Why watchmen failed

It was all very meta. The ending explored the idea of how superheroes would affect the entirety of our reality if they existed, and suggested that it might be better that they're just fiction.

It's a wild interpretation of the source material, but an interesting one at least. Ultimately, two things proved to be the downfall of Gilliam's take on Watchmen : money and scope.

The sum would allow them the freedom to bring the story's more outlandish visuals to the big screen. The project hit a stand-still as a result of the financing concerns. The director was later re-approached about tackling Watchmen. But even with the potential for a bigger budget, Gilliam turned down the job. He revealed in interviews that he'd come to the conclusion that Watchmen was too ambitious a story to tell in just a single movie, and that trying to force the narrative into one film would "take away the essence of what Watchmen is about.

That didn't stop other directors such as Darren Aronofsky Black Swan and Paul Greengrass The Bourne Ultimatum from approaching the project, or Zack Snyder from finally bringing a version of the story to movie theaters in Gilliam has suggested that he believes the only proper adaptation of Watchmen would be as a television miniseries. The series premieres Sunday at 9 p.

When Ozymandias reveals his plan, he hasn't gone through with it yet. Unlike the other versions, it's not too late to stop him. This Adrian Veidt's plan is to use a tachyon chamber to travel back in time to assassinate Jon Osterman before the accident that transforms him into Dr.

Veidt's rationale is that Dr. Manhattan interfering in Vietnam to help America win is what led to the impending nuclear war with Russia. However, in a move of uncharacteristic recklessness, Veidt is accidentally vaporized by his own time machine. Manhattan then uses the time machine to stop his former self from getting trapped in the intrinsic field experiment test chamber which, ignoring time paradoxes, prevents the creation of Dr.

Manhattan and allows Osterman to live a happy life with Janey Slater. The film's timeline then changes to our reality's timeline, with the U. Interestingly, Rorschach, Nite Owl, and Silk Spectre are transported to then-present day New York City where, in a confusing meta twist, Watchmen is a successful comic book series. His back story is one of the better ones here. It explains why he appears to have more in common with the Kavalry than the cops, but appearances are deceiving, especially when coated in Mylar.

LLOYD: Yes, whatever meaning the show might be reaching for just gets undercut by the next bunch of cool business, and the necessity of providing motivation — so much trauma and loss in the young lives of heroes — and those dependable frissons of coincidence.

Who can abandon a mystery in the penultimate chapter? Lorraine Ali is television critic of the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she was a senior writer for the Calendar section where she covered culture at large, entertainment and American Muslim issues. All Sections. About Us. B2B Publishing. Business Visionaries. Hot Property.

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