What do the most recent teasers reveal about the upcoming Watchmen series?
By Rachel Roth
Three new teasers for the upcoming HBO Watchmen series hint at a Dr. Manhattan appearance and Vietnam becoming the 51st state of the United States.
The upcoming HBO series Watchmen is set to air sometime this year, yet the network continues to release information shrouded in secrecy and hoard the trailer like a Game of Thrones spoiler.
The few teasers released are somewhat ominous and vague, from masked policemen to a brief glimpse at a possible Rorschach copy-cat. Understandably, they have to be hush-hush about such a highly anticipated project, but thanks to three new short teasers uploaded on HBO’s Instagram site on May 1, we might have some clues about the time setting and what might be going on in Adrian Veidt’s post-genocide world.
TV shows based off a film, comic or novel usually end up falling in the hole of overdrawn snooze plots unnecessarily forced to expand a story that could be told in two hours into 10 or more episodes, however, in the case of Watchmen, it’s a perfect set up.
Though I personally loved the 2009 Zach Snyder film, I’m not blind to its faults. It was overstuffed with too many plots and characters in an honest attempt to adapt the entirety of a 12-issue comic series in just 163 minutes. A nearly four-hour movie, and it still didn’t get the chance to explain everything.
Set in an alternate version of modern-day America, the Watchmen series will take place after the events from both the film and the graphic novel, not a direct sequel nor a remake but another story set in the same world.
As of right now only one of the original characters is set to appear, Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons), alongside new characters such as The Looking Glass (Tim Blake Nelson) and Agent Blake (Jean Smart). Hans Osterman has been cast to play Dr. Manhattan’s father, most likely in a flashback, and set photos confirm that the Minutemen will appear as a possible in-series documentary. However, it seems that the Minutemen documentary might not be the only story-within-a-story added to the series.
The first of the three teasers seem to be a reference to the “Watchmen” in-universe comic book, “Tales of The Black Freighter”. The video shows a yellow skull and crossbones on a pirate flag flapping in the wind with the caption, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” below it.
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For anyone out there who did not read the comics or never saw the extended version of the film, “Tales of the Black Freighter” is a comic story that runs through the original graphic novel and mirrors the story of Ozymandias. Just like the way a Big Kahuna burger exists only in Quentin Tarantino films, “Black Freighter” exists only within the “Watchmen” universe.
The comic is set on a phantom pirate ship captained by a hellish sailor who collects the souls of evil men to serve on his crew. Any mentions of the ghostly pirate ship didn’t make it into the theatrical cut of Zack Snyder’s film but were included in the “Ultimate Cut” as animated snippets narrated by Gerard Butler.
No knowledge of “Black Freighter” is required to understand the plot of “Watchmen” but it’s a fun detail that further deepens the story, but what does that mean for the TV series? Adding in a secondary story alongside the primary sounds too complicated, but there’s a chance that it’s simply a reference to the pirate comic’s existence.
The comic and its creators, the fictional Max Shea and Joe Orlando might appear in the show, perhaps as the writers to a meta Watchmen comic. There is a chance we might have to turn to the “Black Freighter” for dissection. Just as it paralleled Ozymandias’s arc in “Watchmen”, perhaps it will do the same once again.
The second teaser shows a weird blue gyroscopic thing that’s made of two blue rings swirling around a blue ball that anyone, even those who know almost nothing about “Watchmen”, can connect with Dr. Manhattan. Not only is it blue and weird, but it pretty much falls in line with the other “science-mumbo-jumbo” things that define his character.
The caption of “Reach out and touch Mars,” could be referring to when the glowing physicist fled Earth when he thought he was giving people cancer or it could be giving credence to the popular theory suggesting Manhattan exiled himself to the red planet after being framed of mass extermination.
At the end of the comic, Manhattan leaves Earth with the idea that he might try to create life somewhere in another galaxy, but now it appears that he’s returned. Dr. Manhattan took the fall for Veidt’s actions that wiped out major cities all over the world as a way to unite the power nations against a single enemy.
I can’t imagine him coming back for anything less than another massive crisis, or maybe he actually succeeded in creating a new race and aliens are going to start landing in Roswell, NM for real.
Even though we all knew the Watchmen series would either take place in the future or in the present day, the third teaser seems to confirm a modern-day setting but with a twist.
Behind an American flag with 51 stars is a suburban street with modern houses and cars above the caption, “It’s not 1985 anymore.” The flag looks so strange it almost feels like the setting of a futuristic sci-fi film, but it’s not, it’s the American flag with the inclusion of an additional star for a united Vietnam after Dr. Manhattan helped America win the Vietnam War and the country became the 51st state.
This alone allows for an interesting story. Having a present-day America deal with a state located overseas in a world completely separated from the home American government conquered just 40-something years ago allows for some heavy emotion and mayhem.
The Vietnam War and the country’s addition to the states remained an onerous background presence throughout the comic. One such example was the words “Viet Bronx” graffitied outside the criminal hangout, Happy Harry’s Bar, by a group of Vietnamese sympathizers. This was somewhat shown in the 2009 film when The Comedian and Nite Owl II face off against an angry mob after the war ends.
Altogether, Watchmen sounds like it’s gearing up to be a spectacular TV series, one that will give its unique world justice that the film unfortunately just didn’t have the space to do. Watchmen doesn’t have a premiere date yet but is expected to air sometime in 2019 on HBO.