a terrific show, top 5 Lindelof season of television and that's big praise from me.
As to whether it's better than the comic, yes and no. I think the comic has some significant issues that the show avoids, it's a cleaner product. The comic also has one of the top endings to any work of fiction I can think of and the Watchmen TV show ending falls quite a bit short of that. I also thought the TV show brought out some very interesting things to explore in the early episodes and just didn't follow up on them, it was turned into a love story/ standard action narrative by the end. It was a well done love story and a well done action narrative, but it created more potential for itself.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Oct 6, 2020 20:31:01 GMT -8
I think the Watchmen comic (or "graphic novel," if we're on that wavelength) is one of the best comics ever published, even acknowledging its general shortcomings (the treatment of female characters isn't all that good - which, sadly, is a common Alan Moore trait). But the TV show absolutely manages to respect the premise and themes of the show while carving out its own identity, and that is certainly impressive.
Episode 6 is certainly the high point for me, and I do agree that the finale didn't quite match the potential of the show. (At times, it felt like Lindelof was trying to rewrite the original ending of the comic to his own ends.) But it's certainly one of the most ambitious TV shows of recent years, and I'm glad to see it getting the attention it deserves.
|
|
|
Watchmen
Oct 7, 2020 11:51:28 GMT -8
via mobile
Post by ThirdMan on Oct 7, 2020 11:51:28 GMT -8
The finale's shortcomings may, to a fair degree, relate to it being a TV series with a limited budget. It wanted to go 'big" with its finish, but its production couldn't match its thematic scale, so you get a somewhat anticlimactic visual presentation. It's not a BAD episode, but just felt a bit reductive, given what came before.
I'd be curious to see how its budget compared to, say, the third season of Stranger Things, a series that I feel is going in circles narratively, but does bring a decent amount of spectacle in some regards.
|
|
Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
|
Post by Quiara on Oct 8, 2020 13:39:22 GMT -8
As to whether it's better than the comic, yes and no. I think the comic has some significant issues that the show avoids, it's a cleaner product. The comic also has one of the top endings to any work of fiction I can think of and the Watchmen TV show ending falls quite a bit short of that. I also thought the TV show brought out some very interesting things to explore in the early episodes and just didn't follow up on them, it was turned into a love story/ standard action narrative by the end. It was a well done love story and a well done action narrative, but it created more potential for itself. So this is my thought about why I like the show better than the comic: basically, Damon Lindelof is a romantic weirdo, while Alan Moore is a misanthropic weirdo. And that's the difference between the two: Watchmen the show is working with a much more vivid emotional palette, with characters who have discernible emotions, and a richly realized world. Watchmen the comic has a lot going for it, but Moore's misanthropy is so overwhelming that it squeezes a lot of the good things out of the comic. This is most obvious when it comes to the "alternate history" elements of each work. Watchmen has an inherently silly premise - superheroes are real, Vietnam is the 51st state, God exists but just skulks around on the moon, etc. But Lindelof actually DOES stuff with this premise, and makes the world feel real. In the comic, "President Robert Redford" is a lazy dig at Reagan; in the show this feels not only weirdly plausible but unremarkable. It helps that unlike Alan Moore the nihilist outsider with a one-dimensional view of America, Lindelof actually takes race into account in his Watchmen and has that as a foundational element of his alternate history - yes, I know a lot of the discourse surrounding this show is cloyingly woke and sometimes it's not very subtle, but stuff like Vietnam becoming a sort of new frontier for Black Americans looking for opportunity in an America where Nixon has been president for thirty years shows that Lindelof et al actually considered history instead of just making empty jokes like Moore. Now, there is something to be said about the original comic as a triumph of form (three-by-three grid and all that) whereas the show is a bit more herky-jerky, which I agree with. But at the same time, I think that weirdness is what makes the show so good - I can't imagine losing all those weird character-driven episodes in the back half of the series in favor of a stronger, more serialized plot would make the show better.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Oct 8, 2020 20:11:39 GMT -8
I see what you mean, and I do believe that Lindelof's philosophical outlook translates better to compelling storytelling than Moore's. (Though I'm a bit biased, because while I believe that Moore is a talented writer, I also find him to be a raging sociopath.) But I think the difference in approach to Watchmen's alternate reality is due in large part to the different formats. A comic book will inherently feel drier and more - ahem - two-dimensional than a TV show, due to the limitations of the medium. The Watchmen novel is impressive because it embraces the fullest potential within its own medium, and cannot be directly translated to the screen without losing its impact. (As we saw wth Zack Snyder's turgid film adaptation.)
