Watchmen: The Limited Series

Tulsa, Oklahoma, 2019. A white supremacist group, the Seventh Kavalry, is fighting a long-running battle with the Tulsa Police Department. To protect their identities after several of their number were assassinated, the police have been given special dispensation to hide their identities under masks; the Kavalry likewise hide themselves under masks based on that of the vigilante Rorschach. Police officer Angela Abar, who goes by the nickname Sister Night, is tasked with helping flush out the Kavalry and receives assistance from Jean Smart, formerly known as Silk Spectre, now an FBI agent. Meanwhile, Adrian Veidt, formerly Ozymandias, "the smartest man in the world" who may be also its greatest mass-murderer, finds himself trapped in the strangest puzzle box ever devised.

When it was announced that HBO was proceeding with a TV series based on the classic Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel Watchmen, there was widespread scepticism. The previous film version of the novel (only released in 2009) was not particularly accomplished but was adequate, raising the question of if a further adaptation was necessary. The TV show, however, quickly hewed in a different direction, becoming more of a thematic sequel to the comic book and being set more than thirty years after its events.

The TV mini-series (which started as a regular series but was converted into a mini-series when the production team expressed doubt about returning) has ended up being, somewhat surprisingly, a qualified success. Damon Lindelof and his writers have crafted a new story which at first glance feels only tangentially connected to the original, but as the episodes pass it becomes more and more deeply entwined with the events of the original graphic novel and ends up being a strong continuation.

In the original graphic novel, Alan Moore (who was, as is his custom, not involved in this new project) created Rorschach as an exploration of what a vigilante without any oversight would end up being like in the "real world." Rorschach ended up giving his life for his belief that the people deserve to know the truth about what really happened in New York City and his message did get out in his journal...which was promptly dismissed as the tinfoil ramblings of a lunatic. Conspiracy theorists have gotten hold of his journal and used it to further their own insane agendas, further discrediting Rorschach's story, although we (as viewers) know it was completely true.

The tie-ins with the original series take a back seat for the first three episodes or so, which focus more on Sister Night and the Tulsa Police Department fighting the Seventh Kavalry. This is a pretty good story on its own merits, propelled by excellent performances from Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Louis Gossett Jr., and examines themes of racial inequality, bigotry driven by externalisation and police authoritarianism. As the story unfolds we also spend time with a mysterious character played by Jeremy Irons relaxing at a country house with some servants, which feels like a huge non-sequitur until the stories begin converging.

In the second half of the series the Kavalry storyline dovetails back into elements of the original Watchmen narrative, as we learn more about the backstory of the Minutemen and also what happened to Dr. Manhattan after the events of the original series, culminating in the episode A God Walks into Abar, easily the season's strongest episode and a callback to the original comic sequence where we see Dr. Manhattan's creation. Events culminate in a grand finale which feels distinctly true to the story's comic book roots, even down to the somewhat ambiguous ending.

Watchmen (the TV show) is a reasonably strong and effective work. It is clearly the work of the more restrained and thoughtful Lindelof who worked on The Leftovers rather than the self-indulgent and trite one who worked on Prometheus and J.J. Abrams' Star Trek films. The tone of the series walks a careful line - not dissimilar to the original comic book - of developing weightier themes and ideas whilst also remembering that it is a comic book story, with a more colourful ending. In this sense it is both a deconstruction and a celebration of comic books, rather than a cynical deconstruction alone (as Amazon's recent series The Boys is). Threading this particularly needle is not easy and it's impressive the show ends up as accomplished and well-judged as it is.

There are a few problems, particularly with character set up. It feels like the Lady Trieu storyline was not set up well enough in earlier episodes, meaning it feels a bit odd when this story assumes prominence towards the endgame. The Veidt story is entertaining on its own merits, but its psychotic comedy of English manners feels tonally disjointed compared to the rest of the series, but overall it adds variety to the story.

The Watchmen TV series (****½) (which feels like now it should really have been given a distinct title) is accomplished television. It's superbly well-acted, mostly well-written and manages the difficult balancing act of introducing new elements to this world whilst also picking up on story elements left behind from the original and addressing them. Combined with a haunting score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, it makes for impressive viewing. The series is available now in the UK and USA, as well on HBO's streaming services in the United States.

