Amph HBO's Watchmen

I thought it was an excellent premiere. It drew me in, offered some excellent questions about the world, stayed true to it's source material, and features some incredible acting and cinematography.

 

Oh, that's right -- thanks. It's been a long time since I read the book or watched the movie.

Also, I wasn't really following the production of this series, but I assume the

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little squid babies falling from the sky was to let us know that this follows the events of the comic, instead of Snyder's movie.

 

Hrrm ... well it was an excellent production but seemed to have little to do with Watchmen . Still its early days and I'll keep watching .

 

I caught the premiere episode last night and it's a typical Damon Lindelof setting and narrative where the viewer is not given much to go on. The audience is dropped into the proverbial deep end of the pool in this new retelling of Watchmen and must dog paddle to keep their head above water to get bits of exposition and world building or drown themselves in confusion and trying to make sense of everything right off the bat. Again, since HBO's Watchmen is written by Lindelof, it's most likely going to be a slow burn and some questions probably won't be definitely answered.

At any rate, this first episode does has a large amount of controversial elements and themes; the most obvious is racism and how's it's handled within the story.

Although, this is an original story that follows thirty 30 years after the events from the comic book series (at least according to one article I read this morning), there are familiar story beats and connections to Alan Moore's Watchmen. Regina Kings character would appear to be the character the audience will follow in uncovering the mysteries and happening of HBO's Watchmen. And so, I have some speculations...

Spoiler: speculative potential spoilers

I think Jeremy Irons' character is Dr. Manhattan and may have created the Funhouse incident or some type of incident (perhaps causing squids falling from the sky) that ended the race war.

The Rorschach appears to be a metaphor for the KKK. But I think they're determine to expose Dr. Manhattan's fake event (like squid invasion).

 

I'm pretty sure Jeremy Irons is

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Ozymandias.

I think what's going on is that after the events of 1985 Redford became Democrat President and stayed on for 30 years, this has created a fascist rebellion group who are trying to get overthrow it .

 

That was the popular wisdom leading up to the premier but ...

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... the headline of a newspaper that was shown read "Veidt Officially Declared Dead". So they're at least trying to make it seem that Irons could be playing someone else.

 

Plus Jeremy Irons' character...

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somewhat of a watch maker or it very knowledgeable about watches.

I watched the episode late at night and fell asleep a few times. I'll probably watch it again tonight.

 

yah I am still going with Irons is

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Adrian Veidlt, I mean, I'm pretty sure he would fake his death and all if he and another secret save the world plan going on, besides, I think it's a little too cultured for Doc Manhattan and if he made assistants, they probably wouldn't give him a horseshoe to cut a cake with.

The guy in the wheelchair I think is Doc Manhattan in some form, or he's at least connected to him cuz he was the "Watch Over this Boy" kid from the start of the episode. Also a trailer has him saying "I'm Doctor Manhattan." It would require an expansion of Doc's abilities if he was a person in a different form, though, but not much a stretch. Doc can't travel through time, he just sort of lives it all at once, so when the kid was separated from his parents, John would have been a watchmaker's son at that time as well (or was he even born yet?)

There was a whole bit when Don Johnson was talking on the phone but I didn't hear much cuz I was concentrating on the Watchmen/Minutemen graphic above.

Speaking of Don Johnson's character, I think when he was talking that lonely drive I suddenly thought he was going to bite it. Because the trailers had all used his footage from the 1st episode at that point, Lindeolf wanted to kill off Jack in the pilot episode of Lost years ago, and Johnson just announced a Nash Bridges revival so, yah, he was dead.

And maybe he was Nite Owl. Him and Silk Spectre went undercover when they left Ozzy, and his character did have, y'know, the freakin' Owl Ship and all. Not exactly keeping it undercover if he has and is an unmasked chief of police flying the Owl Ship but you never know, it would be a way to connect him to the larger narrative history. (also, like the Watchmen mini, it opens with a mysterious murder!) But if the wheelchair old guy is Doc Manhattan then why would he kill Nite Owl?