To use a similar example - this is partly why I consider "Pizza Dog" to be perhaps the best comic book story of the 2010s. "Pizza Dog" is brilliant because it cannot exist in any other format - it is pure comic book storytelling, through and through. The Watchmen novel is similarly distinctive. Which is why Lindelof was smart not to adapt the comic directly, but simply build off the universe in his own way (a la Hawley's Fargo). It allowed him to develop a version of Watchmen that worked primarily for the screen.
Incidentally, was "President Robert Redford" a thing in the comic? I recall Nixon being President well into the '80s. (The Redford thing is still a political dig on the TV show, of course, aimed at 2019 audiences.)
|
|
|
Post by Incandescence 112 on Oct 9, 2020 8:55:53 GMT -8
I see what you mean, and I do believe that Lindelof's philosophical outlook translates better to compelling storytelling than Moore's. (Though I'm a bit biased, because while I believe that Moore is a talented writer, I also find him to be a raging sociopath.) What's the matter, Jeremy? Not a fan of anarcho-communist occultism?
|
|
|
Post by otherscott on Oct 9, 2020 9:15:49 GMT -8
I tend to agree with Jeremy here. I think there's some inherent advantages television has over comics that Lindelof is able to take advantage of, which I don't think it's fair to knock the original Watchmen with. I also agree that the romanticism present in Lindelof's work makes some inherently better storytelling than cynical misanthropism.
But I tend to look at it in terms of what each of these works did for the medium. The Watchmen comic was revolutionary, both in storytelling and in the form. The Watchmen show, for all its plaudits and Emmy successes, to me does not represent a significant elevation of what the medium can do. Did I enjoy the TV show more? Probably. Is the TV show cleaner? Definitely. But there's something about a work being revolutionary that really matters in this discussion.
Also, I will argue that the way Lindelof has learned to structure television shows is second-to-none if we're going to talk about form. He really takes advantage of the episodic nature of television in a way that most creators cannot or more likely, choose not to because they think people prefer complete serialization and 10 hour movies in their binge watching.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Oct 9, 2020 13:06:36 GMT -8
Yeah, Lindelof is definitely better than most when it comes to structuring stories and weighing episodes vs. seasonal arcs. The first season of Lost (produced years before the binge era really kicked off) is still a prime example of how to do it right. What's the matter, Jeremy? Not a fan of anarcho-communist occultism? You know I prefer my occultism to be anarcho-collectivist!
|
|
Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
|
Post by Quiara on Oct 9, 2020 18:22:17 GMT -8
I tend to agree with Jeremy here. I think there's some inherent advantages television has over comics that Lindelof is able to take advantage of, which I don't think it's fair to knock the original Watchmen with. I also agree that the romanticism present in Lindelof's work makes some inherently better storytelling than cynical misanthropism. But I tend to look at it in terms of what each of these works did for the medium. The Watchmen comic was revolutionary, both in storytelling and in the form. The Watchmen show, for all its plaudits and Emmy successes, to me does not represent a significant elevation of what the medium can do. Did I enjoy the TV show more? Probably. Is the TV show cleaner? Definitely. But there's something about a work being revolutionary that really matters in this discussion. I hate to break out the objective-subjective pantheon talk from the FV days, but a work of fiction being revolutionary is not the same as it being good. (E.g., despite their status as cinematic milestones, no one gives a crap about The Great Train Robbery in 2020, and I would actively hope no one gives a crap about Birth of a Nation in 2020.) Which isn't to say Watchmen is a bad comic - quite the opposite, it's really good, although I suspect there are a lot of comics that are equally good that don't get the revolutionary label stuck on it through no fault of their own. E.g., a comic like American Flagg! is similarly mature satire of serious formalist interest, but that remains obscure in a way Watchmen isn't. I also don't think Maus is the first "serious" comic either, incidentally. Just a good book that happened to come along at the right cultural moment. You know what, you're right. Actually, you're right and you're very wrong. You are right that the choice to make the show mostly focus on individual characters for each episode makes the individual episodes much, much stronger. But at the same time, isn't it kind of horrible in hindsight that we have an episode that's a fantastic character piece into the psyche of Looking Glass, and then Looking Glass... kind of disappears from the series until the finale? And isn't it just heinous that (SPOILERS) the relationship between Jon and Angela, the ostensible heart of this show, only pops up in the second-to-last episode? Plus, I can't help but feel the show would be stronger if it took its cues from one of the defining "Golden Age" serialized dramas and stretched out the last episode into two episodes with a 24 "real-time clock" gimmick, personally...
|
|