WATCHMEN TV series gets new trailer

HBO has released a new, longer trailer for Watchmen, their sequel TV series to the Alan Moore graphic novel.

The TV series is set several decades after the events of the graphic novel. Dr. Manhattan is apparently still living on Mars and the United States is caught in a tidal wave of panic, triggered by a band of vigilantes wearing masks and aping the slain Rorschach. They mount an attack on the police force of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which seems to backfire when it allows police forces across the US to become more militarised and crack down on masked heroes.

Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons) is still around, as apparently is Laurie/Silk Spectre (Jean Smart), now an FBI agent having taken the surname of her late father, the Comedian.

The series will also focus on some new characters, namely a new vigilante named Angela Abar (Regina King) and Tulsa Police Chief Judd Crawford (Don Johnson), as well as Marionette (Sara Vickers) and Mime (Tom Mison), characters introduced in the Doomsday Clock comic series.

Watchmen will debut in the United States on HBO in October and (presumably) will air on Sky Atlantic in the UK.

HBO drop teaser for WATCHMEN TV series

HBO have dropped a teaser trailer for their upcoming Watchmen TV series.

Watchmen is a sequel to the graphic novel - not Zach Snyder's 2009 movie - and picks up on events thirty years after the end of the story. The trailer hints that law and order is breaking down, with a growing movement of copycat vigilantes basing their actions on the character of Rorschach from the original novel. The only major character from the original book confirmed to appear is Adrian Veidt (aka Ozymandias), played by Jeremy Irons, although some characters from Doomsday Clock (a sequel series to the original graphic novel) will also appear. Details of the story and characters are being kept close to HBO's chest.

The series is produced and showrun by Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers). It is expected to debut in autumn this year.

Jeremy Irons to play an iconic character in HBO's WATCHMEN sequel series

SlashFilm are reporting that Jeremy Irons will be playing an older version of the character of Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias, in HBO's currently-shooting Watchmen sequel TV series.

HBO's new series, produced and written by Damon Lindelof (Lost, The Leftovers), is set approximately 30 years after the events of the original Watchmen graphic novel (and specifically the novel, not Zack Synder's 2009 movie) and picks up on storylines and characters. Veidt was the antagonist of the novel, but one motivated by what he claimed was altruistic goals: achieving world peace by faking an alien attack on New York City in 1985, giving the United States and Soviet Union a common enemy to unite against. Famously, Veidt succeeded in his plan and was left alive at the end of the story to live with the millions of casualties he had unleashed in the process.

Jean Smart (Fargo) is also playing a character, an FBI agent with the surname "Blake", the same as Edward Blake (aka the Comedian, whose murder kick-started the original story). SlashFilm suggest she may actually be playing Laurie (aka Silk Spectre), the daughter of Edward Blake and a key protagonist of the original mini-series, but this is supposition (although supported by her age).

Season 1 of Watchmen has been shooting for several months and is expected to air on HBO in the summer or autumn of 2019.

HBO greenlights Damon Lindelof's frankly unnecessary WATCHMEN TV series

HBO has greenlit Damon Lindelof's frankly unnecessary Watchmen TV adaptation, having been impressed by an internal pilot filmed earlier this year.

...BUT MAYBE IT SHOULD?

Lindelof's new take on Alan Moore's graphic novel is actually a sequel to the original graphic novel, catching up on the world in the wake of the events of the original story. However, this TV show will not have any relation to Zack Snyder's faithful (possibly too faithful) 2009 feature film version, with new actors taking up the roles from the graphic novel and new characters coming on board.

Although Snyder's film had some merit to it, such as solid casting and some good imagery - it's still easily his best film - it was also slavishly overly faithful to the graphic novel but also revelled in the violence. If anything, a fresh adaptation that was both slightly looser and also had more time to tell the story properly might have some merit.

As it stands, a TV show set thirty years after the events of the original story, presumably with the original characters missing or very old, feels a bit pointless.

It might be that the show has merit: Lindelof, for all the much-deserved criticism he gets for his handling of the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies and Prometheus, did write some very good episodes of Lost (even if the last season had some issues) and his recent HBO project, The Leftovers, had an excellent critical and popular response. But it does feel that either an original, deconstructionist take on superheroes could have been attempted, or maybe a superhero property that hasn't had a relatively recent adaptation (such as Wild Cards).

