|
Necrothatcher posted:Literally the entire episode up to this point is beating you over the head with how Dr M perceives time. The power of the superhero power fantasy is so strong and so ingrained in our culture that it is difficult for some viewers to understand why Jon just doesn’t bust out and save the day. Iron Man would at least TRY, right?
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 01:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 20:12 |
|
|
Nieuw Amsterdam posted:The power of the superhero power fantasy is so strong and so ingrained in our culture that it is difficult for some viewers to understand why Jon just doesn’t bust out and save the day. Yes, he experiences time differently, but he also completely fails to understand that he is still an actor in the world he lives in. Like, look at his prediction of how he and Angela will have a fight in six months and she'll tell him to leave. It comes time for that to happen so.... he starts a fight with her and makes her mad enough to want him to leave. What does this really show about him?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 01:53
|
|
|
The best thing to come out of this thread is all the posters who are bad at watching TV shows pointing their fingers at other posters and screeching they're bad at watching TV shows when they don't agree with them. Sidenote: Hate watching is definitely a thing, it's how the Sons of Anarchy thread survived so long.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 01:53
|
|
|
stev posted:Sick post/username/avatar combo He’s right. And I don’t even like MOS
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 01:53
|
|
|
Necrothatcher posted:Literally the entire episode up to this point is beating you over the head with how Dr M perceives time. Its not quite right though, is it? Like it apes the format of that issue as well as it could but Dr. Manhattan is still a man who makes mistakes and can be caught off guard by something like the cancer hoax or can become attracted to Laurie through a chance meeting or forget to give her breathable air on Mars. But it doesn't do the "hes only leaving his first girlfriend because he knows he will leave his first girlfriend" thing. It's like the writer became so fixated on that one bit where he tells Laurie he knows she's sleeping with Dan twenty minutes before she tells him that he decided to make his entire character and the entire show structured around that concept when it doesn't really...mesh? I dunno, I've never seen Lost but it seems more like the guy just loves that closed-loop time travel idea and decided to do it becuase he liked doing it on Lost so he just kinda tacked it onto the time-is-relative character?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 01:58
|
|
|
Time travel is a popular trope because the plot holes can be explained with either "who cares lmao" or "there's no plot hole you're just not SMART enough"
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:03
|
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:Its not quite right though, is it? Like it apes the format of that issue as well as it could but Dr. Manhattan is still a man who makes mistakes and can be caught off guard by something like the cancer hoax or can become attracted to Laurie through a chance meeting or forget to give her breathable air on Mars. But it doesn't do the "hes only leaving his first girlfriend because he knows he will leave his first girlfriend" thing. It's like the writer became so fixated on that one bit where he tells Laurie he knows she's sleeping with Dan twenty minutes before she tells him that he decided to make his entire character and the entire show structured around that concept when it doesn't really...mesh? Would it be possible to have this episode end differently on a second viewing?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:04
|
|
|
Was Doc M always jewish?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:04
|
|
|
That is literally how Dr. Manhattan lives his life though. He doesn't have regular powers of prophecy where he can see multiple possible futures, then choose to direct his actions towards a course he likes. He merely already knows what's going to happen while being powerless to stop it. If he hadn't picked a fight with Angela at that specific point in time, then he wouldn't have mentioned that to her in the bar when they met. Instead he would've talked about a different time they'd get into a fight. The fact that they were going to get into a disagreement because of his omniscience eventually was inevitable.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:05
|
|
|
i dont think regina king was good in this ep
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:05
|
|
|
Manhattan doesn't change future events often, generally because he doesn't "care" but also because the way that he sees it there is no "changing". He's experiencing it all simultaneously and sometimes he comments on it, sometimes he sort of looks like he's changing something but he's not really. His conception of "future" events is always informed by the totality of what he's always done and has always known that he's done/going to do. See: the scene where Comedian gets his face slashed in the comic
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:06
|
|
|
