HBO eyes WATCHMEN for T.V. series. 3 3

[fantastic_four]

Is there a release date for this yet?

[Bosco685]

Here's All We Know About HBO's 'Watchmen' From the Co-Creator of 'Lost'

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When Is the Watchmen Release Date on HBO?

Sometime in Fall 2019 but that’s all we know for now. However, given the increasing frequency of promotion from official Watchmen social media accounts, we may get more information very soon.

 

Is the HBO Watchmen Series a Reboot? A Sequel? A Prequel?

While DC has published both a prequel (2009’s Before Watchmen) and a sequel (2017’s Doomsday Clock by Geoff Johns), neither involving the original creators, Lindelof told fans in a lengthy letter on Instagram that his Watchmen will be a “remix” that acknowledges the original story as canonical but follows its own path with its own characters (save for a few, which we’ll get into in a bit).

 

 

[Bosco685]

[Bosco685]

 

[bug33fouf]

[jsilverjanet]

On 6/10/2019 at 5:54 AM, Bosco685 said:

Here's All We Know About HBO's 'Watchmen' From the Co-Creator of 'Lost'

 

I like this letter and it really resonates but somehow along the way, I feel like he always makes all his scripts similar and they are very much "written by Damon Lindelof" 

[jsilverjanet]

I have zero clue was this is about but looks promising

[Bosco685]

And, Doctor Manhatten too.

[Bosco685]

In case anyone needs a shock today.

[Bosco685]

HBO’s ‘Watchmen’ Has a New Celebrity President But No Internet [TCA 2019]

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HBO presented a panel for Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen series for the Television Critics Association. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ comic book was a 1985 period piece, set in an alternate present in a world that had known actual superheroes for decades. Lindelof is following up on the comic book – this is what 2019 looks like in the decades afterWatchmen.

 

Lindelof shared a few details of the new present day setting of his Watchmen. Find out who followed Richard Nixon as President of the United States, what no longer exists in Watchmen’s 2019, and what else has changed. Watchmenpremieres this fall on HBO.

 

A Former Actor Still Became President

 

This alternate history’s Richard Nixon had a five term presidency, which left no room for Ronald Reagan to be elected President in 1980. However, former actor still became President of the United States in this world, but one from the opposite end of the aisle. 

 

“Robert Redford is the president of the United States and has been the President in the world of the show since the early ‘90s since they’ve abolished term limits,” Lindelof said. “We’re interested in exploring what would happen if a very well-intentioned liberal white man was President for way too long. Nixon was still president in ‘85. He remained president, was re-elected in ’88. He died in office. Gerald Ford became President as Nixon’s Vice President and then was defeated in ’92 by Robert Redford.”

 

That’s actually a rather poignant take on alternate history. A conservative celebrity is currently in power, and an unhappy populace might fantasize about how the country should be run. Lindelof is taking the position that a beloved celebrity with liberal politics could still get the country into just as bad a place. For example, there is still volatile racial violence.

 

“Personally speaking as a white man, the idea that systemically our country would ever come to a place where there wasn’t an incredible amount of anger, pushback and vitriol about balancing the power scale between people of color and white people would be ridiculous,” Lindelof said. “Nobody would ever swallow that. We’re trying to reflect where well-intentioned white people are trying to make things better and we’re now dropping the audience into the unintended consequences of that intentionality.”

 

There’s No Internet in Watchmen

 

Lindelof says we’ll recognize the 2019 of Watchmen as similar to our own. The biggest difference will be nobody is spending time online, and nobody has smart phones. 

 

“We’ve created a world that does not have an internet,” Lindelof said. “People do not have smart phones. Even though it’s set in 2019, the Redford administration saw the writing on the wall and stepped in to make sure we could not troll each other.”

Honestly, fictional President Redford may have been right. We’ve seen toxic fandom proliferate online. Lindelof admitted that being on Twitter brought out his meanest qualities. 

 

“As a parent of a 12-year-old, the thing we talk about most amongst our peers is what affect is social media and screens having on our culture,” Lindelof said. “That worry is embedded deeply in the thematics of the show.”

 

The Comic is Canon

 

Lindelof decided to make a sequel to Moore and Gibbons’ Watchmen rather than retell the comic. Though he’s carving a new path, Lindelof asserts that everything that happened in the comic happened in the backstory of the show. 

 

“We’re not going to mess with it,” Lindelof said. “It’s canon. We re-explore the past but it’s canon. [That’s] one of the rules that we had as storytellers, writers. Even once we got into production, everything that happened in those 12 issues could not be messed with. We were married to it so there’s no rebooting that.”

 

Race is the Political Issue of Watchmen

 

The original comic books were dealing with the Cold War, which was the hot button political issue through the ‘80s. The Cold War ended decades ago, but the world, and especially America, are still dealing with political crises. Lindelof decided that Watchmen could comment on modern day racial politics. The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 is a focus of the series.

 

“Four or five years ago, I first read The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates,” Lindelof said. “That was the first time I heard about Black Wall Street, Tulsa in 1921 and was ashamed and confused I’d never heard about it before. Then I bought and read The Burning. That was the beginning of my education. When I started thinking about what Watchmenwas going to be, in the original source material, the book was highly political. It was about what was happening in American culture at the time, even though presented by two British artists. What in 2019 is the equivalent of the nuclear standoff between the Russians and United States? It felt it was undeniably race and policing in America.”