As it stands, the purpose and appeal of this project remains somewhat head-scratching. HBO seem to planning on hitting the ground running on this project though, with the show planned to hit the screens before the end of 2019.

Damon Lindleof's still-unnecessary WATCHMEN reboot for HBO moving forwards

Three months ago, it was revealed that Damon Lindelof was planning a frankly unnecessary TV version of Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen. Now it's been confirmed that HBO have greenlit a pilot, which will go into production next year.

Lindelof has also been given permission to start recruiting writers and develop existing scripts so the series can go into production quickly after a go order is given. This is a sign of HBO's trust in Lindelof, still best-known as the co-creator and one of the main writers on ABC's hit series Lost. After Lost's brilliant early seasons gave way to a somewhat muddled finale, Lindelof's reputation entered a strange stage where everything he wrote or co-wrote - including the 2009 Star Trek movie and the 2012 Ridley Scott movie Prometheus - was critically panned but was financially successful.

However, Lindelof regained his critical cachet with the supernatural drama series The Leftovers for HBO. The series executed a constrained three-season arc, with the recently-aired finale attracting a strongly positive reaction. HBO is keen to exploit its relationship with The Leftovers on a higher-profile project.

Zack Snyder, who directed the perfunctorily satisfying 2009 movie and been rumoured to produce the series, is no longer involved with the project.

Damon Lindelof penning frankly unnecessary WATCHMEN adaptation for HBO

Damon Lindelof has been tapped by HBO to adapt the graphic novel Watchmen, by professional writer-druid Alan Moore, to television, despite this not being anything anyone really needs in their life.

Zack Snyder helmed a perfunctory but perfectly serviceable movie version of Watchmen back in 2009. Although it was a little compressed fitting the big graphic novel into just two and a half hours, it got the job done and was reasonably faithful - maybe too faithful - to the novel. However, HBO have now picked up the TV rights so they can make a new version which will probably be pretty similar to the 2009 version, since it will have an identical plot and the same cast of characters, just with different actors playing them.

Scriptwriter Damon Lindelof will be helming the new project, as he continues to play Russian Roulette with his career. He charmed millions of fans with his TV series Lost, only to annoy them with a somewhat confused ending, and then really annoyed lots of people with his scripts for Star Trek (2009) and Prometheus (2012), which were both troubled. More recently, however, he has won plaudits for his work on HBO's The Leftovers, which recently concluded a three-season run with a lot of critical acclaim and plaudits.

Meanwhile, graphic novel fans have confirmed that there are more graphic novels in existence than just Watchmen, and if maybe someone wants to take a shot at one of those instead, that would be just fine.

What will HBO's next big show be?

HBO have a problem, they've had it for a couple of years and it's getting more of a pressing issue as time goes on. In 2018, Game of Thrones will end and HBO will be left, for the very first time since 1998, without a big hit show that everyone is talking about.

Way back in 1998 HBO, still new to the original scripted drama game, debuted Sex and the City. It was a massive success, got lots of people talking and won HBO a huge number of subscriptions. HBO doubled down on this a year later when it began airing The Sopranos, a violent crime series about the life of mob boss who tries to keep his business running under constant surveillance. Over the next decade HBO aired many critically-acclaimed and popular dramas (including Six Feet Under, Carnivale, Deadwood, Big Love, Rome and The Wire, as well as mini-series like Band of Brothers, The Corner and John Adams) but The Sopranos and Sex in the City were the jewels in the network's crown.

Sex and the City ended in 2004. The Sopranos followed suit in 2007 and it looked like HBO might have to survive without a big, successful show on the air. However, by luck the following season they debuted a TV drama series about vampires. True Blood would go on to almost match the success and buzz of The Sopranos (although not quite the same level of critical acclaim). And just at the point that True Blood's critical and commercial success began waning in 2011, they debuted Game of Thrones, which would go on to become the most successful show in the network's history.

