Thread: [TV] Watchmen

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  1. #121
    The Insane draynay's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zaktar View Post
    Jon's characterization felt a little off, a little too warm at times. The moment where we get a flashback to Ozymandias explaining that Jon will use his powers if in danger felt unnecessary and too on the nose. We got it. But then reading the thread maybe they need to handhold more than I think.
    It was a bit heavy handed, but I think they overdid it on that point because, AFAIK that incident is the only evidence that Dr. Manhattan is around. I'm guessing its something they unexpectedly stumbled upon during their police purge, when one of their thugs got Manhattan splattered, and perhaps that is what set into motion this whole crazy plan.
    /s

  2. #122
    Quote Originally Posted by draynay View Post
    It was a bit heavy handed, but I think they overdid it on that point because, AFAIK that incident is the only evidence that Dr. Manhattan is around. I'm guessing its something they unexpectedly stumbled upon during their police purge, when one of their thugs got Manhattan splattered, and perhaps that is what set into motion this whole crazy plan.
    Didn't really think about that but great observation, as you say that it seems very obviously true. So not heavy handed enough to get through my thick skull

  3. #123
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zaktar View Post
    Didn't really think about that but great observation, as you say that it seems very obviously true. So not heavy handed enough to get through my thick skull
    It really puts a different perspective on the friendship between Judd and Abar if all he was doing was keeping tabs on her and poking around for further information.
    /s

  4. #124
    This was imo the strongest episode yet. The difference between this episode and say the first is enormous; it's like watching a different show really. The pacing is all over the place.

    I also wonder if the source material had racial activism at its core or whether the showrunners had a heavy hand in it.

  5. #125
    Quote Originally Posted by Thelxi View Post
    This was imo the strongest episode yet. The difference between this episode and say the first is enormous; it's like watching a different show really. The pacing is all over the place.

    I also wonder if the source material had racial activism at its core or whether the showrunners had a heavy hand in it.
    The source material was very much about the time period it was in, and this show makes an effort to reflect its time as well. The show runners definitely had a heavy hand in picking that topic and presenting it, but so did the original creators of the comic.

  6. #126
    Quote Originally Posted by eschatological View Post
    The answers were in the episode. I'm not saying you need to post on forums or read theories. Angela looked at Dr. M with wonder when he came back and said, "You kept his face."
    You're right. I suppose more of what I meant is that... If you don't watch with 100% focus, which, let's be honest, is rare these days, you might miss things that are "obvious" to others. Westworld's first season was a great example of this, so much so that HBO intentionally created a video with fake spoilers in it to throw off fan theories in its second season. Watchmen is less reliant on this, imo, but still demands a level of attention which is higher than average.

  7. #127
    I understand that, to a point. There's lots of TV shows I watch in the background, while I play WoW or other video games, or do work.

    This series isn't one of them, and I don't think it should be. In that sense, it's already entered rarified air for me. It joins the pantheon of......well, the first time I watched Breaking Bad, or some of the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones. Or watching a Tarantino film.

  8. #128
    Quote Originally Posted by eschatological View Post
    I mean, a lot of these are answered in the episode.

    For 1), I just think it's the product of CGIing a matte blue person. The glow can cover up a lot in, for example, the movie. It's kind of like the blue genie effect from the live action Aladdin earlier this year.

    For 2), it seems like Doc just does what he wants. He glows naturally, but it's not like suppressing the glow is a difficult thing he has to constantly focus on.

    3) Ozymandias explains this pretty clearly in the episode: He doesn't lose his powers, he merely forgets who he is and that he has powers. Again, looking like who he is, or not glowing, etc, is not some spell he has to concentrate. It's a switch he flipped, he doesn't actively need to be Dr. Manhattan to maintain it.

    4) Again, Regina seems to clearly indicate that he's changed - that he's kept Cal's face, after she removes the ring. She's astonished and gratified for that. The implication is that when she met him in the bar, he looked like his traditional, Jon Osterman self. That's why she offered him a bunch of white men to transform into, and he reminded her that he could be anyone he needed to be, so he should be someone she was comfortable with. This is why we don't see his face in the bar, before he transforms into human Cal. The blue-ness seems to simply be the natural expression of Doctor Manhattan.

    5) He's simply saying he can't experience his life in the blank spot before it happens. Note that he says that before the chronological living of it. Doctor Cal will probably now have that blank spot filled in, much like he constantly lived his childhood as a human child even though he had no powers back then.

