How ‘Watchmen’ Balances Pleasing Comic Book Fans And Newcomers Alike
By Rafael Motamayor/Nov. 16, 2019 1:00 pm EST
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal graphic novel Watchmen is a dense and complex work. When the HBO adaptation was announced, the biggest question would be how closely it would follow the graphic novel, and whether you needed to read it beforehand. The truth is, you can argue both for and against reading the graphic novel, it just depends on what you want out of Watchmen. This is a show that rewards long-time fans, but which also offers a unique experience for newcomers.
A Comedian Died In New York
The first episode doesn’t really address the source material that much, except in passing. There’s that weird squid rain, a quick shot of a blue being living on Mars, and a TV show that we occasionally cut to that recounts the story of a group of superheroes. Other than that, we’re pretty much watching a standalone story.In an interview with Esquire, Damon Lindelof, the creator of HBO’s Watchmen, compared watching this adaptation to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, which he saw before the first Godfather. As Lindelof tells it, “If you watch The Godfather 2 first, and you don’t even know that The Godfather exists, you can still totally understand it. That’s because it’s basically Don Corleone’s story with all De Niro’s flashbacks.” Crafting an adaptation of a popular property that welcomes newcomers is no easy task, and it seems like the creators of Watchmen didn’t take it lightly. “You can see our Watchmen before you read the graphic novel, but you might want to go back, you might want to read the graphic novel, because it will give you a deeper and more richer understanding of how all these things are connected, but you don’t need to.“Indeed, Watchmen offers different experiences depending on how familiar you are with the story. You may argue that you need to have read Moore and Gibbons’ work so you appreciate all the symbolism and references to the graphic novel, as well as the ways the show deconstructs and subverts the comic. HBO’s show isn’t really a direct sequel, nor is it a remake, but a little bit of both, as well as something new. Lindelof has long referred to this show as a “remix” of Watchmen, both in an Instagram post, and again during the press tour shortly before the show’s premiere. Talking to Rolling Stone, the creator explained what this meant. ““I called this thing a remix, because it doesn’t feel like a sequel to me. But it does by the traditional rules of a sequel, in that this chronologically follows the original. But it’s also kind of a prequel, because this story starts in 1921, which predates any of the events of the comic.”
How ‘Watchmen’ Balances Pleasing Comic Book Fans And Newcomers Alike
By Rafael Motamayor/Nov. 16, 2019 1:00 pm EST
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ seminal graphic novel Watchmen is a dense and complex work. When the HBO adaptation was announced, the biggest question would be how closely it would follow the graphic novel, and whether you needed to read it beforehand. The truth is, you can argue both for and against reading the graphic novel, it just depends on what you want out of Watchmen. This is a show that rewards long-time fans, but which also offers a unique experience for newcomers.
A Comedian Died In New York
The first episode doesn’t really address the source material that much, except in passing. There’s that weird squid rain, a quick shot of a blue being living on Mars, and a TV show that we occasionally cut to that recounts the story of a group of superheroes. Other than that, we’re pretty much watching a standalone story.In an interview with Esquire, Damon Lindelof, the creator of HBO’s Watchmen, compared watching this adaptation to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II, which he saw before the first Godfather. As Lindelof tells it, “If you watch The Godfather 2 first, and you don’t even know that The Godfather exists, you can still totally understand it. That’s because it’s basically Don Corleone’s story with all De Niro’s flashbacks.” Crafting an adaptation of a popular property that welcomes newcomers is no easy task, and it seems like the creators of Watchmen didn’t take it lightly. “You can see our Watchmen before you read the graphic novel, but you might want to go back, you might want to read the graphic novel, because it will give you a deeper and more richer understanding of how all these things are connected, but you don’t need to.“Indeed, Watchmen offers different experiences depending on how familiar you are with the story. You may argue that you need to have read Moore and Gibbons’ work so you appreciate all the symbolism and references to the graphic novel, as well as the ways the show deconstructs and subverts the comic. HBO’s show isn’t really a direct sequel, nor is it a remake, but a little bit of both, as well as something new. Lindelof has long referred to this show as a “remix” of Watchmen, both in an Instagram post, and again during the press tour shortly before the show’s premiere. Talking to Rolling Stone, the creator explained what this meant. ““I called this thing a remix, because it doesn’t feel like a sequel to me. But it does by the traditional rules of a sequel, in that this chronologically follows the original. But it’s also kind of a prequel, because this story starts in 1921, which predates any of the events of the comic.”