According to HBO, they've never "needed" a massive, genre-defining show to lead with. They get a lot of subscriptions for their sports and movie channels, and their original drama and comedy programming has really been an added bonus on top of that. Their top executives seem relatively sanguine about the possibility that they may end up in a situation where they have no massive, subscription-encouraging series on the air for a few years. How the reality of that feels after twenty years of being the top dogs will likely be a different story, however. More of an issue for HBO has been that original scripted cable drama used to be very much the field they owned exclusively, but now other channels such as Starz (Black Sails and Outlander), AMC (The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad) and Showtime (the new Twin Peaks) are fighting for that space, not to mention the competition posed by Netflix and Amazon with their original programming. HBO isn't the automatic "go-to" network any more for talented creators who want to get a pet project on the air any more.

Paradoxically, despite HBO making quite staggering amounts of money, they have also become more risk-averse. They have cancelled shows after producing pilots and canned projects that should appear to be slam-dunk successes. Embarrassingly, some of these projects have gone on to great success on other networks and in other venues (most famously Mad Men, which HBO turned down and went to air with AMC).

More impressive is the fact that HBO turned down no less than three absolutely killer shows based on books which would have been a perfect fit for them and perfect follow-ups for Game of Thrones, being fantasy shows but "different" kinds of fantasy to Thrones. The first of these was The Dark Tower, based on the Stephen King novels. HBO developed this both as a joint TV-film cross-media project and then just as a TV show. However, HBO got cold feet and dropped it. It's been picked up by Sony Pictures as a major film project and shooting starts in a few weeks with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey starring. The second was Preacher, based on the violent but critically-acclaimed graphic novel series by Garth Ennis. The series was in an advanced state of development when HBO apparently (and uncharacteristically) got cold feet over the show's controversial stance on religion and dropped it. AMC picked it up and shooting has wrapped on the first season, which should debut in a few months. Early buzz on pilot screenings is extremely positive, and the show should make an excellent companion series for The Walking Dead. Finally, there was American Gods. HBO had developed multiple pilot scripts with Neil Gaiman, the writer of the novel, and had looked virtually certain to greenlight it when they very abruptly dropped it, to the puzzlement of just about everybody. Starz has since picked up the series and production is currently underway in Toronto.

So, we have to ask, what does HBO have on its development plate right now, what is available and what could they do to produce a follow-up hit show to Thrones? Let's take a look.

Westworld

Westworld is based on Michael Crichton's 1973 film of the same name and is set in a futuristic theme park where the robot exhibits start to break free and take control. This has an absolutely stellar cast, with Sir Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden and Thandie Newton starring and Jonathan Nolan writing and directing. The series is in the final stages of filming right now for a debut airdate expected at the end of this year. However, the show has experienced major production problems including a four-month filming shutdown amidst rumours over writing problems and controversy over some of the actors' contracts. In addition, the show seems to be mainly a cerebral affair about the future of artificial intelligence and consciousness, which will make for a stirring SF series (and this is HBO's first-ever outright science fiction show) but is unlikely to win over a mass audience.

Watchmen

Director Zack Snyder (The 300, Man of Steel, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice) actually made a movie of Watchmen in 2009, to a mixed critical reception (I liked it). However, even the most ardent admirers would have to admit that the film had to rush a lot of Alan Moore's material from the seminal 1985 graphic novel to fit into just two hours, so Snyder has gone to HBO with the intention of re-staging the story as a TV show (possibly drawing on some of the materials published since, such as the Beyond Watchmen project). HBO seem to be interested, but have not formally greenlit the project yet. With Snyder committed to Superman and Justice League movies for some time, this would likely be handled by other writers. To be honest, this could be a really good series, but I suspect it would only work as a mini-series rather than an ongoing, multi-year project.

Foundation

Jonathan Nolan has proposed a TV adaptation of Isaac Asimov's seven Foundation novels to HBO, who have optioned the book rights ahead of further discussions and seeing a script. HBO took the step of buying the rights whilst they were already held by Roland Emmerich (who was developing a film before the buy-off), so seem to be pretty serious about this project. However, Nolan is now working on Westworld so this project has likely been kicked down the curb a fair ways.

Foundation is one of science fiction's most famous series. Set 22,000 years in the future, it chronicles the collapse of the vast Galactic Empire and the attempt by a scientific thinktank, the Foundation, to preserve scientific knowledge and wisdom through an estimated thousand years of barbarism to follow. The novels span roughly the first half of this period, culminating in the rediscovery of the long-forgotten homeworld of humanity, Earth.

