Watchmen...2?


Koete

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it's a testament to creative bankruptcy if a sequel to Watchmen is commissioned some 25 years after it was originally released.

No, I don't think that's true. The time in-between doesn't make a difference, in my opinion.

How isn't it? The very fact that they're reaching out to Moore for any kind of tacit approval for continuing spinning Watchmen into a fully-fledged franchise is, in itself, an admission that Watchmen was never intended to be carried on to begin with. The 25 years is merely the icing on the cake.

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I see no reason to tell more stories in that universe. There's no need for a prequel, it's all pretty well set up. And any sequel robs the book of the moral question left. It wasn't open ended to set up a sequel, it was open ended to leave the reader thinking.

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As far as Moore's insanity goes, he's pretty much just cantankerous. His belief in a snake god has no bearing on it. No different than a bearded sky dude. The snake is probably an older belief, even.

He's cranky. I don't think it's so bankrupt to do a sequel. He doesn't own it. He should be happy that DC gave him money for the movie. They sure didn't have to.

I do think a sequel makes little sense thanks to the ending but a prequel could be interesting.

It should also be noted that Superman Returns was a direct sequel to II which was 26 years earlier. It wasn't a bad idea, just a bad product.

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He's cranky. I don't think it's so bankrupt to do a sequel. He doesn't own it. He should be happy that DC gave him money for the movie. They sure didn't have to.

But he gave his fee to Dave Gibbons. He clearly wasn't grateful.

Meh, I think that this would be sorta like trying to make a sequel to Shawshank Redemption or Schindlers List. The story has been told, and all the positive feeling that the hardcore fans have for the original material will translate into intense negativity towards the new product. There's no need for a sequel because it would be inelegant to try and explain beyond the original ending, like explaining a joke after you've told it and they already laughed.

Making prequels is sorta missing the point too, since the prequel was the entire superhero comics industry up to that point. That's the background, the minutemen are the JSA era, the 30's and 40's. The heroes of Watchmen are more modern, reflecting their own era. If you want their sequel go back to the Charlton comics stuff. If you want a literal history of those exact characters prior to those 12 issues I think you might be missing a oil tanker filled with subtext. Just go read Marvelman, its basically the same themes.

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I felt even while reading Watchmen that it was "missing" something; like there were a lot of other more important stories that we only got glimpses of.

The idea of the universe being more fleshed-out is interesting enough to me that I'd be fine with potentially taking away the ambiguity of the book's ending.

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That's what fan fiction or your imagination is for. The latter doesn't even cost you anything.

There, "new stories".

This is going in circles. I get that you want to see the Watchmen universe expanded and if you want to pay to see an official DC handling of it, however good or bad it may be, I wouldn't stop you even if I had the power to. I bought Watchmen about 8 months before the film came out and thought it was a powerful read despite my lack of knowledge of the genre obscuring various in-jokes and subtleties. As much as I don't enjoy agreeing with Stavros, he does point out why there isn't specific NEED for a Watchmen prequel/sequel. Sure, you could make new stories featuring existing characters from Watchmen, but it would have to do something groundbreaking to step out of the shadow of the original. Otherwise you're left with the Watchmen equivalent of Son of The Mask.

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See, I don't think it needs to be a straight-up, full-blown, "Watchmen 2", where it would need to live up to the original. They could do that, but they don't need to. Personally, I think it'd be great to have a series of one-shot comics, with each issue focusing on one character from the Minutemen.

In the world of comics, there's nothing wrong with having lesser stories that take place in the same universe as the epics. It's not like films, where unless each movie is better than its predecessor it's regarded as utter garbage.

And if they decide to make a full-fledged sequel, fine. DC's got enough talent that they have a decent chance of doing it right.

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Thank you Ian for your begrudging agreement.

It just feels like they aren't doing it for the artistic merit, they're doing it for cash. When its Countdown Arena that's fine, but this is a classic text, probably the highest regarded in the genre, and they haven't even got the original creators on board. I mean, at least when DC cashed in and made Dark Knight Strikes Again or The Kingdom they had at least one original creator on board, and yet those were still the palest imitations of the originals. Knowing DC they'll probably just throw Watchmen 2 out to JT Krul or someone, I can't imagine a respected writer like Geoff Johns touching this with a ten foot pole, he has his reputation to think of.

Is anyone really itching to read a Kevin Smith Ozymandias one shot where he admits he shat himself when he caught the bullet? (Widening Gyre reference)

If DC is so creatively bankrupt that they need to make this then they seriously don't know what they're doing. Watch Hamlet 2 if you want to see what happens when people do this sort of thing.

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