 

In the pilot, white supremacists attack the police. That’s an inverse of the problem we’re facing in the real world, in which police violence is disproportionately directed at people of color. Lindelof is not pulling a The Confederate here though. He’s not suggesting the roles of race are reversed, and he promises the dynamics of Watchmen will be explored further in subsequent episodes. 

 

“That idea started to graft itself into the Watchmen universe and needed to be presented in a responsible way,” Lindelof said. “My hope is over the course of the entire season, the nine episodes we’ve completed, you’ll have a much better sense of that. I think those contradictions were things we were very aware of in storytelling and tried to square to the best of our ability. There are no easy answers. There are no grandiose solutions. In a traditional superhero movie, the bad guys are fighting aliens. When they beat the aliens, the aliens go back to their planet and everybody wins. There’s no defeating white supremacy. It felt like a pretty formidable foe.”

 

And there are still problems with law enforcement in Watchmen, not the least of which is that the cops now wear masks.

 

“Are the police presented in a heroic light, the heroes of this story?” Lindelof said. “The answer is most certainly no. Watchmen is not interested in talking about who the heroes, villains, good guys and bad guys are. It’s an examination of institutions and politics.”

So he used the events of the comic books to tell the sequel - NICE!

[Bosco685]

 

[jsilverjanet]

Wow

[fantastic_four]

On 7/25/2019 at 8:28 AM, Bosco685 said:

Though he’s carving a new path, Lindelof asserts that everything that happened in the comic happened in the backstory of the show. 

 

“We’re not going to mess with it,” Lindelof said. “It’s canon. We re-explore the past but it’s canon.

Going to be VERY interesting to see how much he does re-explore the past.  So will we eventually see all of the original characters in flashbacks?  If so, I wonder who will portray them.

Loving what I'm hearing so far.  

Edited July 29, 2019 by fantastic_four

[Bosco685]

 

[Bosco685]

Great BTS video about the show influences and approach.

[Bosco685]

 

[Beige]

16 hours ago, Bosco685 said:

 

[Bosco685]

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Now Lindelof is opening up about Manhattan's influence in the new series, revealing that he won't play a major part in the show — at first. While addressing the series approach of the real world and the violence depicted on it, the showrunner explained that the character will continue to loom large because of his legacy.

 

"I started to think that for Watchmen maybe the more interesting point is to think about masking and authority and policing as an adjunct to superheroes," Lindelof said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "In Watchmen, nobody has superpowers — the only super-powered individual is Dr. Manhattan and he’s not currently on the planet."

 

He added, "So I felt like we wouldn’t be deconstructing the superhero myth because all the characters in Watchmen are just humans who play dress up. It would be more interesting to ask psychological questions about why do people dress up, why is hiding their identity a good idea, and there are interesting themes to explore here when your mask both hides you and shows you at the same time — because your mask is actually a reflection in yourself."

 

[Bosco685]

Jeremy Irons "Probably Who You Think He Is"?

Edited September 26, 2019 by Bosco685

[Bosco685]

 

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Fans of Alan Moore’s Watchmen have been anxiously awaiting the upcoming series from HBO and Damon Lindelof, creator of Lost and The Leftovers, unsure of what to expect from a series that has been shrouded in mystery. Based on the show’s trailer, people were able to conclude that Watchmen wouldn’t be following the book’s narrative, especially considering Regina King is clearly starring in a role that wasn't included in the comics. Having seen the first four episodes (and without giving away any spoilers), we’re happy to report that Watchmen will satisfy both fans of the comic and people who just enjoy epic television. If you’re not familiar with the book, the show will give you all of the relevant information you need to know. If you are a fan, don’t worry, the series doesn't waste too much time on exposition.

 

Set in Tulsa, the new series follows Detective Angela Abar (King) in an alternate future where vigilantes are outlawed and cops keep their identities hidden beneath masks. Taking place 30 years after the events of Watchmen, the show follows Abar as she uncovers secrets about a dangerous hate group called the Seventh Kalvary, the police force she works for, and her own past.

 

The show’s pilot, “It’s Summer and We’re Running Out of Ice,” was directed by Nicole Kassell, who has tackled episodes of Westworld and Castle Rock, with great precision and care. Kassell manages to give subtle nods to the comic with her direction without making any shots feel forced or overt. The show sets up a world that will feel vaguely familiar to any Watchmen fan, but it also makes a clear statement that this show is operating on its own terms. While everything that occurred in Watchmen is canon in the series, the show takes place many years later, which gives it room to grow as its own, separate story. That being said, this is still Watchmen, and a couple of fan-favorite characters from the book are key players in the story. In fact, if you hold out for episode three, you will be transformed by Jean Smart’s portrayal of Laurie Blake. The Legion star manages to lift the former Silk Spectre right off the page and suck you right back into the old Minutemen drama.

 

Just in case you've managed to go this long without learning who Jeremy Irons is playing, we'll keep it a secret as to not spoil the fun. However, it's worth noting that he manages to create a perfect balance between creepy and genial, which makes him the most fun aspect of the entire show (so far).

 

Overall, we recommend giving Watchmen a try when it premieres, and if the first two episodes don't hook you, we have a strong feeling episode three will seal the deal.

 

Rating: 5 out of 5

This Sunday, October 20th. 

Edited October 16, 2019 by Bosco685