This could make for an interesting series, especially if HBO adopt an anthology approach and jump forward decades or centuries between seasons a la True Detective. However, there will have to be a lot of invention for the series as Asimov's view of the future is seriously outdated by this time.

I, Claudius

As has been said a few times, Game of Thrones feels very much like a spiritual successor to Bruno Heller's excellent historical drama series Rome, which aired for two seasons and 23 episodes between 2005 and 2007. Rome was cancelled due to budgetary concerns, something HBO later regretted when they checked the DVD and foreign screening sales. However, HBO left the elaborate outdoor set in Italy standing as a tourist attraction and a filming location for other series and documentaries. In 2011 HBO announced that they were developing a fresh adaptation of Robert Graves's classic novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God, previously filmed by the BBC in 1976. Given that the original plan was for Rome to jump forward to this story in its fourth or fifth season had it stayed on the air anyway, this could be very much a clever way of getting Rome back on the air, potentially using the same sets but sadly (due to a time-skip forward of several decades) not the same actors. However, HBO have not commented on the project in some years, so the enthusiasm for it may have fizzled out, which would be a shame as a new series set in Ancient Rome would be very welcome.

The Warlord Chronicles

HBO don't have the rights to this book trilogy, but Bad Wolf Productions do, having optioned it a few months ago. Bad Wolf also have a co-development deal with both HBO and the BBC, but the BBC are likely too busy with Bad Wolf's His Dark Materials series to take this on as well. Hopefully, HBO will give this a look. Written by Bernard Cornwell (The Last Kingdom, Sharpe), The Warlord Chronicles are a "realistic" take on the legend of King Arthur, set during the 5th and 6th Centuries in a Britain riven by religious and political turmoil. The Roman Empire has collapsed, but some of the Roman settlers and armies remain. The native Britons are trying to re-establish themselves, but the first waves of Saxons are starting to invade from the east. Roman religious cults and the newly-arrived religion of Christianity are struggling against the native pagan druids and other old faiths. It's a time of great danger, enhanced when King Uther Pendragon dies and the protection of his infant son and heir Mordred falls to Uther's bastard child Arthur. Unable to ever become king, Arthur instead takes on the mantle of Warlord.

It's a rich and atmospheric take on the legend of King Arthur, noted for its much greater focus on realism. There were no knights (in the medieval sense), massive stone fortresses or armies in the tens of thousands at this time, so the focus is on fighting with spears and shields, holdfasts are mostly made of wood and a formidable army might only consist of a few hundred - or even a few dozen! - men. Merlin is a randy priest of the old faith, Guinevere is a warrior chief and Lancelot a warrior with tremendous PR skills. The whole story is being related in exacting detail by a warrior of the Round Table, Derfel Cadarn, to some monks. To his horror, they start "sexing up" the stories with magic swords and ladies in lakes, forming the legend as we currently know it.

This would make for a great follow-up to Game of Thrones, especially if handled by a good writer. It might only be a three-season project (the books are quite slim) but there's still plenty of excellent material to get onto the screen.

Wild Cards

This would be a very different kind of story to Thrones, but potentially one with broad appeal. This series of short story collections and "mosaic novels" began in 1987 with Wild Cards and now extends across 23 books and several comics. George R.R. Martin created the universe, edits all of the books and has written several stories for the series, but the stories are the actual creation of many other writers. It seems likely, especially if HBO decides not to proceed with Watchmen, that they'll want to dip their toes into the superhero genre at some point and this story of flawed people who are more likely to be broken or corrupted by their powers than turned into paragons is right up HBO's alley. It would also tie in with HBO's development deal with Martin and give them lots of stories to adapt as well as the freedom to create their own material. The rights were until recently held by SyFy, but are due to lapse imminently.

The premise of the series is that in 1946 an alien virus is released on Earth. Thousands of people are affected: 90% are killed, 9% turn into malformed "Jokers" with useless powers and abilities and 1% into "Aces" or outright superheroes. An alternative history of the 20th Century unfolds as the Aces and Jokers take part in historical events, face discrimination and try to make their own lives in a changed world.

