The Big Picture: There Will Never Be Another Watchmen

[Daaaah Whoosh]

As far as I can tell, Watchmen fleshed out the backstories of its characters far too much to leave anything of value for these prequels. Rorschach was kind of dull before he lost his faith in humanity, Nite Owl's only interesting quality is that he's incredibly normal, Silk Spectre hated being a vigilante, and Dr. Manhattan doesn't really have a timeline after being blown up, at least not as far as he's concerned. Anything left out of the original Watchmen, unless I'm not thinking of something, is probably too dull to make anything out of, except for some unimaginative superhero comic where some cool people beat up a bad guy because they're just nice like that.

 

[NinjaDC]

I think its less of DC conceding nothing will surpass watchman, and more DC conceding they need a boost in their stock value fast.

 

[walsfeo]

I don't see why there wouldn't be good stories to tell in the Watchmen history. I don't have a lot of hope it'll be a grand series, but it has as much of an opportunity to be mighty as any other.

 

[Hoplon]

Yeah, the prequels being lame has nothing to do with Alan Moore not writing them, it has to do with them being either pointless retreads (all the most significant stuff for any of the characters happens in the original) or hack fuck ups of those characters that make the original make no sense.

the end of the film is by far the least of it's problems (shit they had to do something with it) it's more the use of slow mo and the action sequences suddenly turning mostly ordinary people in to superhumans and making it ultra violence porn that makes the director seem like he missed the point as much as people like rob liefeld did.

 

[walsfeo]

Holy Fuck you did not just say Adam Hughes is a "big talent"

Just GIS "Adam Hughes" and you'll he represents the very worst elements of comic book art since Liefeld.

Wait.. why? I don't know the guy, but just checked out his site and it looks pretty good.

 

[Zorg Machine]

On the subject of the ending change in the movie vs. the comic: Yeah, the movie one makes more sense in a thematic context, but not really in a logical context. I'll continue my post under a spoiler covering:

Spoiler

The made-up alien invader in the comic, in my opinion, works far better than pinning the power plant catastrophes on Dr. Manhattan, because, in the eyes of the world, Dr. Manhattan is someone we're familiar with. He may be super powerful, but he's not entirely beyond human. He's still labeled as an AMERICAN, for chrissakes. I can't see every country in the world believing that Dr. Manhattan went rogue, whereas the alien invader is completely and utterly unknown to us. Introducing an enemy that is totally alien to us works better IMO than trying to paint a superhero as a sudden traitor against humanity as a whole.

But, I will say that in translating the book to the movie, that ending change was necessary to keep it from going too long, and was probably the best solution Hayter and Tse could have come up with.

Spoiler

First of all, I can't believe that the sentence "well the fake giant space monster makes a lot more sense" is spoken by a so many people.
OT, everyone knew that Dr manhattan was insanely powerful and they knew that he had (inadvertently) killed protestors with a flick of his wrist. After that, they saw that he was clearly not human during his TV interview. This is enough to cause a lot of people to worry a little but then he completely flipped his shit and teleported away. Suddenly, an entire city gets killed of and the smartest people in the world all say that the manhattan radiation is everywhere...not to mention that it is fairly difficult for anyone other than him to do this. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't say: "maybe this was actually a massive conspiracy made by the worlds smartest person".

I liked the movie ending more...it just seemed a lot less likely to have been thought up during a drunk party.

 

[Shadowstar38]

I dont think this is inherently a bad idea. Sure its not Alan Moore, but as Bob said, alot of talented people are working on this. It might end up suprising anyone who reads it.

You dont have no read them, but no need to rage reguardless.

 

[JasonBurnout16]

Wait, there was a different ending? I've only seen the film so didn't know.

Anyone want to enlighten to me what the alternate ending is??

 

[Diane Miller]

Actually, I only heard about the prequels last week, and fully intend to ignore them. Your comments about the state of the Marvel/DC universe, though, give the principal reason I haven't read comics on any kind of a regular basis since about 1986. Except for a couple of minor "gee, that looks vaguely interesting", there really hasn't been anything worth reading.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

This is why if I were to create something that became a success like Watchmen (or Star Wars, or Star Trek, or Superman, or indeed anything) I'd refuse to give up the rights to it to a corporation and I'd be sure to maintain 100% creative control and all times.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

This just reinforces my stance on the comic industry being in one, big stagnant state ever since the post-Dark Age collapse. The closest thing comics have had to a second Watchmen has been the Batman film series.