Kind of sad that the 7th Cavalry took Rorsarch's ID and twisted it (I don't buy the opinion that Rorsarch is a villain, guy has a code if very dark), but maybe that was because his journal ended up in the New Fronistermen office. And him saying that Ozzy is behind it all (but he didn't know about the squid when he sent it) probably stewed distrust. Anyway, it looks like the cop character with the shining mask (that was such a cool effect) is sort of the Roarsarch cool version, who isn't as crazy. Maybe, yet.

We got squid alien invasions, yay! And when the cop was talking to the students you can see poster of important presidents and on there is both Nixon and Redford.

The whole pull over scene was great, especially the bit with the unlocking of the firearm and the lettuce being thrown in there.

 

So, here's my evidence for who I think Jeremy Irons' character is...

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I think he has to be Doctor Manhattan.
1. Adrian's parents are German, but I'm pretty sure he's American born. He wouldn't have a British accent, and this isn't very similar to how Adrian behaves in the comic.
2. As for why Jon (who was actually born in Germany) would have a British accent, well, he's clearly playing a part. This is him emulating human behavior by inserting himself into a role, into an archetype of the wealthy British lord, which would explain the eccentric behavior.
3. The two servants would be the human life he said he wanted to create at the end of the comic. It would explain why they behave so oddly, so sycophantically, and why the man goofed and offered a horseshoe instead of a knife to cut the cake; Doc Manhattan didn't make them perfectly.
4. It's easy to assume that the anniversary in question is the anniversary of Ozymandias "saving" the world with the giant squid, since nobody in the episode seems to be discussing the anniversary of an alien monster killing half New York the way we talk about the anniversary of 9/11, I think it's more likely the anniversary of Jon Osterman having his intrinsic field removed or the day he fully pulled himself together as Doctor Manhattan.
5. When we see Jon on Mars, he's creating and then destroying a castle similar to the one we see Irons' character living in. He might have some sort of pocket reality, which would further explain the anachronistic steampunk tech we see him futzing around with in the "in the weeks to come" trailer.
6. The Watchmaker's Son. I mean, c'mon, that one is pretty obvious and on the nose, and correspondingly the one thing that makes me think it might not be him, but on the other hand I think they intended it as the moment when you start to realize this isn't Adrian as everyone's assumed.
7. This one I just thought of, but his casual nudity sitting in the chair as his female servant massages his thighs struck me as pretty Doc Manhattanesque.
8. The male servant's little speech about how difficult it was to make the pocket watch, about putting the pieces in the correct sequence, is eerily similar to Doc Manhattan's own inner monologue/narration from his origin story issue.

That's all I can think of for now. As for how I feel about the rest of the show: it might be my favorite thing I've watched all year. I've never encountered a piece of media that made me feel exactly like I did reading the comic for the first time, which remains to this day one of my favorite pieces of comics literature. I spent the entire hour feeling deeply uneasy, tense, confused, and was desperately trying to piece together bits and pieces of information to understand the nature of the story's world. I haven't been able to recommend it highly enough to anyone who's asked what I thought. I still felt lightheaded from watching it twenty minutes after it ended.

 

Interesting post above

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I do think having Irons be Old Ozzy is more satisfying follow up for Adrian as opposed to killing him off offhandedly on a newspaper headline, but he did get misty eyed at the watch which is more of a Doc thing than an Ozzy thing, and those flukey servants could be his new life. Although, I do like if Adrian just made robo-people and screwed up cuz he's Adrian and he isn't as perfect as he thinks he is.

That Panda character was amazing and everyone was mad at him and his proclamation about their firearms, I hope he gets a centric episode.

I am still convinced that Don Johnson's character was Nite Owl, though, and he'll probably be in every episode via flashbacks because Lindeolf loves flashbacks and Watchmen loves flashbacks.

Alan Moore has his name stripped off of anything and everything film produced, except on the Crave app in Canada on Bell he’s listed as one of the creators in the credits on the site, I guess Crave in Canada didn’t get the memo so I would say that Crave/Bell will be cursed by tree monsters sent to the poor app developer’s house who was just trying to be helpful but Crave/Bell is cursed anyway.