Thom and the Heads posted:i dont think regina king was good in this ep Man, this is the worst take in the whole thread right here.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:08
|
|
|
nah the goon who said that this is anywhere close to the quality of twin peaks s3 still has that honor
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:10
|
|
|
Martman posted:I think this misses a lot of how Dr. Manhattan is characterized as a weird manchild though. He’s a puppet who can see the strings. He can’t change anything because to him it already happened. He’s on rails, he has no free will. He doesn’t “decide” anything. He’s not emotionless- he loves, gets horny, gets angry, and so on. But no fear since fear is anxiety about what -might- happen. He knows for sure what will happen. It’s maddening to deal with him because he is never truly present and engaged. Ever. The anti-Buddha. He’s hiding in the closet in 1938 or on Mars in 1985 or being disintegrated in 1959. It’s all happening right now, to the extent he is a tunnel through which you can break causality (we saw this happen last night). Being Dr Manhattan must be horrible.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:11
|
|
|
This episode falls flat I think not because of makeup or because of too much exposition but because it's trying too hard to emulate the story structure of Dr. Manhattan's chapter of Watchmen, The Comic, without understanding what made it so great. The most important thing about Dr. Manhattan as a character is that he's lonely. Dr. Manhattan is an incredibly lonely character, and Alan Moore wrote his chapter around that theme. The whole chapter is Dr. Manhattan's internal monologue. Other characters are flat and in the background, like they're barely there. There is very little dialogue except for this voluble, melancholy narrator. Dr. Manhattan's only real conflict is his need for human contact, which gets more and more difficult as he becomes more and more alien. That conflict makes him relatable and an interesting character despite being invincible and able to resolve pretty much any problem. Dr. Manhattan's tragedy is that he can see himself getting further and further from humanity and it causes him pain, but he can't do anything about it. The episode screws up this formula while trying to imitate it in a couple of ways. First of all, Dr. Manhattan isn't isolated. All his scenes are pretty much having direct conversations with other characters, and the frame story is his wooing Angela. He doesn't narrate that scene, which breaks the structural formula for conveying Dr. Manhattan's primary character trait for the majority of the episode. He's narrating elsewhere but they gave him this long frame story scene that he doesn't narrate and then lots of conversations. So we don't have the isolated, dreamlike quality of the comic chapter or the Watchmen movie, which did succeed in intercutting Dr. Manhattan's story with other characters' but didn't fall into the same traps here. The second thing it messes up is an understanding of how Dr. Manhattan views time, especially in the ending that people have rightly complained about. The thing about Adrian's tachyon generator was not that it killed Dr. Manhattan, it's that it scrambled his future vision because particles were moving backwards in time and messing with the order of events. In the original Dr. M thought this was because of a nuclear war and couldn't see past it. This seemed plausible and worrying to everyone he told this information to. In the show, Dr. Manhattan is aware of the tachyon gun and the events surrounding it, which doesn't mesh with what we know about this from the comics. Dr. Manhattan shouldn't stand there helplessly, but he also shouldn't know about the specifics of the attack. As far as we know Dr. M is invincible (I mean you think these yokels are going to succeed where the smartest man on Earth failed?) but it's messing with his future vision that was critical to the plan in the original Watchmen. Third and worst from a thematic and storytelling standpoint, it takes the core of the character and chucks it in the garbage in service of... what exactly? The evil plan? Dr. M is not a family man. He can't be this character, his core identity is an outsider, receding from the world of humanity as certainly as a photon radiating into space. He's both godlike and remote. The plot probably would have worked if Dr. Manhattan absolutely didn't give a poo poo about the events in Tulsa. As other people have said, this isn't his story and he doesn't belong. But for some reason they wanted to have Dr. Manhattan be the crux of the thing, so he's gotta end up in Tulsa some how. And because modern television can't resists a plot twist or an anguished moment for its heroine, it has to be someone personally connected to the lead. Like her husband and adopted father of three! Only, that isn't who Dr. Manhattan is as a character. Cal fundamentally is not Dr. Manhattan because he's not tormented by loneliness. So the episode doesn't work because the style is imitating a purposeful choice about character, conflict, and story structure, while actually just being a durdling explanation of how the main character's wife was actually God all along and then ending on a cliffhanger that God should be able to easily resolve. Damon Lindelof is not Alan Moore, turns out. Episode bad.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:12
