Watchmen was pitched as a reshuffling of the original graphic novel rather than strictly a sequel. That's finally starting to make more sense. At first, I won't lie I was a little disappointed by the lack of focus on the zany elements from the original. Part of what makes the graphic novel so important to me is just how well it blended an absolutely scathing critique on American culture and the political climate, how we love to see ourselves as saviors when we might just be sad, ignorant, and confused. If the lingering questions at the conclusion of the graphic novel series are: what was the point? Are we better off not trying? Was Ozymandias actually a savior? Then Lindelof's series takes those questions and makes them even murkier.
We've been reshuffling in an effort to shape this series into something that applies to today. To turn a critical eye on 2010's American Culture of hyper-vigilance and ultra-tight racial tensions as tied to the inaction of the past. It's singular. It is exactly the kind of drastic measures needed in order to make this pseudo-adaptation work. Rather than adapt the plot of the graphic novel, Lindelof opted to adapt the core tone and themes. It's the reason why this feels truer to Watchmen than what we got from Snyder. It understands the circumstances of the cynicism far better and therefore gets that trying to pit 80s paranoia and panic into today will feel off-kilter. Watchmen doesn't need to be about the 80s. It needs to be about how that panic from the past seeps into the very being of today and about how flawed individuals choose to deal with it, particularly in terms of how we view vigilante heroism through the lens of a modern cultural climate.
That got heady. Sorry. But it was necessary to get to my thoughts on this episode.
This Extraordinary Being is precisely what happens as the culmination of all the rumination of the writers based upon their intentions and skill. We see strife, correlated to today as a result of the past. We see recontextualized characters, deeply othered by how we viewed them. We see intersectionality driven so deep into the psyche of the show that it makes little effort to clue us in. We are just in it. I truly was struck by this episode.
I usually use comparisons to express my reviews. This feels like the kind of piece Joker could have been if it understood nuance, film history, and the basic understanding of how American history plays on the present (I won't go into that further because it honestly irritates me that Joker got any acclaim, now even more so with This Extraordinary Being in existence). This is the kind of superhero show that we get from the zeitgeist of Get Out and Atlanta's Teddy Perkins.
Review by filmboicoleBlockedParent2019-12-03T14:11:54Z
Watchmen was pitched as a reshuffling of the original graphic novel rather than strictly a sequel. That's finally starting to make more sense. At first, I won't lie I was a little disappointed by the lack of focus on the zany elements from the original. Part of what makes the graphic novel so important to me is just how well it blended an absolutely scathing critique on American culture and the political climate, how we love to see ourselves as saviors when we might just be sad, ignorant, and confused. If the lingering questions at the conclusion of the graphic novel series are: what was the point? Are we better off not trying? Was Ozymandias actually a savior? Then Lindelof's series takes those questions and makes them even murkier.
We've been reshuffling in an effort to shape this series into something that applies to today. To turn a critical eye on 2010's American Culture of hyper-vigilance and ultra-tight racial tensions as tied to the inaction of the past. It's singular. It is exactly the kind of drastic measures needed in order to make this pseudo-adaptation work. Rather than adapt the plot of the graphic novel, Lindelof opted to adapt the core tone and themes. It's the reason why this feels truer to Watchmen than what we got from Snyder. It understands the circumstances of the cynicism far better and therefore gets that trying to pit 80s paranoia and panic into today will feel off-kilter. Watchmen doesn't need to be about the 80s. It needs to be about how that panic from the past seeps into the very being of today and about how flawed individuals choose to deal with it, particularly in terms of how we view vigilante heroism through the lens of a modern cultural climate.
That got heady. Sorry. But it was necessary to get to my thoughts on this episode.
This Extraordinary Being is precisely what happens as the culmination of all the rumination of the writers based upon their intentions and skill. We see strife, correlated to today as a result of the past. We see recontextualized characters, deeply othered by how we viewed them. We see intersectionality driven so deep into the psyche of the show that it makes little effort to clue us in. We are just in it. I truly was struck by this episode.
I usually use comparisons to express my reviews. This feels like the kind of piece Joker could have been if it understood nuance, film history, and the basic understanding of how American history plays on the present (I won't go into that further because it honestly irritates me that Joker got any acclaim, now even more so with This Extraordinary Being in existence). This is the kind of superhero show that we get from the zeitgeist of Get Out and Atlanta's Teddy Perkins.
Damn.