 

So, saw this at New York Comic Con. I really enjoyed it. But I am really excited for when Jean Smart arrives which is episode 3.

As to Irons:

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He was introduced as "Probably who you think he is". They all but said in the panel he was Ozymandias. Actually, I think at one point one of them even slipped on that by referring to him as Veidt possibly.

Looking forward to more. The premise so far is intriguing.

 

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I feel like you're probably supposed to be thinking he's Manhattan right now bc of the newspaper headline, but he'll turn out to be Ozy.

 

interview with Lindeolf with footnotes pretty definitely states who Jean Smart (spoiler, didn't know that but cool) and Jeremy Irons is playing.

 

I have a hard time believing

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Johnson was Nite Owl, simply because him using the owl ship seems too obvious.

I think it's a red herring and we will later find out Nite Owl is alive. I hope. He is my fav.

Definitely liked it even though I don't know what's going on yet

 

^Also

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I thought Johnson's character showed a lack of familiarity with the owl ship, not knowing its limits or understanding what powered it, both of which the real Nite Owl would know.

 

Exactly.

 

There's some speculation that LGJ (the old man in the wheelchair) is a long retired Hooded Justice and that's why he so easily figured out Regina King is Sister Night. He once lead a very similar life.

 

Ok, so I finally got around to seeing the premiere. Like many here, I loved it, I think it's an extremely thoughtful addition to this universe so far.

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I think Louis Gosset Jr. turning out to be Hooded Justice would be a bit of a stretch. I thought it was "established" that Hooded Justice was the German strongman Rolf Muller in the book, and in the movie he had a German accent when he beat up the Comedian. I don't recall his identity ever being totally concluded though.

The squid rain scene...that was awesome. That was such a beautiful way of letting us know that Zack Snyder's lack of Veidt's Giant alien monster squid thing was immaterial and that we're getting a continuation of the book and not the movie. I think. There are a ton of great questions this episode set up and I'm pretty pumped about having them answered in the weeks to come.

Edit: Thanks to @BigAl6ft6 I didn't read your comment on the previous page until now.

Veidt declared officially dead. No. I think He's resourceful enough to have faked his own death and that that's exactly who Jeremy Irons is. And what's up with his servants? Robots perhaps? Until a better explanation is presented I'm going with robots.

I love Sister Night as kind of a focal point...a grounding character to all of this somehow, and I think she's totally badass. Same goes for Looking Glass as someone in her periphery and has GOT to have a killer backstory, I hope we get some of that.

 

I think Lindelof is doing an alternate version of the Watchmen universe , and he's expanded it back to perhaps the civil war where things went a little differently.

 

He’s said before that the original comic is being held as gospel for the show, so everything that happened or was revealed by the graphic novel should be 100% canon in respect to this series.

 

That's such a huge part of why this makes me so happy.

 

When I started watching ep1 I assumed Lindelöf had made-up that barking mad race-riot with aeroplanes attacking the African Americans on the ground as alternate history. After the episode I went onto the net and discovered the Tulsa Massacre was a real thing. Just mind-blowingly horrible. I'd never heard of that before.

 

It's heavily implied that they were the same person with about the same amount of credibility as it's implied that The Comedian killed him, both of which are, for an Alan Moore comic, basically a slam dunk.

Funnily enough given this discussion, there was kind of this long-standing fan theory for a while (floated in at least one academic paper!) that he actually shows up in this panel:


Strong jawline, a mustache, clearly on a date with a man who looks a bit like Hood's old boyfriend ("Perhaps he's also still alive?!" was the natural conclusion), bow ties that suggest vigilante domino masks, it seemed like an interesting idea... that fell apart when Dave Gibbons pointed out their looks weren't specified in Alan Moore's notoriously detailed script and he didn't have them in mind when he drew the two gentlemen. Oops.

 

Yup. The 'American History' classes most kids are required to take are less about 'American History' and more about 'White American History'.

 

I took history of the Americas, so it definitely wasn't all white history (since this included central, south, and Caribbean America)... But I still hadn't heard about this.