|
|
|
Midgetskydiver posted:Man, this is the worst take in the whole thread right here. Lmao uhhhhhh yeah whatever you say man
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:13
|
|
|
Actually the episode works great and who cares about the *lore* of Doctor Manhattan?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:14
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:This episode falls flat I think not because of makeup or because of too much exposition but because it's trying too hard to emulate the story structure of Dr. Manhattan's chapter of Watchmen, The Comic, without understanding what made it so great. 🤝🤝🤝🤝
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:15
|
|
|
Dude, shut the gently caress up, you don't even have an actual opinion about this show beyond "it sucks" and half your posts in this thread are cheerleading anything remotely critical of it. It's really sad.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:16
|
|
|
I don't even know what that means.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:17
|
|
|
I think the first two paragraphs are insightful and  but I didn't read the rest
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:19
|
|
|
Intel&Sebastian posted:Manhattan doesn't change future events often, generally because he doesn't "care" but also because the way that he sees it there is no "changing". He's experiencing it all simultaneously and sometimes he comments on it, sometimes he sort of looks like he's changing something but he's not really. His conception of "future" events is always informed by the totality of what he's always done and has always known that he's done/going to do. No like I get how Manhattan works but narratively he only really works because he's a passive observer. He doesn't care enough to stop Blake getting slashed or to save the pregnant woman Blake shoots right after in response. But he also falls in love with Laurie and falls out of love with Jane because he is still a man and still an rear end in a top hat and neither event occurs because he saw himself falling in love with Laurie later so he approached her years earlier/etc etc. It just doesn't really mesh with his character and you can't even really say the events of Watchmen changed him because the whole point is that he's the one character who emotionally can't change based on the way the show writes him. GoGoGadgetChris posted:Time travel is a popular trope because the plot holes can be explained with either "who cares lmao" or "there's no plot hole you're just not SMART enough" I knew they would do it this way but as Manhattan was narrating everything happening to him I wanted him to go "I'm experiencing all time at once. Well, okay, moments from the next ten years and also my secret European childhood and not the 60s-80s, that was a whole other separate thing I was experiencing all at once that we don't have time to get into, but yeah, I'm the time guy, that's my thing."
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:21
|
|
|
Maybe living as a regular human for ten years... made him more human???
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:21
|
|
|
Thom and the Heads posted:nah the goon who said that this is anywhere close to the quality of twin peaks s3 still has that honor Ok fair enough but you still scored a solid silver medal lol The REAL Goobusters posted:Lmao uhhhhhh yeah whatever you say man If you hate the show so much, please just go away. You are actively making the thread a less enjoyable place with your presence.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:22
|
|
|
Don't poopoo the tachyon gun thing too much yet, there must be more coming about the what and why of that in season 2.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:23
|
|
|
I don't think it's the biggest sin in the universe to dick around with the character of Manhattan for a sequel series to do what they want to do with him. I think the Tunnel of Love concept for him is interesting enough to give some latitude on how to get him there. It wasn't as successful as the Hooded Justice changes but I'm still on board for wherever it's going
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:24
|
|
|
How do you type emojis on a keyboard anyway?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:24
|
|
|
Weedle posted:Maybe living as a regular human for ten years... made him more human??? How are people not getting this?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:24
|
|
|
Arist posted:Actually the episode works great and who cares about the *lore* of Doctor Manhattan? I don’t even know if you’re trolling or not Arist posted:Dude, shut the gently caress up, you don't even have an actual opinion about this show beyond "it sucks" and half your posts in this thread are cheerleading anything remotely critical of it. It's really sad. Oh you’re for real...drat lol
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:25
|
|
|
Arist posted:Dude, shut the gently caress up, you don't even have an actual opinion about this show beyond "it sucks" and half your posts in this thread are cheerleading anything remotely critical of it. It's really sad. You literally just gave a summary as "the episode was great". Maybe take your own advice?
