Did Heroes curse The Watchmen?

I know this is a little late, but Monday's episode of Heroes reminded me of Watchmen again. In Tim Kring isn't familiar with Watchmen, then someone on his writing staff clearly is. Sylar's mom telling him to give up fixing watches because he was destined for something better is just too much like Jon Osterman's father making him give up fixing watches to go into nuclear physics.

I don't have a problem with this kind of borrowing. As many have pointed out, Watchmen itself borrowed some of its plot elements. But I think that it's definitely going on and that it's intentional.

There are comic book writers on the show and no one spoke out and said "you know that sounds like The Watchmen". It happens. Heroes sounds like a ripoff of X-Men and The 4400.

NYC could've been replaced. They couldn't use LA because 24 has been terrorizing that place for the past 6 years. But a city outside America wouldn't hurt.
But hopefully when the movie does come out next year all the Heroes fan boys and girls don't groan and whine on the internet or to their friends that the movie ripped off the show.

Tag this post under HEROES.

I was going to read it earlier and realized it wasn't under the show.

I read "Watchmen" when it first came out, and indeed was aware of some of what was going to happen before the book launched. There is a definite similarity between the plan that Lindermann has and the finale of "Watchmen". That said, it isn't the only influence on the show. As someone has pointed out The spoilers for this coming week's show in which people with powers are sent to internment camps has ties to storylines in "The X-Men". The idea of a previous generation of heroes helping or influencing a current generation is relatable to DC's modern revival of the Justice Society. There are plenty of influences available.

Having said all that, I won't concede that the popularity of "Heroes" is sabotaging or cursing the production of a "Watchmen" movie. My belief is that "The Watchmen" is nearly impossible to film and do the project well. There's a depth to the thing that's difficult to really explain. There are flashbacks that seem extraneous when first introduced that surge to importance later in the series and off hand remarks that have tremendous importance later on. Alan Moore even used text pieces - required at the time for mailing purposes - to great effect to give background information. There are times when you wouldn't know where something came from if you hadn't read the text pieces in a previous installment of the series. How do you put that depth into a two or even a three hour movie?

Yayaja,

You kind of missed the point. The solution isn't meant to last. That's foreshadowed in the pirate comic, Dr. Manhattan's last comments and the closing shot of Rorschach's journal. As for timeliness, it was written in the 80s about the Cold War.

Blanket dismissals carry a lot more weight when the dismisser actually understands the material.

The point remains, does a TV show plot point that parallels the big reveal of the bad guy plot in an upcoming movie hurt that movie's chances at the box office when it eventually comes out?

Superman Returns was a worse than mediocre movie, and the evil plot that had to be foiled was true, borrowed from previous Superman plots - Lex Luthor was still trying to create his own real estate, damning those around it with the side effects.

Thing is, with Superman Returns we already know that Lex's plans are silly and grandiose. Movie goers are along for the ride.

However, if someone had spoiled the nature of the two last Matrix movies were with a very similar plot line in some current TV show, it might be a different thing.

The upcoming Batman movie with the Joker in it just had some fake Joker pics hit the web -- even spoiling THAT image too far away from the actual promotion of the film is considered harmful by the studio, and the Joker is a known character in the movie. The actual image of the Joker alone is a spoiler and could harm the film's take at the box office. Putting a real picture out now doesn't harm the film, but it is seen as harming the box office take.

Imagine if you already knew what nefarious plan the Joker was intent on doing? Again, fans of the movie might not care.

But folks who are choosing whether to see the movie at the box office or wait for the DVD might.

WATCHMEN, whatever you feel about the comic book and the upcoming admittedly hard to make movie, doesn't want it's plot points advertised, and HEROES plot point isn't being advertised as trying to spoil WATCHMEN's thunder, but to some degree it actually is.

WATCHMEN was written pre 9/11 and everything dealing with NYC today, the WATCHMEN movie and the HEROES tv show is written with some understanding of recent events.

The HEROES plotline is such that we are led to believe that the events in NYC can still be prevented.

And the WATCHMEN movie... well, I'm one of the ones that think that Alan Moore's comic should never have become a movie.

I've never seen Heroes but as others have said the plot for Watchmen is from an Outer Limits episode. Moreover, in the final issue that episode of the Outer Limits is playing on the tv in the background.

As far as the quality of Watchmen. All of the criticisms about the solution being naive and not lasting are kind of the point. Arguing that something is good when someone doesn't like it is kind of fruitless. However, I will say that every time I've read Watchmen I've noticed some detail that I hadn't noticed before.

I just finished reading watchmen the other day. After becoming a fan of Heroes and reading up about it I naturally came across "The Watchmen" over and over again and decided to try it out. I was thoroughly disappointed though. I found most of the 12 book series to be needless fluff, that added nothing to the overall story line. The conclusions that the book drew on society were very presumptuous and the "solution" to these problems were completely oversimplified. Such a solution, which was no doubt a shock value way to attain world peace would surely last mere months without a continued "alien" threat. The story was many times violent just for shock value as well. The book's attempts at symbolism reminded me of a child mimcking the motions of an adult without really knowing what he or she was doing. I read (here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen) that Moore aimed to create the comic book equivalent of Moby Dick, hence the reckless use of symbolism. Hmm... I already used the word presumptuous, so I hesitate to use it again, but it fits here so well. Over all the story was thoroughly boring, overly arrogant, and had absolutely no sense of timelessness what so ever. I'm very glad I got "The Watchmen" from my library and not from eBay.

It wouldn't matter if the Heroes story line slightly mirrored the same plot as the Watchmen. If you've seen an episode of Heroes you would know the writing for Heroes pales in comparison. And the writers don't seem to have a clear vision at all. They have said Heroes was supposed to be an on going serialized drama but then contradicted that same statement in interviews where the show creator has said this was never intended to be an on going story, that characters were supposed to come and go and new characters would be introduced and their stories told.
This indicisiveness has resulted in cartoonish stereotype characters with almost no depth and predictable story lines which rob the episodes of any excitement. With the exception of one or two episodes the season has been really bad. The main thing that stands out in any episode is the characters use of their abilities and it's clear they have relied on the special effects to keep the show interesting and entertaining. Throw in enough to dazzle the audience each week and they'll be back again hungry for more. All you need is some T.K. a little invisibility, and a couple bolts of radioactivity and it's "the most awesome episode ever." Who needs a good story?

Quick asides for the non-comic book nuts or conspiracy theorists in the crowd:

- While incredibly similar to 'Watchmen', Moore's classic also was inspired by Chris Claremont's incredibly important run on 'X-Men' entitled 'Days of Future Past' (ibid)

- If you're not watching 'Heroes' or reading the 'Watchmen', then you probably have missed the comparisons that have been made toward the Bush administration regarding 9/11. Not to say this is fact, but if all of these stories go back to a mythological or military strategem Dick Cheney probably read it too.