For me, the aliens thing works in the comics because Moore spent so much time setting it up. The poets, artists, psychics, and biologists being “kidnapped” and working on the island was integral to the main plot. It’s literally the genesis for the murder mystery. The Comedian uncovers the whole scheme because he stumbles on the island. It’s a big part of the puzzle.
At the same time, Ozy’s autobiographical tale helps set up the idea that only an unconventional, genius plan will derail the inevitability of a nuclear war. Ozy’s journey inspires him to create an outlandish and insane plot because he figures out that it’s the only way to distract the world from the fatalistic path to MAD. Other-dimensional alien invasion it is.
But, because Snyder and WB didn’t want to make a miniseries, and instead decided to cram everything into one movie, stuff had to be cut. Almost all of Ozy’s narrative went out. The kidnapping red herring (that wasn’t a red herring at all) got tossed. And the central mystery had to be compressed into something that could be digested in two or three hours. Drop the alien invasion stuff and tie it all back to Doc Manhattan.
It’s not an inelegant solution for the movie’s needs, but it removes the absurdity that’s needed at the end. The kick of Watchmen is that the solution to save the world is a complete farce. It’s ridiculous and goofy and dumb on purpose. It’s supposed to be skewering the normal comic villain world destruction plan. The aftermath panels showing the death and destruction in NYC bring it home. (Note how sanitized and distantly this is depicted in the movie by having Jon and Laurie peer into a hole.) Millions of people will die for an alien invasion practical joke to save billions.
Yeah, good summary about the other missing components to really make the alien-dimensional attack fit better. That plotline also just works better in mid-80s comics than it would in a modern movie featuring largely powerless people who dress up and play superhero.
I do think the sanitized destruction in the movie was solely due to wanting to avoid 9/11 imagery. Cloverfield got attacked for deliberately including it, even though doing so was very effective.
The other reason using Manhattan instead of introducing another element works is because the seeds of that plot are present in Moore’s books as well – Oxy’s plan already depends upon making Manhattan potentially dangerous and turning people against him.
I would have been fine with sticking with the book’s plot entirely, since I prefer faithful adaptations generally, even though doing so ignores the relative strengths of different mediums - but since so much of Moore’s Watchmen can’t be translated directly to the screen (the quantity of writing, the length of the story in general as a movie), the changes made in Snyder’s movie seemed like the one obvious cut (like the Scouring of the Shire in LotR)
I think the movie catastrophe could have worked if they made it more shocking. Maybe if NY was pompeii’ed instead of generic movie explosion #9, that would have been sufficiently different from 9/11. But that change is the least of my complaints about this wreck.
Didn’t Lindelof redeem himself with the Leftovers? I thought the Leftovers was a really well-received show? I’ve read positive things here at Qt3 and other publications like Vox, and I’ve seen it on many “underappreciated TV shows” lists.
I never watched Lost, so I can’t speak to redemption. But The Leftovers is some of the best television I have ever seen, so I’d say he’s definitely earned some consideration for future projects.
Can’t say I’ve heard anything about the Leftovers, so can’t comment on that. Kinda surprises me since it seems to have been going for a few years. guess Game of Thrones just drowns out all other HBO shows.
As for Lindelof, his CV doesn’t instill me with confidence: Apart form Lost there’s Cowboys and Aliens, Prometheus, Star Trek into Darkness, Tomorrowland.
Leftovers takes a mysterious supernatural event, and makes the show entirely about the human fallout of that event. The characters struggle to deal with it and search for answers, but the show never promises to provide any answers about the event to the audience, and I think that’s why it succeeds.
Early episodes felt a lot like LOST, right down to the flashback structure. Episodes would shift focus to different characters and slowly fill in the picture of both what happened in their past to drive who they are today, and to fill in details of what they experienced in the “Sudden Departure” (the big mysterious vanishing of 2% of the world’s population). And of course the relationships between the characters are slowly being developed or teased out along the way.
But the show never goes off the rails because it never has to give answers, and focusing on the drama between characters searching for those answers is great (also as a strength of LOST, but not as consistently).
All that said, having watched all of LOST and The Leftovers, I have no idea how to set expectations for Lindelof adapting something like Watchmen; the stories are nothing alike in structure.
But that’s not an easy tightrope to walk, running a show that’s all questions and no answers. Ask David Lynch about season two of Twin Peaks. No really, ask him, I bet it would be fun.
Someone else from the Leftovers thread should weigh in since I forgot to point out that it’s also adapted from a book, although only really the first season. The other two seasons were made up just for the show I think.
First season of Leftovers is very compelling. The season 2 episode where Eccleston experiences his trials is fantastically written and produced. A Watchmen series would definitely have a good potential with Lindelof.