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:26
|
|
|
Also I can't quite put my finger on it but I also don't think the time loop thing should be possible with Dr. M. As we confirmed in the bedroom scene, he does actually need other people to act in order for him to perceive their actions. He may know that someone is going to say something in the future, but I don't think he could evoke that from them ten years in the past and then carry on a conversation across ten years scrambling both past and future. I don't have a bulletproof argument for why that should be though. Like in the comics, he tells Laurie he knows she slept with Dan, because she will tell him in 20 minutes, but he doesn't get mad at her until she tells him 20 minutes later. Oh and PPS this performance made me re-evaluate how great Billy Crudup was in the movie. That guy just nailed Dr. Manhattan.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:28
|
|
|
peak debt posted:Don't poopoo the tachyon gun thing too much yet, there must be more coming about the what and why of that in season 2. How could Ozymandias destroy NYC?!? Surely Dr Manhattan will stop him! Characters that never grow or change are boring. But the illusion of change without real change is an important part of comic book culture. It looks like Jon is really changing. His experience of creating life changes him. Becoming a parent often does change people in unexpected ways. Dr Manhattan is definitely NOT moving away from humanity like a photon Into space unless you skip the whole chapter in the book where he brings Laurie to Mars. For the lonely man premise to be true all of the following would have to have no effect on Jon: - Losing Laurie to Dan - the horrible truth about the Squiddening - leaving Earth (he believes permanently) - creating human life ex nihilo - creating that life to replicate a beloved period of his life where he felt safe in the face of chaos and danger - learning that Europa was unsatisfying and didn’t give him what he wanted - returning to Earth and trying to have a human relationship again
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:30
|
|
|
SpiderHyphenMan posted:How are people not getting this? JESUS CHRIST PEOPLE
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:31
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Also I can't quite put my finger on it but I also don't think the time loop thing should be possible with Dr. M. As we confirmed in the bedroom scene, he does actually need other people to act in order for him to perceive their actions. He may know that someone is going to say something in the future, but I don't think he could evoke that from them ten years in the past and then carry on a conversation across ten years scrambling both past and future. Mostly it feels weird to me because the ability to send messages through time via Dr. M seems like it should be a way bigger deal. Like, if it were possible, you’d think someone would have realized it at any point in the last sixty years.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:32
|
|
|
Nieuw Amsterdam posted:How could Ozymandias destroy NYC?!? Surely Dr Manhattan will stop him! What? Do you understand what loneliness is? All of those things are meaningful to John, that is ~the whole point~ However, his failure to succeed in connecting to other people is ~also the whole point~ That is his character's conflict. WRT Ozymandius, Dr. Manhattan would have stopped him, and spent the whole second half of the comics trying to track down the source of the tachyons clouding his vision. Dr. Manhattan cared enough to kill Rorschach. So it's pretty bogus when the tachyon gun in the show just gives him a critical case of not giving a poo poo instead of clouding his vision. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Dec 10, 2019 |
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:32
|
|
|
HppyCmpr posted:You literally just gave a summary as "the episode was great". Maybe take your own advice? It was a half-facetious response to a  post, but also I did give a justification for my opinion. I literally cannot imagine caring about the way Doctor Manhattan works outside of how well it services the story.The REAL Goobusters posted:I don’t even know if you’re trolling or not No seriously, gently caress off. I don't care if you don't like the show but you're refusing to actually discuss anything. Either you're continuing to watch a show you have never once said anything positive about or you're for some reason lying about doing so, and I can't figure out which I think is more pathetic.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:32
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Also I can't quite put my finger on it but I also don't think the time loop thing should be possible with Dr. M. As we confirmed in the bedroom scene, he does actually need other people to act in order for him to perceive their actions. He may know that someone is going to say something in the future, but I don't think he could evoke that from them ten years in the past and then carry on a conversation across ten years scrambling both past and future. Yeah I think this is kinda what I was getting at. He knows he will fall for Laurie and leave his first girlfriend, but he does it when he meets Laurie not years earlier because he knows eventually he will fall for her and retroactively make that decision. Him being in love with Angela, a person he doesn't know, because he will fall in love with her ten years later doesn't really...follow how he lived his entire life before this? Looking forward to the "shut up nerd idiot time travel isnt real they did a psychic squid it's all magic" response from the OP though!
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:33
|
|
|
I wish this show's fans were as civil as its detractors
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:34
|
|
|
Intel&Sebastian posted:It's been a while since I've read the book but from what I gather Rorschach probably was a racist, just not an all-consuming one. Like if you asked him he would probably say being a minority was a contributing factor to an already immoral persons immorality. Aka he's an average American conservative. He was, for sure. I mean, he was explicitly homophobic ("Veidt, possible homosexual...") and nativist ("Swedish love, French love, but not American love") and misogynist (IIRC he called Silk Spectre an "aging whore.") Anyone with a worldview centered on how "all the vermin will drown" probably doesn't draw an ethical line at racism. His whole MO is to circumvent "liberal" institutions in order to rid society of all the subhuman bad actors who are defiling it. Pure-grade fascist stuff...I see no possible way it isn't also racist.
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:36
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 20:12 |
|
|
someone mentioned the AV club reviews and the headline for the one for this week is "Watchmen composes the greatest love story ever told" lol come the gently caress on
|
|
#
?
Dec 10, 2019 02:36
|
|