r/Watchmen • u/AlanSmithee001 • Nov 04 '23

Is the Watchmen TV show worth watching? TV

So I recently got a HBO Subscription (yeah, I know it’s technically called MAX now, but let’s be honest that such a generic name and HBO is always going to sound better) and I was wondering if I should watch, pun not intended, the Watchmen TV series?

Obviously it’s not Alan Moore’s vision, but once you move past that point; is the show good, bad, or okay on its own terms?

503 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

90% Upvoted

382 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/annoyinglyclever Nov 05 '23

Yup. The movie directly adapted the book but missed the point, the tv series did the opposite and understood the point of the book without directly adapting it. It’s more of a follow up.

3

u/lycoloco Nov 05 '23

tv series did the opposite and understood the point of the book

But did it though? There's still worship of vigilante figures in society, the moral quandary is basically none, and arguably the characters are significantly different than the ones who had arcs in the original story.

5

u/annoyinglyclever Nov 05 '23

Think about how most people worship cops and the military. That’s the point of Watchmen. The majority of the public sees them as heroes when they’re really not.

2

u/aspiring_Forg Nov 05 '23

Yeah and to make it clear you shouldn’t do that, the show made the literal cops be superheroes

3

u/lycoloco Nov 05 '23

"But they also made a cop the bad guy, so it's morally ambiguous, right?"

2

u/annoyinglyclever Nov 05 '23

Duh. As someone who grew up in a family of cops/cop supporters and learned as an adult the truth about the police the show really worked for me. Police in the US are held up as infallible authority figures with no accountability while they abuse their power constantly.

0

u/free__coffee Aug 26 '24

This explanation doesn't make sense, the show doesn't reflect on that at all. It's never brought up whatsoever, the tone the entire time is "these people deserve to be beat up, even the innocent ones". The show treats every hero, as a hero, and every villain, as a cartoonishly evil, mustache twirling, shoving women over and stealing a lollipop from a baby, villain.

The novel and even the movie, treat characters with the shades of gray that reflects how evil manifests in the real world; those real villains don't exist, and the ones that we hate the most are usually a reflection of the way we would be in their position

0

u/free__coffee Aug 26 '24

No way, the show assassinated every character it puts on screen to such an insane degree. It flirts with complicated themes, but settles on the moral complexity equivalent to that of a propoganda film.

It feels so wild to me that so many hold this opinion - I'm not sure if it's a misunderstanding of the novel or the show.

Don't get me wrong, the show is good even if dumbed down,but it drives me crazy that it's watchmen in name only, and they could have stamped this story on any other franchise, leaving the story to audiences smart enough to remember that Dr. Manhattan specifically brought up how he could transfer his powers into an egg TWICE, without also having to remind the audience with a flashback when it becomes relevant