    It seems like you just need to watch the show with more attention. These questions were all answered.
    Hmm, thanks for the reply, but I just don't see it. I am a huge Watchmen (comic and film) fan, and this series so far, as much as I really am trying to get myself to like it, just simply isn't good (yet). Here's hoping for it to pick up speed at some point. I don't think any of the answers were given, or at least they were given and don't comply with what's been true earlier in the story.. Let me try to explain again.

    1) Haven't seen the aladdin movie, so can't really speak on behalf of it, but look at the "Face to face with Dr.M" interview. Here he specifically turns down his glow, because he is told "That glow wont work on television" or something along those lines. Did Dr.M turn into something from "Eiffel 65" then, as New Dr.M looks like in the series? No. He looks amazing still. Please tell me you looked at the new dude and were happy with how he looked?

    2) Again, his glow is natural, that much is pretty obvious in the comic and movie. And he suppresses it for TV (as he says himself) - If him saying so wasn't enough proof, go watch the scene where Janey Slater confronts Jon. The suppressed lack of glow disappears once his focus shifts to something else (The confrontation and chaos of all the reporters going mental). Again - Dr.M glows naturally - He can turn it down if he wants to, but its not his natural state

    3) This one was a stretch for me too, and not the greatest of points I made. Definitely something that can be explained as you did, but to me sounds illogical and I would've liked a "smarter" solution. Look at your arm, you know you can flex your fingers into a fist, and thus you can do so. If you cut the plexus brachialis nerve that innervates the arm, you wouldn't be able to flex it any more. Equally, if you somehow forced yourself to forget how to activate the muscles in a clenched fist action, you wouldn't be able to flex it. Similarly - If you cut off all data regarding his powers, what in him makes him able to keep up his new Cal form?
    Again, I don't think this one is 100% unforgivable, just not great.

    4) I can see that being true. Fair point! I can definitely buy into the fact that him changing back is a groggy mix of the form his been in for 10 years and the form he is in naturally.

    5) The magic of Dr. Manhattan is every particular word he picks. My grudge with this point is, that he himself corrects Abar when she asks him to look into the future early in the episode. Hedoesn't "see" into the future, into the past etc. Yet later on, he states he can't "see" into that specific time. A friend of mine stated this could be aDr.M "explaining it to Abar as if she was 5 years old" kinda situation. And honestly it is just nitpicking from my side at this point. As I said, I am a huge fan and was waiting in anticipation for this reveal of Dr. M. If it were any other character I probably wouldn't have a problem with this point, but it just seems like such a sloppy thing to say for a character who is so meticulous in all he does and says.

  9. #129
    I mean, you're using the movie, which deviated from the comics (sometimes significantly), as proof against a more-faithful continuation.

    If Dr. M is really a godlike entity, I don't think he has any problem maintaining or suppressing the glow. To me, it's probably like a big ON/OFF switch in his mind. He literally created life on Europa, but he can't turn off his glow? As for why he glows blue in the first place - let's be honest, that's a conceit that Moore made up to make him stand out. The implication in the comics is that it's the one thing about him that doesn't change, which leads to him constantly sticking out, but honestly, if he can change his levels of glow, why can't he change his skin? To me, the change makes more sense than him constantly walking around NYC pre-squid in a suit with glowing blue skin. And, it works in the universe as a storytelling device because everyone has this image of him as a blue, glowing guy, and he's saying "I can be anything I want to be, I just didn't care about it prior." I think the implication is that he didn't care about fitting in back then - even when Laurie Blake/Silk Spectre wanted him to - but he did care about being with Angela, so he did it.

    As for pacing - IDK, what do you expect? Big action set pieces? That's not Watchmen. In fact, Watchmen is all about undermining that idea. That's why the in-universe "American Hero Story" is so ridiculous and over-the-top (despite being action-heavy). It's a critique of all of that.

  10. #130
    Quote Originally Posted by otaXephon View Post
    Damn dude, don't ever pick up Lost or The Leftovers.

    Flashbacks are a Lindelof trademark.
    Thanks for mentioning that show, I had forgot it even existed and I've just picked it up.

  11. #131
    Quote Originally Posted by Bryntrollian View Post
    Thanks for mentioning that show, I had forgot it even existed and I've just picked it up.
    It's phenomenal. And unlike Lost, the last season is the best. In fact, I'm pretty confident in saying it's one of the most thematically satisfying conclusions to a story that I've ever seen. Up there with BrBa.

  12. #132
    The Leftovers was criminally underwatched and under appreciated. By the end of GoT, I was tuning in Sunday nights for Leftovers, not GoT.

