The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

[Stephen Day]

I was recently watching Watchmen again and I still enjoy that movie overall. Shortly after that I watched a couple of episodes from the first season of Game of Thrones. The later got me thinking about the former and what would have happened if Watchmen had been made as an HBO series instead of as a theatrical movie. I was wondering what everybody else thought about this. Would it have been better? Would it have been worse? What do you think would have been different?

[Timbales]

I think a slavish, shot for panel miniseries version of Watchmen would have been a big snoozefest.

[covalesky]

It would probably focus on the political aspects of Watchmen. If thats your cup of tea, then it would be awesome.

[Strict31]

Not a full series, but a miniseries. We've talked about exactly this sort of thing on the board before, though. I think it would have worked better in some aspects. But for the most part, the movie captured the character studies it needed to. Rorschach, for instance was pretty much on point, and I don't think a series on HBO would have done the character any more justice than the film did.

Maybe a series could have blended the comic-within-a-comic scenes. Maybe a miniseries would do a better job of integrating the squid. But to be honest, I don't think time was the major problem for those two elements. I can totally understand why the squid was not added to the story; it would have looked absurd. It would have come across as absurd. A longer format wouldn't change that.

[Doc Jon]

I was recently watching Watchmen again and I still enjoy that movie overall. Shortly after that I watched a couple of episodes from the first season of Game of Thrones. The later got me thinking about the former and what would have happened if Watchmen had been made as an HBO series instead of as a theatrical movie. I was wondering what everybody else thought about this. Would it have been better? Would it have been worse? What do you think would have been different?

Depends. If it was just a way of doing everything in the book, then I'm glad they didn't.

But if they did something that was set in that world, but expanded on it and sometimes took a different path (a la Walking Dead), I would have been very interested.

[Rockman]

I would have preferred that.

The movie only really cast two of the characters well, Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach. HBO would probably have gotten good actors for every role.

And I wouldn't care for a shot for shot remake, but I would prefer something with the spirit of the original work. I felt like Snyder's film captured a lot of imagery from the book well, but the point of the book kind of got lost in his own style.

Oh and the ending for the movie was freaking stupid.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

I would love to hear specific examples of what themes from the book the movie got wrong. I thought it was a great adaptation.

[Doc Jon]

I would have preferred that.

The movie only really cast two of the characters well, Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach. HBO would probably have gotten good actors for every role.

And I wouldn't care for a shot for shot remake, but I would prefer something with the spirit of the original work. I felt like Snyder's film captured a lot of imagery from the book well, but the point of the book kind of got lost in his own style.

Oh and the ending for the movie was freaking stupid.

The ending of the movie was better than the book.

It's true.

[Rockman]

I would love to hear specific examples of what themes from the book the movie got wrong. I thought it was a great adaptation.

If you're addressing me, then you should reread what I said. I didn't say it got anything with the themes wrong.

What I said, or meant, was that Snyder's style which is just loud and noisy (in my opinion) didn't allow for some of the subtleties of the work to come through. I felt that Night Owl was all wrong, the action was too over the top to be properly jarring and upsetting, and a lot of the political commentary was lost in the movie.

And the ending was stupid. Why would the rest of the world team up with America when it was their guy who attacked them? More than likely it would cause world war 3 quicker than anything. The alien squid thing would look stupid on screen perhaps, but at least an alien threat makes a better reason for a truce than America's very public weapon going rogue.

[Rockman]

The ending of the movie was better than the book.

It's true.

It was awful.

[Doc Jon]

If you're addressing me, then you should reread what I said. I didn't say it got anything with the themes wrong.

What I said, or meant, was that Snyder's style which is just loud and noisy (in my opinion) didn't allow for some of the subtleties of the work to come through. I felt that Night Owl was all wrong, the action was too over the top to be properly jarring and upsetting, and a lot of the political commentary was lost in the movie.

And the ending was stupid. Why would the rest of the world team up with America when it was their guy who attacked them? More than likely it would cause world war 3 quicker than anything. The alien squid thing would look stupid on screen perhaps, but at least an alien threat makes a better reason for a truce than America's very public weapon going rogue.

Because he also attacked America. It looked to the world that he attacked everyone and that's why they would ban together against a common threat.

Also, it makes Dr. Manhattan public enemy number 1 and he would literally have no reason to stay on the planet. He's too powerful and causes imbalance. This is never really addressed in the book. He just conveniently decides to leave.

The movie makes more sense in this regard.

[David Bird]

I think a mini series would be a good idea--and just because a movie has been done, that's no reason they can't also do a mini series. The chief benefit would be that the added would enable them to develop all of the personal moments that the movie had to jettison due to time restraints.

[Rockman]

Because he also attacked America. It looked to the world that he attacked everyone and that's why they would ban together against a common threat.

Also, it makes Dr. Manhattan public enemy number 1 and he would literally have no reason to stay on the planet. He's too powerful and causes imbalance. This is never really addressed in the book. He just conveniently decides to leave.

The movie makes more sense in this regard.

The other countries would team up against the American government and hold them responsible for the disaster.

And it made perfect sense why Dr. Manhattan left in the comics.

[Doc Jon]

The other countries would team up against the American government and hold them responsible for the disaster.

And it made perfect sense why Dr. Manhattan left in the comics.

Yeah, but it's not something that Veidt could have counted on in the comics. By making him an enemy of the world, there's no reason for him to stay.

And why would the other countries team up on America? I mean, I get the general idea, but that just leads to global destruction. A common enemy provides that.

Look at the comic. A squid monster hits the US and Dr. Manhattan leaves. SO you have a weakened US with their most powerful entity gone. Why wouldn't they attack then?

See? The argument can still be made either way. The movie makes sense as much as the comic does, and I think it tied things together better.

[Rockman]

An attack on New York wouldn't weaken the U.S. military, so the comics don't really present that problem for the U.S.

The whole point of Veidts plan was to prevent global catastrophe, using America's greatest weapon on every nation on the planet is going to create a huge problem. and you can believe that no one in those other countries would believe that the attack on america was actually real.