Temeraire

This is a bit more of a stretch because HBO's name has not come up in relation to it. However, it would be a good fit. Years ago, Peter Jackson eyed Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels with the intention of turning them into films. However, first the Tintin trilogy and then the Hobbit movies got in the way. With two Tintin movies still to make and other projects on the fire, Jackson is likely years away from even getting close to making this as a film. A few years back he acknowledged this, combined with the problem of adapting nine books, and confirmed he was repurposing it as a TV series with him only taking a producer's credit.

HBO joining forces with Weta Workshop to make a TV show about dragons fighting for both sides during the Napoleonic Wars? That's a high concept that I think would be up HBO's street and I think could make for an entertaining (if highly-budgeted) show.

New WATCHMEN comics on their way

This summer, DC will commence an ambitious project, Before Watchmen. This umbrella title covers seven separate mini-series, each one focusing on a character from the iconic original graphic novel, for a total of 34 issues released weekly.


The following characters or groups of characters are being featured:

• Rorschach - 4 issues, written by Brian Azzarello, art by Lee Bermejo.
• Minutemen - 6 issues, written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke.
• Comedian - 6 issues, written by Brian Azzarello, art by J.G. Jones
• Dr. Manhattan - 4 issues, written by J. Michael Straczynski, art by Adam Hughes.
• Nite Owl - 4 issues, written by J. Michael Straczynski, art by Andy & Joe Kubert
• Ozymandias - 6 issues, written by Len Wein, art by Jae Lee.
• Silk Spectre - 4 issues, written by Darwyn Cooke, art by Amanda Conner.

Each issue will also feature a two-page back-up strip called Curse of the Crimson Spectre, written by Len Wein with art by John Higgins.

Original series creator/writer Alan Moore is not supportive of the project in interview with the New York Times:

"...completely shameless...I tend to take this latest development as a kind of eager confirmation that they are still apparently dependent on ideas that I had 25 years ago...I don’t want money, what I want is for this not to happen."

Original artist Dave Gibbons is more diplomatic:

"The original series of Watchmen is the complete story that Alan Moore and I wanted tell. However, I appreciate DC’s reasons for this initiative and the wish of the artists and writers involved to pay tribute to our work. May these new additions have the success they desire."

J. Michael Straczynski - yup, the Babylon 5 writer/creator - has a lengthy interview with Comic Book Resources here in which he discusses why he chose to take on the project.

In my view, this is an interesting idea but arguably an unnecessary one. The original Watchmen stands on its own two feet as a complete story with a beginning, middle and end. The idea of exploring the backstory in more detail is very enticing - the glimpses we get into the Minutemen's adventures are intriguing - but ultimately they can add little to the story as it originally stands. Regardless of Moore's approval or lack thereof - and Straczynski gives interesting reasons why that should or should not be an issue - there seems to be little to no storytelling reason to flesh out the universe in this way. I certainly hope to be proven wrong.

Before Watchmen kicks off in the summer with one new issue published per week, likely taking us through the end of this year.

Watchmen

Not since the release of The Return of the King in 2003 has a movie adaption attracted the keen attention of so many SF fans, ready to pounce and tear it apart should it fail to meet their standards. The original graphic novel of Watchmen is rightly held as one of the supreme works of genre fiction of the past twenty-five years, the only graphic novel to make it onto Time's list of the most important works of literature of the 20th Century. Heralded as the moment that comics 'grew up', Watchmen is a dizzying tour-de-force of imagery, metaphors, ideas and themes, all bolted onto the subversion of the traditional superhero story. Original writer Alan Moore declared it unfilmable and many directors of note, including Darren Aronofsky, Terry Gilliam and Paul Greengrass, spent months and years of their lives trying to bring it to the screen before agreeing and giving up.


It eventually fell to Zack Snyder to bring the movie to the screen, a choice of director which many fans cheered and others were horrified by, for pretty much the same reason: his previous movie was the extraordinarily divisive 300. And I suspect Watchmen is going to be far more divisive still.