  13. #133
    Banned Beazy's Avatar
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    What the hell is the Mellinium clock?

    Why why would that Senator want to become DrM? All of his human goals, wants, and needs will go out the window if he were to get DrM intellect.




    This is a really good superhero show.
    Last edited by Beazy; 2019-12-13 at 06:00 PM.

  14. #134
    Quote Originally Posted by Beazy View Post
    What the hell is the Mellinium clock?

    Why why would that Senator want to become DrM? All of his human goals, wants, and needs will go out the window if he were to get DrM intellect.




    This is a really good superhero show.
    I don't think the average person, especially 60 years after the creation of Dr. M, and 30 years after he was last seen, understand the psyche of Dr. M. All they see are the potential powers, and that's what they want.

    And the Millenium Clock is yet unexplained. I think it's tied to Ozymandias getting that horseshoe on Europa, though. Lady Treu has a statue of him, after all, and it's his former company. I wonder if they're setting up Jeremy Irons to be the big bad for season 2, with a new type of Dr. Manhattan.

  15. #135
    Banned Beazy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by eschatological View Post
    I don't think the average person, especially 60 years after the creation of Dr. M, and 30 years after he was last seen, understand the psyche of Dr. M. All they see are the potential powers, and that's what they want.

    And the Millenium Clock is yet unexplained. I think it's tied to Ozymandias getting that horseshoe on Europa, though. Lady Treu has a statue of him, after all, and it's his former company. I wonder if they're setting up Jeremy Irons to be the big bad for season 2, with a new type of Dr. Manhattan.
    The horseshoe confused me. Remember in like ep 1 or 2, he wants to cut the cake and they hand him the horse shoe, and Oz is like "WTF is this?"? Then in ep8, he gets one in the cake and starts going mad and scraping the floor with it. That one confused the hell out of me.


    Ah, I didnt realize the clock was unexplained. I figured this was an idea from a novel and I didnt want to spoil it so I didnt google any of the watchmen info. Last watchmen I read was the novel the movie is based on.


    I hear there is a new comic series called Doomsday clock but its been going on like 5 years and Im waiting for it to finish before I buy them all up.
    Last edited by Beazy; 2019-12-13 at 07:00 PM.

  16. #136
    Quote Originally Posted by Beazy View Post
    I hear there is a new comic series called Doomsday clock but its been going on like 5 years and Im waiting for it to finish before I buy them all up.
    This series is more of direct sequel to the GN than Doomsday Clock. I only very briefly checked it out but it approaches the material from a far more comic book oriented angle.

  17. #137
    Quote Originally Posted by Beazy View Post
    What the hell is the Mellinium clock?

    Why why would that Senator want to become DrM? All of his human goals, wants, and needs will go out the window if he were to get DrM intellect.




    This is a really good superhero show.
    Really don't get why people think that who you were is gone if you become Dr Manhattan. One of the first things Jon did was help Nixon conquer Vietnam, this was clearly informed by who he was; had Jon been born Vietnamese his actions would have been very different, no? Even his creation of life decades into his new existence was informed by who he was and what his history was. They want to become Dr. M so they can do to US what Jon did to Vietnam, eradicate all resistance to their worldview and reshape the future to their benefit. This plan would almost certainly work if they could actually achieve it (seems unlikely).

    Can't wait to see how it plays out!

  18. #138
    Quote Originally Posted by Vegas82 View Post
    A decade after he became Manhattan isn’t really “one of the first things he did”.
    My timeline is fuzzy but frankly that just strengthens my point. This supposedly intellectually detached being still cared enough to wave the flag for his country 10 years deep.

  19. #139
    Quote Originally Posted by Vegas82 View Post
    It was more about ending conflict. And he is in no way intellectually detached. Emotionally maybe, but not intellectually.
    Just about ending conflict? There are countless ways he could have ended that conflict, he intervened because he was specifically asked to. A being which is beyond the needs, wants, and goals of a human would not behave this way. It wouldn't care that Nixon asked it anything. He very obviously still has human needs, wants, and goals, informed by who he was as a person. Just as the racist Dr. M would.

  20. #140
    Quote Originally Posted by Vegas82 View Post
    Why not? If he saw it as the most expedient way to end the conflict, while also saving the most lives, he would have most assuredly done what he did.
    If that's your takeaway from the character, cool, but it's quite a stretch, and just one of many pieces of evidence that we have for his not being beyond human needs, wants, or goals. Perhaps his trajectory aims that way, but that still leaves lots of room for a new person with those abilities to pursue their own needs, wants, and goals during their first few decades of existence.

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