Now that we know
Watchmen is a sequel to the graphic novel of the same name, there's an awful lot of excitement surrounding the series before it debuts on HBO.
Now, showrunner Damon Lindelof has weighed in on the group of white supremacists who will be a focal point of the series.
"We talked a lot about racism," he explains, adding that they looked to the current political climate.
"We asked what’s the thing that’s causing a tremendous amount of anxiety in America today? The only authentic answer was race."
The question is, why are those racists wearing Rorschach's mask? "I don’t wanna editorialise on whether or not Rorschach was a white supremacist. I don’t think he was, but he certainly had what would now be considered some alt-right views," Lindelof says. "We wanted to explore that."
With these remarks come a new still featuring Jeremy Irons on horseback. Rumour has it that he's playing the older version of Ozymandias in Watchmen but time will tell on that front.
What do you guys think about these new details?
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Watchmen reveals from Damon Lindelof!
The Premise Of The Series
It's now been revealed that when
Watchmen begins, Robert Redford has been the President of the United States for 28 years, cell phones and the internet have been outlawed, and costumed heroes are now banned (fossil fuels, meanwhile, are a thing of the past thanks to Dr. Manhattan's time on Earth...however, rumours persist that he's hiding out on Mars).
The police have been forced to don masks to protect their identities and can't use their guns without them being unlocked by a dispatcher first. Respirations have been issued for racial injustice but the country remains divided.
When the series begins, many of the original characters from the graphic novel are believed dead or missing and the focus will instead to be put on new character, Angela Abar, an Oklahoma detective who has adopted the superhero identity of "Sister Night." However, both Ozymandias and Silk Spectre II are expected to factor into this story in some way.
So, Is It A Sequel Or A Reboot?
In the past, Lindelof has indicated that
Watchmen will be something of a reimagining and that led to many fans worrying that it would be more of a reboot than a sequel to the original story.
Thankfully, that doesn't appear to be the case.
"Look, [the new series] certainly fits into the 'sequel' box, and definitely doesn’t fit into the 'reboot' box," Lindelof explains.
"We treat the original 12 issues as canon. They all happened. We haven’t done any revisionist history, but we can maneuver in between the cracks and crevices and find new stories there."
He went on to say that,
"we wanted to make sure our first episode felt like the beginning of a new story rather than a continuation of an old story. That’s what I think a sequel is — the continuation of an old story."
The World Is Very Different Now
In the time that's passed since the original story, President Robert Redford has introduced a legislation called "Victims Against Racial Violence" which Lindelof says are
"a lifetime tax exemption for victims of, and the direct descendants of, designated areas of racial injustice throughout America’s history." He goes on to reveal that the real-life Tulsa massacre of 1921 is pivotal to that.
"That legislation had a ripple effect into another piece of legalization, DoPA, the Defense of Police Act, which allows police to hide their face behind masks because they were being targeted by terrorist organizations for protecting the victims of the initial act." Believe it or not, that white supremacist terrorist group is actually inspired by Rorschach and his actions as a vigilante.
Elaborating On Past Remarks
Last year, Lindelof shared an open letter in which he said that the series would "revisit the past century of Costumed Adventuring through a surprising yet familiar set of eyes and it’s here we’ll be taking our greatest risk." When the interviewer pointed out that they weren't sure who that was referring to even after watching the pilot, the writer made it clear that we may have to wait.
"You should be in exactly the place that you are at the end of the pilot, which is: 'I’m not sure what he’s talking about yet.' By the end of the sixth episode, it will be clear who I was talking about," he explains.
"There won’t be any space for debate. I think people will start to theorize who I was talking about prior to the sixth episode, but that’s the one that makes the subtext text."
Could it be that Dr. Manhattan has disguised himself as one of the show's characters? We'll see!
Is Robert Redford Actually In The Show?
So, Robert Redford is President in
Watchmen but is he actually in the show? We'd heard that his final acting gig was
Avengers: Endgame and, as it turns out, he won't physically be appearing.
"[The] world of Watchmen is so heightened and so clearly it’s an alternate history that it will be clear to everyone we’re not talking about the real Robert Redford. More importantly, the way we handle this story, you can’t blame Robert Redford for everything that’s happened in the world."
"The show says Redford has a liberal ideology, much like the actual Robert Redford, and he was incredibly well-intentioned in terms of the legislation he passed and the America that he wanted to create. But that doesn’t mean it worked out the way he wanted it to. And that’s not on him, that’s on us." Even so, it will obviously be very interesting seeing how he's used compared to Nixon.