The plot remains unchanged from the novel. It is 1985, but it's an alternative history. Richard Nixon is still President and a bellicose USA is on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The USA has a 'real' superhero to defend it, Dr. Manhattan, whose powers, although vast, may not be sufficient to intercept a nuclear barrage from the USSR. In the past, other costumed heroes fought crime but have since been outlawed by the government. The only other exception is a man named Edward Blake, who works for the US government as an agent named 'The Comedian'. When the Comedian is brutally murdered by being hurled from his apartment window, another former 'hero' named Rorschach takes it upon himself to investigate and see if there is a threat to the other retired heroes. His attempts to warn the other heroes soon see events put in motion that will lead to the annihilation of the world, or its salvation.

Watchmen, the movie, closely follows the story and events of the graphic novel. In fact, as with 300, Snyder's problem here is how closely he follows the novel. Movies and novels, graphic or otherwise, have different rhythms and different pacing, and finding a happy middle ground between extreme fidelity to the source text and ending up with something that has little relation to the original is a difficult task. Snyder probably felt like he was erring on the side of caution in trying to appease the comic book fans but in doing so he causes a few narrative problems as well. In a book you can stop the action for 30 pages to deliver a massive character flashback, but in a film it feels a lot more jarring. Snyder pulls it off about as well as it can be done, but I suspect this will be a problem for some people, particularly during the funeral scene which goes on for absolutely ages with multiple flashbacks framed within it.

On the plus side, the film does work. The story is translated faithfully and virtually all of the central characters' arcs are carried over intact. The sole exception is Ozymandias, who gets too little screentime and his backstory - largely delivered in newspaper clippings and text pieces in the graphic novel - is only perfunctorily established. Secondary characters far worse, with Hollis Mason's story cut in half (presumably the rest is on the DVD) and the removal of the Black Freighter story (again to be restored on the DVD) carrying some other characters with it, such as Rorschach's psychologist, the newspaper-vendor and the boy reading the comic. Confusingly, these characters aren't absent and sometimes show up in establishing shots of New York.

One of the greatest challenges the movie faced was making Dr. Manhattan work as a being who has evolved beyond most of the cares of mortals, and Billy Crudup, working under some severe limitations of both character and make-up (having to walk around with CGI marker-dots on his face all day), really sells the character and his alien thought processes. Most of the other actors do good work, with Jeffrey Dean Morgan successfully making the Comedian vile, unrepentant and violent whilst also displaying his charisma. Jackie Earle Haley sells Rorschach 100% with a blisteringly intense performance that is truly remarkable (although in some scenes his gravelly voice suffers a lack of clarity due to a curiously unclear audio mix), whilst Patrick Wilson gives Nite Owl the humanity and heart the part - the closest thing to a 'normal person' the central cast has - really needs. Malin Akerman is okay as Silk Spectre, but her more emotional scenes come across a little flat. Matthew Goode is clearly a talented actor but is possibly slightly miscast as Ozymandias, getting across his intelligence but lacking the sheer presence the character had in the book.

The movie is astonishingly violent, and it more than earns its 18 certificate. Blood drips from the ceiling, bodies explode in gushing geysers of fluid, and lumps of burst human flesh are surprisingly commonplace. It all feels a bit gratuitous, to be honest. The film needs to be uncompromising, as the book is, but that's not the same as needing to be insanely bloody. The book isn't, so why the director felt the film had to be, I don't know.

The special effects are as astonishingly good as you expect these days, and Dr. Manhattan in particular is an impressive achievement. Even better is the music. The original score is excellent and the songs chosen for the movie are appropriate, particularly Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are A-Changin' running over the title sequence showing the changes to this world's timeline. There are also nice homages to other movies, such as a New York sequence employing Philip Glass' music for Koyaanisqatsi (also recently heard in the Grand Theft Auto IV trailers) whilst a Vietnam scene calls on the requisite Wagner score from Apocalypse Now.

The most important part of the film, and its greatest success, is the total moral ambivalence of the story. Who is right and who is wrong? When the world is about to be destroyed by nuclear war and every living thing slaughtered, what price is too high to ensure the survival of humanity? And who gets to make that decision? The film doesn't shirk away from these questions and doesn't provide pat answers. Despite eliminating two of the most iconic lines from the book at this point and changing the mechanism of the story's resolution (to something that makes more sense, it has to be said), the movie ends on the right, murky note it needs to. And whilst the mechanism of the ending has been changed, rest assured that the iconic final shot of the book is transferred to the screen intact.