 

[Shjade]

Wait, there was a different ending? I've only seen the film so didn't know.

Anyone want to enlighten to me what the alternate ending is??

Spoiler

The comic's ending is roughly the same in terms of mechanics. However, instead of using a copy of Manhattan's energy to do the deed, Ozymandias teleports a genetically engineered "alien" creature with the massive cloned brain of a human psychic filled with imagery of anger, violence and hate into the city. Teleportation technology kills anything living once it reaches the other side (only Manhattan can teleport people safely), and when it dies it unloads a psychic shockwave that kills everyone within X miles, hundreds of thousands more just outside that range are driven mad by the psychic visions, and "sensitives" around the world are flooded with this imagery, enough to be convincing that a force bent on wiping out the human race has arrived.

Even shorter version: instead of nuking cities, Ozymandias drops a psychic bomb on the entire world.

Personally, while I think the film's altered ending makes more narrative sense in tying the characters so tightly to the events, I think the comic's ending - as bizarre as this is going to sound, considering what that ending is - works better in terms of likeliness to succeed. As others have mentioned above, though he is definitively inhuman, Manhattan is definitely seen as a distinctly American figure.

Spoiler

"American powerhouse gone rogue" just doesn't have the same nation-binding impact as "Aliens invade Earth."

 

[daxterx2005]

Can't say I care either way. I've seen the movie and gave the comics a read, they're meh tier.

 

[El Dwarfio]

Too right there wont, because the first one was shit.

I fail to see the discussion here

 

[Lono Shrugged]

Holy Fuck you did not just say Adam Hughes is a "big talent"

Just GIS "Adam Hughes" and you'll he represents the very worst elements of comic book art since Liefeld.

Wait.. why? I don't know the guy, but just checked out his site and it looks pretty good.

He's not BAD he just has this habit of really oversexualizing his female characters. Which I guess is ok for some people, but considering MovieBob is supposed to be a forward thinking comic book nerd that threw me for a loop.

The Liefeld remark might have been a little overdramatic...

EDIT: and as bad as he is (IMO) he's certainly no Greg Horn http://www.blogcdn.com/www.comicsalliance.com/media/2011/04/batman-and-catwoman.v4.jpg

 

[Axolotl]

Actually, I only heard about the prequels last week, and fully intend to ignore them. Your comments about the state of the Marvel/DC universe, though, give the principal reason I haven't read comics on any kind of a regular basis since about 1986. Except for a couple of minor "gee, that looks vaguely interesting", there really hasn't been anything worth reading.

OK I don't want to say you're wrong or bad or anything like that, you read whatever you want I don't want to come across as telling you what you should enjoy but my inner comic nerd won't let me rest unless I post this for the record.

A Condensed List of Great Comics Post-1985:
Hellblazer,
Animal Man,
The Sandman,
The Invisibles,
Arkham Asylum,
From Hell,
Transmetropolitan,
Kingdom Come,
Marvels,
The Ultimates,
Planetary,
The Authority,
Top Ten,
The Filth,
Irredeemable,
Wanted,
Final Crisis,

And probably more that I can't remember right now.

 

[Trishbot]

Am I the only one that likes Watchmen, both comics AND movies, but thinks they're far from sacred holy ground that should never be tampered with?

Can you imagine if only Stan Lee was ever allowed to write Spider-man, Fantastic Four, or X-men? Can you imagine if Bob Kane was the only person to ever touch Batman? Even Todd McFarlane's Spawn received a boost from new writers and artists.

Watchmen is good. It is. But it's very narrow-minded to assume that NO good stories could be told in that universe, that NO good character arcs and new characters could come from new creative talent, and that NO work will ever surpass the originals due to sheer nostalgia and narrow-minded thinking.

To me, that's like saying Empire Strikes Back should never have been made because George Lucas didn't direct it, the new "True Grit" movie shouldn't exist because John Wayne was great in his role decades ago, or that they should never have made more than one Final Fantasy game because the creators didn't intend on the original game spawning a franchise.