Watchmen (****) is not a flawless film or adaption, but it may be as close an adaption to the comic book as we can reasonably expect. It is on general release across most of the world now.

Wertzone Classics: Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

Published in 1986-87 as a 12-issue mini-series, Watchmen is the most critically-applauded graphic novel of all time. The comic industry's answer to Citizen Kane, this is a complex, literate story that belies its premise and makes maximum use of its medium to deliver a story that couldn't be told any other way (although the forthcoming movie adaption promises to have a damn good try). As well as its impact on comics, Watchmen is one of the defining modern works of science fiction (winning a Hugo Award in 1988), and was rated as one of the one hundred most important novels of the 20th Century by Time Magazine.

The book opens in 1985 with the murder of Edward Blake, a government-sponsored crimefighter who worked under the alias 'The Comedian'. A masked vigilante known as Rorschach investigates. Rorschach, the Comedian and a number of other 'superheroes' fought crime together until the 1977 Keene Act outlawed heroes unless they worked directly for the US government. Most of the heroes retired, but Rorschach turned vigilante. Apart from the Comedian, the only hero left in government employ is Dr. Manhattan. Unlike the other heroes, who are simply well-meaning ordinary people, albeit with superior mental or physical training, Dr. Manhattan is the real deal. In 1959 an experiment with intrinsic field theory went catastrophically wrong, disintegrating Dr. Jon Osterman and transforming him into a being with total mastery over matter.

Rorschach continues to investigate the crime, but tensions are rising between the United States, led by President Nixon (serving a fifth term of office after the mysterious deaths of two Washington Post investigative reporters in 1971), and the Soviet Union. With the nuclear doomsday clock ticking ever closer to zero and other retired crimfighters either being killed or attacked, it falls to a select group of people to try and discover who or what is driving the world towards destruction.

It's a classic set-up, but you might argue not a revolutionary one. The trick is in the details. The world of Watchmen, which is on one hand close to that of the 'real' 1985 and on the other totally different, is meticulously constructed with every logical ramification of the existence of a genuine superhero pursued to its end. Thanks to Dr. Manhattan's scientific genius, the world is largely pollution-free, thanks to cheap electric cars and clean airships that provide international transport. Unfortunately, Manhattan's role as a nuclear deterrent and his assistance in helping the USA win the Vietnam War in just three months has also encouraged American imperialism and belligerence, slowly pushing Russia into a diplomatic corner from where it may feel it has no choice but to lash out. The other 'superheroes' are just ordinary people who like to dress up and fight crime, but largely they come to realise that their efforts are for nothing, since they cannot fight the underlying social and economic conditions that are the breeding ground for petty criminals.

As well as the characters involved in the story itself, the narrative spins backwards in time to investigate the prior generation of heroes and what role they are playing in events, and also encompasses a number of ordinary people on the streets of New York City who are witnesses to events: a newsstand vendor and his most regular customer, a young man obsessed with a pirate comic called Tales of the Black Freighter (which acts as a commentary and reflection on the main narrative, whose author plays a minor role in the story); a criminal psychiatrist driven to despair by his patients; and a homicide detective whose investigation of the Comedian's murder threatens his own career. It's a vast, dizzying web of storytelling with each storyline interconnected with many of the others in surprising and revelatory ways, and a commentary on superheroes and their psychology, capitalism, world politics and the morality of war.

As well as Moore's astonishing script, Dave Gibbons delivers excellent, detail-filled, rich artwork which captures the nuances of the story perfectly. Rereading the book, the reader discovers more details, more clues to the story that they missed on a first reading.

Watchmen (*****) is, twenty years after it was first published, still as astonishing, readable, entertaining and thought-provoking as ever, and still stands at the very apex of its approach to storytelling. The graphic novel is available from DC Comics in the UK and USA. A special edition of the comic book, Absolute Watchmen, featuring production notes and a new, clearer reprinting of the artwork, is also available in the UK. A movie adaption, directed by 300's Zack Snyder, is currently in post-production and will be released in March 2009. A trailer (set appropriately to the Smashing Pumpkins' 'The Beginning is the End is the Beginning') can be found here.